Says the college student who, let me guess, never worked at microsoft.
As someone who has, PMs are not technical people, at least not in that company at the time I worked there.
I think ignorant college students who are not smart enough to know the limits of their own knowledge are the reason that hacker news has gone the way of slashdot.
Oh, since you're probably under 20, slashdot used to have good discussion from actual engineers who were knowledgable, then it got overrun by ignorant gnu weeneis around 2001 or so-- back when you are 8.
I had the opportunity to see Pastor Niemoller's cell once. Out back, behind the building, they had the execution wall.
Your reference to Bitcoin is apt, as the government siezed $7M in gold, silver and platinum from a political organization who was advocating the use of generic silver and gold rounds instead of depreciating paper currency.... and just a few weeks ago succeeded in railroading the leader of that organization.
The DHS (and now FBI) believes that all .com domain names are "located in the USA". It is not hard to get a judge (generally they are pretty ignorant of technology) to go along with this. Therefore, even if the registrar and the company are overseas, the FBI is able to sieze the domains.
Since I doubt the US government will start respecting international law (and ICAAN is international agreements, to which the US government has agreed) the only solution to this will be a viable alternative DNS system.
This is a serious threat to any startup... even though you're not engaged in gambling, they are constantly expanding the "crimes" they will use to sieze domains.
No, it's not that the DOJ believes that all .com domains are US. It is because Verisign has the contract to run .com, and Verisign is a US company. An US court can force an US company to comply.
Reagan is the one who signed "asset forfeiture" into law. I remember at the time reading newspaper articles claiming this was "just going to be used to keep drugs off the streets" and how "law enforcement are outgunned and now can defend themselves against drug dealers".
It was obvious to me then that this was a violation of due process. Also, it is not authorized by the constitution, and thus every act of seizure under it is criminal act. (There is a federal law that makes it a felony to violate constitutional rights under color of law. Fourth amendment prohibits this.)
Notably, Bush the First, Clinton, Bush the Second and Obama have not made any moves to undo this legislation.
Meanwhile, this has been used to take money from bikers on their way to buy a motorcycle, and random motorists in Florida and Texas who get pulled over for speeding. "It could be drug money" says the "law enforcement officers" who take life savings and then spend it on themselves.
Just because they haven't seized your assets yet, doesn't mean you aren't at risk.
When the government can take whatever it wants, without any legal restraint, and in violation of the ultimate law of the land, that government is not a legitimate government.
We should be outraged. We should be throwing the bums out-- from Obama down to the local state congresspeople or local sheriffs and judges who fail to take actions overturning this, or who themselves participate in this. It does not matter what party they are from, they are all culpable, and they are all criminals.
Edited: I removed the reference to my property that was stolen by the FBI because it prompted many people to attack me below. I really would rather the discussion be about how to resolve this issue for domain names, or maybe some discussion about how to overturn these seizure laws.
Edited: I've made the legal case in defense of those wrongfully convicted. I cannot keep up with the tide of people who have no citations of the law, but are quick to disparage me personally, for my crime of defending victims here.
Frankly, I think that the ease with which people assume that "naturally" these people were "bad guys" and therefore what they did was "illegal" despite the law and the constitution, is the very proof of my central point that the government is out of control, and they are getting away with it because people can't be bothered to challenge the belief-- taught by government in government schools-- that the "rule of law" holds sway.
This post really highlights the needs for collapsible threads. I'd be very interested in discussing more about asset forfeiture at large, but it's ridiculous to have to wade through all the Liberty Dollar bullshit in order to do that.
Still, though, this feature really should be part of HN proper, especially since it's so simple to implement. I think a lot more attention would hit posts that aren't already at the top, which would encourage people to write new posts instead of responding to whatever happens to be above the fold.
It's not going to fix the comment quality problems, but it would give a bump in the direction of wider, shallower comment trees, which will probably help a bit (deeply nested comments tend to either meander off topic or degenerate into arguments between a couple of people).
Simple. IT IS ILLEGAL to play at Pokerstars or FullTilt or any of the typical places from anywhere in the USA. The US Gov cracked down on them.
