Imagine, as a journalist or activist, trying to access your bank accounts and mysteriously finding them frozen. Debanking — when financial institutions close the accounts of those flagged as problematic, including at the behest of the government – appears to be growing. Civil liberties advocate Rainey Reitman, cofounder of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, reflects on the use of debanking, from Wikileaks to the Southern Poverty Law Center to the NRA.
Rainey Reitman, Transaction Denied: Big Finance’s Power to Punish Speech Beacon, 2026
Freedom of the Press Foundation
Photo by Engin Akyurt on Unsplash