I think this is mostly targeted at prepaid Visa cards which are very commonly used for money laundering.
I keep my wallets in a private cloud. I don't see how a border agent could know they exist.
I think the bigger question is 'does dark money enable crime?'. If the answer is yes, then we as a tech community need to consider the impact of legitimizing cryptocurrent and enabling unfettered criminal enterprise.
> I think this is mostly targeted at prepaid Visa cards which are very commonly used for money laundering.
I've never heard of prepaid Visa cards being called a "tumbler of digital currency", which the bill specifically deals with. It seems clear whoever wrote this knows about Bitcoin etc.
> I keep my wallets in a private cloud. I don't see how a border agent could know they exist.
It's well documented that they're poking around on social media for information on folks. You've posted that you have one on an account whose profile mentions your employer's name. I wouldn't be shocked if they could connect the dots pretty trivially.
During the last election cycle I stripped all of my online social media of any real life references. Except for my name on Facebook and my LinkedIn account, which I never use for non-work stuff or private opinions. Definitely doesn't make their work impossible, but why make it easy?
The amendment also covers "prepaid access devices", which is apparently the technically-specific way to talk about things like prepaid Visa cards. Quote:
>A prepaid access program is an arrangement through which one or more persons acting together provide access to funds or the value of funds that have been paid in advance and can be retrieved or transferred at some point in the future through an electronic device or vehicle, such as a card, code, electronic serial number, mobile identification number, or personal identification number.
Any technology enables crime. Have you considered the impact of legitimizing cars, weapons, phones, audio recorders, drones, etc?
Edit: not sure how to interpret the replies to my post ("currency enables crime"). Yes the dollar/euro/pound/cryptocurrency enable crime. Should we ban them all? No. Both government-controlled currencies and cryptocurrencies enable economic activity, hence create wealth, and are a net benefit to society. Besides more illegal activity is conducted (in absolute and relative numbers) in fiat than in cryptocurrency so that's even less of a reason to ban cryptocurrency.
Currency definitely enables crime. There are a few reasons why institutions (government, banks) are crazy about digital currency: auditing (taxes, crime), fees, negative interest rates.
We are in the process of delegitimizing cars, weapons are already taboo and illegal in liberal cities, Congress keeps trying to open phones to law enforcement, HN is enamored of European-style privacy laws that make it an onerous legal liability to have the capability for audio recording (or any other data collection), and drones were heavily curtailed by the FAA with widespread public support.
We already have currency, and it works much better than any cryptocurrency. The specific problem cryptocurrency solves is vulnerability to law enforcement (i.e. central control).
I would also be concerned if someone started selling weapons whose defining feature was their resistance to homicide investigators.
> Besides more illegal activity is conducted (in absolute and relative numbers) in fiat than in cryptocurrency.
(emphasis mine)
I'm honestly surprised by that. (Especially after it's seems to be the go-to method of payment for ransomware which should lead to huge amounts of illegal activity.)
Well, the Silk Road and its replacements have been orders of magnitude larger than the "ransomware industry". And there's arguably no moral requirement to obey immoral laws. So overall, cryptocurrencies have been a huge win for freedom.
But I believe that "being a win for freedom and being a win for crime" necessarily overlap. Maybe entirely. Because anything that allows some authorities to curtail crime necessarily allows other authorities to curtail freedom.
Are you arguing laws against money laundering are immoral? Because they are a practical requirement in order to levy any type of income tax. Or are you claiming that Silk Road style sites are only illegal because of immoral laws? I get that the HN crowd generally has a libertarian and anti-prohibition bent, but outside of illicit drugs there are some inarguably horrible things being sold on those sites like child porn and murders for hire. Doesn't the government and law enforcement have a moral requirement to combat that?
Yes, laws against "money laundering" are immoral. They're an invasion of privacy. And income taxation is a joke. There are tax breaks for the wealthy. And they leverage them to pay even less. Cryptocurrencies democratize tax avoidance.
I suspect that most murder-for-hire offers have either been scams or entrapment. And regarding child porn, I can't imagine why anyone would pay for it. There's so much out there for free, after all.
Governments do whatever governments do. But so do people.
Fair enough I guess. I don't see much value in discussing this with a person who thinks taxation is a joke or that people buying child porn shouldn't be a concern because it can be acquired for free. Our opinions are already too far apart to find much common ground.
