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Even when Congress tries to restrict government agencies from illegally gathering information on people, the agencies simply exploit legal loopholes or just break the law—without consequences.
Original Article: Government Agencies Exploit Data Brokers as End-Around to Legal Restrictions

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Tags: Featured,newsletter

Data is sometimes referred to as today’s most valuable commodity. Given the technologically focused world around us, data is generated with almost everything we do or consume, whether you use Apple Pay to purchase goods from a retail outfit or use a credit card for your Uber Eats order. It is, in other words, largely unavoidable to create a digital footprint. This continuously produced data is often monitored, retained, repackaged, and resold to third parties—including the federal government—by shadowy organizations referred to as data brokers.
A data broker is a business that aggregates information from several sources or enriches, cleanses, or analyzes this information, according to Gartner. As third parties, data brokers do not have the same financial

States continue to seek new ways to make the financial system an “economic chokepoint” enabling the state to crack down on specific organizations, individuals, or activities.

Original Article: “The West’s Russia Sanctions Show Why States Want to Weaponize the Financial System”

In the past month, Western nations have allied to wage an economic and technological war against the Russian government and key Russian institutions. These measures included economic sanctions on well-connected Russian oligarchs, Russian banks, and even a US ban of Russian energy imports. Despite Western skepticism of Russian president Vladimir Putin and Russia’s imperialist ambitions, Western nations had previously been comfortable with some level of reliance on the now “pariah”

In times of crisis, governments have a tendency to overcompensate for risk. This tendency may be in the public’s best interest, but it could also serve broader governmental interests. The public and government’s interest are not always one and the same.
After the September 11 attacks, a bipartisan Congress enacted the disastrous USA PATRIOT Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act) in an alleged attempt to stop terrorism. After the 2008 financial crisis, the progressive Congress implemented Dodd-Frank, which dramatically expanded federal regulatory authority over the financial sector. During today’s novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic, legislators are contemplating similarly

When one imagines working on Wall Street, he envisions stock traders scrambling to place buy or sell orders, perhaps even some puts or options. Today’s powerful artificial intelligence tools allow traders to game stock market trading. In some ways, this computer-driven high-frequency trading resembles actual gaming in that it may seem as if one is simulating various trading scenarios. Unexpectedly, politicians view this sort of behavior as providing little value to society, thus some progressives are seeking to institute a Wall Street speculation tax or a financial transaction tax.
Progressives Introduce a “Sales Tax” on Financial Transactions
Progressive members (including Senator Bernie Sanders) of the 116th Congress introduced the “Inclusive Prosperity Act of

In today’s political discourse, the minimum wage is frequently mentioned by the more progressive members of Congress. On a basic level, raising the minimum wage appears to be a sympathetic policy for low-income wage earners. Often kept out of the conversation, however, are the downstream effects of this proposal. The consensus among economists has always been that a price floor on “low-skilled labor” leads to unemployment “among the very people minimum wage legislation allegedly helps.” Surely those who retain their employment will reap the higher hourly pay but not without consequence to the rest of the “low-skilled” labor market.
Government-mandated minimum wage increases directly result in a higher price floor for hourly labor. The more indirect consequences