This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, September 17th,

2024. I'm Caleb Brown at the Cato Institute's Financial Privacy

Conference just last week. Jennifer Shelb sat down with

Republican Patrick McHenry, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

They spoke about the vast federal apparatus at the ready to spy on Americans' finances, the mission creep of

financial surveillance authorities, and the future of cryptocurrency regulation. What is financial privacy and why is it important?

Its ability to transact without undue government interference or unwwarded surveillance.

It's what I think people assume that they have,

which is some level of protection around what they do on a daily basis in their lives, free from the

government watching or other parties being able to view it.

Yeah, and I think you're right that people assume that they have financial privacy.

And that assumption tends to be pretty far from the truth at this point in kind of American history.

There's been a lot of erosion of financial privacy over the years including

Bank Secrecy Act, which was enacted in 1970, and a number of other steps that have happened

over the years.

And the justification for a lot of these laws has been in order for people to enjoy security and safety

they have to give up some level of that privacy. Can you talk a little bit about

how you view the tradeoff

between privacy and security?

Well, it's an obvious tradeoff.

First of all, you have to admit that there is a tradeoff here and that there is a trade-off here and that there is a loss and a gain or a

potential loss and a potential gain on both sides of the equation. We're in an

...