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Couple of points: - Someone is still scanning e-mails, except now it's a judge and/or lawyers rather than cops or business - Moving things to the legal system

Couple of points: - Someone is still scanning e-mails, except now it's a judge and/or lawyers rather than cops or business - Moving things to the legal system imposes potentially very high friction costs, since your bank/email provider presumably has context about their relationship with you that the judge (or law enforcement) doesn't have. As we all know, context switches are inherently expensive. - Emails aren't exactly the same as transmitting money, because reading emails tends to violate more of your privacy than the metadata about who you send money to. Also it's illegal to, say, send money to finance terrorists, so some checking has to happen at some level no matter what. You can say 'get a warrant', but if cops don't have access to data, and banks can't look at who you send money to, then how can cops have sufficient data to find probable cause under which to ask for a warrant? You're putting law enforcement in a situation where it's impossible to lawfully fulfill their duties to the public, unless your model is literally that judges always get all data without a warrant, and a court decides what's suspicious. You might think that the incremental improvement in liberty is worth the friction cost of having lawyers and judges run everything, but I'm not sure everyone would agree.

cm2187 10y ago
> Someone is still scanning e-mails, except now it's a judge and/or lawyers rather than cops or business You are still starting from the assertion that every email has to be scanned for crime, that every financial transaction has to be investigated for fraud. I disagree with that. And where is the limit? Should the bank also check that the product you are trying to sell is compliant with the latest health & safety regulations and that you didn't violate environmental protection laws? The bank is potentially facilitating a crime if it isn't. > Also it's illegal to, say, send money to finance terrorists But it is not illegal to conspire to commit a terrorist attack by email or phone or mail? > banks can't look at who you send money to Banks always know who you send money to. Phone companies always know who you call. What banks do not need to know is why I am sending this money. What phone companies do not need to know is what I am discussing about. > You're putting law enforcement in a situation where it's impossible to lawfully fulfill their duties to the public Was it impossible to do their work before the internet when law enforcement had to get a warrant to open mail and tap phone lines? > You might think that the incremental improvement in liberty is worth the friction cost of having lawyers and judges run everything Again you are still stuck in the logic of either my phone company listens to my calls or the police listens to my calls. Well, neither unless they get a warrant. Same for my emails. Same for my mail. Same for my financial transactions. The content of my calls is none of the business of the phone company. The content of my emails is none of the business of my email provider. The reason for my transaction is none of the business of my bank.
- smallnamespace 10y ago
  Yes, I think it's fundamentally impossible to effectively prevent or prosecute certain types of crime without scanning financial metadata, such as funding of terrorist groups or cross-border fraud. The model of 'wait until someone complains, then get a warrant, then use that data to prosecute' simply doesn't work in practice, and the article notes exactly why. For criminal networks, by the time the judicial gears have started running, the criminals are long gone with their ill-gotten profits. For terrorist enterprises, it's easy and cheap to create puppet companies or non-profits to take donations, and prosecuting terrorists after they've used the money to commit violence is not acceptable to society. > Should the bank also check that the product you are trying to sell is compliant with the latest health & safety regulations and that you didn't violate environmental protection laws? No, because you can effectively punish companies that violate health and safety regulations after the financial transaction takes place. For scammers, that's not true. You might think that having these crimes is simply the price of liberty, but I think many people would disagree. I don't think the rhetorical strategy of denying there is a problem, and claiming that policing strategies from 30 years ago will fix all the problems, is a reasonable one. > Was it impossible to do their work before the internet when law enforcement had to get a warrant to open mail and tap phone lines? Yes, because now criminals aren't communicating with mail and phone lines, they're using the internet, which is a completely different beast. You can't run a business like you did 30 years ago and succeed. You can't make a movie like you did 30 years ago and expect to succeed. What makes you so confident and sure that wiretap laws from 30 years ago can be perfectly and successfully applied to the internet today?
  - mcbits 10y ago
    I don't think you can mold your argument so that it doesn't apply equally to searching everyone's closets for skeletons once a week without suspicion because that's the only way to root out the Jeffrey Dahmers of the world.
    - smallnamespace 10y ago
      - In practice, we as a society value stopping fraud and terrorist funding quite a bit more than rooting out every last Jeffrey Dahmer - Looking through financial metadata is a couple orders of magnitude less invasive than physically searching everyone's closet every week All I'm saying here is there is actually a tradeoff between privacy and law-enforcement effectiveness. Of course we should think of ways to have both, but it is not always possible in every case. As engineers, that should be easy to understand. If we're being honest with ourselves, we should admit that we're willing to pay a cost (perhaps even a substantial one) for greater privacy. We should then have a discussion about which costs we're willing to pay, for which particular forms of privacy, and how to get the most bang for our buck. We should not simply pretend that the cost of upholding our liberal values is zero, as tempting as that might be rhetorically.

