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> This is like complaining about DUIs being illegal because we already have laws banning manslaughter. The premise of DUIs is to punish a person acting reckles

> This is like complaining about DUIs being illegal because we already have laws banning manslaughter. The premise of DUIs is to punish a person acting recklessly. The premise of KYC is to punish a third party for not conducting mass surveillance on predominantly innocent people in case one of them commits a crime. It's hard to see how these are analogous. > Practically every prosecution of money-laundering services included evidence of knowledge by the operator that their customers included people committing crimes. This is quite a fig leaf for any entity operating at scale. The customers of any major bank will obviously include people committing crimes -- they have millions of customers. They also have thousands of employees, and then some percentage of them will be criminals as well. Expecting the intersection of these to be literally zero is an unreasonable standard. More to the point, the underlying problem is what it incentivizes them to do, i.e. manufacture some opaque and arbitrary indicators and then conduct mass surveillance and punish innocent people for running afoul of secret rules.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> premise of DUIs is to punish a person acting recklessly. The premise of KYC is to punish a third party for not conducting mass surveillance on predominantly innocent people in case one of them commits a crime. It's hard to see how these are analogous You don't see how a bank not doing KYC and thereby financing terrorists and Pyongyang could be seen as behaving recklessly? > quite a fig leaf for any entity operating at scale Sure. It's why a lot of anti-money laundering isn't prosecuted and why OP's complaint strikes me as silly. > conduct mass surveillance U.S. AML law is actually somewhat terrible for mass surveillance. Records are held at each private institution. This is why, if you've ever been party to wire fraud, it takes the Feds hours to days to gather records. It's pull, not push. The practical arms of mass surveillance are the credit/debit card rails. (And, increasingly, crypto.)
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > You don't see how a bank not doing KYC and thereby financing terrorists and Pyongyang could be seen as behaving recklessly? Even if that were a reasonable premise, the analogy would then be automakers not doing KYC and thereby enabling drunk drivers to have cars. Which is a much more controversial claim, and it's not at all obvious why carmakers should be the ones deciding who gets to drive. Which is the reason the premise is unreasonable. Is it reckless for a general store to sell ski masks without investigating their customers? That's not the right place to address the problem. > It's why a lot of anti-money laundering isn't prosecuted and why OP's complaint strikes me as silly. Laws that are commonly violated and selectively enforced are bad laws. > U.S. AML law is actually somewhat terrible for mass surveillance. Just having it inside of megabanks is already mass surveillance, because then the bank is using it for things and the user can't switch to a bank that doesn't collect the information because the law prohibits that. Moreover, the data is dangerous as soon as it's collected even if it isn't currently being centrally indexed, because its existence allows the central database to be created ex post facto. Turnkey totalitarianism is bad. > The practical arms of mass surveillance are the credit/debit card rails. How are you distinguishing this? Those companies are financial institutions that have to do KYC/AML.
s1artibartfast 2y ago
Drivers under the influence isn't necessarily reckless, but is banned due to a strong association with reckless action. The crime of DUI is not contingent on the actual facts, risk, and danger presented in a given situation. The association with realized harm is probabilistic in nature.
- iphoneisbetter 2y ago
  I agree. The problem isn't drunk driving. The problem is drunk crashing.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    Both can be a problem, depending on the problem statement, but the harm clearly occurs with the crashing. Drunk driving is an upstream pre-requisite to drunk crashing.
  - dpig_ 2y ago
    All skills require practice, but they simply won't let us get good.
- haswell 2y ago
  > Drivers under the influence isn't necessarily reckless, but is banned due to a strong association with reckless action I’m trying to understand this. It is well documented that consuming alcohol impairs thinking, reaction time, motor function, etc. How is the decision to drive a multi-thousand pound vehicle in the proximity of other humans while in that state not itself reckless? You seem to be arguing that the problem primarily exists when some percentage of impaired drivers start to drive recklessly. But given the baseline impairment, how is the act of driving not inherently reckless? Drunk driving crashes don’t just happen because someone decided to go crazy and drive 130mph or something similar. They also happen because the impaired person fails at basic aspects of driving like staying in their lane, stopping in time, seeing pedestrians, etc. > The crime of DUI is not contingent on the actual facts, risk, and danger presented in a given situation. DUI is a crime based on the fact that people driving under the influence are significantly more likely to harm others, and the baseline risk is high enough to make driving in such a state unacceptable. Even with laws in place banning it, alcohol is a leading cause of vehicle related deaths and there are quite a few of them every year. It seem problematic to argue that these laws aren’t based on actual facts and real danger when both are well documented. > The association with realized harm is probabilistic in nature The same could be said about almost every kind of harm you can think of. It’s unclear what someone is supposed to take from this statement.
stickfigure 2y ago
> Expecting the intersection of these to be literally zero is an unreasonable standard. Nobody expects the intersection to be zero - not the banks, not the regulators. The rule is that banks must take prudent measures, and the definition of that has evolved over time (as financial crime has evolved over time). Google "risk-based anti-money laundering approach" or if you'd like a more thorough introduction, listen to the Dark Money Files podcast. I have libertarian sympathies too, especially since most AML rules were originally established to fight the war on drugs (my sympathies lie with the dealers, sorry). But I'm pretty happy to make life hard for terrorists, bad governments, and kleptocrats - who, unlike the characters in Reefer Madness, are not just bogeymen.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> premise of DUIs is to punish a person acting recklessly. The premise of KYC is to punish a third party for not conducting mass surveillance on predominantly innocent people in case one of them commits a crime. It's hard to see how these are analogous You don't see how a bank not doing KYC and thereby financing terrorists and Pyongyang could be seen as behaving recklessly? > quite a fig leaf for any entity operating at scale Sure. It's why a lot of anti-money laundering isn't prosecuted and why OP's complaint strikes me as silly. > conduct mass surveillance U.S. AML law is actually somewhat terrible for mass surveillance. Records are held at each private institution. This is why, if you've ever been party to wire fraud, it takes the Feds hours to days to gather records. It's pull, not push. The practical arms of mass surveillance are the credit/debit card rails. (And, increasingly, crypto.)

