401–410 of 717 posts
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If you know it is for human trafficking, why would you cut off the payment instead of arresting the people?
Because arresting people requires evidence and due process, which is work.
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If you look at the recent history of scandals that have had zero to negative reputational impact on politicians and public figures in Western democracies - we’re talking Access Hollywood , tax fraud, undeclared gifts, gross nepotism, punching journalists, flouting public health laws, sexual impropriety, lying about your career and life story, mishandling of classified information, and just plain incompetence - what o…
A resourced adversary relentlessly publicizing them?
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If you look at the recent history of scandals that have had zero to negative reputational impact on politicians and public figures in Western democracies - we’re talking Access Hollywood , tax fraud, undeclared gifts, gross nepotism, punching journalists, flouting public health laws, sexual impropriety, lying about your career and life story, mishandling of classified information, and just plain incompetence - what o…
A resourced adversary relentlessly publicizing them?
My concerns about a cashless society are the power it hands to a few oligopolistic credit card processors. Look at what happened to Pornhub. Regardless of whether you think Pornhub was in the wrong, it is striking that a business was cut off from global financial system by a small number of credit card companies. This was done without due process and under no countries laws. That should scare us at least a little.
I mean it's not like businesses can refuse to take cash as payment - it's legal tender ! (The inconvenient bit is that they are not required to give change.)
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The US has wantonly applied “sanctions” all over the place, which in lay terms means “we take your money electronically and/or prevent you from moving money”. This has been applied both against governments and individuals, even individuals not accused of any crime in the US.
Yes! We have faithless actors as well. Civil forfeiture is another one. They should not be able to confiscate people's property until they have had due process and found to have unlawfully come to said property. I use Canada as an example because it was a vast and wanton act by the government affecting and threatening thousands of accountholders at once. It's a shame we don't have more libertarians representing the i…
Thus, doing this to them was justified and good. Meaning the government should have such powers.
If only there were some sort of clever computer algorithm that could create a money system that no one can track of block.
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My basic human freedoms should include the right to not do business with a hate group for example. You want folks to give up that freedom because you got the problem wrong and you're applying the wrong fix.
you're free to decide who to do business with if you're not providing a core utility service. would you like to no longer receive water or electricity at your home because your utility companies don't like you, despite (being willing to) paying the bills like any other citizen?
I encounter more businesses that only take cash than I do those that refuse it. A couple of local restaurants, and my barber. Though one of the restaurants recently also started accepting Zelle. I can't think of anyplace local that refuses cash but there are several others that offer a discount for cash.
The OP article is about the UK and in fact many place in the UK do not accept cash. My understanding is that trend accelerated, if not started, during COVID.
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I would go further and remove the "lawful" from that. If you pay me $50 it shouldn't matter to the payment processor whether I gave you a painting or a blow job in return.
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…
Same with postal service, etc.
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Pornhub? How about the Canadian truckers protest where Canada's handful of banks froze their accounts and their gofundme was seized? How about all of China? There's no way government can be trusted. We would need a bill of rights applied to our money first to protect us and have a check and balance. We already need this!
Or Russia.
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I would go further and remove the "lawful" from that. If you pay me $50 it shouldn't matter to the payment processor whether I gave you a painting or a blow job in return.
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…
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.