cm2187 10y ago

> Someone is still scanning e-mails, except now it's a judge and/or lawyers rather than cops or business You are still starting from the assertion that every email has to be scanned for crime, that every financial transaction has to be investigated for fraud. I disagree with that. And where is the limit? Should the bank also check that the product you are trying to sell is compliant with the latest health & safety regulations and that you didn't violate environmental protection laws? The bank is potentially facilitating a crime if it isn't. > Also it's illegal to, say, send money to finance terrorists But it is not illegal to conspire to commit a terrorist attack by email or phone or mail? > banks can't look at who you send money to Banks always know who you send money to. Phone companies always know who you call. What banks do not need to know is why I am sending this money. What phone companies do not need to know is what I am discussing about. > You're putting law enforcement in a situation where it's impossible to lawfully fulfill their duties to the public Was it impossible to do their work before the internet when law enforcement had to get a warrant to open mail and tap phone lines? > You might think that the incremental improvement in liberty is worth the friction cost of having lawyers and judges run everything Again you are still stuck in the logic of either my phone company listens to my calls or the police listens to my calls. Well, neither unless they get a warrant. Same for my emails. Same for my mail. Same for my financial transactions. The content of my calls is none of the business of the phone company. The content of my emails is none of the business of my email provider. The reason for my transaction is none of the business of my bank.

smallnamespace 10y ago
Yes, I think it's fundamentally impossible to effectively prevent or prosecute certain types of crime without scanning financial metadata, such as funding of terrorist groups or cross-border fraud. The model of 'wait until someone complains, then get a warrant, then use that data to prosecute' simply doesn't work in practice, and the article notes exactly why. For criminal networks, by the time the judicial gears have started running, the criminals are long gone with their ill-gotten profits. For terrorist enterprises, it's easy and cheap to create puppet companies or non-profits to take donations, and prosecuting terrorists after they've used the money to commit violence is not acceptable to society. > Should the bank also check that the product you are trying to sell is compliant with the latest health & safety regulations and that you didn't violate environmental protection laws? No, because you can effectively punish companies that violate health and safety regulations after the financial transaction takes place. For scammers, that's not true. You might think that having these crimes is simply the price of liberty, but I think many people would disagree. I don't think the rhetorical strategy of denying there is a problem, and claiming that policing strategies from 30 years ago will fix all the problems, is a reasonable one. > Was it impossible to do their work before the internet when law enforcement had to get a warrant to open mail and tap phone lines? Yes, because now criminals aren't communicating with mail and phone lines, they're using the internet, which is a completely different beast. You can't run a business like you did 30 years ago and succeed. You can't make a movie like you did 30 years ago and expect to succeed. What makes you so confident and sure that wiretap laws from 30 years ago can be perfectly and successfully applied to the internet today?
- mcbits 10y ago
  I don't think you can mold your argument so that it doesn't apply equally to searching everyone's closets for skeletons once a week without suspicion because that's the only way to root out the Jeffrey Dahmers of the world.
  - smallnamespace 10y ago
    - In practice, we as a society value stopping fraud and terrorist funding quite a bit more than rooting out every last Jeffrey Dahmer - Looking through financial metadata is a couple orders of magnitude less invasive than physically searching everyone's closet every week All I'm saying here is there is actually a tradeoff between privacy and law-enforcement effectiveness. Of course we should think of ways to have both, but it is not always possible in every case. As engineers, that should be easy to understand. If we're being honest with ourselves, we should admit that we're willing to pay a cost (perhaps even a substantial one) for greater privacy. We should then have a discussion about which costs we're willing to pay, for which particular forms of privacy, and how to get the most bang for our buck. We should not simply pretend that the cost of upholding our liberal values is zero, as tempting as that might be rhetorically.