The SEC’s Massive Surveillance Database: Davidson, et al. v. Atkins

In this episode of Unwritten Law, Mark Chenoweth and John Vecchione are joined by Peggy Little, Senior Litigation Counsel at NCLA, to discuss one of the most consequential cases in the organization’s docket: Davidson, et al. v. Atkins, a constitutional challenge to the SEC’s Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT).

The CAT is a massive nationwide database that collects and stores every stock trade made by every American investor, without suspicion, clear statutory authorization, or congressional appropriation. Peggy explains why this dragnet surveillance raises serious Fourth and Fifth Amendment concerns, threatens the security of Americans’ financial data, and unlawfully shifts billions of dollars in costs onto investors.

The discussion covers:

• Why the SEC lacks statutory authority to create and operate the CAT
• How mass financial data collection implicates constitutional privacy protections
• The dangers of delaying judicial review while unconstitutional conduct continues
• Why agencies cannot be allowed to “think about fixing” violations while rights are being infringed

This episode explains why Davidson, et al. v. Atkins is not just about securities regulation, but about the constitutional limits of agency power — and why courts must intervene.