Right to Financial Privacy Act: Difference between revisions

Before the Act was passed, the United States government did not have to tell customers that it was accessing their records, and customers did not have the right to prevent such actions. The Act came about after the [[United States Supreme Court]] held, in ''[[United_States_v._Miller_(1976)|United States v. Miller]]'' 425 U.S. 435 (1976), that financial records are the property of the financial institution with which they are held, rather than the property of the customer.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Denning|first=Brannon P.|date=1995-19961995–1996|title=Can the Simple Be Trusted: Lower Court Interpretations of United States v. Miller and the Second Amendment|url=https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/cumlr26&id=973&div=&collection=|journal=Cumberland Law Review|volume=26|pages=961}}</ref> Under the RFPA, the government must receive the consent of the customer before they can access said customer's financial information.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Jones|first=Sarah Elizabeth|dateyear=1988|title=Right to Financial Privacy: Emerging Standards of Bank Compliance|journal=Banking Law Journal|volume=105|pages=37–51}}</ref> The Act prescribes statutory damages of $100 per violation, and a number of different violations can be aggregated in a [[class action]].<ref>{{cite journal|ssrn=1967184|last=Bray |first=Samuel L. |year= 2012 |title=Announcing Remedies |journal=Cornell Law Review |volume=97}}</ref>

Under the RFPA, the FBI could obtain records with a [[national security letter]] (NSL) only if the FBI could first demonstrate the person was a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power. Compliance by the recipient of the NSL was voluntary, and states' [[consumer privacy]] laws often allowed financial institutions to decline the requests.<ref>Andrew E. Nieland, National Security Letters and the Amended Patriot Act, 92 ''[[Cornell L. Rev.]]'' 1201, 1207 (2007) [http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/research/cornell-law-review/upload/Nieland.pdf]</ref> In 1986, Congress amended RFPA to allow the government to compel disclosure of the requested information. The [[USA PATRIOT Act]] of 2001 amended the RFPA.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://epic.org/privacy/rfpa/ Retrieved|title=EPIC - the Right to Financial Privacy Act |website=epic.org |access-date=May 29, 2010}}</ref>