They don't have to know about them. They just have to ask you about them. I don't know the exact legality around border agents, but I can't imagine lying to them working out well for you.
I am pretty sure that only applies to certain federal agents - while under investigation, and on forms that are official submissions.
There are, as near as I recall, certain other specific lies that are in the State's jurisdiction, such as giving the police a fake name. Something like 15 years ago, SCOTUS also ruled against a guy who refused to give the police his name when he was questioned.
For the most part, you can tell a regular cop all sorts of lies, with some exceptions like your name. Lying to the FBI is against the law, if you're being questioned in regards to a criminal matter - I am unsure about civil matters. You sure as hell can't lie on the forms you sign when you cross the border. No, they will be right pissed if you do that.
I am not a lawyer, but I have spent some time in court, dated a lawyer, and taken a few electives on the subject. So, this isn't legal advice but I'm pretty sure this is reasonably accurate.
Sort of off topic, they pick students to hold mock trials, hearings, etc., and do this in a mock courtroom at many universities. If you audit the right course, you can volunteer and you can learn all sorts of neat things. You can also just go sit in the courtroom at your local court. It's open to the public, most of the time. It's a great way to learn more about procedure.
Anyhow, like always, consult a qualified legal professional in your jurisdiction, should you need legal advice.
> I am pretty sure that only applies to certain federal agents - while under investigation, and on forms that are official submissions.
If digital currencies really take off (i.e. beyond just a niche group of speculators and early adopters), expect customs forms to include a question on it, then.
You already have to promise not to be a member of Al Qaeda on some immigration forms.
I'm being downvoted as the GP and not sure why. People think that the crypto algorithm keeps their coins safe from the government. The only thing the government needs to do is ask you for them.
Along the way, we also need to consider what is considered crime and what is not. Not all 'crime' as defined by law, is immoral. And sometimes, enabling certain activities can be very illegal, yet profoundly moral. Of course, we all likely won't agree on what counts as illegal/moral.
Your point is not invalid, just more nuanced or complex perhaps that your direct point suggests.
It's a crime if you live there and it's considered the law of the land that you have broken. Don't like it and can't effect change lawfully? Move.
This is the best explanation I have seen. Morality is a completely artificial construct. There is no such thing as something being provably evil or good. It's not a math equation, but rather the consensus of your peers.
I love crypocurrency as much as the next guy, but I also enjoy the happiness I get from living in a law abiding community.
Sure. Tomorrow morning you wake up and your country has mandated DNA testing for all citizens. Anyone who does not have approved genomes will be summarily sterilized 'for the good of the future of the citizenry'. Oh, and they also made it illegal to avoid the DNA testing, and to move out of your current location.
> It's not a math equation, but rather the consensus of your peers.
Those two ideas aren't inherently contradictory. It's pretty easy to ground metaethics by asserting something like "human genetics encodes an instinctual preference function for social mores into human brains." Then, "morality" is an objective fact: an objective fact about what actions are acceptable to (neurotypical) humans.
Yeah and a century ago social mores said interracial marriage was immoral and neurotypical humans of the time believed it because society. Ain't nothing objective there.
Social mores in one particular culture said that. We don't look at what particular cultures think when trying to figure out what morality is. Instead, we look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_universal s — beliefs shared by every culture across every time period, even ones completely disconnected from outside contact for millenia.
Ok, so what out of that link isn't incredibly abstract?
Special speech for special occasions
You want to define that?
* Toys, playthings
* Death rituals, mourning
* Feasting
* Body adornment
* Hairstyles
* Art
It's a good thing toys and art are culturally universal, but they don't say a thing about morals. It's just that it's hard to think of many things that are actually universally accepted as moral. Even lying is acceptable in various religions in different contexts. We as societies can't even agree on what is and isn't murder or if it's acceptable.
Do you really believe there is nothing right or wrong regardless of what your peers say? If so, I find you deeply troubling.
Most things aren't math equations. All distinctions in the real world are messy, seemingly arbitrary at some level. Can you define what it means for something to be alive or dead? I seriously doubt it. Yet we do not dispute the existence of such distinctions. The concept of life improves our understanding of the world despite its slipperyness.
Most utilitarians turn out not to actually think that way in real-life situations so I wouldn't worry about it. Moral realism is tied to religion for a lot of people and so some non-religious folks just reject it out of hand, which I think is a mistake.
