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if the payment processor knew the transaction was for a contract killing but processed it anyway, would they not be facilitating a crime (“aiding and abetting”)

if the payment processor knew the transaction was for a contract killing but processed it anyway, would they not be facilitating a crime (“aiding and abetting”)? are you saying we should specifically exempt payment processors from being held responsible for crimes that the rest of us — or any other business — could be found guilty of when performing the same functions? or are you suggesting something more broad: that in the chain of cause and effect that eventually effects a crime, only the “last” party should ever be held responsible? e.g. anyone can sell weapons to anybody, only the person who pulls the trigger should be legally responsible? in this case presumably it’s legal to hire a contract killer, the only illegal part is the killing itself, and a skilled contractor could probably shift that final act onto the victim as well.

FateOfNations 3y ago
If they knew the payment was for a contract killing, they should be picking up the phone and calling law enforcement. This isn’t even about individual transactions. The situation here is more like them saying, “your business has characteristics in common with the kind of a business that might facilitate a contract killing and we’re lazy so we just aren’t going to do any business with you at all”.
- jevgeni 3y ago
  The knots HN ties itself into bashing "EU regulations", but then easily deciding to impose arbitrary regulations on payment companies is a sight to behold.
  - colinsane 3y ago
    if you took a thousand people who adhere to different ethics and polled them on questions of ethics, would you expect the net responses to adhere to any consistent ethics even if each individual's responses did?
    - throwaway14356 3y ago
      I want to see a system where those who dont get what they want are compensated. Then we can all max out our unreasonablness.
inetknght 3y ago
> if the payment processor knew the transaction was for a contract killing but processed it anyway If the payment processor knows what your contract is for, it should have an obligation to report it to you. If the payment processor knew the transaction was for contract killing then it should have an obligation to report it to the authorities. > are you suggesting something more broad: that in the chain of cause and effect that eventually effects a crime, only the “last” party should ever be held responsible? No, I think that some parties between the "first" and "last" should be indemnifiable because they provide neutral services that everyone relies on for legal purposes. Without proof that a contract between two parties is illegal, it should be permitted. Do you have any idea how many employers have unenforceable clauses in their contracts? If you think that payment processors should be held liable for criminal contracts then perhaps we should hold payment processors and banks liable for criminal contracts of all employers.
- b112 3y ago
  Literally, innocent until proven guilty. The bank is worried about indemnification, eg civil judgments, which are more akin to 50.1% proof. Criminal judgrments are more 99.9% presumed guilt. This is the difference.
AlbertCory 3y ago
This ignores all the justifications that the other commenters have laid out. You are not "aiding and abetting" by handling the money. There's already a well-established body of law outlining who is and is not culpable for a crime. We don't need to debate it from first principles here.
- jevgeni 3y ago
  Remind the rest of the class please.
pyuser583 3y ago
If a telephone company knowingly serviced a contract killer, they would be fine. Same with postal service, etc.
- bilbo0s 3y ago
  Same with postal service, etc. Uh, guys, this is not true. This is not how any of this works. Don't let these people on HN mislead you. Even the postal service cannot knowingly deliver a bomb to a target and claim immunity. It doesn't work like that. If you know they are committing a crime, then you have to stop them. Or at a minimum try to stop them.
  - onionisafruit 3y ago
    I agree that a postal carrier would be criminally liable for knowingly delivering a live bomb, but I think you’re wrong on the end part. There is no legal obligation to try to stop crimes you know about. In most cases there isn’t even an obligation to report them.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      In most US states, it is illegal to fail to report a crime. This is usually a misdemeanor, but is a felony in some states and with some types of crime.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - Supermancho 3y ago
        I'm gonna go ahead and claim that laws that incur a penalty for not reporting a crime, are not commensurate with legal obligation. Such a charge sounds like a plea bargain or additional-charges or inconvenience-a-witness tool, than a legal concern. The charges for failing to report a crime are subject to prosecution that includes due process (proof, legal prosecution, etc). It's nearly impossible to prove that you witnesses a crime you didn't report without some paper/video/interview trail. This is partly why you never talk to police without a lawyer, as it can get you caught up in such a charge by your own statements.
samtho 3y ago
Aiding and abetting (or accessory, more generally) has legal criteria that must be met fully: 1. The accused party must be aware of the perpetrator’s intent to commit a crime 2. The accused then took action to help or encourage the perpetrator in carrying out their intent If both are not met, the accused person cannot be held criminally liable. I’m sure each of us have met a single one of these requirements in isolation. For example, if you watch a crime happen, you likely met #1 and if you helped out a random stranger and the help you rendered later assisted them when committing a crime, you met #2. We as a society agree that just the act of solicitation for murder is crime, one that is totally separate from a murder charge. It is also a crime to sell a weapon if you are not licensed to do so in some jurisdictions. A lot of legal theory revolves around the concept of “mens rea” (which itself has four levels: intent, knowledge, recklessness, and negligence), and “actus rea” which is the subsequent action as a result of the accused’s state of mind. Entities that act as a common carrier are shielded from this because their position in any transaction precludes any knowledge of the specific details of what they are facilitating.
throwaway14356 3y ago
It should ofc record the transaction. If no one is killed the recipient did us a service.
kazinator 3y ago
Maybe the payment processor simply shouldn't know that.
taylorius 3y ago
It's a sort of grey area, I would say. For example, if people plan a crime over the phone, we don't charge the telephone company.
usernew 3y ago
They key is, the payment processor would not know, because they should not have the ability to ask. What's needed here, is a replacement for cash. Nothing more, nothing less. The digital dollar wallet, with a number and a passcode that only you have. And you can send that to another wallet number. That is the scope, and the complete scope. Bitcoin w/o the blockchain. This should be provided by a government, not a bank or a payment processor, and should be free - systems paid for by how we pay to mint physical money. Fun story about the electronic toll pass, which I refuse to use and as a result get to places slower by never taking a toll road, in over 20 years. We had tolls. You throw a couple of quarters in, and you go on your way. They were replaced by the electronic toll tag. Which is linked to your name, your credit card, and keeps a timestamped transaction history, forever. There was a custody battle, and the divorced husband got the kids. The court looked at the wife's toll records, showing she comes home from work real late, and that would impact the quality of life for kids. Boy, I bet she never thought she'd lose her kids by using a toll tag. I bet she did think after the divorce she'd have to start coming home earlier and probably set it up with her manager. We'll never know. Thing is, it should have been an anonymous electronic RFID wallet you reload, to replace the function of the quarter coin, and it became a government tracking device attached to your car. Now answer me this: is your ISP responsible for you downloading that torrent full of child porn? Well, that's probably a bad example. Is Cisco, the maker of the network switch that ISP uses, legally responsible for it?
- autoexec 3y ago
  > The court looked at the wife's toll records, showing she comes home from work real late, and that would impact the quality of life for kids. Boy, I bet she never thought she'd lose her kids by using a toll tag. Do you have a source for that? Google wasn't being helpful.
  - thedirt0115 3y ago
    This got me interested as well. I couldn't find the specific incident they were referring to with a brief search, but I did find this, which implies that toll data can be and has been used in child custody disputes, etc: https://familylawyermagazine.com/articles/i-pass-tollway-data-divorce-and-privacy/ https://familylawyermagazine.com/articles/i-pass-tollway-dat...
SirMaster 3y ago
I mean, we don't even charge the weapon maker or the weapon seller in this case, so why would we charge the money processor?

