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Money laundering is evil. Sorry, this weird obsession people have with "Muh financial privacy" and "I'm just moving it around, that ain't a crime!" is the outli

by Nursie 4y ago

Money laundering is evil. Sorry, this weird obsession people have with "Muh financial privacy" and "I'm just moving it around, that ain't a crime!" is the outlier here. Should the government be handed every transaction on a silver platter every day? Probably not, but I don't think you'll find many people in the big wide world agreeing that financial activity should be forever unavailable to governments, courts or anything else, even under applicable warrant, which is what these services provide. And why is this absolute privacy bad? Where to start? Criminals hiding ill-gotten gains is only a small part of it. We have the funding of rogue nation states and enabling of ransomware, which is roughly in the same ballpark, sure, but very harmful. Then we have straight-out tax evasion. We also have dictators and despots who plunder their countries and enrich themselves. Should their activities be private? Should we just allow them to siphon money off to other countries and live the high life while their population suffer? It happens all too often already, but in much of the west now we are catching this stuff and denying them those things because we can see some of what's gone on. And what about our own democracy? Absolute financial privacy can allow wealthy interests to brazenly buy politicians, with guarantees of untraceability. So no, I don't "realise" how tyrannical and dystopian that is, in fact to me it looks like it helps prevent a variety of forms of dystopia, in which the rich and the corrupt could even more easily and directly buy democracy out from under us. The fact that you can't currently have a system which provides privacy until an authority (such as the court system) demand things be unlocked, well that seems like a problem for cryptocurrency users, not the law.