IMO, moral truth exists as much as scientific truth we just interact with/discover it differently. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a good place to start if the topic interests you:
"Most utilitarians turn out not to actually think that way in real-life situations so I wouldn't worry about it."
I agree based on lots of personal experience with and research on people who talked utilitarian but acted different when the law's enforcers were focused on them. I fought with myself over this in many situations balancing the struggle between my own survival/well-being vs supporting principles. Takes discipline and sacrifice to practice utilitarianism. What it took me led me to be suspicious of people who preach it who spontaneously do what benefits them esp at others' expense even in small ways.
Yeah, sure sounds like science to me: "It is worth noting that, while moral realists are united in their cognitivism and in their rejection of error theories, they disagree among themselves not only about which moral claims are actually true but about what it is about the world that makes those claims true. Moral realism is not a particular substantive moral view
> Don't like it and can't effect change lawfully? Move.
Great idea. Why bother ever trying to improve things where you live when you can just move to fantasy-land where the laws are in perfect agreement with your beliefs?
This argument makes even less sense in the US since the government makes you get permission, provide years of tax records, and pay them a huge amount of money (over $2000 plus some large percentage of your holdings) to renounce your citizenship. You can't "just leave".
Statutes are a lagging (not leading) indicator of consensus about acceptable behavior. Law is evidence to help establish that society, at least at what time, found a certain behavior unacceptable. It also has to be willing to enforce it rigorously and consistently today.
It's good hygeine to repeal or amend laws that we aren't willing to enforce, but it doesn't always happen. If it does happen, it's almost always after, not before, doing what the law prohibits becomes widespread and socially acceptable.
It might be morally necessary to abstain from behaviors your community finds unacceptable. It might also be morally necessary for the executive branch to enforce the laws exactly as written, no matter how poorly they track moral consensus, until the laws are changed.
It doesn't follow that it's morally obligatory to follow the law just because it's the law.
> It's not a math equation, but rather the consensus of your peers.
Make that the consensus of your peers' so called representatives in Congress, because we're not direct democracies like ancient Greece. Politicians took care to subvert the power from the people to line up their pockets.
You don't want to use raw technological power to achieve your aims. The political process is actually alive and well. It's just that there happen to be too many people insisting on their wrong opinions, at least in regard to drug policy.
Note that societies have actually come a long way in the last decade or two, current setbacks notwithstanding. With all the noise the certainly not perfect US political system produces, it's easy to overlook how many things actually work quite well, both in the US and in other democratic countries.
Other crimes that cryptocurrencies may be useful for are obviously tax evasion, and any sort of money landing from all sorts of schemes. I really don't see a reason why we should rethink the basic principle of fair taxation, or, in general, why we should abandon the current system based on law for one where might is right.
It's more or less true that democratic societies tend to have developed in a direction we'd consider 'right', and I'd even agree that this direction is "right" in a sort of universal sense. But it's not actually the majority opinion that makes it "right".
In fact, the most impressive advancements have been in protecting people from the "tyranny of the majority". Things like due process even for terrorists, or presidents, or pedophiles would probably not get a majority.
Think about it: the system based on majority-rule happens to be the best if you're generally hated by everyone. If people like you, Russia doesn't actually feel that different :)
That is completely irrelevant. The point is this is a reason to better regulate or ban digital currency, because it's massively helping the proliferation of ransomware. That people who get attacked by ransomware don't know how to use such currency is such a bizarrely irrelevant statement.
> I keep my wallets in a private cloud. I don't see how a border agent could know they exist.
When you exchange over $10k in cryptocurrency to actual cash, the exchange will have the obligation if reporting it. Also don't even think of breaking the exchange into 10 transactions of $1k because that too is covered by the law.
"I keep my wallets in a private cloud. I don't see how a border agent could know they exist."
"Do you have a private cloud? Do you own cryptocurrency?"
Watch your reaction while you realise that you've likely committed an offence if you deny it, etc.
One day in the near future, they likely have algorithms giving them a likelihood that you fit the type, and that will suggest their line of questioning - whether it's about data storage or propensity to work while on a tourist visa, or whatever else.
In the short term I imagine it will work, but I don't think it will work forever.
Money laundering in practical terms means whatever the government wants it to mean. It has been successfully prosecuted as the simple deposit of funds the government doesn't like the origins of. The obstacle isn't law, it's the resources required to bring a successful case.
