December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Legality of requiring credit cards?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:29 PM 12/24/96 -0500, Brian Davis wrote: >On Tue, 24 Dec 1996, Dale Thorn wrote: > >Be especially carefully of structuring a $10,000+ transaction into >smaller transactions in an attempt to circumvent the reporting >requirements. Doing so ("structuring a transaction") is a felony. > >I was involved in reviewing a matter for possible prosecution in my >former life. Guy wins big football pool (season long) -- total of >$27,000. He calls an *leaves a message* that he wants 3 $9,000 checks. >He gets them, goes to branch 1 of bank x and cashes one. Then to branch 2 >and cashes another. Then back to branch 1 for the third. > >The bank, as required, filed a Report of Suspcious Transaction. >Fortunately for him, the IRS-CID agents jumped the gun and alerted him to >the investigation (by interviewing him) before he filed his taxes for >that year. He then knew enough to report the income and pay the taxes. > >We settled the matter by having the money forfeited and having a civil >monetary penalty assessment against him under the Bank Secrecy Act (the >first such penalty against an individual ever). He got credit on the >civil assessment for the money forfeited, so all he lost was his $27,000 >in winnings. > >Had he been better at it, he never would've been caught, IMNSHO. Actually, this kind of stunt fully justifies whatever level of lethal punishment that the public will one day direct at these thugs. Look at what you just said, paraphrased by me: "Man wins $27,000. He will eventually be required to report and pay taxes on the amount, but not quite yet. Stupid I/R/S people alert him BEFORE he files his taxes. He reports the payment, as is ostensibly legally required. He paid the taxes owed. Period." THEN you said, "we settled the matter." Huh? What, exactly, was there to "settle"? Remember, you just said that the stupid I/R/S agents ALERTED him, right? Well, if they do stupid things they ought to be punished for them, right?!? One of the consequences of showing your hand early is that any potential opponent can adjust his behavior to AVOID getting caught doing something wrong. Since this man's obligations were in the future, he was alerted to fulfill them. (this is quite analogous to cops driving around in marked cars. Presumably, they will occasionally be seen by a person planning a crime, who may be deterred from his intent temporarily or permanently.) Don't try to claim that the act of receiving the money in portions evidenced intent to commit a crime, because reporting and paying the taxes made that possibility moot. At best, you might claim that had he COULD HAVE carried it through to illegality, analogous to the possibility that if a person picks up an object in a store, he MIGHT head for the exit without paying, or go to the cash register to pay. Store detectives, wisely, know that they must wait for a shoplifter to leave the store BEFORE closing in. I say again: It is PRECISELY this kind of outrageous behavior that results in revolutions, assassinations, and other incidents. The hostage-taking currently going on in Peru has captured Peruvian government officials who heretofore, felt safe abusing THEIR citizenry the same way you once felt safe abusing yours. Tell me, would you have felt abused if during your previous employment you'd been taken hostage similarly? Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Legality of requiring credit cards?
