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VietnameseGriffin: ‘I’m proud to lead this amicus brief to protect Americans’ financial
information and to ensure federal agencies do not exceed their statutory authority’
LITTLE ROCK – Attorney General Tim Griffin issued the following statement after leading a multistate coalition’s amicus brief to help protect Americans’ financial data and privacy:
“Yesterday I filed an amicus brief in American Securities Association v. United States Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. The brief supports petitioners’ challenge to the federal Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) funding order for the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT).
“The CAT is a surveillance tool and behemoth database of Americans’ investment data that poses a significant security and privacy risk. It gives thousands of authorized users—and, given the hacking risks, potentially countless unauthorized users—access to sensitive trading information tied to millions of Americans. Although the SEC has taken steps to remove personal data from the CAT, serious liberty, privacy, and security risks remain.
“These risks posed by the CAT are not just bad policy, they are also illegal. That’s because the SEC lacked statutory authority to implement and fund the CAT. I’m proud to lead this amicus brief to protect Americans’ financial information and to ensure federal agencies do not exceed their statutory authority.”
Attorney General Griffin was joined on the amicus brief by the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota,
Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia.
To read the amicus brief, click here.
To download a PDF version of this release, click here.
About Attorney General Tim Griffin
Tim Griffin was sworn in as the 57th Attorney General of Arkansas on January 10, 2023, having previously served as the state’s 20th Lieutenant Governor from 2015-2023. From 2011-2015, Griffin served as the 24th representative of Arkansas’s Second Congressional District, where he served on the House Committee on Ways and Means, House Armed Services Committee, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, House Committee on Ethics and House Committee on the Judiciary while also serving as a Deputy Whip for the Majority.
Griffin is currently an officer in the Arkansas Army National Guard and holds the rank of colonel. Griffin served as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps for more than 28 years. In 2005, Griffin was mobilized to active duty as an Army prosecutor at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and served with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) in Mosul, Iraq.
His previous assignments include serving as the Commander of the 2d Legal Operations Detachment in New Orleans, Louisiana; the Commander of the 134th Legal Operations Detachment at Fort Bragg, North Carolina; and as a Senior Legislative Advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness at the Pentagon. Griffin earned a master’s degree in strategic studies as a Distinguished Honor Graduate from the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.
Griffin also served as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, and Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of Political Affairs for President George W. Bush; Special Assistant to Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff, Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice; Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Arkansas; Senior Investigative Counsel, Government Reform and Oversight Committee, U.S. House of Representatives; and Associate Independent Counsel, Office of Independent Counsel David M. Barrett, In re: HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros.
Griffin is a graduate of Magnolia High School, Hendrix College in Conway, and Tulane Law School in New Orleans. He attended graduate school at Oxford University. He is admitted to practice law in Arkansas (active) and Louisiana (inactive). Griffin lives in Little Rock with his wife, Elizabeth, a Camden native, and their three children.
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