>The obstacle isn't law, it's the resources required to bring a successful case.
I think this is understated in this thread.
In order to have effective governance on any level, you need people to "buy" into it willingly. It will only become easier for those who want to opt out of such despite the assumed risks of doing so.
The resources [human, capital] are only getting more expensive for governance systems to use to effectively go after such on any meaningful level.
For me (not from or in the US), I see this as US Congress legitimising cryptocurrencies. If not fully, at least partially.
Keeping legislation up to date with the latest methods of money laundering is their job. Digital currencies (in all of their forms) are the latest methods used. Therefore, including them specifically in legislation will help law enforcement combat money laundering.
This will mean exchanges will need to cooperate with US agencies, if they operate any business in the US, and provide records of holders and balances, etc.
This reduces risk for the businesses and individuals. At the moment, it's like the wild west (e.g. bankruptcies at Mt Gox and Cryptsy, large scale wallet thefts, WannaCry, etc.). Enabling US law enforcement to subpoena records from these exchanges will mean the 'dark money' moves out, and legitimacy takes it's place.
I see this as a good thing. For those of us NOT laundering money through cryptocurrencies, this adds to the argument that they are legitimate replacements for the existing currencies of the world to perform transactions.
That's how I see it from a completely external perspective.
You're probably right, but it could just as easily be signs that authorities finally are starting to understand them and it's step one in a crackdown.
I'll admit, that's partially due to a bias due to Bitcoin enthusiasts turning every event into a positive. Mt. Gox disaster? Oh well it's just the community policing itself. It's the sign of a healthy economy. To the moon!
Sounds like an exaggeration, but checkout r/bitcoin and you'll know that sentiment.
The really fun part about this is without tumblers or with regulated tumblers, you've now got a currency where every single transaction is globally available and traceable. Hits money launderers but hope you like the government tracking you. Cash transactions don't seem so bad after all.
That is almost true. However, transferring value between cryptos is trivial and at least Monero and zcash allow you to tumble your transactions and essentially completely disguise the inputs and outputs from anyone trying to search the public ledger.
The difference here being that the next step can easily be to impose requirements on merchants to do checks, and require them to refuse to honour transactions where payments comes from known tumblers etc.
In the UK, if you apply for a mortgage now, for example, your solicitor and mortgage provider will ask questions about where your deposit is coming from, and require documentation if it looks like it's not from regular savings or the like. Today that is manual and paper based, and so only viable for large purchases like a house, and additional documentation is only requested if there are indications of fairly large payments in your last 6 months of bank statements. My ex was bitten by this when buying a house recently, as she received part of her dads estate via bank transfer from abroad, and had to chase down documentation from the executor to demonstrate that it was a legitimate source.
With crypto coins they could require execution of automated analysis of far more transactions going far further back in time.
Won't stop it from being used for crime, and won't prevent people from finding ways of making transactions anonymous, but the point is they don't need to "ban math" because that maths intersects with physical actions taken by humans on a regular basis.
Thankfully, the fundamentals of the technology prevent it from being entirely subverted. You can still choose to ignore these restrictions, just like with cash.
Yet it's way easier to hide 10 BTC than is to hide 10k USD. You can encrypt it and embed it in photos of cats for instance. To hide that amount of cash from airport security is rather difficult.
Yes. But it's transmission to/from meatspace that's already problematic. And this will make it harder in the US. There are services that sell cryptocurrencies anonymously, accepting cash, gold or silver by mail.
Cashing out anonymously is much harder. Receiving cash by mail could become the only viable option. And there's considerable risk of discovery. Strict compartmentalization of online cryptocurrencies and meatspace is arguably the safest option.
You could use a service to purchase visa gift cards or similar. That would have the benefit of being usable nearly everywhere plastic is accepted while being much harder to trace.
I don't see why everyone here would be in favor of this bill. Not only does it expand civil forfeiture, it also turns almost everyone who works or runs a legitimate business into a criminal. Everyone here seems to want more government, laws and regulations that will be used against regular people who would otherwise be law abiding citizens.
They got tricked by gov't propaganda into thinking that only criminals launder money when in fact money laundering has ben extended to saving over $10k in cash under your matress. If you do that then you're obviously a criminal and your cash can be confiscated, your bank accounts can be frozen without due trial or a court order. The hunt for money is on.