I quote: "Here is an EXCELLENT alternative where it is COMPLETELY LEGAL for USA players to play and win lots of real money and prizes, and never lose any money."
You may want to consider http://www.clubwpt.com/?cmpgn_id=6242&bnr_id=110
As stated at FTC: "Use Club WPT Bonus Code PLAYFREE, No deposit needed. No Risk Play System. COMPLETELY LEGAL! "
With the above link I provided, you cannot lose money, and only win money. No limit on how much you can win, but maximum you can lose is something like $0.49 per day (yes, I said 49 cents), which is what your full membership daily cost would be.
So, as you can see, or the point being, there is another model out there.
Are you referring to the Liberty Dollar? I remember being very interested in this (and in alternative currencies) a few years back but was put off by a video promoted on their official website which showed someone successfully passing a Liberty Dollar at a drive-through to an employee who asked, "what's this?", and was told that it was "a new dollar coin."
At that point, they had unclean hands in my mind. The basis for an alternative currency should be consent, not confusion.
You're misremembering. The primary educational effort of the Liberty Dollar focused on, whenever someone asked what it was, or you offered it, making clear that it wasn't US currency. Nobody associated with the Liberty Dollar in any official capacity would call it "a new dollar coin" and as the word "coin" is one of the magic ones that denotes government money. They might say "its 20 dollars in silver" or "a silver piece". And if asked if it was "real" or "genuine" they were told to say "It is not government money, its better" or "its genuine silver, but it is not made by the US government".
They were very careful because passing it off as if it were government money would be a crime. Despite not doing this, they have been lied about to the point that even you are misremembering.
There are many reasons to decide to not be involved with the liberty dollar-- not the least of which is the indoctrination that "money" must come from the government, something I had to overcome myself. But the claim that they were pretending it was government money is not one of them.
The entire point of NORFED-- the National Organization for the Repeal of the FEDeral reserve-- was that government money was not as good as silver rounds.
I always thought they should have used the phrase "Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price" (M.S.R.P). But I would actually favor striking the word "dollar" altogether. People can just use ordinary silver pieces bearing the mark "One Troy Ounce", which describes its physical mass only.
Alas, the wayback machine won't let me see the video, but even the name of it is bad since it contains the word "coin".
Most may assume that "dollar" means USD, but that is not the legal meaning. Dollar is a generic term, as Canadians use it, for instance. But further, if I were to say "20 USD in Silver" I'd be referring to the US dollar and I'd be naming a price for this amount of silver. This is no different than saying "$5 in coffee beans".
Edit to add: My real point is to disagree with the idea that the liberty dollar advocated (generally) passing it off as US government money, as they spent a great deal of effort trying to prevent that perception or anyone associated with the organization doing so.
I'll concede that you saw a video where someone didn't make it explicit enough that it wasn't government money and that put you off of the idea... and in fact your quote might even be exact. In which case you are not misremembering.
My point isn't really to debate the video, so much as the intent of the organization.
I also agree with your take on Asset Forfeiture. In any case, I wasn't being snarky when I said "misremembered". I had, in fact, misremembered parts of the video, though the sense of recipients not being fully in on it remains.
Hear, hear. We are supposed to be a nation of laws, not of men. We have allowed our government to create a separate ruling class that is above the law. Any honest reading of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will admit that the government was meant to be more restricted than the people.
Constitutional law is so much more complicated than, "this is what the document says". What is happening is here is reprehensible, but I don't think you will find any defense against it in due process.
If you actually read the document, you would see that the document includes provisions for a court system under the very correct assumption that some people would read the document and come to different conclusions about just what the document means.
Ever played a board game and had people disagreed on what the rules said. If you play games of any complexity, it happens all the time. Life is considerably more difficult than any game.
If you actually read the document, you would see that the document includes provisions for a court system under the very correct assumption that some people would read the document and come to different conclusions about just what the document means.
The document does have a court system, but if you read it closely you'll realize that nowhere in it does it say that the courts have the ability to rule on the constitutionality of anyone else's actions, nor does it say what the courts can do if the constitution is violated. That was a power that the courts themselves decided that they had. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison for details.
