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The treasury is expanding the Patriot Act to attack Bitcoin self custody

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Re: The treasury is expanding the Patriot Act to attack Bitcoin self custody

#241

Post by banku_brougham »

komali2 wrote: post #160
jordanb wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever leftists say that "Trump is a symptom of an illness that has been metastasizing for a long time" this is what we mean.

My big ask is, was it always this stupid? Like, all these huge historical events and figures, did it all go down as stupidly and clownishly as the modern USA? Was there an early 20th century fascist Europe equivalent to a man named Big Balls being beat up by children and a fascist police action being triggered as a result? Was there a Napeolonic era equivalent to a media figure known for making light of school shooti…

>I feel like I can't possibly live in the stupidest era in world history.

Your statistical intuition is sound, and while there are many historical sources describing very stupid events (VSE) dating as far back as recorded history, it is difficult to appreciate the outer bounds of the stupidity range because what has been written is a small fraction of the history that people have lived for at least 100,000 years.

So while I feel we are living in the stupidest era in history (the SEIH), I must conclude that we don't.

Re: The treasury is expanding the Patriot Act to attack Bitcoin self custody

#242

Post by zerkten »

shaky-carrousel wrote: post #190
rs186 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago, I tried to open a bank account, and was turned away because my visa stamp expired (despite having valid immigration status). The clueless clerk and her advisor were going through The Patriot Act to find justification. Fortunately, other banks weren't staffed with idiots, and I was able to open an account elsewhere after providing my documents.

I say you dodged a bullet, then. They are probably just as clueless handling everything else.

Possibly, but this not unreasonable for regular employees. They are not paid enough to deal with the consequences of making a mistake in a low volume situation.

If they go off-piste, even when that is a valid action, then they are likely going to be penalized by their employer's compliance department. That's because that piece of bureaucracy is still required at the next stage of bureaucracy. Now level 2's life is harder. It's best just to ignore and move on. There will always be some non-zero failure rate like this as long as bureaucracies exist.

Re: The treasury is expanding the Patriot Act to attack Bitcoin self custody

#243

Post by ozozozd »

Eridrus wrote: post #201

I think the case for why strong encryption is important is much clearer than why untraceable financial instruments are important and I don't think it's super compelling to argue that these things are actually the same, even if your opposition to government control is the same. I think it's actually pretty clear that almost all people are not capable of secure and reliable self-custody and would be better off with an…

I think you are conflating 2 things: - ability to privately give money to someone (mechanism is irrelevant, by hand or by way of a blockchain) - self-custody risks for uninformed users

The first one is the privacy argument.

Would you be comfortable if you’re not allowed to give the cash in your pocket to someone without someone watching over? If the answer is no, you are pro privacy for financial transactions.

Cash has the privacy feature as a default. You can argue that 3rd parties that help you send cash don’t have to offer any privacy, but BTC isn’t that, and forcing it to be that way is an attack on privacy.

Re: The treasury is expanding the Patriot Act to attack Bitcoin self custody

#245

Post by lazide »

mothballed wrote: post #154
lazide wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless they personally can profit from the situation anyway. Then they’ll often do perfunctory PR prosecutions while taking kickbacks. See things like prosecutions around prostitution for one usually pretty clear example.

I believe you, but do you have any evidence of how the prostitution kick backs work? Interesting articles?

A more egregious case than most [https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/springfield/press-releases...].

Usually it’s as simple as the cops looking the other way in exchange for ‘freebies’.

Re: The treasury is expanding the Patriot Act to attack Bitcoin self custody

#246

Post by gnutrino »

ivape wrote: post #202
komali2 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My big ask is, was it always this stupid? Like, all these huge historical events and figures, did it all go down as stupidly and clownishly as the modern USA? Was there an early 20th century fascist Europe equivalent to a man named Big Balls being beat up by children and a fascist police action being triggered as a result? Was there a Napeolonic era equivalent to a media figure known for making light of school shooti…

[flagged]

They say money is the root of all evil, and I think that is the core issue. It's unchecked greed and blind nationalism. Political and racial polarization is profitable. Selling guns and ammo is profitable. Being a corrupt politician who helps their rich friends make more money is profitable.

Re: The treasury is expanding the Patriot Act to attack Bitcoin self custody

#247

Post by bilbo0s »

calibas wrote: post #157
jihadjihad wrote: post #33

> [The Patriot Act] contains many sunset provisions beginning December 31, 2005, approximately four years after its passage. Before the sunset date, an extension was passed for four years which kept most of the law intact. In May 2011, President Barack Obama signed the PATRIOT Sunset Extensions Act of 2011, which extended three provisions. These provisions were modified and extended until 2019 by the USA Freedom Act,…

> In 2020, efforts to extend the provisions were not passed by the House of Representatives, and as such, the law has expired. The wording is confusing. Two provisions expired, not the entire Patriot Act. https://web.archive.org/web/20250306093943/https://www.nytim...

The wording is confusing.

Being confusing, I'm almost certain, was the entire point.

Re: The treasury is expanding the Patriot Act to attack Bitcoin self custody

#248

Post by observationist »

crazygringo wrote: post #42

The headline is not supported by the article. The actual list of "suspicious activities" in the article is about pooling, structuring, delaying transactions -- the stuff you do to hide activity, whether for good or bad. It says nothing whatsoever about self-custody. The author makes the imaginary leap because they say they personally recommend doing all those things with self-custody. But they're totally separate thi…

If you've got nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about! Nobody will ever run afoul of the system or fall through the cracks. We only have the best and brightest bureaucrats who won't make mistakes. Nobody will ever be attacked with this for politicized reasons. This will never be used to debank or isolate or penalize or attack an innocent person. And even if it did, the government would never use its immunity from prosecution to evade accountability!

Don't be paranoid, and don't worry! We're the good guys!

Re: The treasury is expanding the Patriot Act to attack Bitcoin self custody

#250

Post by ozozozd »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #216
CityOfThrowaway wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it might be true that most people aren't willing to keep their money under their beds for security reasons. But it shouldn't be illegal or somehow indicative of criminality. Same thing with self custody of crypto.

It's not illegal. They're talking about flagging it as "suspicious". Lots of legal things are flagged as suspicious by law enforcement.

Would that make it a probable cause for searches and seizures?

If so, that would be pretty bad right?

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