This is a far-reaching bill that gives the Feds much more discretionary authority over digital currencies. The reason it's so far reaching is that it tweaks definitions that are embedded in thousands of pages of existing laws and regulations. It's like changing stdio.h in C--one tweak could have a big impact throughout an entire system.
So let's wade through it.
Federal law (31 USC 5312) currently regulates "financial institutions," which are defined as including banks, credit card companies, insurance companies, securities dealers, loan issuers--and that's not even an exhaustive list! One of the categories that's currently regulated is: "an issuer, redeemer, or cashier of travelers’ checks, checks, money orders, or similar instruments."
The legislation would rewrite that definition to include:
(K) an issuer, redeemer, or cashier of travelers’ checks, checks, money orders, prepaid access devices, digital currency, or similar instruments, or any digital exchanger or tumbler of digital currency;
Another definition that gets changed is "monetary instruments," which expands to include prepaid access devices:
as the Secretary may prescribe by regulation, coins and currency of a foreign country, travelers’ checks, bearer negotiable instruments, bearer investment securities, bearer securities, stock on which title is passed on delivery, prepaid access devices, and similar material...
Prepaid access devices is a term of art that would now be defined broadly as:
an electronic device or vehicle, such as a card, plate, code, number, electronic serial number, mobile identification number, personal identification number, or other instrument, that provides a portal to funds or the value of funds that have been paid in advance and can be retrievable and transferable at some point in the future.
I don't know what the good senators are intending, but that seems pretty broad, and likely broader than necessary if their goal was to target prepaid Visa cards. Is a Bitcoin wallet "paid in advance" and "retrievable and transferable at some point in the future?" I'm not saying it necessarily is--what I am saying is that it's like wildcard matching when doing an 'rm -f', always a little dangerous. Better to be specific than something like any "portal to funds."
Fincen (part of Treasury) said in 2013 that
"A person's acceptance and/or transmission of convertible virtual currency cannot be characterized as providing or selling prepaid access because prepaid access is limited to real currencies." But that was based on the old definition, not the newly broadened one. (https://www.fincen.gov/resources/statutes-regulations/guidan...)
Now let's walk through some of the existing laws that reference these new definitions. A good start is the long list of existing Title 31 regulations primarily aimed at banks that would now get levied on any "issuer" or "redeemer" or "exchanger" of digital currency. That includes the obligation to:
- "Verify[] the identity of any person seeking to open an account" (31 USC 5318)
- "Maintain[] records of the information used to verify a person’s identity, including name, address, and other identifying information" (31 USC 5318)
- "Report any suspicious transaction" to the Feds (31 USC 5318)
- "Establish anti-money laundering programs, including, at a minimum" developing internal policies, compliance officer, training program, and independent audits (31 USC 5318)
- File reports on transactions (31 USC 5313)
- "Maintain appropriate procedures to ensure compliance with this subchapter and regul...
Thank you very much for this description. I did not understand the implications or effect the change had. My question is - as a number of exchanges operating in the US (polo, kraken, GDAX) require Id's or some form of verification, what changes are really required? New AML/Compliance departments?
Also will individuals P2P transmitting cryptocurrency have to perform these same checks?
I think there is a big difference between merely requiring IDs (which as you say may well be the case today) and being subject to thousands of pages of regulations, of which requiring IDs is only a subset. For example, a big part of those thousands of pages of regulations has to do with submitting SARs--suspicious activity reports about customer activity--to the Feds. They have a handy web interface, complete with a FAQ, for you to use to submit those reports: http://bsaefiling.fincen.treas.gov/main.html
As for individuals transmitting cryptocurrency, I haven't spent enough time with the bill and the existing part of Title 31 to be able to answer that question. I would point out, though, that other sections of the bill make existing law even more onerous than it is today.
This is clearly going after services like shapeshift.io. If you are unaware, shapeshift lets you transact between various cryptocurrencies on an exchange. The exchange doesn't hold record of the transactions, so you could legitimately buy BTC with a coinbase account linked to your bank account, exchange it to lite coin (or any other currency to) and have it deposited in a wallet you created anonymously, then exchange it back to BTC but to yet again an anonymously created wallet. At most it nips away a couple of percent, and now your BTC cannot be traced back to you even though you bought it with a bank account linked to your name. Its the easiest laundering that has ever existed. This bill would force shapeshift IO to maintain transaction records, game over.
