The Government Would Never Spy on Your Bank Account, Or Would It?

Beltway insiders and privacy advocates deluged with news of National Security Agency spying and Internal Revenue Service targeting could at least take solace in what the feds here are not doing, or at least one hopes they're not doing.

It was reported in Pakistan this past week that the government is considering a law granting the country's Federal Board of Revenue — the country's version of the IRS — significant access to conduct surveillance on individual bank accounts in an apparent bid to catch tax dodgers.

While the policy sounds similar in some ways to U.S. anti-money laundering rules, with institutions required to submit reports about certain suspicious transactions, other elements sound more extreme. According to Pakistani news outlets, the new law would require banking companies to "make arrangements to provide to the board in the prescribed form and manner the online access to its central database, containing details of its account holders and all transactions made in their accounts."

Institutions would also have to provide additional details about deposits made in excess of a million rupees, as well as large credit card transactions.