I get the vibe they're using ALPRs to identify drivers, and then going from there to find crime? Seems like criminal investigations should start with an actual crime. At the minimum, I would think that there would need to be some suspicion of criminal involvement to obtain a warrant to get financial records. Apparently this administration considers driving down the interstate suspicious enough to toss the constitution out the window.
I understand that folks here think that the general anti-AI sentiments that can be found in some of US culture are often misguided.
It's likely projection on my part but I have a deep suspicion that people understand that mass surveillance by the state is the main use case for all these LLMs, camera systems, and increasing large data centers.
> Putting one of those participant’s phone numbers into WhatsApp reveals a profile picture of a law enforcement patch. A pawn with wings sits in the center, surrounded by lightning bolts. The patch reads, “Laredo Sector Tech Ops PITT,” indicating there is also a Predictive Intelligence Targeting Team in the Laredo Sector.
I just tried to pay my elderly neighbors cell phone bill here in California. I will spare you the details. Is all of this really required?
It reminds me of a time when credit and credit cards were flying fast. Large losses started appearing on consumer credit accounts by the tens of thousands. A casual look into it indicated that it was the employees and leaders of the sector, who read and understood the credit agreement that put liability ultimately on the company. The actual credit card employees, adjacent accountants, quick witted cons, all siphoning money from credit cards in very large numbers. Why say this? Actual customers with increasing security requirements were largely not at all involved with the growing fraud. It was the participants in the credit industry seizing the opportunity to steal, with relative impunity. Things have changed and changed again since then with scale, local rules, fraud detection systems etc.
The point of the rant is that ordinary people's rights are squeezed, privacy vanishes, routine humiliating document production and security, required because the people in the industry that created those is cheating.
Yes of course there is cheating on taxes over tip money, or no-show jobs for relatives.. but what kind of society is being built with constant oversight into ordinary people's activity ?
Who decides who we're sanctioning and who is a "terrorist"? Not me, that's for sure! My money is my business and I don't need the state nanny watching who I send it to.
KYC stands for Know Your Customer, the regulations that require institutions moving money between two parties to positively identify each of those two parties.
I think the intellectual position "it should be illegal for institutions transmitting money between two parties to identify either of those parties" might require some kind of logical argument behind it. Are you saying all financial transactions should be anonmyous by law? How would banks function if they were required to be blind to their customers? How would the government prosecute money laundering if all cash-trails went cold after the first time they passed a bank?
I understand people often like to express extreme positions on the Internet, but I think it's pretty easy to see an ideal society has rules somewhere in between "you're not allowed to know your customers" and "you can't accept a penny unless the giver does a blood draw in front of you and is confirmed to be in a central register of DNA".
> I understand people often like to express extreme positions on the Internet, but I think it's pretty easy to see an ideal society has rules somewhere in between "you're not allowed to know your customers" and "you can't accept a penny unless the giver does a blood draw in front of you and is confirmed to be in a central register of DNA".
Yeah. This often results in ludicrous positions.
On the other hand, EFT flattens scale. Physical cash gets harder to handle in large quantities. Electronic money does not. It's equally easy to transfer a billion as a cent. So it's hard to get situations where small amounts have privacy and large amounts have scrutiny.
> the regulations that require institutions moving money between two parties to positively identify each of those two parties.
There is much more to it than that. If that were all KYC was, it wouldn't need regulations, because banks would need to do it anyway.
I've had banks straight out ask me, on the phone, what a wire transfer that I executed via their online system was for. And unlike, say, a traffic stop where when the cop starts fishing for things unrelated to the stop, you can exercise your right to remain silent, in the banking scenario the consequences for that can be losing access to your account, losing funds, and everything that follows from that.
Some of the info required by KYC:
* Why the customer wants an account
* Expected types of transactions
* Expected source and approximate volume of funds
* For businesses, the nature of the business and expected banking activity
* Source of funds
This can all translate into very invasive questions, especially when you do something that a computer system or middle manager thinks is suspicious, like sending money to your mother in another country.
"regulations that require institutions moving money between two parties to positively identify each of those two parties"
Any such kind of regulation is not compatible with financial privacy. Maybe you could argue corporations don't deserve financial privacy, but an individual should have the right to send money to someone without being spied on the same way they should have the right to send a private communication to someone without being spied on.
