From the NY Times:

"Mr. Barry said that, without any notice, American Express had reduced the credit limit on his business and personal credit card at least four times in the last year, which he said had lowered his credit score." (emphasis added}

We have to have legislation to keep this from happening RIGHT NOW.  As banks and credit card issuers watch their balance sheets, they cannot be allowed to (unintentionally) bring down the credit scores of customers who, possibly through no fault of their own, are having their credit limits lowered (ok) and their credit scores lowered as a result (not ok).

"Lenders are shunning consumers already in debt and cutting credit limits for existing cardholders, especially those who live in areas ravaged by the housing crisis or who work in troubled industries. In some cases, lenders are even reining in credit lines after monitoring cardholders who shop at the same stores as other risky borrowers or who have mortgages from certain companies."

If credit card issuers are profiling rather than reducing lines on an individual basis, than the individual client will be paying (literally) for the crimes of others...as if the bailout wasn't enough.

I'm not positive that a reduction in your credit line will reduce your credit score, but it seems likely (and I spend a decent amount of time looking at credit reports as a broker in NYC).  If anyone reading this can reach out to Dodd, Franks, Shelby, etc... and try to get this rectified immediately you would be doing a great service to a lot of people who will otherwise get screwed.  Also important to note that this will not affect banks or credit card issuers at all - they can do what they like, but credit scoring agencies should not be using whether a credit line was reduced in their algorithms to determine and score credit worthyness.

Here is a link to the article:  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/business/29credit.html?pagewanted=2&hp