There's a reason I fired Bank of America years ago.
"In the gun rights space, revelations like this sometimes lead to a resort to luddism or isolationism. Use cash. Retreat to only gun-rights-friendly platforms. That’s understandable. But it’s also dangerous. If gun rights are going to keep growing, it’s going to be by taking advantage of all the modern tools that the most vibrant ecosystems use. Not by self-handicapping."
This reminds me of how, due to narrowing restrictions, the gun industry itself is reduced to operating on a 1950's-60's type business plan. Cash on Hand. Print and word of mouth advertising. So. Much. Paper. The industry isn't ALLOWED to join the 21st century in any meaningful way, and those of us who consume from that industry are likewise not allowed the benefits of technology that has helped every other industry, but you can damn well count on any technology that can be used against us can and will with immediacy.
I absolutely do not want banks sharing the details of my financial transactions with the government, firearms or otherwise. But... this is not actually all that out of the ordinary.
Financial institutions don't just share data like this with anyone... but they do _sell it_ to just about everyone. This is, for example, why you will see advertisements for whatever you just bought when you're scrolling through social media. The advertiser ecosystem has accessed your financial transactions data, associated it with you as a user, somehow, and then made the questionable assumption that you obviously want to buy more of whatever you just bought.
Further, so, I have not read anything about this incident other than what is written in this blog post, but it's not clear to me: did BoA _share_ this information with the government, or did they _sell it_ to the government? I remember a talk at a hackerspace I attended, over a decade ago now, where a local cop told us that it is _routine_ for social media platforms to hand over data to the government, and they love to do it, because they get to bill hundreds of dollars an hour for the engineering work involved in preparing that data.
In light of this... look, I'm not saying I approve of what the government is doing. But the government is just doing what private industry already does, and nobody is up in arms about this kind of thing when a private a company does it. I think they should, but, there's a large gap between is and ought.
There's a reason I fired Bank of America years ago.
"In the gun rights space, revelations like this sometimes lead to a resort to luddism or isolationism. Use cash. Retreat to only gun-rights-friendly platforms. That’s understandable. But it’s also dangerous. If gun rights are going to keep growing, it’s going to be by taking advantage of all the modern tools that the most vibrant ecosystems use. Not by self-handicapping."
This reminds me of how, due to narrowing restrictions, the gun industry itself is reduced to operating on a 1950's-60's type business plan. Cash on Hand. Print and word of mouth advertising. So. Much. Paper. The industry isn't ALLOWED to join the 21st century in any meaningful way, and those of us who consume from that industry are likewise not allowed the benefits of technology that has helped every other industry, but you can damn well count on any technology that can be used against us can and will with immediacy.
I absolutely do not want banks sharing the details of my financial transactions with the government, firearms or otherwise. But... this is not actually all that out of the ordinary.
Financial institutions don't just share data like this with anyone... but they do _sell it_ to just about everyone. This is, for example, why you will see advertisements for whatever you just bought when you're scrolling through social media. The advertiser ecosystem has accessed your financial transactions data, associated it with you as a user, somehow, and then made the questionable assumption that you obviously want to buy more of whatever you just bought.
Further, so, I have not read anything about this incident other than what is written in this blog post, but it's not clear to me: did BoA _share_ this information with the government, or did they _sell it_ to the government? I remember a talk at a hackerspace I attended, over a decade ago now, where a local cop told us that it is _routine_ for social media platforms to hand over data to the government, and they love to do it, because they get to bill hundreds of dollars an hour for the engineering work involved in preparing that data.
In light of this... look, I'm not saying I approve of what the government is doing. But the government is just doing what private industry already does, and nobody is up in arms about this kind of thing when a private a company does it. I think they should, but, there's a large gap between is and ought.