matheusmoreira 4y ago
> Money laundering is evil. Be careful that you do not become even worse in the attempt to fight it. We are all engaged in a politico-technological arms race: government makes laws, people make technology that circumvents them. They must create ever more tyrannical rules in order to stop the latest technology. So what is your limit? How far will this loop continue until either criminals win or people are crushed under a totalitarian government? > Should their activities be private? Should we just allow them to siphon money off to other countries and live the high life while their population suffer? Should governments warrantlessly surveil everyone to prevent such things? Corrupt people getting rich off of taxpayer money sucks but I wouldn't trade away my privacy in order to prevent it. > The fact that you can't currently have a system which provides privacy until an authority (such as the court system) demand things be unlocked Yes, because governments, especially the USA, are notorious for respecting the rights of their own citizens not to be surveilled without reason. Right?
- Nursie 4y ago
  > So what is your limit? How far will this loop continue until either criminals win or people are crushed under a totalitarian government? Not only is this not my 'limit', I view the incident we are talking about as a very positive move. Traditional finance laws should be enforced in the cryptocurrency space. "But blockchain" is not a good answer to why you shouldn't have to. They aren't even creating any more rules here! They're literally applying the exact same rules that are already applied to everyone else in every other avenue. If cryptocurrency systems can't play by those rules, then that's a cryptocurrency ecosystem problem. > Should governments warrantlessly surveil everyone to prevent such things? You'll note I already explicitly said no to that in the comment you're replying to. You then go on to talk about "muh privacy" in absolute terms as well. This black/white, all/nothing view of the world is part of the problem. I don't think government should be surveilling everyone all the time by default, nor do I think that we should be enabling completely untraceable large-scale money-laundering facilities that can't even be examined under appropriate warrants. There is an entire spectrum of shades of grey between those two. It may even be multi-dimensional, and the entire 'mainstream' financial system lives in there. Presenting it as only one or the other is fallacious. If blockchain systems can't support any sort of middle ground then again, that's a cryptocurrency ecosystem problem. > Yes, because governments... You're making the case for democratic reform here, which I am all for. Democratic reform and democratic oversight. Sounds good.
  - matheusmoreira 4y ago
    > completely untraceable large-scale money-laundering facilities that can't even be examined under appropriate warrants It's just private digital currency. If they suspect someone is laundering money, they should have to seek real warrants and then knock on actual doors. They shouldn't be able to just put the burden on corporations and citizens to do the mass surveillance for them so they can prove to the government that they're not criminals up to no good with their hard earned money. Privacy is a reasonable expectation and these currencies are the tool to achieve it. They aren't to blame when some criminal uses them to do whatever. Are you against citizens having access to cryptography the state can't break as well? Because that's the standard by which these technologies are judged. > You're making the case for democratic reform here, which I am all for. Democratic reform and democratic oversight. Sounds good. Sounds great but until such a thing happens there is no reason to trust these governments. The corrupt buying democracy out from under us? It's already happening, it's not even hidden and money laundering laws don't stop anything. We have these billion dollar corporations lobbying the US government, essentially buying laws that favor them. Copyright industry robbed the people of their public domain rights and these traditional laws didn't do a thing to stop it.
jokethrowaway 4y ago
Is money laundering evil? It depends on your morality. Let's assume we're talking about tax evasion: the government is telling its citizens "Give me 50% of your profit or I'll put you in jail". This is violence and it's immoral. Escaping this violence is not a crime in my book. Let's assume we're talking about trafficking illicit substances: the government is telling its citizens "Don't trade these items with each other or I'll put you in jail". This is violence and it's immoral. Escaping this violence is not a crime in my book. Let's assume we're talking about people corrupting politicians: this is immoral but, on top of often going unpunished in the current system - it's unfixable. The only way to reduce this occurrence is by reducing (or entirely eliminating) the power centralised in the hands of politicians so that no-one will want to corrupt them. No need to monitor all financial transactions. Let's assume we're talking about people killing other people: this is obviously immoral. Still, pick any "legal" war initiated by government and you'll find more dead innocents than what crime cause. Are we preventing money transactions to maintain our army? And then, is tracking this ill gotten gains an efficient way of improving the situation? I think it will be largely ineffective, it's much easier to foster a society where we have private protection services that work, instead of an inefficient police force collecting a paycheck from the taxpayers regardless of performance. When you wield an hammer everything looks like a nail - but monitoring citizens like in 1984 is a inefficient solution meant to fix symptoms of bigger problems: namely our centralisation and dependance on a central government, their monopoly to violence and their obsession with regulating our lives, certainly "for our own good" and not to exercise and maintain their power.
