Bryan pushes bill cracking down on banks

Wednesday, Oct. 13, 1999 | 11:06 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., today joined a strange coalition of advocates and lawmakers in a push for laws that make it tougher for banks to sell financial information about their customers.

Bryan said that a bank customer's financial information is not protected in the rapidly changing worlds of bank mergers and information technology. He pointed to a case in California in which Charter Pacific Bank sold a convicted felon 3.7 million credit card numbers. The man ran up $45.7 million in bogus charges.

"The right to (financial) privacy as we know it today in America is greatly in danger," Bryan said. "I think most of us recognize the need to change the law."

A Senate bill asserts the right of customers to prohibit banks from sharing their financial information with affiliates of the bank, or with "unaffiliated third parties."

Bryan was flanked by an odd assortment of interested advocates, including long-time consumer advocate Ralph Nader and ultra-conservative Phyllis Schlafly, president of Eagle Forum.

Nader said in a prepared statement, "There's nothing complicated about what is blocking real privacy rights. It's money. It means billions of dollars of profits if these Congressionally-created conglomerates are allowed to strip bare the privacy rights of their customers."

Schlafly added, "The checks you write and receive, the invoices you pay and the investments you make reveal as much about you as a personal diary. But instead of banks keeping your information under lock and key, it is being collected, repackaged and sold."