I wonder if this applies to the latest generation of anonymous cryptocurrencies like Monero and Zcash, where the "exchanger or tumbler" is built in. Monero, in particular, supports only anonymous transactions: sender, receiver and amount are all hidden.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 164 ms ] threadI keep my wallets in a private cloud. I don't see how a border agent could know they exist.
I think the bigger question is 'does dark money enable crime?'. If the answer is yes, then we as a tech community need to consider the impact of legitimizing cryptocurrent and enabling unfettered criminal enterprise.
I've never heard of prepaid Visa cards being called a "tumbler of digital currency", which the bill specifically deals with. It seems clear whoever wrote this knows about Bitcoin etc.
> I keep my wallets in a private cloud. I don't see how a border agent could know they exist.
It's well documented that they're poking around on social media for information on folks. You've posted that you have one on an account whose profile mentions your employer's name. I wouldn't be shocked if they could connect the dots pretty trivially.
>A prepaid access program is an arrangement through which one or more persons acting together provide access to funds or the value of funds that have been paid in advance and can be retrieved or transferred at some point in the future through an electronic device or vehicle, such as a card, code, electronic serial number, mobile identification number, or personal identification number.
https://www.occ.treas.gov/news-issuances/bulletins/2011/bull...
So basically, the grandparent is asserting that the main thrust of the bill is the amendments that make prepaid cards covered.
Edit: not sure how to interpret the replies to my post ("currency enables crime"). Yes the dollar/euro/pound/cryptocurrency enable crime. Should we ban them all? No. Both government-controlled currencies and cryptocurrencies enable economic activity, hence create wealth, and are a net benefit to society. Besides more illegal activity is conducted (in absolute and relative numbers) in fiat than in cryptocurrency so that's even less of a reason to ban cryptocurrency.
in fact I'd go as far as to say that it's a driving force for Crime...
We already have currency, and it works much better than any cryptocurrency. The specific problem cryptocurrency solves is vulnerability to law enforcement (i.e. central control).
I would also be concerned if someone started selling weapons whose defining feature was their resistance to homicide investigators.
(emphasis mine)
I'm honestly surprised by that. (Especially after it's seems to be the go-to method of payment for ransomware which should lead to huge amounts of illegal activity.)
Could you link some sources?
How can there be any doubt in your mind that the answer is yes? The whole ransomware industry is only viable because bitcoin has succeeded.
But I believe that "being a win for freedom and being a win for crime" necessarily overlap. Maybe entirely. Because anything that allows some authorities to curtail crime necessarily allows other authorities to curtail freedom.
Sorry. It means we agree.
I suspect that most murder-for-hire offers have either been scams or entrapment. And regarding child porn, I can't imagine why anyone would pay for it. There's so much out there for free, after all.
Governments do whatever governments do. But so do people.
There are, as near as I recall, certain other specific lies that are in the State's jurisdiction, such as giving the police a fake name. Something like 15 years ago, SCOTUS also ruled against a guy who refused to give the police his name when he was questioned.
For the most part, you can tell a regular cop all sorts of lies, with some exceptions like your name. Lying to the FBI is against the law, if you're being questioned in regards to a criminal matter - I am unsure about civil matters. You sure as hell can't lie on the forms you sign when you cross the border. No, they will be right pissed if you do that.
I am not a lawyer, but I have spent some time in court, dated a lawyer, and taken a few electives on the subject. So, this isn't legal advice but I'm pretty sure this is reasonably accurate.
Sort of off topic, they pick students to hold mock trials, hearings, etc., and do this in a mock courtroom at many universities. If you audit the right course, you can volunteer and you can learn all sorts of neat things. You can also just go sit in the courtroom at your local court. It's open to the public, most of the time. It's a great way to learn more about procedure.
Anyhow, like always, consult a qualified legal professional in your jurisdiction, should you need legal advice.
If digital currencies really take off (i.e. beyond just a niche group of speculators and early adopters), expect customs forms to include a question on it, then.
You already have to promise not to be a member of Al Qaeda on some immigration forms.
Your point is not invalid, just more nuanced or complex perhaps that your direct point suggests.
This is the best explanation I have seen. Morality is a completely artificial construct. There is no such thing as something being provably evil or good. It's not a math equation, but rather the consensus of your peers.
I love crypocurrency as much as the next guy, but I also enjoy the happiness I get from living in a law abiding community.
What then?
