Political Quotes

“Section 6308 enhances U.S. law enforcement's ability to access international bank records to help better ensure financial crimes are investigated. I am supportive of this new and necessary provision. This new authority allows the Departments of Treasury and Justice to issue subpoenas requiring production of records relating to accounts held by banks outside of the United States. This new authority would create a secondary mechanism for seeking discovery from foreign banks separate from the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (``MLATs'') or other multilateral or bilateral agreements the United States currently maintains with many foreign governments for this purpose. As the Departments of Justice and Treasury implement Section 6308, I encourage them only to use this new authority where a foreign bank operates in a jurisdiction as to which no MLAT or other information-sharing agreement exists or where the relevant foreign government has not satisfied its obligations under an MLAT or other information-sharing agreement. Many foreign countries restrict banks operating in their jurisdictions from sharing their customers' financial or personally identifiable information (``PII'). As a result, subpoenas issued under section 6308 may place foreign banks in the difficult position of either violating home country law or being in contempt for failure to comply with a subpoena issued by the United States government.…”