🔴Senator Tom Cotton, who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has reposted a letter penned in October calling for the expansion of the PATRIOT Act and the Bank Secrecy Act to "prevent illegal aliens from opening accounts at US financial institutions." The PATRIOT Act formalized KYC procedures for financial institutions in 2001. Since then, no statistics have been released to confirm that KYC measures are in any way useful to stop financial crime, yet Congress continues to lobby for their expansion. The measures verifiably lead to skyrocketing compliance costs that are rolled onto consumers, which has emerged as a leading cause for un- and underbanked citizens.