Those two ideas aren't inherently contradictory. It's pretty easy to ground metaethics by asserting something like "human genetics encodes an instinctual preference function for social mores into human brains." Then, "morality" is an objective fact: an objective fact about what actions are acceptable to (neurotypical) humans.
Special speech for special occasions
You want to define that?
* Toys, playthings
* Death rituals, mourning
* Feasting
* Body adornment
* Hairstyles
* Art
It's a good thing toys and art are culturally universal, but they don't say a thing about morals. It's just that it's hard to think of many things that are actually universally accepted as moral. Even lying is acceptable in various religions in different contexts. We as societies can't even agree on what is and isn't murder or if it's acceptable.
Most things aren't math equations. All distinctions in the real world are messy, seemingly arbitrary at some level. Can you define what it means for something to be alive or dead? I seriously doubt it. Yet we do not dispute the existence of such distinctions. The concept of life improves our understanding of the world despite its slipperyness.
IMO, moral truth exists as much as scientific truth we just interact with/discover it differently. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a good place to start if the topic interests you:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-realism/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-anti-realism/
I agree based on lots of personal experience with and research on people who talked utilitarian but acted different when the law's enforcers were focused on them. I fought with myself over this in many situations balancing the struggle between my own survival/well-being vs supporting principles. Takes discipline and sacrifice to practice utilitarianism. What it took me led me to be suspicious of people who preach it who spontaneously do what benefits them esp at others' expense even in small ways.
Great idea. Why bother ever trying to improve things where you live when you can just move to fantasy-land where the laws are in perfect agreement with your beliefs?
This argument makes even less sense in the US since the government makes you get permission, provide years of tax records, and pay them a huge amount of money (over $2000 plus some large percentage of your holdings) to renounce your citizenship. You can't "just leave".
It's good hygeine to repeal or amend laws that we aren't willing to enforce, but it doesn't always happen. If it does happen, it's almost always after, not before, doing what the law prohibits becomes widespread and socially acceptable.
It might be morally necessary to abstain from behaviors your community finds unacceptable. It might also be morally necessary for the executive branch to enforce the laws exactly as written, no matter how poorly they track moral consensus, until the laws are changed.
It doesn't follow that it's morally obligatory to follow the law just because it's the law.
Make that the consensus of your peers' so called representatives in Congress, because we're not direct democracies like ancient Greece. Politicians took care to subvert the power from the people to line up their pockets.
Note that societies have actually come a long way in the last decade or two, current setbacks notwithstanding. With all the noise the certainly not perfect US political system produces, it's easy to overlook how many things actually work quite well, both in the US and in other democratic countries.
Other crimes that cryptocurrencies may be useful for are obviously tax evasion, and any sort of money landing from all sorts of schemes. I really don't see a reason why we should rethink the basic principle of fair taxation, or, in general, why we should abandon the current system based on law for one where might is right.
In fact, the most impressive advancements have been in protecting people from the "tyranny of the majority". Things like due process even for terrorists, or presidents, or pedophiles would probably not get a majority.
Think about it: the system based on majority-rule happens to be the best if you're generally hated by everyone. If people like you, Russia doesn't actually feel that different :)
all currency does this.
There is no we that comprises a coherent tech community.
People with malicious intent are also able to write code and assemble hardware.
When you exchange over $10k in cryptocurrency to actual cash, the exchange will have the obligation if reporting it. Also don't even think of breaking the exchange into 10 transactions of $1k because that too is covered by the law.
"Do you have a private cloud? Do you own cryptocurrency?"
Watch your reaction while you realise that you've likely committed an offence if you deny it, etc.
One day in the near future, they likely have algorithms giving them a likelihood that you fit the type, and that will suggest their line of questioning - whether it's about data storage or propensity to work while on a tourist visa, or whatever else.
In the short term I imagine it will work, but I don't think it will work forever.
"inserting before the semicolon at the end the following: “, or any digital exchanger or tumbler of digital currency”;
into a proper diff?
I think this is understated in this thread.
In order to have effective governance on any level, you need people to "buy" into it willingly. It will only become easier for those who want to opt out of such despite the assumed risks of doing so.
The resources [human, capital] are only getting more expensive for governance systems to use to effectively go after such on any meaningful level.
Keeping legislation up to date with the latest methods of money laundering is their job. Digital currencies (in all of their forms) are the latest methods used. Therefore, including them specifically in legislation will help law enforcement combat money laundering.