- Nursie 4y ago
  All taxation is theft and what's more that makes it violence! I am the ultimate authority in my life, you can't tell me what to do! Governments suck because war is bad! I don't need regulations at all! This is so full of fallacious assumptions and facile ancap thinking it's hilarious.
- Cederfjard 4y ago
  > Let's assume we're talking about tax evasion: the government is telling its citizens "Give me 50% of your profit or I'll put you in jail". This is violence and it's immoral. I could just as well say "hoarding resources and not sharing them with the rest of society, just because you're able to, deprives others. This is violence and immoral." That's not necessarily my personal view, but do you see how morals can differ? > Escaping this violence is not a crime in my book. The key concept there being that it's "your" book. Laws are not objective and absolute, they're the result of the society they exist in, preferably (in my and most people's opinion) derived from democratic participation. Your book is not aligned with the laws of the country you live in. You can lobby to change that, but it does not mean that the laws are invalid or shouldn't apply.
sgjohnson 4y ago
Money laundering is not evil. Anti money-laundering laws are evil. There shouldn’t even be a need to launder money, no matter how one came in possession of it. Otherwise the burden of proof is inversed, where I have to prove to basically the preponderence of evidence standard to virtually all financial institutions that my money is not proceeds of some illegal activity. Anti-money laundering laws just add more crimes on top of the illegal activity in the first place, presumably because of lazy job by the politicians caused by lazy investigators, because evidently it’s easier to prove the money laundering fact, than the underlying criminal activity. Which is the same reason why we have civil asset fortfeiture, which, quite literally, is nothing more than legalized theft. > Then we have straight-out tax evasion. Kudos to whoever manages to get away with straight up tax evasion. Taxation is inherently violent. > And what about our own democracy? Absolute financial privacy can allow wealthy interests to brazenly buy politicians, with guarantees of untraceability. In that case, the politicians have too much power.
- imtringued 4y ago
  Money is power, if you want to abolish the need for AML you will first need to make money less important and powerful.
  - sgjohnson 4y ago
    That can’t (and arguably shouldn’t) be done.
boppo1 4y ago
I'm an illustrator. I want to make some pin-up art and sell it. However A. I think it's kind of embarrassing B. It could absolutely never be associated with my real name because it would torpedo my official career due to the current social climate. The only way I could think of to really keep identity separation in a way that doesn't leave me beholden to a third party was to use some sort of crypto mixer. I don't trust institutions not to leak data that could be used to establish an identity link. Do you think I'm evil?
- Nursie 4y ago
  I think you're likely overly paranoid, not evil. And I also think you probably ought to consider what else it is you're giving cover to by using a mixer, and not be surprised if the services you use get shut down with great prejudice.
  - boppo1 4y ago
    >overly paranoid I disagree. My livelihood depends on said identity separation. I agree such a leak is very unlikely, but it could be life-changingly detrimental if it happened. Or it could raise public opinion of me, who knows? I believe in risk management. >consider what else it is you're giving cover to I can see it that way. But I mostly transact in the US dollar, and voluntarily live in the US. Do I therefore support the US goodbye-kiss dronestrike on an innocent Afghani family? IMO participating in a system of commerce does not necessarily confer the responsibilities of some participants onto others.
- lupire 4y ago
  Not evil, but a coward, by letting your community remain stigmatized by refusing to stand up for what you believe in.
- jsmith45 4y ago
  Question: how do you propose preventing other people from making copies of this art and selling it, without revealing your identity? If you want to use copyright to protect your work, and end up suing, remaining pseudonymous will be difficult. Courts will only sometimes allow an anonymous/pseudonymous complaint. Even when they do allow it, they may require that defendant be given access to your real name, even if it remains sealed from the public. Even if you are somehow successfully in remaining anonymous to the court, the defendant, and the public, you are only going to be able to do that via being represented by an attorney, who will most likely need to know your name, and the attorney’s identity will be public. (The attorney would likely need to know your real name for ethics reasons, like making sure they are not representing a defendant you are suing in some non-private lawsuit. ) But given you don’t trust institutions to not leak identity, I suppose you cannot trust the attorney to either.
djbebs 4y ago
No it is not, it is a human right.
eric_cc 4y ago
> Money laundering is evil. I don’t even know how to respond to this sort of caveman “it evil” thinking but.. > funding of rogue nation states Rogue according to you? > straight-out tax evasion Avoiding the violent theft of your hard earned money is now evil? > We also have dictators and despots who plunder their countries and enrich themselves. Should their activities be private? Their money should be. Store of value should be. > Should we just allow them to siphon money off to other countries and live the high life while their population suffer? This is a question that has very little to do with whether money is private. Inequality is not impossible to detect even if money is private. > And what about our own democracy? Absolute financial privacy can allow wealthy interests to brazenly buy politicians, with guarantees of untraceability. They don’t even need privacy. They do it in broad daylight.