Yes, but that decision was grounded in the courts' enumerated powers and strangely nobody has seen fit to overturn it by amendment despite having a whole 2 centuries in which to do so.
Case in point: when I was younger and played soccer, we had one ref who before the game would go over rules with us. Invariably, he'd ask us what offsides was. A younger kid would always give him the book answer for the league: being ahead of the ball with less than two defenders between you and the goal (goalie counts as one). He'd quickly then say "no! offsides is this." and point to his whistle. The point was very clear... He had the final call on what was offsides, so there was no use complaining if we had a different opinion.
Yep, as anyone who watched the World Cup learned: see the phantom foul (no one even knows who it was allegedly on) that took away the US victory over Slovenia, or the referee denying a game-tying goal by England against Germany that the whole stadium got to see on replay, to which FIFA's response was to ban replay from the rest of the World Cup.
It's not good in sports and it's far worse in government.
Because the world is a complicated place where a single (short) document is unlikely to fairly represent anything other than guiding principles. Having guiding principles is hugely important and valuable, just as giving people the leeway to make judgement calls on those principles is. Justice shouldn't be black and white.
If constitutionality can't be deduced by the constitution, then what deduces it? The opinion of some judges?
If our fate is in the hands of a few judges (it is), doesn't this void our "democratic principles"?
I can't help but feel our understanding of government isn't much more than catch phrases and sentiment. Patriotism, we the people, one nation under god, the greater good, public servants, all total bs. If we criticized the processes of government like we did start-ups (such as the costs of value added), we'd be a whole lot wealthier. /rant
Your rant is misguided and childish. The law is dynamic because it must be applied in areas where no prior written text has a straightforward conclusion.
A simple example is wiretapping laws. Because of historical stare decisis interpretations of the Constitution, it is ruled a violation of the 4th Amendment for the government to wiretap a citizen without a court order. Nowhere in the Constitution is this protection written -- it required the application of the spirit of the document to the 20th century by the Supreme Court.
Fortunately, we don't need to bicker about this because you seem to hold the Constitution as the preeminent law of the land. Since the Constitution is correct by definition (according to you) and it gives the Supreme Court jurisdiction over its interpretation, the Supreme Court is also correct by definition.
> you seem to hold the Constitution as the preeminent law of the land
To the contrary, my point is this document is ambiguous and subject to interpretation. So, who interprets it? The judges of course! The very people this document is supposed to protect me from. Seems a bit circular. Fast forward to year 2012, and judges say it's OK to seize domain names. How can the constitution defend my right to free speech and also defend the government's right to seize domains?
Fast forward to year 2012, and judges say it's OK to seize domain names.
Then it's Constitutional by definition. Congress, however, can pass a law amending the Constitution to prohibit the seizure of domain names. Then it's no longer Constitutional. Do they not teach the three branches of government or checks and balances in middle school anymore?
"The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office."
You should have revisited the situation after fifth grade. Fifth grade teachers like to simplify things. Marbury introduced judicial review. It's not in the constitution.
Good thing I never mentioned judicial review, right? Appellate reviews satisfies my statement just fine. Also, while judicial review did become reinforced after Marbury v. Madison, you'll note that the power was derived from an interpretation of the Constitution, not the court itself. That the Constitution implies judicial review is in purview of SCOTUS is a long-accepted interpretation of the Constitution.
The idea that the courts have jurisdiction over the interpretation of the constitution (as opposed to, say, each branch being independently obligated to adhere to the constitution) is judicial review, not appellate review.
I don't think anyone denies that there are areas where the constitution is not sufficiently detailed. However, the constitution still says what it says, and many actions that are considered "legal" today do not fall into the areas of constitutional vagueness, but are simply laws that violate the constitution that have never been sufficiently challenged.
The constitution is pretty black and white, and this is a good thing, because it means you can tell what is set out by it, and what is up to the legislature.
All the areas where the constitution enumerated powers it gave the legislature a free hand to determine what is right.
