18+ molly0xfff OP , 1 month ago In a perfect world, what is moral and what is legal would exactly align. We don’t live in a perfect world, and strong privacy protections are essential for human rights. #crypto #cryptocurrency #privacy #TornadoCash #newsletter #CitationNeeded A graph from legal to illegal, moral to immoral, of various types of communications. In the legal/moral quadrant are “sending a meme to a friend” and “gossip”. Ranging from legal to illegal but moral are “helping someone get an abortion” and “coordinating humanitarian aid”. Illegal but moral include “sharing a copy of a copyrighted book” and “whistleblowing classified information”. Legal but immoral contains “sharing misinfo”, “bullying”, and “hate speech”. Crossing from legal to illegal in the immoral section are “revenge porn” and “spam”. In the illegal/immoral quadrant are “phishing”, “death threat”, and “sharing CSAM”. But, as with messaging, it’s easy to come up with a broad spectrum of legal and not-so-legal, moral and immoral reasons people might not want a government or other entity snooping on their finances. A graph from legal to illegal, moral to immoral, of various types of transactions. In the legal/moral quadrant is “buying a snack”. Covering all four quadrants is “buying drugs”. Ranging from legal to illegal but moral are “paying for an abortion” and “aiding refugees”. Illegal but moral includes “humanitarian aid to people in sanctioned regions”. Legal but immoral contains “purchasing goods from exploitative companies”, “tax avoidance”, and “predatory lending”. In the illegal/immoral quadrant are “illegal campaign contributions”, “running a Ponzi scheme”, and “hiring a hitman”. Unlike with encrypted messaging, the balancing act with money has generally gone the other way. Under the law, the benefits of enabling law-abiding citizens to privately move their money around have generally not been seen to outweigh the potential costs of terrorist financing, organized crime, and the many other nasty things people do with money. As a result, although law enforcement may need to obtain a search warrant before a financial institution will turn over financial data,h there are strong requirements that that data must be collected. This is very different from encryption: firms are allowed to use end-to-end encryption for their users’ data, even though it means they can’t reveal that underlying data even if law enforcement tries to compel it. This is something I’ve really struggled with, in large part because it all seems so arbitrary. I think people have a general right to privacy, and I do think that people ought to have financial privacy — certainly more than they have today. It’s not that I don’t see the potential harms of allowing potentially substantial amounts of money to move hands with no oversight, but the ability for governments and law enforcement to peer in on ordinary citizens is also incredibly harmful. And I think the amounts that have been determined to constitute “suspicious activity” are arbitrary and far too low, and in a digital world, incredibly challenging to reimplement.
In a perfect world, what is moral and what is legal would exactly align. We don’t live in a perfect world, and strong privacy protections are essential for human rights.
#crypto #cryptocurrency #privacy #TornadoCash #newsletter #CitationNeeded
A graph from legal to illegal, moral to immoral, of various types of communications. In the legal/moral quadrant are “sending a meme to a friend” and “gossip”. Ranging from legal to illegal but moral are “helping someone get an abortion” and “coordinating humanitarian aid”. Illegal but moral include “sharing a copy of a copyrighted book” and “whistleblowing classified information”. Legal but immoral contains “sharing misinfo”, “bullying”, and “hate speech”. Crossing from legal to illegal in the immoral section are “revenge porn” and “spam”. In the illegal/immoral quadrant are “phishing”, “death threat”, and “sharing CSAM”. But, as with messaging, it’s easy to come up with a broad spectrum of legal and not-so-legal, moral and immoral reasons people might not want a government or other entity snooping on their finances. A graph from legal to illegal, moral to immoral, of various types of transactions. In the legal/moral quadrant is “buying a snack”. Covering all four quadrants is “buying drugs”. Ranging from legal to illegal but moral are “paying for an abortion” and “aiding refugees”. Illegal but moral includes “humanitarian aid to people in sanctioned regions”. Legal but immoral contains “purchasing goods from exploitative companies”, “tax avoidance”, and “predatory lending”. In the illegal/immoral quadrant are “illegal campaign contributions”, “running a Ponzi scheme”, and “hiring a hitman”. Unlike with encrypted messaging, the balancing act with money has generally gone the other way. Under the law, the benefits of enabling law-abiding citizens to privately move their money around have generally not been seen to outweigh the potential costs of terrorist financing, organized crime, and the many other nasty things people do with money. As a result, although law enforcement may need to obtain a search warrant before a financial institution will turn over financial data,h there are strong requirements that that data must be collected. This is very different from encryption: firms are allowed to use end-to-end encryption for their users’ data, even though it means they can’t reveal that underlying data even if law enforcement tries to compel it. This is something I’ve really struggled with, in large part because it all seems so arbitrary. I think people have a general right to privacy, and I do think that people ought to have financial privacy — certainly more than they have today. It’s not that I don’t see the potential harms of allowing potentially substantial amounts of money to move hands with no oversight, but the ability for governments and law enforcement to peer in on ordinary citizens is also incredibly harmful. And I think the amounts that have been determined to constitute “suspicious activity” are arbitrary and far too low, and in a digital world, incredibly challenging to reimplement.
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