There are few places where privacy is more misunderstood than in our finances. Think of all the steps you take to keep your financial information under lock and key. You might post vacation photos on social media, but you probably don’t post your credit card history. You might throw away your mail, but you probably take a moment first to rip up bank statements. Yet strangely, none of that matters to the government.

Put simply, you might think you have financial privacy, but what you really have is the illusion of financial privacy.

This illusion is maintained by a series of laws passed over the last 55 years, including the Bank Secrecy Act, the Money Laundering Control Act, the Annunzio–Wylie Anti–Money Laundering Act, the Money Laundering Suppression Act, the PATRIOT Act, and more. With each new law, Congress steadily expanded what types of transactions must be reported to the government, leading to the opaque financial surveillance web we have today.

If you are thinking this invasion of your privacy sounds unconstitutional, you’re not alone. When the Cato Institute surveyed the American public, 83 percent of respondents thought the government should need a warrant to access personal financial records. After all, isn’t that what the Fourth Amendment is supposed to require?

Unfortunately, that’s not how the system works today. The Supreme Court weighed in on this question in the 1970s, ultimately siding with Congress and creating what has come to be known as the third-party doctrine. In short, the idea is that you lose all protections because you shared information with someone else. Yet you can’t have an account with a bank (or any traditional financial service) without sharing your information. So, in effect, all those records held by your bank, financial planner, and similar entities are fair game for prying eyes—as long as those eyes belong to the government.

The groundwork for financial surveillance began five decades ago, but the government is still expanding those powers today. Under the Biden administration, a proposal to further surveil bank accounts with at least $600 in annual activity was stopped, but a similar proposal to surveil payment apps like PayPal and Cash App took effect. Now under the Trump administration, the government set up a new system for surveilling transactions of $200 or more sent through money service businesses like Western Union.

Congress has been busy, too. The recently enacted stablecoin legislation, which covers cryptocurrencies pegged to the dollar or another asset, put parts of this new ecosystem within the confines of the Bank Secrecy Act regime. And there has been a steady stream of attempts to apply these requirements to all cryptocurrency activity.

Now more than ever, it is time to reclaim financial privacy. It’s time to turn back the tide on ever-increasing financial surveillance. There are a few options on the table for getting this done.

Taking it to the courts is one route. The Supreme Court has slowly started to recognize that past laws were not crafted with a full appreciation of the digital age. Cases like United States v. Jones, Riley v. California, and Carpenter v. United States have steadily refined the limits on government access to our private lives. Much more is needed, but these have been positive developments.

Yet, even then, the judicial process can be uncertain. Will a case be heard? If it is, what if the Court rules in an unexpected direction? The Court might even weigh in your favor, but base its decision on a narrower or unrelated legal question.

That’s why Congress must act. Legislators got us into this web of financial surveillance and they now have three main options to help get us out.

At a minimum, all the thresholds for reports required under the Bank Secrecy Act should be adjusted for inflation. Congress could go further and eliminate the reporting requirements. Even better, Congress could also do away with the Bank Secrecy Act regime entirely. This last route would let banks decide what information they need, whom they do business with, and what risks they take on. It would still be illegal to knowingly assist criminal activity, and law enforcement would still be able to get a warrant should an investigation justify it. The only change would be the absence of this multibillion-dollar surveillance system.

Whichever path Congress chooses, reform is long overdue.

Cross-posted from Cato.org