Thus for the areas that the constitution does address, it is pretty black and white and it is meant to be enforced by the people.
... and it really isn't hard to understand, nor does it require much interpretation. Just careful reading.
Actually, the document was written with the intention that anyone could read it and easily tell if their government was violating it or not. There have been a lot of people making up a body of work commonly called "Constitutional law" but much of that body of work seems to serve the purpose of trying to say that you can't just read it.
But if you read it, it is very clear.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
It is cut and dry. All of these siezures are not taking evidence, they are stealing property.
Money is property, it is not evidence of any crime, especially when it is electronic funds in a bank account.
>"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
This doesn't mean what you think it means.
It doesn't mean that the government can't take your stuff, full stop. It means that the government can't take your stuff without due cause and process.
This is actually increasingly common, and in some states the burden of proof is on you to prove that anything confiscated was not purchased with money obtained illegally. In addition, many states allow 100% of the profit from what is confiscated to go directly to police departments. One department where I used to live has both a police Hummer and a Tank. You can read about a state by state study at:
While I find this ridiculous, it's quite different from the Liberty Dollar case which you mentioned losing $20 in. In the US it is clearly illegal to begin running your own currency and has been for a long time. The fact that NotHaus went as far as putting the word Dollar on it was just the icing on the cake.
Buy Local—With Town Currency
Dollar alternatives, such as BerkShares in Massachusetts, are shoring up local economies by keeping money in the community
Visa is a currency. So are travellers checks and regular old checking checks and coupons. All of these are also denominated in dollars. If you were to take some time and study the actual laws, and also check out the legal opinions, from members of boards of federal reserve branches, as well as the secret service and lawyers that were obtained before the Liberty Dollar project was started you'd recognize just how absurd this case is.
But most people do not do the research. Most people assume that only the government can "make money" and most people fall for the idea that putting the word "dollar" on something somehow makes it counterfeit. It is this ignorance that lets them get away with such crimes.
I'm not trying to call you ignorant (as a pejorative). I'm just trying to say that I read the relevant laws, including the ones cited in the case against NotHaus et. al. and they do not prohibit what the Liberty Dollar was actually doing. Not at all.
In fact, the only thing illegal would be to make exact copies of US currency and pass them off as real. That is counterfeiting.
I can make a currency out of coffee beans or silver and try to get people to trade in it... and there's nothing illegal about it.
I lived in Las Vegas in the 70's when the Secret Service stepped in and shut down the process of people paying for things with Casino Chips.
For those not familiar with them, a Casino Chip has a current denomination ($1, $5, $25, etc) and the name of the Casino on it. For a long time Casinos, as service to their customers, didn't care if you played with another Casino's chips so you could just carry them around from place to place and play them. At the end of the day the Casinos would settle accounts and exchange chips and cash to make it all come out even. It was a great convenience and while occasionally people would try to counterfeit chips, at that time if you were caught doing that you literally disappeared. Of course businesses near the Casinos, 7-11, restaurants, etc, started accepting chips in lieu of cash since they could just walk next door and exchange them for cash. It was a kind of fun and "just one of those things."
And then the secret service came and said "Under the constitution only the US Government can make a currency, stop accepting chips or go to jail." And they did a few stings and there were some high profile wrist slaps (I don't think anyone actually went to jail) and the whole thing stopped.
Had the Liberty Dollar folks read that bit of history they would have seen where their enterprise was headed.
Relinquishing the right to create a currency was one of the pre-requisites to ratifying the Constitution [1] which took that power for the Federal government and removed it from the states and the citizenry.
No bartering is not illegal. Neither is buying, selling, and trading collectible Barbies. What is considered to be illegal (and I'm not a lawyer so I can't say definitively if it is or isn't) is creating an instrument, which represents a value (possibly fixed), and engaging in commerce using the instruments in lieu of the actual thing.
So trading a Malibu Barbie for a Space Barbie, or perhaps a Barbie Dream Home would not be a 'currency' transaction, giving someone a Malibu Barbie to pay for a lunch that was nominally $25 and having the person who got that Barbie then take it and buy $25 worth of groceries, and having the grocer be able to deposit it in their bank account and get credited with $25. That would be treating it like a currency.
