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Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

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Re: Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

#371

Post by s_q_b »

diyorgasms wrote: post #146
s_q_b wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's essentially an argument for a professional licensure system for software development. Setting aside that professional licensure requirements are anathema to the spirit of the hacker movement, they would likely have prevented the creation of a massive pool of technology companies, including Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook. Even that proposal would stifle innovation. However, what's being suggested by the OP is n…

I agree that these are all significant challenges. However I believe that in the absence of a licensing body, we as professionals can still reach consensus-based conclusions on minimum standards of professional ethics. And I suspect very strongly that the engineers on this particular project would have clearly violated any standards of professional ethics we could agree on.

How, where, and by what metric is this "consensus" established? What if you and I disagree? What if Microsoft and Apple disagree? Who decides?

Civil war amongst software developers, with utter lack of due process, and ostracism as punishment are not as pleasant to the ear as "consensus," but that's the end result of what you're proposing.

This, of course, misses the central flaw in the proposal: If "good" companies refuse to hire engineers with work history at "bad" companies, you'd be forcing the very engineers who now want to do work you consider "good" back into doing work you consider "bad."

Setting aside the horrific personal implications this ham-fisted approach would have, by its very nature, a refusal to hire policy would have the exact opposite effect that you intend.

Re: Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

#372

Post by jMyles »

dimino wrote: post #323
jMyles wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Rule of law" is supposed to mean that, absent adherence to its letter, self-defense with weapons of your own is not only proper but essential in order for liberty to persevere. Although your anarchic mindset is appealing to me, I'm less ready to give up on the phrase and concept of "rule of law," which I think still has a place in a free information age.

It's literally meant to mean the opposite of that.

Huh?

Re: Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

#373

Post by dragonwriter »

cmdrfred wrote: post #181
50CNT wrote: post #32

That is physically revolting. First you have civil-asset forfeiture that let's police seize money from you when you are carrying large amounts of cash (with a generous false positive rate potentially disastrous to victims). Now to get around that, you could try handling everything by card or bank transaction (unless you're one of the unfortunate few without access to a bank account due to low credit rating or other l…

Last revolution was the civil war. The people at the top forgot what the people at the bottom are capable of.

> Last revolution was the civil war.

That depends how you define "revolution" (if you set the right scale cut-off, it was the last armed revolt meeting the cutoff, but not all "revolutions" are "armed revolts" and vice versa; particularly, for the latter, "revolution" often implies success, not merely an attempt, at replacing the aspects of the status quo ante against which the putative revolution is aligned, which those revolting in the Civil War spectacularly failed to do.)

One could argue that some or all of the suffrage movement, temperance movement, and civil rights movement (and maybe others) were "revolutions" that are more recent -- and more successful (if only in the short-term, in the second case) -- than the Civil War, though none of them were primarily armed revolts.

Re: Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

#376

Post by x1798DE »

I think this is the first time I've thought it would be useful to have a device like the ill-fated Coin. Not that I keep money on prepaid cards, but if I did, it would be nice to back up my cards at home so that if stopped by the police I could pre-emptively delete the memory of the meta-card.

Re: Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

#377

Post by orbitingpluto »

adrr wrote: post #351
downandout wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In almost cases, payroll cards are just prepaid cards that an employer has setup with a given prepaid card company for employees that don't have bank accounts, so yes.

Scary. These prepaid debit cards are being used everywhere in lieu of traditional checks from unemployment benefits, short term disability(maternity benefits) etc.

The thing that I don't understand is that these prepaid debit cards are only loaded from the government or your employer, hence guaranteeing the money is legal. Yet these cards are what is being targeted, because only the poor use them.

Re: Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

#378

Post by vacri »

sgnelson wrote: post #340
mcbits wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like I'm living in the Matrix when I see things like this. There are people out there - lawyers and judges, who must be fairly smart to finish law school - who think "United States v. $124,700" makes perfect sense.

I was told when I first started graduate school that it's not about how smart one is, but rather it's about perseverance, the ability to jump through bureaucratic hoops, bite your tongue and do what you're told. I have come to believe this since I've met some incredibly brilliant PhD's, but I've also met some incredibly dumb PhD's.

A PhD is more about elbow-grease than intellect. You do need some intellectual chops (in your field - you can be very naive outside it), but you need perseverance more than anything.

I've met some PhDs who would run rings around anyone in their niche, but would be (metaphorically) unable to tie their shoelaces by themselves.

Re: Police use new device to seize money in bank accounts or on prepaid cards

#380

Post by moribondus »

The police will keep encroaching until they meet some kind of resistance, which will not easily materialize because people here would be the first ones to utterly condemn respect-instilling reprisals.

If everybody else around you accepts to get arbitrarily molested in the butt, you either accept it too, or else you move out.

I have personally chosen to move out. Unfortunately, you can see the United Nations, USAID, international NGOs and similar organizations coming over here to convince the locals to accept similar abuse from their own government, by advocating "the rule of law". Of course, there are also the Christian organizations advocating to the locals to offer their other cheek to such thefting police.

Since I cannot keep "moving away", at some point I will have no other option than to finally make a stand.

The Art of War says that the secret of success consists in never letting the enemy choose the time and the place. You must always choose the time and the place by yourself. Therefore, it suggests that it is us who must schedule forceful attacks against the police. Seriously, I am all for it.

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