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The EU's legislation has been decidedly mixed, and not an unalloyed good. Makes me wish there was a functional mechanism by which different jurisdictions could

The EU's legislation has been decidedly mixed, and not an unalloyed good. Makes me wish there was a functional mechanism by which different jurisdictions could have an overall collaborative framework and experiment with different approaches without eventually deciding to force others to comply. I had some hope of the EU being that, but both the US and the EU have trended towards homogenization. I wonder if, in a hundred years, the EU government will claim as much power at the EU-wide level as the US federal government. So much harm has been done in the name of AML/KYC. Money laundering is auxiliary to some other activity that governments define as "evil". Laundering the proceeds of some activity a government does not approve of is exactly as good or evil as whatever the activity itself is, and as always, law and morality are two different things. When passing such provisions, governments will always cite the worst possible activity whose proceeds might be laundered, but the resulting powers are far too easy to abuse.

delusional 2y ago
Do you have any example of when these powers were abused? Where I am, we have seen massive money laundering scandals, and I have yet to hear of anyone abusing it. My read is that the abuse currently comes from not applying it enough to stuff you want to make money from, not over applying it to things you disagree with.
- JoshTriplett 2y ago
  It's a component of pervasive surveillance. But, as one of many examples, consider the many stories of someone going around with a larger than commonly carried amount of cash, such as the deposits of a business that accepts cash or the savings of someone who is underbanked, and is presumed to be up to something and that pretense is used to seize the cash with no recourse or reasonable legal proceeding or likely hope of timely recovery.
  - pjc50 2y ago
    > consider the many stories of someone going around with a larger than commonly carried amount of cash, such as the deposits of a business that accepts cash or the savings of someone who is underbanked, and is presumed to be up to something and that pretense is used to seize the cash with no recourse or reasonable legal proceeding or likely hope of timely recovery. .. in the US. I'm sure there must be examples of this happening in Europe, but it seems much less of a thing?
  - delusional 2y ago
    I've not heard of anything like that in the EU. I'd love to read the articles though.
7bit 2y ago
[flagged]
- tomhow 2y ago
  > ROFL! Are you suggesting there is no framework? Do the basic research before spouting your propaganda! Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
pjc50 2y ago
So the thing about physical cash is that handling it gets (roughly) linearly harder with the amount. Whether that's coins, notes, silver, gold or whatever. It is relatively easy to hand over $100 for private purposes, but it is seriously difficult to move $100,000,000 without attracting attention. Digital money flattens that out. With cryptocurrency you can move either of those values equally easy. A few times people have done so by mistake! This presents a new kind of risk, because suddenly a completely invisible empire of organized crime, bribery, or enough money to destabilize a government is possible. The EU is choosing the "high trust, high transparency, high enforcement" path. The US is now choosing the "open bribery of the President through his personal cryptocurrency" approach. Let's see how that works out. (meanwhile, all the "police/courts rob person of their life savings in cash" asset forfeiture stories I hear about are from the US? Doesn't this happen in Europe? Or could it be that the different legal structure doesn't facilitate this?)
tremon 2y ago
by which different jurisdictions could have an overall collaborative framework and experiment with different approaches Is that like different countries inside the EU implementing their own laws and drawing from that experience to influence the shape of EU laws? Or how neighbouring countries (like DACH, Benelux, Scandinavia or the Iberian peninsula) use regular international cooperation to shape cluster-local policies without involving the entire Union? No, we don't have any of that here.
- JoshTriplett 2y ago
  That's very much the hope. I'm observing that the EU seems to be doing a lot more legislating of its own and removing variation in undesirable ways.

delusional 2y ago

Do you have any example of when these powers were abused? Where I am, we have seen massive money laundering scandals, and I have yet to hear of anyone abusing it. My read is that the abuse currently comes from not applying it enough to stuff you want to make money from, not over applying it to things you disagree with.

JoshTriplett 2y ago
It's a component of pervasive surveillance. But, as one of many examples, consider the many stories of someone going around with a larger than commonly carried amount of cash, such as the deposits of a business that accepts cash or the savings of someone who is underbanked, and is presumed to be up to something and that pretense is used to seize the cash with no recourse or reasonable legal proceeding or likely hope of timely recovery.
- pjc50 2y ago
  > consider the many stories of someone going around with a larger than commonly carried amount of cash, such as the deposits of a business that accepts cash or the savings of someone who is underbanked, and is presumed to be up to something and that pretense is used to seize the cash with no recourse or reasonable legal proceeding or likely hope of timely recovery. .. in the US. I'm sure there must be examples of this happening in Europe, but it seems much less of a thing?
- delusional 2y ago
  I've not heard of anything like that in the EU. I'd love to read the articles though.

7bit 2y ago

[flagged]

tomhow 2y ago
> ROFL! Are you suggesting there is no framework? Do the basic research before spouting your propaganda! Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

pjc50 2y ago

So the thing about physical cash is that handling it gets (roughly) linearly harder with the amount. Whether that's coins, notes, silver, gold or whatever. It is relatively easy to hand over $100 for private purposes, but it is seriously difficult to move $100,000,000 without attracting attention. Digital money flattens that out. With cryptocurrency you can move either of those values equally easy. A few times people have done so by mistake! This presents a new kind of risk, because suddenly a completely invisible empire of organized crime, bribery, or enough money to destabilize a government is possible. The EU is choosing the "high trust, high transparency, high enforcement" path. The US is now choosing the "open bribery of the President through his personal cryptocurrency" approach. Let's see how that works out. (meanwhile, all the "police/courts rob person of their life savings in cash" asset forfeiture stories I hear about are from the US? Doesn't this happen in Europe? Or could it be that the different legal structure doesn't facilitate this?)

tremon 2y ago

by which different jurisdictions could have an overall collaborative framework and experiment with different approaches Is that like different countries inside the EU implementing their own laws and drawing from that experience to influence the shape of EU laws? Or how neighbouring countries (like DACH, Benelux, Scandinavia or the Iberian peninsula) use regular international cooperation to shape cluster-local policies without involving the entire Union? No, we don't have any of that here.

JoshTriplett 2y ago
That's very much the hope. I'm observing that the EU seems to be doing a lot more legislating of its own and removing variation in undesirable ways.