Improving Strategies to Counter Weapons Proliferation Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6332, the Improving Strategies to Counter Weapons Proliferation Act, which aims to better inform congressional oversight of FinCEN's counter-proliferation finance efforts.

With proliferation threats growing from countries like North Korea and Iran, the reports prescribed by this bill will tell Congress more about the terrorist financing and anti-money laundering work that FinCEN is doing to combat the financing of the manufacture and delivery of weapons of mass destruction.

This bill will require the director to report on the intelligence FinCEN generates from the Bank Secrecy Act filings on suspected proliferation finance transactions; the agency's efforts to maximize the use of collected data; and the advisory notices issued to financial institutions related to the financing of chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons.

Prior to the Financial Services Committee vote, the ACLU expressed some concern, in part because the bill's report doesn't include details on the efficacy of FinCEN's data collection or its impact on privacy and civil liberties.

That said, I understand that the ACLU does not actively oppose the bill.

Given the legislation is focused on how FinCEN uses the data it currently collects, it does not expand the data collection. I think that that bill is appropriately scoped, and I support it.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I ask for a ``yes'' vote, and I urge my colleagues to support it as well.

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