There is a wonderful discussion on currency and what it is in the course Economics [1] offered by "The Great Courses". There is a wonderful story about an island which trades ownership interest in large rocks on another island as their currency. If you commute to work I highly recommend these courses as a way to pass the time and learn something (or at least get something to think about) while doing it. Don't be afraid of the price they regularly put things on sale for lots off. And if you have a library nearby you can sometimes check them out.
update: I remember that one of the key things about the test of whether something was a currency or not, is if it could be exchanged back into another currency. Its one of the things various "points", "miles", and other systems avoid is an explicit path to turn them back into cash. Sure you can buy a $50 VISA gift card and sell it to someone for $50 but its not like you can go to the bank and turn it back into $50.
The Barbie example doesn't really make much sense. I could just as easily say I'm trading Malibu Barbie which is nominally worth $25 for a Space Barbie which is nominally worth the same, and run afowl of currency laws. Or that I'm trading Space Barbie for lunch with no mention of nominal worth and call it barter.
The test you propose about conversion is at least logically consistent, but it's not what I see applied. For example, Berkshares (local currency in the Berkshires) can be traded for USD but they don't run afowl of currency laws.
Depends on the intentions... are you a farmer bartering your crops for another farmers meat; or are you knowingly circumventing laws.
This is similar to the way Pachinko parlors work in Japan and Taiwan - you collect a ball from the machine when you win, and with a certain amount of balls you can receive various token prizes. This prize can then be redeemed around the corner at a different location for cash. Cash was exchanged - there were just middlemen involved - but it still comes down to gambling.
If you are intending to replace currency with something else not produced by the government, then you are not bartering, you are introducing private currency and that is illegal.
Nika, none of the issuers you mention will convert back into dollars. Its a one way street. Presumably they have set up agreements with people who will accept them an they have pre-negotiated a discount rate. Its like chucky cheese tokens, you can't turn them back into quarters so that you can play more video games.
According to recent California law, "a gift certificate with a cash value of less than ten dollars ($10) is redeemable in cash (not a new certificate or merchandise) for its cash value."
Disney dollars are generally available only in denominations of $10 or less, so they may actually be an incredibly-inconvenient cash equivalent in California.
"Disney Dollars DO NOT expire. The oldest bill from 1987 can still be used today. As they are worth real money. They also may be exchanged back for the U.S. Dollars or purchased using the same.
They may used to pay for anything that can be normally paid for with cash including the following locations: (only Disney locations)"
They are exactly like casino chips, which is to say that within the Disney properties they can be used equivalently to cash, and even converted back into cash.
Given the Las Vegas experience however, I suspect that people in and around Orlando or other Disney locations, who aren't associated with Disney, should not accept them in lieu of cash.
One of the parallels to remember, the Secret Service wasn't going after the casinos for their chips, they were going after people who accepted them as cash even though they had no business relationship with the casino.
Good question. Early on when I was trying to create a milli-cent currency for subscription buying of content from a website we wondered if we offered a refund for our digital cash tokens if we'd get in trouble for it.
As it turned out the Digi-cash folks had all the patents and were being real dicks about licensing so we never got to test the question.
I can absolutely predict that if you can buy several hundred thousand dollars worth of bitcoins from person X, and then go to persons P, Q, R, ... Z and redeeem them back for cash, that the authorities will shut down that sort of thing quite quickly.
"I can absolutely predict that if you can buy several hundred thousand dollars worth of bitcoins from person X, and then go to persons P, Q, R, ... Z and redeeem them back for cash, that the authorities will shut down that sort of thing quite quickly."
Good luck cashing that out without crashing the market. Somebody pointed out, just a few days ago, that a $10k sell-off recently scrubbed 25% off BCN/USD. A 400,000BCN sell-off would almost certainly drop it to pennies.