by Brian A. LaMacchia 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:54 PM 12/24/96 -0800, jim bell wrote: >"Man wins $27,000. He will eventually be required to report and pay taxes >on the amount, but not quite yet. Stupid I/R/S people alert him BEFORE he >files his taxes. He reports the payment, as is ostensibly legally required. > He paid the taxes owed. Period." > >THEN you said, "we settled the matter." Huh? What, exactly, was there to >"settle"? Why, of course, the fact that the guy attempted to structure the transaction to evade the reporting requirements in the first place. 31 U.S.C. 5324(a). Structuring (or attempting to structure) a financial transaction to evade the reporting requirements is a violation of this subsection, and 31 U.S.C. 5322(a) says that a willful violation is a five-year felony. Oh, and willful violation while violating another U.S. law is a ten-year felony until 5322(b). I'd suspect the guy was looking at a 5322(b) charge (with "transmission of wagering information in interstate commerce" as the "other U.S. law" being violated), but IANAL and I don't know the case law. EBD: Please correct me if I'm wrong. Oh, and did you go after the guy who wrote the three $9K checks for conspiracy or aiding-and-abetting? --bal

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RE: Untraceable Payments, Extortion, and Other Bad Things
by blanc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Vlad the Conqueror anyone heard of "memes"? cryptoanarchy is a virus of weak minds without any defense mechanisms. the cpunk list is the principal vector.. ..................................................... So, Nuri-logical, are you one of those NSA tentacles on the list, discouraging people from following certain ideas - like Tim's, for example? <g> Are you feeling a bit in-Timmy-dated by the possibility of a crypto reign of terror; do you feel a bit like you're part of that stuff floating at the top about to be skimmed off? What do you think would be a good antidote for this cryptoanarchy virus? How do you imagine that it might be introduced into the Brave New World of anarchocapitalism; how could it effectively counter the growth of libertarian ideals, which you despise? Tim sort of evaded my question by asserting that the methods of which he spoke were implicit in his writings. I hope you don't claim the same, but are more blatant and explicit about your ideas to the contrary (though typically you are blatant, although not necessarily explicit). .. Blanc

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Hooked on Ebonics
by azur＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Now that the new Afrocentric Ebonic language is officially recognized, we have a lot of work to do. Having textbooks published in English and Hip Hop is going to be daunting. New educational tapes, "Hooked on Ebonics" will have to be produced. Answers to test questions will have to be analyzed and converted, and an entire new dictionary will need to be established. You know what I'm sayin'? In some ways life will get much simpler. No longer will we be burdened with the cumbersome task of searching our minds for the proper adjective, pronoun, or participle. An expletive invoking another's mother will be the only adjective, pronoun, or metaphor in the new Ebonics dictionary. Bernard Shaw and Alan Keyes could get rid of that bothersome eloquence and perfect diction and rap it back Black, lay it on me bro. I'm curious about the "N word." Will that be allowed? I do hear it a lot in movies centered around life in the ethnic neighborhoods of L.A. or Oakland. The reason I ask is because where I work you'll be severely fired if you toss out the "N word." We'll need to have clarification. It would be kind of strange to have an official language that only one ethnic group is allowed to use. Maybe if we could get Texaconics declared an official language of the corporate elite we could give those guys at Texaco their jobs back. Ross Perot could say, "You people" with impunity. As a matter of fact we can have an official language for however you want to talk. Bigotonics, Stupidonics, Stoneronics, Skatersonics, Preppyonics and last but not least, I can't get a decent job anywhere in the world because I was educated in the Oakland School Districtonics.

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Re: Legality of requiring credit cards?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:39 PM 12/24/96 -0500, Brian A. LaMacchia wrote: >At 05:54 PM 12/24/96 -0800, jim bell wrote: >>"Man wins $27,000. He will eventually be required to report and pay taxes >>on the amount, but not quite yet. Stupid I/R/S people alert him BEFORE he >>files his taxes. He reports the payment, as is ostensibly legally required. >> He paid the taxes owed. Period." >> >>THEN you said, "we settled the matter." Huh? What, exactly, was there to >>"settle"? > >Why, of course, the fact that the guy attempted to structure the >transaction to evade the reporting requirements in the first place. 31 >U.S.C. 5324(a). Who says? He eventually reported it within the legally-defined time. The evidence of intent to COMPLY with the law is far stronger than the evidence of the opposite. >Structuring (or attempting to structure) a financial >transaction to evade the reporting requirements is a violation of this >subsection, and 31 U.S.C. 5322(a) says that a willful violation is a >five-year felony. Again, he clearly DID NOT "evade the reporting requirement." Brian Davis admitted this. (Whether he ever intended to do this is sheer speculation on the part of anyone else. We'll never know; as Davis pointed out, the IRS screwed up.) Even if the standard of evidence was as low as "preponderance of evidence" (which it, of course, is not in a criminal case) he SHOULD have won. By waiting until the return was filed and the tax was paid, the IRS was allowing him to resolve whatever ambiguity remained. Actually, if there were any justice, he should have been able to sue the bank for reporting him and NOT INFORMING HIM of that fact. (I presume the law requires the bank to report suspicious transactions. I also presume that the law _doesn't_ prohibit the bank from telling the customer that it will have to report that transaction.) The bank, presumably being experts in the matter, recognizes that lay individuals can't be expected to be experts in specialized areas, and should be considered obligated to warn customers away from suspicious-looking transactions. I'm sure the REAL LAWYERS (tm) on this list will be able to cite examples of where experts of all kinds were sued by non-experts for failing to warn them of unexpected dangers that could have been averted had the appropriate advice been given promptly. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Legality of requiring credit cards?
