.... Under "Operation Choke Point," the DOJ and its allies are going after
legal but subjectively undesirable business ventures by pressuring
banks to terminate their bank accounts or refuse their business. The
very premise is clearly chilling?the DOJ is coercing private businesses
in an attempt to centrally engineer the American marketplace based on
it's own politically biased moral judgements. Targeted business
categories so far have included payday lenders, ammunition sales, dating
services, purveyors of drug paraphernalia, and online gambling sites.
"Operation Chokepoint is flooding payments companies that provide
processing service to those industries with subpoenas, civil
investigative demands, and other burdensome and costly legal demands,"
wrote Jason Oxman, CEO of the Electronic Transactions Association, at
The Hill.....