Hundreds of federal, state and local U.S. law-enforcement agencies have access without court oversight to a database of more than 150m money transfers between people in the U.S. and in more than 20 countries, according to internal program documents and an investigation by Sen. Ron Wyden.
“It’s a law-enforcement investigative tool,” Mr. Lebel said. “We don’t broadcast it to the world, but we don’t run from or hide from it either.”