I suspect that anyone confident enough in the Bitcoin economy to invest that amount of money is not looking to cash out quickly. They may be gambling that Bitcoin becomes a commonly-used internet currency, in which case they stand to gain a lot of money in the long term.
edit: Ah, I see your point. You said "redeem back to cash". Yes, that probably wouldn't work in an economy only worth a few million :)
I like how you just assert-- sans any evidence or argument-- that they are trying to "get around things intentionally". You don't even say what things.
Don't bother, I don't care. I'm just amazed at the BS this topic has elicited from people, and I am done defending these guys.
All the BS is just proof of why the country is going to hell- why the FBI was able to steal $7M in gold, silver and platinum and get away with it.
It is because you, and the rest of the ignorant government "educated" americans can't be bothered to think critically.
Do you need a hug? Seems like you are a little stressed by this thread.
According to the documents posted, the poker sites in question are attempting to get around the legalities of U.S. citizens placing monetary wagers or bets on international gambling sites. This would be an intentional circumvention of the law.
The example I posted in regards to Pachinko parlors circumventing their local laws by allowing people to trade in fake token prizes for cash is an example of people circumventing their local law.
There is nothing wrong with bartering or the barter system - and it is perfectly legal in it's intended use, but it can be used to circumvent other laws and would be illegal based on the legal definition of intent. As for the government stealing assets illegally - yeah that's wrong. Confiscation of these .com's bothers me a great deal - but that wasn't the topic I was replying to.
I am not an "ignorant government "educated" american" - and while my self education in legal matters may very well be off at times, I am able to think critically and be reasonable in what I do and don't know.
The problem is, that you are unable to have a conversation with someone that may be right or wrong on a topic - and it might not always be right that you can convince someone of the true nature of matters even if you are right. That doesn't mean you can act like an asshole - which you are. You don't know me, and because of one statement you are more than willing to blame everything you conceive as wrong on someone like "me". Get off your pedestal and learn to have a civil conversation - it's an awesome trait to have.
You come off like a completely arrogant know it all, regardless of the validity of your claims, the responses you're getting are largely from your own comment's original tone, not the subject, in my opinion of course.
I won't attempt to argue that the Liberty Dollar wasn't a misguided enterprise. Even when the law is on your side, the fact that the government controls the courts assures that you'll never get a fair trial.
You're misunderstanding the constitution and what the "right to create currency" means. There are many currencies in circulation, and there have been many state and even private currencies over the years. Even today there are localities that make their own currencies- such as the Ithica Hour
http://www.ithacahours.com/
What the constitution reserves to the federal government is merely the power to determine how many grains of silver are contained in a given dollar.
Thus, actually, the current paper US dollar, which is not denominated in silver, is illegal, it is counterfeit!
Thus it is clear that tradition has long ago seperated from the law. But this is relatively recent. In 1930s it was that the government made ownership of gold illegal and switched from silver certificates to unbacked dollars, but even then the dollar was backed internationally with gold, until Nixon closed the Gold window in the 1970s and defaulted the US government.
An excellent book on the history of Money in the USA, is "The Creature from Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin.
"You're misunderstanding the constitution and what the 'right to create currency' means."
You may be correct, I have noticed a strong correlation however between how the government behaves with respect to alternative currencies and my understanding of the legalities of same. And while I also recognize that correlation is not causation, I find this sort of correlation useful in predicting whether or not my future actions would be viewed as "sanctioned" or "not sanctioned" by law enforcement authorities.
Right, but the point of this discussion is indicating the abuses the government perpetrates on the people, not the practicality of running an alternative enterprise if you don't want your life destroyed. Everyone knows that doing something like Liberty Dollar is greatly frowned upon, and that the feds will dispose of that as quickly as they can. Some people choose to do it anyway for the effect. You can think of it as a protest, I guess.
And while I also recognize that correlation is not causation, I find this sort of correlation useful in predicting whether or not my future actions would be viewed as "sanctioned" or "not sanctioned" by law enforcement authorities.
It's certainly true that behaving as the government wants you to results in less hassle, but we should be clear that "not sanctioned by law enforcement authorities" is absolutely not the same as "illegal" in the U.S.