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> You don't see how a bank not doing KYC and thereby financing terrorists and Pyongyang could be seen as behaving recklessly? Even if that were a reasonable premise, the analogy would then be automakers not doing KYC and thereby enabling drunk drivers to have cars. Which is a much more controversial claim, and it's not at all obvious why carmakers should be the ones deciding who gets to drive. Which is the reason the premise is unreasonable. Is it reckless for a general store to sell ski masks without investigating their customers? That's not the right place to address the problem. > It's why a lot of anti-money laundering isn't prosecuted and why OP's complaint strikes me as silly. Laws that are commonly violated and selectively enforced are bad laws. > U.S. AML law is actually somewhat terrible for mass surveillance. Just having it inside of megabanks is already mass surveillance, because then the bank is using it for things and the user can't switch to a bank that doesn't collect the information because the law prohibits that. Moreover, the data is dangerous as soon as it's collected even if it isn't currently being centrally indexed, because its existence allows the central database to be created ex post facto. Turnkey totalitarianism is bad. > The practical arms of mass surveillance are the credit/debit card rails. How are you distinguishing this? Those companies are financial institutions that have to do KYC/AML.

s1artibartfast 2y ago

Drivers under the influence isn't necessarily reckless, but is banned due to a strong association with reckless action. The crime of DUI is not contingent on the actual facts, risk, and danger presented in a given situation. The association with realized harm is probabilistic in nature.

iphoneisbetter 2y ago
I agree. The problem isn't drunk driving. The problem is drunk crashing.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  Both can be a problem, depending on the problem statement, but the harm clearly occurs with the crashing. Drunk driving is an upstream pre-requisite to drunk crashing.
- dpig_ 2y ago
  All skills require practice, but they simply won't let us get good.
haswell 2y ago
> Drivers under the influence isn't necessarily reckless, but is banned due to a strong association with reckless action I’m trying to understand this. It is well documented that consuming alcohol impairs thinking, reaction time, motor function, etc. How is the decision to drive a multi-thousand pound vehicle in the proximity of other humans while in that state not itself reckless? You seem to be arguing that the problem primarily exists when some percentage of impaired drivers start to drive recklessly. But given the baseline impairment, how is the act of driving not inherently reckless? Drunk driving crashes don’t just happen because someone decided to go crazy and drive 130mph or something similar. They also happen because the impaired person fails at basic aspects of driving like staying in their lane, stopping in time, seeing pedestrians, etc. > The crime of DUI is not contingent on the actual facts, risk, and danger presented in a given situation. DUI is a crime based on the fact that people driving under the influence are significantly more likely to harm others, and the baseline risk is high enough to make driving in such a state unacceptable. Even with laws in place banning it, alcohol is a leading cause of vehicle related deaths and there are quite a few of them every year. It seem problematic to argue that these laws aren’t based on actual facts and real danger when both are well documented. > The association with realized harm is probabilistic in nature The same could be said about almost every kind of harm you can think of. It’s unclear what someone is supposed to take from this statement.

stickfigure 2y ago

> Expecting the intersection of these to be literally zero is an unreasonable standard. Nobody expects the intersection to be zero - not the banks, not the regulators. The rule is that banks must take prudent measures, and the definition of that has evolved over time (as financial crime has evolved over time). Google "risk-based anti-money laundering approach" or if you'd like a more thorough introduction, listen to the Dark Money Files podcast. I have libertarian sympathies too, especially since most AML rules were originally established to fight the war on drugs (my sympathies lie with the dealers, sorry). But I'm pretty happy to make life hard for terrorists, bad governments, and kleptocrats - who, unlike the characters in Reefer Madness, are not just bogeymen.