I suspect the argument is more the particular KYC required by American law, eg, as long as your bank can identify you as a particular customer, they shouldn’t be required to collect certain information by law.
Though if I were going to rant, it would be about how constructive surveillance, such as requiring banks keep certain records and then claiming those records aren’t protected from search because they’re third party business records and not those of a private citizen, would be a much higher priority to fix.
I remember back in ye olde dark ages when "big data" was the hot buzzword people of a certain bent couldn't get enough of this kind of stuff. Everyone was jacking off nonstop to the idea that we could just hoover up everyone's data ad then "efficiently" or "proactively" dispatch enforcement resources. People talked all sorts of big talk about stuff like cross referencing people's Home Depot spend with permit requirements, identifying small businesses that don't have healthy enough financials to be fully compliant, cross referencing invoices and delivery receipts to identify overloaded trucks, and generally finding all sorts of ways to fine the crap out of people for the pettiest of petty deviance. They considered this a noble goal.
Everyone's head was too far up their asses to look at the magic crystal ball called "history" and realize that such systems and tactics would be used to go after <checks notes> weed dealers and brown people.
I’ve been under investigation for money laundering twice in the last three years - not because I’ve laundered a single dime, but because I have no discernible employment and move large capital sums around the globe almost constantly, and my bank accounts and tax returns inarguably look fucking weird. All 100% above board - I just made some good investments a while back.
I even had the feds come knocking because they decided they needed to check I wasn’t trafficking narcotics. We had a nice chat, they decided they didn’t need to search the place, and six months later I got a letter confirming the case had been archived. Like one of the folks in the article, I had weed on me when they rocked up. Thankfully, in Europe, that’s basically just a “shrug” by law enforcement, unless you’ve got clear intent to distribute. From how it all went, they had quite clearly decided this was a waste of their fucking time before they even arrived.
None of this is a good thing, and none of it is terribly new, either - reporting on finances has been going on for decades, but the integration is getting tighter.
The main problem as I see it is that it has a horrendous false positive rate, and you end up with innocent folks like yours truly having to waste their time and energy proving that they are innocent of a crime that a machine dreamt up.
No one who works for DHS or with them deserves your respect. Fuck these coward officers and their disrespect for The Constitution, the 4th amendment and people’s overall rights. I hope something tragic happens to them.
Deny, Defund, Depose the federal terrorist groups: DHS, ICE, CBP, PITT etc.
> Edit: YESSSS -4 points; those are rookie numbers! Help me pump them up, HN technofascists! Prove my point for me!
Whilst talking about the downvotes is uninteresting I will give in to the urge to observe that -4 is the lowest a comment can go. But sneering at the community is also against the guidelines, so a comment like this will attract flags by people who actually agree with you.
I am sneering at only the technofascists in the community, who deserve the derision of those who are anti fascist within the community, or really anyone who is saddened by the way the technofascists are sullying the name of the tech community.
But good to know that -4 is rock bottom.
If a community prevents you from sneering at fascism, that community is a problem.
Don't bother, it isn't an effective use of time. Just go organize and vote, that moves the needle, nothing here does. Midterms are coming. This place is just a unique coffee shop. Participate in it for what it is.
Who gets to review financial transactions (without a search warrant) and determine them as suspicious and actionable? Every time your bank flags a transaction, a police officer shows up at your door?
Seems like there's no way to administer this warrantless surveillance without violating the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
This is unconstitutional (fourth amendment) parallel construction. Combined with a corporate surveillance state
panopticon, this is "Show me the man and I'll show you the crime."
It's likely projection on my part but I have a deep suspicion that people understand that mass surveillance by the state is the main use case for all these LLMs, camera systems, and increasing large data centers.
That certainly is my own worry, at least.
https://www.aviatorgear.com/p-52057-laredo-sector-tech-ops-p...
It reminds me of a time when credit and credit cards were flying fast. Large losses started appearing on consumer credit accounts by the tens of thousands. A casual look into it indicated that it was the employees and leaders of the sector, who read and understood the credit agreement that put liability ultimately on the company. The actual credit card employees, adjacent accountants, quick witted cons, all siphoning money from credit cards in very large numbers. Why say this? Actual customers with increasing security requirements were largely not at all involved with the growing fraud. It was the participants in the credit industry seizing the opportunity to steal, with relative impunity. Things have changed and changed again since then with scale, local rules, fraud detection systems etc.