by Nursie 4y ago

matheusmoreira 4y ago

> Money laundering is evil. Be careful that you do not become even worse in the attempt to fight it. We are all engaged in a politico-technological arms race: government makes laws, people make technology that circumvents them. They must create ever more tyrannical rules in order to stop the latest technology. So what is your limit? How far will this loop continue until either criminals win or people are crushed under a totalitarian government? > Should their activities be private? Should we just allow them to siphon money off to other countries and live the high life while their population suffer? Should governments warrantlessly surveil everyone to prevent such things? Corrupt people getting rich off of taxpayer money sucks but I wouldn't trade away my privacy in order to prevent it. > The fact that you can't currently have a system which provides privacy until an authority (such as the court system) demand things be unlocked Yes, because governments, especially the USA, are notorious for respecting the rights of their own citizens not to be surveilled without reason. Right?

Nursie 4y ago
> So what is your limit? How far will this loop continue until either criminals win or people are crushed under a totalitarian government? Not only is this not my 'limit', I view the incident we are talking about as a very positive move. Traditional finance laws should be enforced in the cryptocurrency space. "But blockchain" is not a good answer to why you shouldn't have to. They aren't even creating any more rules here! They're literally applying the exact same rules that are already applied to everyone else in every other avenue. If cryptocurrency systems can't play by those rules, then that's a cryptocurrency ecosystem problem. > Should governments warrantlessly surveil everyone to prevent such things? You'll note I already explicitly said no to that in the comment you're replying to. You then go on to talk about "muh privacy" in absolute terms as well. This black/white, all/nothing view of the world is part of the problem. I don't think government should be surveilling everyone all the time by default, nor do I think that we should be enabling completely untraceable large-scale money-laundering facilities that can't even be examined under appropriate warrants. There is an entire spectrum of shades of grey between those two. It may even be multi-dimensional, and the entire 'mainstream' financial system lives in there. Presenting it as only one or the other is fallacious. If blockchain systems can't support any sort of middle ground then again, that's a cryptocurrency ecosystem problem. > Yes, because governments... You're making the case for democratic reform here, which I am all for. Democratic reform and democratic oversight. Sounds good.
- matheusmoreira 4y ago
  > completely untraceable large-scale money-laundering facilities that can't even be examined under appropriate warrants It's just private digital currency. If they suspect someone is laundering money, they should have to seek real warrants and then knock on actual doors. They shouldn't be able to just put the burden on corporations and citizens to do the mass surveillance for them so they can prove to the government that they're not criminals up to no good with their hard earned money. Privacy is a reasonable expectation and these currencies are the tool to achieve it. They aren't to blame when some criminal uses them to do whatever. Are you against citizens having access to cryptography the state can't break as well? Because that's the standard by which these technologies are judged. > You're making the case for democratic reform here, which I am all for. Democratic reform and democratic oversight. Sounds good. Sounds great but until such a thing happens there is no reason to trust these governments. The corrupt buying democracy out from under us? It's already happening, it's not even hidden and money laundering laws don't stop anything. We have these billion dollar corporations lobbying the US government, essentially buying laws that favor them. Copyright industry robbed the people of their public domain rights and these traditional laws didn't do a thing to stop it.

jokethrowaway 4y ago

Is money laundering evil? It depends on your morality. Let's assume we're talking about tax evasion: the government is telling its citizens "Give me 50% of your profit or I'll put you in jail". This is violence and it's immoral. Escaping this violence is not a crime in my book. Let's assume we're talking about trafficking illicit substances: the government is telling its citizens "Don't trade these items with each other or I'll put you in jail". This is violence and it's immoral. Escaping this violence is not a crime in my book. Let's assume we're talking about people corrupting politicians: this is immoral but, on top of often going unpunished in the current system - it's unfixable. The only way to reduce this occurrence is by reducing (or entirely eliminating) the power centralised in the hands of politicians so that no-one will want to corrupt them. No need to monitor all financial transactions. Let's assume we're talking about people killing other people: this is obviously immoral. Still, pick any "legal" war initiated by government and you'll find more dead innocents than what crime cause. Are we preventing money transactions to maintain our army? And then, is tracking this ill gotten gains an efficient way of improving the situation? I think it will be largely ineffective, it's much easier to foster a society where we have private protection services that work, instead of an inefficient police force collecting a paycheck from the taxpayers regardless of performance. When you wield an hammer everything looks like a nail - but monitoring citizens like in 1984 is a inefficient solution meant to fix symptoms of bigger problems: namely our centralisation and dependance on a central government, their monopoly to violence and their obsession with regulating our lives, certainly "for our own good" and not to exercise and maintain their power.

Nursie 4y ago
All taxation is theft and what's more that makes it violence! I am the ultimate authority in my life, you can't tell me what to do! Governments suck because war is bad! I don't need regulations at all! This is so full of fallacious assumptions and facile ancap thinking it's hilarious.
Cederfjard 4y ago
> Let's assume we're talking about tax evasion: the government is telling its citizens "Give me 50% of your profit or I'll put you in jail". This is violence and it's immoral. I could just as well say "hoarding resources and not sharing them with the rest of society, just because you're able to, deprives others. This is violence and immoral." That's not necessarily my personal view, but do you see how morals can differ? > Escaping this violence is not a crime in my book. The key concept there being that it's "your" book. Laws are not objective and absolute, they're the result of the society they exist in, preferably (in my and most people's opinion) derived from democratic participation. Your book is not aligned with the laws of the country you live in. You can lobby to change that, but it does not mean that the laws are invalid or shouldn't apply.

