The issue focused on whether the federal government can force banks and financial companies to provide information about the identities of the individuals whose bank account accounts are frozen or barred, even if such information is legally barred.

But Mr. Justice Kennedy's opinion in U.S. v. Bank of America, 477 U.S. 735 (1986), is the most controversial. The case involved the federal government challenging the bank's claim that it had been ordered to turn over a list of all the Americans named as