Twenty-three state financial officers are asking House Speaker Mike Johnson to take up a bill that would prohibit the Securities and Exchange Commission from tracking private investment transactions and investor information on every securities trade that is made nationwide.

The officials, representing 19 states, sent a letter to Johnson yesterday asking him to advance the “Protecting Investors’ Personally Identifiable Information Act” to stop the collection of such information, Fox News reported first.

Introduced by Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, the bill would prohibit the SEC from requiring personally identifiable information to be collected under the SEC's Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) program, the final phase of which was implemented May 31. The legislation has 13 co-sponsors, all of them Republicans.

Specifically, the bill prohibits the SEC from requiring any national securities exchange association or any of its member firms from providing a market participant's personally identifiable information to the SEC CAT system, Instead, the SEC would be tasked with obtaining personally indentifiable information on a case-by-case basis.

The state financial officers warned in their letter to Johnson that CAT’s collection of retail investors’ information "poses a clear threat to the security of every American investor,” has “questionable legality” and poses civil liberty concerns.

State financial officers who signed the letter include Alabama Auditor General Andrew Sorrell, Indiana Treasurer Daniel Elliott. Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity, Nevada State Controller Andy Matthews, South Carolina Treasurer Curtis Loftis and West Virginia Treasurer Riley Moore.

Advancing American Freedom, a nonprofit headed by former Vice President Mike Pence, has also spoken out against the SEC’s CAT program and recently asked Johnson to pass the bill.

"Conservatives should co-sponsor and demand a floor vote ... to ensure that Americans’ financial data is protected," the group said in a press release. "Traditionally, Americans’ financial holdings are kept between them and their broker, not them, their broker and a massive government database. The only exception has been legal investigations with a warrant."

Rule 613 orders Finra, all national exchanges and each of their member firms to provide detailed trade information regarding each quote and order to CAT. In addition, each account holder, as well as any financial advisor or broker who has trading discretion over an account holder’s account, has to be assigned a code that uniquely identifies them on every order they submit.

The SEC argued that the new rule is important because regulators need an audit trail to efficiently and accurately track all securities activity throughout U.S. markets.

The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) filed a lawsuit against the SEC’s data collection program in April, calling CAT "the greatest government mandated mass collection of personal financial data in United States history."

The lawsuit, filed in the District Court for the Western District of Texas, also says that the regulator is using CAT to collect “mass amounts of personally identifiable data” by forcing brokers, exchanges, clearing agencies and alternative trading systems to capture and send detailed information on every investor’s trades in U.S. markets to a centralized database. 

The group calls the system "completely unlawful" and says it puts Americans’ financial data at "grave risk." 

"By seizing all financial data from all Americans who trade in the American exchanges, SEC arrogates surveillance powers and appropriates billions of dollars without a shred of Congressional authority—all while putting Americans’ savings and investments at grave and perpetual risk," Peggy Little, NCLA senior litigation counsel, said in a statement.

Johnson’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.