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Op-Ed: “Legal But Not Right — How Washington Sold Your Privacy to Wall Street”
By Akashma News
In 1999, Congress passed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), hailed as a milestone in modernizing the American financial system. What it truly did was dismantle the last protections separating your private financial life from corporate surveillance — and it did so with bipartisan ease.
Behind the bill were not just lawmakers, but law firms, lobbyists, and banking giants like Citigroup and JPMorgan, who lobbied relentlessly to strip away decades-old barriers. Once the law passed, many of its political architects — like Senator Phil Gramm — stepped through the revolving door straight into the arms of the very institutions they deregulated.
The GLBA normalized something unthinkable: the legal sharing and monetization of your personal financial data. Buried in its language is an “opt-out” clause that lets banks legally profit from your information unless you explicitly say no — and most people don’t even know it’s happening.
We’ve been told it’s about “efficiency” and “job creation,” but that’s the illusion. What it really created was a digital gold rush — a financial surveillance state where your every transaction feeds into a system designed for control, not convenience.
It’s time we name it, trace it, and challenge it.
Akashma Online News 