This will mean exchanges will need to cooperate with US agencies, if they operate any business in the US, and provide records of holders and balances, etc.
This reduces risk for the businesses and individuals. At the moment, it's like the wild west (e.g. bankruptcies at Mt Gox and Cryptsy, large scale wallet thefts, WannaCry, etc.). Enabling US law enforcement to subpoena records from these exchanges will mean the 'dark money' moves out, and legitimacy takes it's place.
I see this as a good thing. For those of us NOT laundering money through cryptocurrencies, this adds to the argument that they are legitimate replacements for the existing currencies of the world to perform transactions.
That's how I see it from a completely external perspective.
I'll admit, that's partially due to a bias due to Bitcoin enthusiasts turning every event into a positive. Mt. Gox disaster? Oh well it's just the community policing itself. It's the sign of a healthy economy. To the moon!
Sounds like an exaggeration, but checkout r/bitcoin and you'll know that sentiment.
The really fun part about this is without tumblers or with regulated tumblers, you've now got a currency where every single transaction is globally available and traceable. Hits money launderers but hope you like the government tracking you. Cash transactions don't seem so bad after all.
In the UK, if you apply for a mortgage now, for example, your solicitor and mortgage provider will ask questions about where your deposit is coming from, and require documentation if it looks like it's not from regular savings or the like. Today that is manual and paper based, and so only viable for large purchases like a house, and additional documentation is only requested if there are indications of fairly large payments in your last 6 months of bank statements. My ex was bitten by this when buying a house recently, as she received part of her dads estate via bank transfer from abroad, and had to chase down documentation from the executor to demonstrate that it was a legitimate source.
With crypto coins they could require execution of automated analysis of far more transactions going far further back in time.
Won't stop it from being used for crime, and won't prevent people from finding ways of making transactions anonymous, but the point is they don't need to "ban math" because that maths intersects with physical actions taken by humans on a regular basis.
Cashing out anonymously is much harder. Receiving cash by mail could become the only viable option. And there's considerable risk of discovery. Strict compartmentalization of online cryptocurrencies and meatspace is arguably the safest option.
So let's wade through it.
Federal law (31 USC 5312) currently regulates "financial institutions," which are defined as including banks, credit card companies, insurance companies, securities dealers, loan issuers--and that's not even an exhaustive list! One of the categories that's currently regulated is: "an issuer, redeemer, or cashier of travelers’ checks, checks, money orders, or similar instruments."
The legislation would rewrite that definition to include:
Another definition that gets changed is "monetary instruments," which expands to include prepaid access devices: Prepaid access devices is a term of art that would now be defined broadly as: I don't know what the good senators are intending, but that seems pretty broad, and likely broader than necessary if their goal was to target prepaid Visa cards. Is a Bitcoin wallet "paid in advance" and "retrievable and transferable at some point in the future?" I'm not saying it necessarily is--what I am saying is that it's like wildcard matching when doing an 'rm -f', always a little dangerous. Better to be specific than something like any "portal to funds."Fincen (part of Treasury) said in 2013 that "A person's acceptance and/or transmission of convertible virtual currency cannot be characterized as providing or selling prepaid access because prepaid access is limited to real currencies." But that was based on the old definition, not the newly broadened one. (https://www.fincen.gov/resources/statutes-regulations/guidan...)
Now let's walk through some of the existing laws that reference these new definitions. A good start is the long list of existing Title 31 regulations primarily aimed at banks that would now get levied on any "issuer" or "redeemer" or "exchanger" of digital currency. That includes the obligation to:
- "Verify[] the identity of any person seeking to open an account" (31 USC 5318)
- "Maintain[] records of the information used to verify a person’s identity, including name, address, and other identifying information" (31 USC 5318)
- "Report any suspicious transaction" to the Feds (31 USC 5318)
- "Establish anti-money laundering programs, including, at a minimum" developing internal policies, compliance officer, training program, and independent audits (31 USC 5318)
- File reports on transactions (31 USC 5313)
- "Maintain appropriate procedures to ensure compliance with this subchapter and regul...
Also will individuals P2P transmitting cryptocurrency have to perform these same checks?
As for individuals transmitting cryptocurrency, I haven't spent enough time with the bill and the existing part of Title 31 to be able to answer that question. I would point out, though, that other sections of the bill make existing law even more onerous than it is today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monero_(cryptocurrency)#Privac...