FateOfNations 3y ago

If they knew the payment was for a contract killing, they should be picking up the phone and calling law enforcement. This isn’t even about individual transactions. The situation here is more like them saying, “your business has characteristics in common with the kind of a business that might facilitate a contract killing and we’re lazy so we just aren’t going to do any business with you at all”.

jevgeni 3y ago
The knots HN ties itself into bashing "EU regulations", but then easily deciding to impose arbitrary regulations on payment companies is a sight to behold.
- colinsane 3y ago
  if you took a thousand people who adhere to different ethics and polled them on questions of ethics, would you expect the net responses to adhere to any consistent ethics even if each individual's responses did?
  - throwaway14356 3y ago
    I want to see a system where those who dont get what they want are compensated. Then we can all max out our unreasonablness.

inetknght 3y ago

> if the payment processor knew the transaction was for a contract killing but processed it anyway If the payment processor knows what your contract is for, it should have an obligation to report it to you. If the payment processor knew the transaction was for contract killing then it should have an obligation to report it to the authorities. > are you suggesting something more broad: that in the chain of cause and effect that eventually effects a crime, only the “last” party should ever be held responsible? No, I think that some parties between the "first" and "last" should be indemnifiable because they provide neutral services that everyone relies on for legal purposes. Without proof that a contract between two parties is illegal, it should be permitted. Do you have any idea how many employers have unenforceable clauses in their contracts? If you think that payment processors should be held liable for criminal contracts then perhaps we should hold payment processors and banks liable for criminal contracts of all employers.

b112 3y ago
Literally, innocent until proven guilty. The bank is worried about indemnification, eg civil judgments, which are more akin to 50.1% proof. Criminal judgrments are more 99.9% presumed guilt. This is the difference.

