Two major stories landed this week, and while they involve different agencies and policies, they point to a troubling pattern in how power is being exercised in America.
On one side: Immigration and Customs Enforcement is reportedly preparing to spend up to $20 million on gloves capable of delivering painful electric shocks to gain compliance from people officers consider combative.
On the other: the Treasury Department has finalized a rule ending beneficial-ownership reporting requirements for U.S. companies and U.S. persons, removing a tool meant to help financial-crimes investigators identify who actually owns and controls businesses.
These are not the same issue. They should not be treated as though they are.
But they do raise the same fundamental question:
Why does this administration appear so comfortable expanding coercive power over people while reducing transparency around money and corporate power?
Pain compliance is not accountability
According to reporting from the Associated Press, ICE is planning to obtain thousands of “conductive distraction and de-escalation devices”, gloves that can deliver painful electric shocks. The agency could spend up to $20 million, reportedly through a no-bid contract. The manufacturer requires users to complete training and recertify every two years.
But we need to be honest about what this means.
Training an officer to use a device designed to inflict pain is not the same thing as investing in de-escalation. It is not the same thing as requiring transparent use-of-force reporting. And it is certainly not the same thing as creating meaningful consequences when an officer abuses their authority.
ICE has been given massive resources and expanded enforcement capacity. At the same time, concerns have grown about rushed hiring, shortened training pathways, and what safeguards exist as the agency grows. The administration has also advanced legal arguments favoring “absolute immunity” for ICE agents acting within their official duties, an argument that goes beyond the qualified immunity protections traditionally at issue in civil-rights litigation.
The question is not whether officers should be trained before using force. Of course they should.
The question is why, in a period of rapid expansion, the answer seems to be more force options rather than stronger outside oversight, better public data, more robust de-escalation standards, and genuine accountability when harm occurs.
A painful electric-shock glove should not be normalized as a routine enforcement tool simply because it comes with a training module.
A win for secrecy
Then there is the Treasury Department’s move.
On August 11, FinCEN, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, issued a final rule permanently removing beneficial-ownership reporting requirements for U.S. companies and U.S. persons. It also announced that it will delete beneficial-ownership information previously reported by people now exempt from the requirement.
Beneficial ownership sounds like technical jargon, but the concept is simple: Who is really behind a company?
For years, shell companies have been used to hide assets, disguise ownership, move illicit money, evade taxes, commit fraud, and obscure corruption. The Corporate Transparency Act was intended to give federal financial-crimes investigators a way to identify the actual individuals who own or control certain companies.
It was not a public database. It was not meant to expose every small-business owner’s private financial life to the internet. It was a reporting system for financial-crimes enforcement.
Treasury argues that the reporting requirement placed an undue burden on American businesses. That concern deserves consideration. Small-business owners should not be crushed under confusing and unnecessary paperwork.
But the solution to burdensome implementation should be a clearer, narrower, better-administered system, not the elimination of a key transparency tool altogether.
And we should be precise about the timeline: U.S. companies had already been broadly exempted under FinCEN’s March 2025 interim rule. This week’s action makes that policy permanent. Foreign companies that meet the rule’s definition may still have reporting obligations.
The pattern matters
Again, these two stories are not proof of a single coordinated policy.
But together, they show a pattern worth examining.
When the subject is immigration enforcement, the answer is expanded funding, broader capacity, more personnel, more authority, and now potentially more tools capable of causing pain.
When the subject is corporate ownership and financial opacity, the answer is reduced disclosure and the deletion of information already collected.
That is a dangerous imbalance.
People with the least power, immigrants, detainees, and those caught in the machinery of enforcement, face a government that is becoming better funded, better armed, and less restrained.
Meanwhile, those with the resources to form complex corporate structures receive more privacy from the government agencies tasked with tracing financial crime.
This is not what equal accountability looks like.
The accountability we should demand
Public safety does not require treating pain as de-escalation.
Economic freedom does not require making it easier to hide who owns a company.
We can believe that businesses deserve reasonable regulations and that law-enforcement officers deserve proper training, while still insisting that the public deserves safeguards, transparency, and accountability.
That means demanding clear rules for any new ICE use-of-force device, public reporting on how often those tools are deployed, independent investigation of misconduct, and enforceable consequences when abuse occurs.
It also means demanding a financial system where law-enforcement investigators can trace illicit money without placing unnecessary burdens on legitimate small businesses.
More power downward. Less transparency upward.
That is not a recipe for safety, freedom, or public trust.
It is a warning sign.
Sources
Associated Press: “ICE plans to give officers gloves that can deliver painful electric shocks”
The Washington Post: “Treasury ends ownership reporting rules for U.S. companies”
Reuters: “Trump administration finalizes ownership reporting exemption for U.S. companies”
Brookings: “ICE expansion has outpaced accountability. What are the remedies?”
The New York Times: “Under Trump, a Shift Toward ‘Absolute Immunity’ for ICE”
Editor’s note: FinCEN’s August 11 rule makes permanent the broad exemption for U.S. companies and U.S. persons from beneficial-ownership reporting, which had already been put in place on an interim basis in March 2025. Foreign reporting companies may still have obligations under the final rule.