by Brian A. LaMacchia 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:17 PM 12/24/96 -0800, jim bell wrote: >At 09:39 PM 12/24/96 -0500, Brian A. LaMacchia wrote: >>Why, of course, the fact that the guy attempted to structure the >>transaction to evade the reporting requirements in the first place. 31 >>U.S.C. 5324(a). > >Who says? He eventually reported it within the legally-defined time. The >evidence of intent to COMPLY with the law is far stronger than the evidence >of the opposite. Bzzt, wrong answer, thanks for playing. "Reporting" here doesn't mean "report the income to the IRS on your tax return." It refers to the report the bank is required to file by law on every transaction in excess of $10,000. If the guy didn't report the $27K as gambling winnings on his 1040 then he'd be guilty of tax evasion in addition to the structuring charges, but that's an independent issue. Go read 31 U.S.C. 5324 (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/) >Again, he clearly DID NOT "evade the reporting requirement." Brian Davis >admitted this. (Whether he ever intended to do this is sheer speculation on >the part of anyone else. We'll never know; as Davis pointed out, the IRS >screwed up.) Even if the standard of evidence was as low as "preponderance >of evidence" (which it, of course, is not in a criminal case) he SHOULD have >won. By waiting until the return was filed and the tax was paid, the IRS >was allowing him to resolve whatever ambiguity remained. Of course he attempted to evade: three checks, deposits the first in bank 1, the second in bank 2, and the third in bank 1 again. Trying to not cause either bank to file the form that says "we just got a deposit in excess of $10K." That's structuring to evade. Welcome to Allenwood. --bal

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Re: clipper plans 4 sale
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:18 PM 12/24/96 -0500, Adam Shostack wrote: > Many people will believe it. Its easy to construct the case >that the ITARs, as they apply to things in the public domain, thing >implemented outside the US, things designed outside the US, are just >silly. Its much harder to make that argument about Skipjack, >especially as you can't legally export the chips. When Clipper was first proposed, in April of 1993, as I recall one of the government-types promoting it claimed that it would be exportable "except to terrorist-sponsoring countries like Libya." This made me laugh: It seemed to me that if Clipper codes were kept and available to the US government, you'd expect that they'd WANT Libya to get those phones! In fact, they'd air-drop them in the thousands, right? After all, this would make other countries more dependant on the US for cooperation, and they'd be more pliable as a result, right? Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Reflections on the Bernstein ruling
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:01 PM 12/23/96 -0500, Marc Horowitz wrote: >Greg Broiles <gbroiles(a)netbox.com> writes: >>> It's also unclear that Judge Patel's ruling is enough to make export of >>> crypto source legal by people/organizations located even in the Northern >>> District of CA. Venue is proper, in an ITAR case, in any jurisdiction which >>> the defense articles have moved through. (18 USC 3237(a); _US v. Durrani_ >>> 659 F.Supp 1177, 1182 (D. Conn, 1987); an easy analogy is to the _US v. >>> Thomas_ "Amateur Action" case, where Tennessee venue was proper for >>> prosecution of California defendants who sent porn into Tennessee.) So it's >>> at least arguable that the feds could simply bring an ITAR prosecution in >>> another district, if exported crypto flowed through that district. (But I >>> don't think they can do so against Dan Bernstein because of "res judicata", >>> a doctrine which says that once two parties have fully litigated an issue, >>> they cannot come back to the same court - or a different one - and ask to >>> relitigate the same issue.) > >It happens to be the case that the Northern District of California >borders on the Pacific Ocean, and includes (at least) two airports >with direct flights to more crypto-friendly jurisdictions to the west. >I do not know if there are any satellite or oceanic cables similarly >situated, but I wouldn't be surprised. In law, there's a concept known as "mens rea," or "guilty mind." (A Real Lawyer (tm) should be able to explain this to CP) Presumably, if the legal system followed its own rules, it would be impossible to have a "guilty mind" about exporting crypto