A recent federal court case serves as a stark warning.
The court ruled a similar government power unconstitutional, but the lengthy legislative and administrative process delayed the harm the court feared. A Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), however, would eliminate such delays. Imagine the potential for abuse if the government could control our currency with a click of a button. A CBDC, being programmable, could allow them to track every transaction, limit our spending choices, or even disable our access to our own money.
On March 1, 2024, a federal judge in Alabama ruled the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) was unconstitutional1. While the ruling is appealed, FinCen issued a press release requiring compliance nonetheless. It is unclear whether the appeal will be completed before the government obtains the massive amount of information it is requiring of corporations and their owners.2
The CTA is a small portion of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021. It requires that Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCen) obtain identifying information for every beneficial owner of any company formed in the US, or any foreign company that registers to do business in the US. FinCEN defines “beneficial owner” as "any individual who, directly or indirectly, either exercises substantial control over such reporting company or owns or controls at least 25 percent of the ownership interests of such reporting company."
“The CTA eventually took effect on January 1, 2024. More than 30 million existing entities are expected to be subject to the CTA, and approximately 5 million new entities are expected to join that number each year. According to FinCEN ~500,000 reports were filed in the first 2 months of 2024.
Neither the government nor successful hackers should be entitled to information that individuals would like to keep private, and according to a federal judge is unconstitutional to have required. If the ruling is upheld under appeal, then the government should never have obtained any of the records that are now being delivered to them; and yet that information is at risk anyway. But this all would have happened slowly.
But with a CBDC, it should be evident that intrusive surveillance or harmful restrictions would take no time at all, might take a long time to discover, and perhaps would not ever be able to be rectified.
The ruling: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.alnd.183445/gov.uscourts.alnd.183445.51.0.pdf?ref=blog.lopp.net
This excellent essay by Jameson Lopp https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.alnd.183445/gov.uscourts.alnd.183445.51.0.pdf?ref=blog.lopp.net