Operation Choke Point discontinued

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bignflnut
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Operation Choke Point discontinued

Post by bignflnut »

Why does this come out now, and not much earlier? It is worth noting and a hearty "huzzah", is it not?
Operation Choke Point launched in 2012 as a joint effort between the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. (The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would later get involved too.) It was supposed to be a crackdown on online payday lenders making loans into states where high-interest lending is illegal. It quickly morphed into a questionably constitutional attack on a wide range of entrepreneurs who found their assets frozen or their bank accounts closed because they were considered "high-risk" for fraud.

In a letter to Rep. Robert Goodlatte (R-Va.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd called Operation Choke Point "a misguided initiative" and confirmed that DOJ was closing those investigations, Politico reported late Thursday night.

"Law abiding businesses should not be targeted simply for operating in an industry that a particular administration might disfavor," Boyd wrote. "All of the Department's bank investigations conducted as part of Operation Chokepoint are now over, the initiative is no longer in effect, and it will not be undertaken again."

If anything, Boyd is understating the degree to which Operation Choke Point was unlawful and just plain creepy.
“It’s not that we don’t have enough scoundrels to curse; it’s that we don’t have enough good men to curse them.”–G.K. Chesterton-Illustrated London News, 3-14-1908

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