Coin Center calls for GAO audit and warrant guardrails on DHS financial-data policing
Laz Pieper tied Border Patrol’s PITT to traffic-stop tips and urged mandatory disclosure when federal analysis triggers a stop.
Coin Center policy lead Laz Pieper urged Congress to force an independent audit of DHS data practices and to impose warrant-like and disclosure requirements around the use of sensitive financial records. The push follows allegations that DHS Border Patrol’s Predictive Intelligence Targeting Team used Americans’ financial activity to generate predictive-policing tips that helped trigger traffic stops.
Key Takeaways
- Coin Center’s Laz Pieper argued DHS has aggregated Americans’ financial activity data to generate “tips on potential criminals,” framing it as predictive policing.
- The column named DHS Border Patrol’s Predictive Intelligence Targeting Team (PITT) as an operational unit allegedly tied to traffic stops initiated from federal intelligence.
- A DHS memo in Kyle William Olson’s case referenced “financial activity patterns commonly associated with illicit narcotics activity,” but did not specify what records were used or how they were obtained.
- The policy ask is concrete: a GAO audit of DHS data sources and practices, judicial authorization before using sensitive financial records, and disclosure when federal analysis triggers a traffic stop.
Coin Center Targets DHS ‘Predictive Policing’ Built on Financial Data
Coin Center policy lead Laz Pieper argued on Sept. 18 that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has been aggregating Americans’ financial activity data, analyzing it, and feeding local law enforcement “tips on potential criminals.” He described the approach as predictive policing, a model that uses large-scale data aggregation to forecast suspected criminality and guide enforcement actions before a specific crime is identified.
Pieper’s framing matters for market participants because it targets the rails, not a single investigation. The allegation is that transaction history becomes pretext, and that the state can “connect dots” inside financial records to manufacture suspicion. That is a direct challenge to how financial-intelligence data is collected, retained, and shared across agencies.
The column’s most actionable element is not the rhetoric. It is the oversight blueprint. Pieper called for Congress to direct the Government Accountability Office to audit DHS data sources, targeting criteria, retention practices, false-positive rates, and information-sharing, and to assess compliance with the Fourth Amendment and other laws. He also argued GAO should be required to publish its findings.
Pieper also pushed for judicial authorization before DHS can use sensitive financial records in an investigation of a specific suspected crime. He paired that with a disclosure demand: full notice whenever federal data analysis triggers a traffic stop.
Two Traffic-Stop Case Studies: Olson’s DHS Memo and Schott’s Search-and-No-Drugs Stop
The column anchored its claims in two traffic-stop narratives meant to move the debate from abstract “financial surveillance” to identifiable units and incidents.
First was Kyle William Olson. Pieper wrote that a traffic stop in Montana was instigated by a Border Patrol Predictive Intelligence Targeting Team (PITT). A DHS memo produced in Olson’s criminal case and shared with 404 Media stated the team identified “financial activity patterns commonly associated with illicit narcotics activity,” but did not explain which records were examined or how they were obtained. Police later found marijuana in Olson’s vehicle, per the column.
That outcome is the trap in this kind of story. Contraband found after the fact does not answer the process question the column is trying to force into the open: what data was accessed, under what authority, and what thresholds convert a pattern into an enforcement tip.
Second was Alek Schott. Pieper wrote Schott was pulled over for allegedly drifting between lanes, his truck was searched for drugs, and no drugs were found. The column also stated the Associated Press reported federal agents monitored Schott’s travel patterns through license-plate scans and other surveillance technologies.
Schott is suing Bexar County, the sheriff, and some deputies for violating his Fourth Amendment rights, according to the column. Pieper quoted the Institute of Justice’s summary of the legal standard and its critique of the stop: “Police must have a fact-based suspicion of a crime before making a stop, a valid reason to extend that stop, and either a warrant, consent, or an objective reason to believe there’s contraband inside to search a vehicle. In Alek’s case, the deputy failed to meet any of these criteria and instead used an unjustified traffic stop to probe into crimes Alek hadn’t committed.”
The two case outcomes cut both ways for policymakers. One stop produced contraband. One did not. That split supports the column’s push to audit the pipeline and error rate rather than litigate whether any single stop “worked.”
How DHS Might Be Getting the Data: The Column’s FinCEN-and-BSA Pathway
Pieper’s proposed data pathway runs through Treasury. He wrote that the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau within the U.S. Department of the Treasury, “could be the culprit” for the financial data that DHS allegedly used. FinCEN oversees compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), which requires financial institutions to maintain records and report certain large or suspicious transactions to the government to detect and prevent money laundering and other illicit activity.
The column’s claim is that FinCEN shares this information with other federal agencies to carry out regulatory duties, and that this is “likely where the DHS received this information.” The packet does not include documentary proof that FinCEN was the source in the cited stops, and the DHS memo excerpt described in Olson’s case does not specify what records were accessed.
That uncertainty is not a footnote. It is the core compliance risk. If the mechanism is BSA-driven information-sharing, the debate shifts from “did DHS overreach” to “what counts as permissible downstream use of financial-intelligence data once collected.” That is where new guardrails can land.
Pieper also argued financial institutions over-report to reduce non-compliance risk, producing “rampant” suspicious reporting and an “abundance” of financial-activity data collected by FinCEN. He cited political examples to argue the same surveillance plumbing can be repurposed across administrations, including a 2024 Congressional report described as showing banks were pressured by FinCEN and the FBI to identify “extremism” via spending habits, including purchases of “religious texts.” He also cited a 2025 Trump Executive Order designating Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization and a subsequent White House memo directing law enforcement to “identify and disrupt financial networks that fund” domestic terrorism and political violence.
What Traders Should Monitor Next: Documents, Responses, and Audit Momentum
The next signal is not another op-ed. It is whether agencies or lawmakers put paper on the table.
First, any response from DHS, Customs and Border Protection or Border Patrol, or Treasury and FinCEN that addresses whether PITT uses financial records, what categories of records are accessed, and under what legal process. A denial, a narrow confirmation, or a “can neither confirm nor deny” posture all imply different oversight and litigation paths.
Second, watch for members of Congress calling for, or introducing language requiring, a GAO audit that matches the column’s scope: data sources, targeting criteria, retention, false-positive rates, and information-sharing, with a requirement to publish findings. The audit mandate is the forcing function because it compels agencies to define terms like “pattern,” “tip,” and “retention” in a way courts and counterparties can interrogate.
Third, court developments in Schott’s Fourth Amendment lawsuit could matter more than commentary. Discovery is where “federal tip” becomes a document trail, and where the chain from analysis to stop can be tested.
Fourth, release of additional underlying documents referenced in the column, including more detail from the DHS memo in Olson’s case, would clarify what “financial activity patterns” means operationally and what records were actually in scope.
My Read: This Is a Surveillance-Rails Story Disguised as a Border-Stop Story
The threshold that matters is whether the oversight asks turn into process requirements. A GAO audit with published findings, judicial authorization for sensitive financial records, and mandatory disclosure when federal analysis triggers a stop would not just constrain one DHS unit. It would tighten the rules around how financial-intelligence data can be repackaged and handed to local enforcement.
The real test is whether the paper trail gets forced into the open: what data was accessed, under what authority, and what false-positive rate is being tolerated. If that becomes legible, the compliance perimeter around financial surveillance stops being implicit and starts becoming enforceable.