sgjohnson 4y ago

Money laundering is not evil. Anti money-laundering laws are evil. There shouldn’t even be a need to launder money, no matter how one came in possession of it. Otherwise the burden of proof is inversed, where I have to prove to basically the preponderence of evidence standard to virtually all financial institutions that my money is not proceeds of some illegal activity. Anti-money laundering laws just add more crimes on top of the illegal activity in the first place, presumably because of lazy job by the politicians caused by lazy investigators, because evidently it’s easier to prove the money laundering fact, than the underlying criminal activity. Which is the same reason why we have civil asset fortfeiture, which, quite literally, is nothing more than legalized theft. > Then we have straight-out tax evasion. Kudos to whoever manages to get away with straight up tax evasion. Taxation is inherently violent. > And what about our own democracy? Absolute financial privacy can allow wealthy interests to brazenly buy politicians, with guarantees of untraceability. In that case, the politicians have too much power.

imtringued 4y ago
Money is power, if you want to abolish the need for AML you will first need to make money less important and powerful.
- sgjohnson 4y ago
  That can’t (and arguably shouldn’t) be done.

boppo1 4y ago

I'm an illustrator. I want to make some pin-up art and sell it. However A. I think it's kind of embarrassing B. It could absolutely never be associated with my real name because it would torpedo my official career due to the current social climate. The only way I could think of to really keep identity separation in a way that doesn't leave me beholden to a third party was to use some sort of crypto mixer. I don't trust institutions not to leak data that could be used to establish an identity link. Do you think I'm evil?

Nursie 4y ago
I think you're likely overly paranoid, not evil. And I also think you probably ought to consider what else it is you're giving cover to by using a mixer, and not be surprised if the services you use get shut down with great prejudice.
- boppo1 4y ago
  >overly paranoid I disagree. My livelihood depends on said identity separation. I agree such a leak is very unlikely, but it could be life-changingly detrimental if it happened. Or it could raise public opinion of me, who knows? I believe in risk management. >consider what else it is you're giving cover to I can see it that way. But I mostly transact in the US dollar, and voluntarily live in the US. Do I therefore support the US goodbye-kiss dronestrike on an innocent Afghani family? IMO participating in a system of commerce does not necessarily confer the responsibilities of some participants onto others.
lupire 4y ago
Not evil, but a coward, by letting your community remain stigmatized by refusing to stand up for what you believe in.
jsmith45 4y ago
Question: how do you propose preventing other people from making copies of this art and selling it, without revealing your identity? If you want to use copyright to protect your work, and end up suing, remaining pseudonymous will be difficult. Courts will only sometimes allow an anonymous/pseudonymous complaint. Even when they do allow it, they may require that defendant be given access to your real name, even if it remains sealed from the public. Even if you are somehow successfully in remaining anonymous to the court, the defendant, and the public, you are only going to be able to do that via being represented by an attorney, who will most likely need to know your name, and the attorney’s identity will be public. (The attorney would likely need to know your real name for ethics reasons, like making sure they are not representing a defendant you are suing in some non-private lawsuit. ) But given you don’t trust institutions to not leak identity, I suppose you cannot trust the attorney to either.

djbebs 4y ago

No it is not, it is a human right.

eric_cc 4y ago

> Money laundering is evil. I don’t even know how to respond to this sort of caveman “it evil” thinking but.. > funding of rogue nation states Rogue according to you? > straight-out tax evasion Avoiding the violent theft of your hard earned money is now evil? > We also have dictators and despots who plunder their countries and enrich themselves. Should their activities be private? Their money should be. Store of value should be. > Should we just allow them to siphon money off to other countries and live the high life while their population suffer? This is a question that has very little to do with whether money is private. Inequality is not impossible to detect even if money is private. > And what about our own democracy? Absolute financial privacy can allow wealthy interests to brazenly buy politicians, with guarantees of untraceability. They don’t even need privacy. They do it in broad daylight.