Rumor has it, that here in Canada with the recent 'end of prohibition' on a certain plant, that some US border guards are now asking for credit cards to verify there are no purchases of said plant..
Privacy with plastic?!! I have a bridge in NY to sell, cheap..
As I was fairly appalled by this use case which suggests serious abuse of power, I did a little research on it. Here's a good article on it, consistent with several other articles out there:
https://globalnews.ca/news/4461315/...to-u-s-border-officials-some-might-some-wont/
The upshot:
1. The article confirms that only non-US-citizens entering the US are potentially subject to this sort of review. A warrant would be required to do this to a US citizen.
2. While it says it's POSSIBLE for the US border folks to do it, the article stops short of suggesting it's actually going on.
3. For it to happen, the credit card data would have to be in the US. The big Canadian banks privacy disclosures state that data MAY be housed in the US (not that it IS housed in the US).
4. Varying from province to province, credit card purchase may appear in different ways, some of which would not be distinguishable as pot purchases. Keep in mind most stores would also sell perfectly US-legal "paraphrenalia" that would bear the same vendor location, so distinguishing pot from a pot-leaf-tshirt would probably be impossible.
5. Use of a debit card would not be subject to records being housed outside of Canada so would not represent this sort of search threat.
So, it COULD be used against Canadians entering the US, who buy with a credit (not debit) card, and who buy in a location where the item purchased is transparently displayed. But that would require significant searching / filtering of data on folks as they enter; certainly is possible to do it without technical (or, apparently legal) impediments, but gosh what an administrative nightmare. Seems like a waste of clock cycles to me, and the expense on setting up and doing this sort of search without any cause is ridiculous. As a taxpayer I'd be pissed if it happened.
The US has been known to do stupider things, so I won't say my government wouldn't do it, but gosh how crazy.