AlbertCory 3y ago

This ignores all the justifications that the other commenters have laid out. You are not "aiding and abetting" by handling the money. There's already a well-established body of law outlining who is and is not culpable for a crime. We don't need to debate it from first principles here.

jevgeni 3y ago
Remind the rest of the class please.

pyuser583 3y ago

If a telephone company knowingly serviced a contract killer, they would be fine. Same with postal service, etc.

bilbo0s 3y ago
Same with postal service, etc. Uh, guys, this is not true. This is not how any of this works. Don't let these people on HN mislead you. Even the postal service cannot knowingly deliver a bomb to a target and claim immunity. It doesn't work like that. If you know they are committing a crime, then you have to stop them. Or at a minimum try to stop them.
- onionisafruit 3y ago
  I agree that a postal carrier would be criminally liable for knowingly delivering a live bomb, but I think you’re wrong on the end part. There is no legal obligation to try to stop crimes you know about. In most cases there isn’t even an obligation to report them.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    In most US states, it is illegal to fail to report a crime. This is usually a misdemeanor, but is a felony in some states and with some types of crime.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - Supermancho 3y ago
      I'm gonna go ahead and claim that laws that incur a penalty for not reporting a crime, are not commensurate with legal obligation. Such a charge sounds like a plea bargain or additional-charges or inconvenience-a-witness tool, than a legal concern. The charges for failing to report a crime are subject to prosecution that includes due process (proof, legal prosecution, etc). It's nearly impossible to prove that you witnesses a crime you didn't report without some paper/video/interview trail. This is partly why you never talk to police without a lawyer, as it can get you caught up in such a charge by your own statements.

samtho 3y ago

Aiding and abetting (or accessory, more generally) has legal criteria that must be met fully: 1. The accused party must be aware of the perpetrator’s intent to commit a crime 2. The accused then took action to help or encourage the perpetrator in carrying out their intent If both are not met, the accused person cannot be held criminally liable. I’m sure each of us have met a single one of these requirements in isolation. For example, if you watch a crime happen, you likely met #1 and if you helped out a random stranger and the help you rendered later assisted them when committing a crime, you met #2. We as a society agree that just the act of solicitation for murder is crime, one that is totally separate from a murder charge. It is also a crime to sell a weapon if you are not licensed to do so in some jurisdictions. A lot of legal theory revolves around the concept of “mens rea” (which itself has four levels: intent, knowledge, recklessness, and negligence), and “actus rea” which is the subsequent action as a result of the accused’s state of mind. Entities that act as a common carrier are shielded from this because their position in any transaction precludes any knowledge of the specific details of what they are facilitating.

throwaway14356 3y ago

It should ofc record the transaction. If no one is killed the recipient did us a service.

kazinator 3y ago

Maybe the payment processor simply shouldn't know that.

taylorius 3y ago

It's a sort of grey area, I would say. For example, if people plan a crime over the phone, we don't charge the telephone company.

usernew 3y ago

They key is, the payment processor would not know, because they should not have the ability to ask. What's needed here, is a replacement for cash. Nothing more, nothing less. The digital dollar wallet, with a number and a passcode that only you have. And you can send that to another wallet number. That is the scope, and the complete scope. Bitcoin w/o the blockchain. This should be provided by a government, not a bank or a payment processor, and should be free - systems paid for by how we pay to mint physical money. Fun story about the electronic toll pass, which I refuse to use and as a result get to places slower by never taking a toll road, in over 20 years. We had tolls. You throw a couple of quarters in, and you go on your way. They were replaced by the electronic toll tag. Which is linked to your name, your credit card, and keeps a timestamped transaction history, forever. There was a custody battle, and the divorced husband got the kids. The court looked at the wife's toll records, showing she comes home from work real late, and that would impact the quality of life for kids. Boy, I bet she never thought she'd lose her kids by using a toll tag. I bet she did think after the divorce she'd have to start coming home earlier and probably set it up with her manager. We'll never know. Thing is, it should have been an anonymous electronic RFID wallet you reload, to replace the function of the quarter coin, and it became a government tracking device attached to your car. Now answer me this: is your ISP responsible for you downloading that torrent full of child porn? Well, that's probably a bad example. Is Cisco, the maker of the network switch that ISP uses, legally responsible for it?

autoexec 3y ago
> The court looked at the wife's toll records, showing she comes home from work real late, and that would impact the quality of life for kids. Boy, I bet she never thought she'd lose her kids by using a toll tag. Do you have a source for that? Google wasn't being helpful.
- thedirt0115 3y ago
  This got me interested as well. I couldn't find the specific incident they were referring to with a brief search, but I did find this, which implies that toll data can be and has been used in child custody disputes, etc: https://familylawyermagazine.com/articles/i-pass-tollway-data-divorce-and-privacy/ https://familylawyermagazine.com/articles/i-pass-tollway-dat...

SirMaster 3y ago

I mean, we don't even charge the weapon maker or the weapon seller in this case, so why would we charge the money processor?