subsequent to the Patel ruling, until such time as that ruling was specifically overturned. After all, the lay public is not expected to be experts here, and if a judge (!) says that crypto export regulations are a violation of the US Constitution, we should be entitled to believe her and to believe that we're entitled to disobey the (unconstitutional) law with a clear conscience. Further, IMO, It shouldn't even matter if contrary legal decisions exist, as long as they are not directly above that court so as to overrule Judge Patel. Our consciences can still be clear: If courts can't, themselves, agree, presumably we aren't obligated to second-guess which one is correct and which one is not. However, a REAL LAWYER would also have to tell you that the system doesn't obey its own rules! Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Legality of requiring credit cards?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:12 AM 12/25/96 -0500, Brian A. LaMacchia wrote: >At 07:17 PM 12/24/96 -0800, jim bell wrote: >>At 09:39 PM 12/24/96 -0500, Brian A. LaMacchia wrote: >>>Why, of course, the fact that the guy attempted to structure the >>>transaction to evade the reporting requirements in the first place. 31 >>>U.S.C. 5324(a). >> >>Who says? He eventually reported it within the legally-defined time. The >>evidence of intent to COMPLY with the law is far stronger than the evidence >>of the opposite. > >Bzzt, wrong answer, thanks for playing. "Reporting" here doesn't mean >"report the income to the IRS on your tax return." It refers to the report >the bank is required to file by law on every transaction in excess of >$10,000. Bzzt, wrong answer! By definition, if the report was filed as a consequence of the transaction, then the transaction was reported IN FACT and the person didn't evade it! (whether he wanted to evade it is, of course, pure speculation on your part. It is, obviously, questionable whether the government can make a person's mere _desires_ criminal.) Let's suppose, hypothetically, that there is a rule which states "If anybody comes in and does three separate $9,000 transactions, they get reported." In that case, anybody who does those transactions is already aware that doing them does NOT "evade the reporting requirements." Okay, maybe no such explicit rule exists. However, can you prove that anyone really believes that he is "evading reporting requirements"? Having read of this incident, it is quite obvious that the government doesn't obey its own rules and doesn't limit itself to logic and reasonable positions. It is also obvious that banks can't be trusted to follow reliable rules. Once aware of this, how can you show that a person really thought he was getting away with anything? (which is, after all, an essential element of the crime of "structuring", I suppose.) Gotcha! Catch-22 situation. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Legality of requiring credit cards?
by Brian A. LaMacchia 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:35 PM 12/24/96 -0800, jim bell wrote: >At 12:12 AM 12/25/96 -0500, Brian A. LaMacchia wrote: >>Bzzt, wrong answer, thanks for playing. "Reporting" here doesn't mean >>"report the income to the IRS on your tax return." It refers to the report >>the bank is required to file by law on every transaction in excess of >>$10,000. > >Bzzt, wrong answer! By definition, if the report was filed as a consequence of >the transaction, then the transaction was reported IN FACT and the person didn't >evade it! (whether he wanted to evade it is, of course, pure speculation on your >part. It is, obviously, questionable whether the government can make a person's >mere _desires_ criminal.) Please, Jim, *go read the law*. Do it now, before you even think about replying to this message, else you'll say something else stupid and irrelevant. Look, I'll even give you the complete, specific URL for the section of the U.S. Code in question; all you have to do is cut-and-paste it into your favorite Web browser: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/31/5324.html See in clause (1) where it says, "cause or attempt to cause a domestic financial institution to fail to file a report required under section 5313(a)"? See the words "attempt to cause"? Now go back to EBD's original post. See where he said "Report of Suspicious Transaction"? See the errors in your argument above? Good. Your homework assignment is to go read _Ratzlaf v. US_, 510 U.S. 135, 114 S.Ct. 655, and summarize for the list. --bal

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