ASA Joins Amicus Brief Urging Supreme Court to Strike Down the Corporate Transparency Act

WASHINGTON – The American Securities Association (ASA) this week joined a coalition of think tanks, public-interest litigation firms, and advocacy groups, in filing an amicus brief before the U.S. Supreme Court in Texas Top Cop Shop v. Blanche, urging the Court to grant certiorari and strike down the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA). The CTA requires the owners of nearly all small businesses registered in the states to report their personal information to the federal government, to be collected in a massive federal database.

"The CTA forces millions of America's Main Street business owners to hand over their most sensitive personal information to the federal government, creating another massive database ripe for hackers and hostile foreign actors while exceeding the constitutional limits on federal power," said ASA President and CEO Chris Iacovella. 

The brief argues that neither the Commerce Clause of Article I nor any other provision of the Constitution empowers Congress to regulate the wholly local, non-commercial activity of incorporation, and that the CTA's mass collection of Americans' personal data invites hacking and abuse. As the brief notes, government databases , including those maintained by the Treasury Department and the SEC, have repeatedly been breached by malign actors, exposing the sensitive information of millions of Americans. ASA has long warned of the same privacy and cybersecurity dangers posed by federal data-collection regimes, including the SEC's Consolidated Audit Trail.

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The American Securities Association (ASA) represents the retail and institutional capital markets interests of regional financial services firms who provide Main Street businesses with access to capital and advise hardworking Americans how to create and preserve wealth. ASA’s mission is to promote trust and confidence among investors, facilitate capital formation, and support efficient and competitively balanced capital markets. This mission advances financial independence, stimulates job creation, and increases prosperity. The ASA has a geographically diverse membership of almost one hundred members that spans the Heartland, Southwest, Southeast, Atlantic, and Pacific Northwest regions of the United States.