The point of the rant is that ordinary people's rights are squeezed, privacy vanishes, routine humiliating document production and security, required because the people in the industry that created those is cheating.
Yes of course there is cheating on taxes over tip money, or no-show jobs for relatives.. but what kind of society is being built with constant oversight into ordinary people's activity ?
cash indeed
Source? The fact that it's not infallible doesn't mean that it's ineffective.
I think the intellectual position "it should be illegal for institutions transmitting money between two parties to identify either of those parties" might require some kind of logical argument behind it. Are you saying all financial transactions should be anonmyous by law? How would banks function if they were required to be blind to their customers? How would the government prosecute money laundering if all cash-trails went cold after the first time they passed a bank?
I understand people often like to express extreme positions on the Internet, but I think it's pretty easy to see an ideal society has rules somewhere in between "you're not allowed to know your customers" and "you can't accept a penny unless the giver does a blood draw in front of you and is confirmed to be in a central register of DNA".
Yeah. This often results in ludicrous positions.
On the other hand, EFT flattens scale. Physical cash gets harder to handle in large quantities. Electronic money does not. It's equally easy to transfer a billion as a cent. So it's hard to get situations where small amounts have privacy and large amounts have scrutiny.
There is much more to it than that. If that were all KYC was, it wouldn't need regulations, because banks would need to do it anyway.
I've had banks straight out ask me, on the phone, what a wire transfer that I executed via their online system was for. And unlike, say, a traffic stop where when the cop starts fishing for things unrelated to the stop, you can exercise your right to remain silent, in the banking scenario the consequences for that can be losing access to your account, losing funds, and everything that follows from that.
Some of the info required by KYC:
* Why the customer wants an account
* Expected types of transactions
* Expected source and approximate volume of funds
* For businesses, the nature of the business and expected banking activity
* Source of funds
This can all translate into very invasive questions, especially when you do something that a computer system or middle manager thinks is suspicious, like sending money to your mother in another country.
Any such kind of regulation is not compatible with financial privacy. Maybe you could argue corporations don't deserve financial privacy, but an individual should have the right to send money to someone without being spied on the same way they should have the right to send a private communication to someone without being spied on.
Though if I were going to rant, it would be about how constructive surveillance, such as requiring banks keep certain records and then claiming those records aren’t protected from search because they’re third party business records and not those of a private citizen, would be a much higher priority to fix.
> It is not clear how exactly Border Patrol is monitoring Americans’ financial activity.
Can anyone take a guess how they are monitoring financial activity?
Everyone's head was too far up their asses to look at the magic crystal ball called "history" and realize that such systems and tactics would be used to go after <checks notes> weed dealers and brown people.
Be careful what you wish for I guess.
I’ve been under investigation for money laundering twice in the last three years - not because I’ve laundered a single dime, but because I have no discernible employment and move large capital sums around the globe almost constantly, and my bank accounts and tax returns inarguably look fucking weird. All 100% above board - I just made some good investments a while back.
I even had the feds come knocking because they decided they needed to check I wasn’t trafficking narcotics. We had a nice chat, they decided they didn’t need to search the place, and six months later I got a letter confirming the case had been archived. Like one of the folks in the article, I had weed on me when they rocked up. Thankfully, in Europe, that’s basically just a “shrug” by law enforcement, unless you’ve got clear intent to distribute. From how it all went, they had quite clearly decided this was a waste of their fucking time before they even arrived.
None of this is a good thing, and none of it is terribly new, either - reporting on finances has been going on for decades, but the integration is getting tighter.
The main problem as I see it is that it has a horrendous false positive rate, and you end up with innocent folks like yours truly having to waste their time and energy proving that they are innocent of a crime that a machine dreamt up.
Deny, Defund, Depose the federal terrorist groups: DHS, ICE, CBP, PITT etc.
Whilst talking about the downvotes is uninteresting I will give in to the urge to observe that -4 is the lowest a comment can go. But sneering at the community is also against the guidelines, so a comment like this will attract flags by people who actually agree with you.
But good to know that -4 is rock bottom.
If a community prevents you from sneering at fascism, that community is a problem.
Seems reasonable and not newsworthy.
Seems like there's no way to administer this warrantless surveillance without violating the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
https://www.nacdl.org/Media/Parallel-Construction-Discover-G...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Give_me_the_man_and_I_will_giv...