ACLU has stated there was a nationwide surveillance program to track Americans' personal money transfers

The ACLU has released hundreds of documents showing how Arizona has created a nationwide surveillance program to track Americans' personal money transfers.

The state of Arizona has sent at least 140 overbroad and illegal subpoenas to money transfer companies to compel them to turn over customers’ private financial data.

The database, run by an organization called the Transaction Record Analysis Center (TRAC), contained 145 million records of people’s financial transactions as of 2021.

“These records paint a damning portrait of government overreach,” said Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “The government should not be allowed to abuse subpoenas and sweep up millions of records on huge numbers of people without any basis for suspicion. This financial surveillance program is built on repeated violations of the law and must be shut down.”

“To be clear, the collection of this data is illegal under Arizona law,” said Jared Keenan, legal director of ACLU of Arizona. “The public should be outraged by former Attorney General Brnovich’s disregard for the law and individual privacy.”