I listened to a lecture by the author of "The Creature from Jekyll Island" where he made some outrageous claims about the ownership of the Fed. I was trading US Govt. bond futures at the time and we went to some pains to understand the federal reserve system and to say he erred in fact is being generous. It was full of slavering nonsense, often with anti semetic overtones.
As a side point paper money is obviously extremely vulnerable if abused (see Zimbabwe) however the idea that your money supply should be dictated by mining is beyond primitive. Periods of rapid economic expansion will lead to deflation unless the state controls mining and has sufficient mineral reserves which then becomes the same thing as printing money.
To me what is shocking is that most people thing the Federal Reserve (which is probably the most powerful institution in the country) is part of the government and not privately owned.
I work for a very large bank and most employees here think you're crazy if you tell them the Fed is a private bank.
I haven't read "The Creature from Jekyll Island," but I have seen some good citations. It's probably better taken as an exposition of the motives of private central banking than an argument for a gold standard. The complication in US history comes from a private central banking cartel (the Federal Reserve) using the departure from a gold standard to their own profit. Through this (naive) lens, returning to a gold standard would help to keep monetary tricks in check.
Any modern currency reform should instead concentrate on public banking with a Fiat currency. This combination allows for controlled market expansion, with the everyday banking profits being distributed across the commonwealth. It should be noted that this would have no affect on the profits of investment banking, and would not require any substantial change to our current US Dollar economy.
What the Constitution allows and disallows is a matter of the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Constitution at the time. You have yet to make an argument that the federal government's seizure contradicts the established jurisprudence on this topic.
Visa is a currency. So are travellers checks and regular old checking checks and coupons
If you were to take some time to study the laws--or high school economics--or the cardholder agreement you sign when you apply for a Visa card--you'd know this is incorrect.
I bet you have "research" that tells you that credit cards are currency or something, contrary to very basic legal and economic interpretations of the word. One of the signs you're dealing with a nut is that the knowledge he thinks he has allows him to accept or reject facts as he so chooses.
Could you elaborate on this for me? It sounds like what they're saying makes perfect sense (btw, there is really no need for the --or high school economics-- jab).
Visa is an abstraction of my money. A better example would be american express gift cards. I can buy american express gift cards, and I can trade these gift cards or goods or services. The gift cards have a non-static real-value that is tied to the United States dollar (it's value in GBP, for instance, will fluctuate based on currency values).
I can take $100 USD, give it to a third party to hold, then slowly spend it as I see fit (effectively).
How is doing this with gold something that they should have covered in "high school economics class"? (No high school I've ever seen or heard of teaches an economics course, by the way)
I take $100, and give it to somebody who gives me an abstraction of that $100, gold.
To me, this sounds like literally the exact same thing as a gift card, just shinier.
Currency refers to physical money. A gift card isn't "money" because it's only a medium of exchange at a few specific places. Credit cards aren't currency because they are simply pointers to a line of credit, which isn't physical money.
The Liberty Dollar guy was found guilty of imitating U.S. currency. The OP believes the application of the law is unjust because, mentally, he's equivocated currency with other numismatic instruments. But this is wrong.
The high school economics jab is to call attention to the OP's lack of knowledge in something he thinks he knows a lot about. My high school did teach economics.
I believe it is you who is wrong. Wikipedia's first sentence on 'currency' is this:
In economics, currency refers to physical objects generally accepted as a medium of exchange.
I don't claim to have the requisite knowledge on the argument at hand, so I won't speak to that, but it appears that the assertions you're arguing as fact are incorrect.
Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick, in what courtroom does a 1-sentence wikipedia definition of "currency" followed by some blogger exposition constitute what is and is not creating an alternative currency?
This is simple -- you're not allowed to compete with the US gov't when it comes to providing the currency of the land. There are a lot of good reasons for this, and some mediocre reasons to oppose it, but at the end of the day it's pretty clear that there's a difference between Liberty Dollars and casino chips.
"This is simple -- you're not allowed to compete with the US gov't when it comes to providing the currency of the land. There are a lot of good reasons for this, and some mediocre reasons to oppose it,"
I agree. Competition usually hurts the market. . .
There are several examples of competing currencies being used to revitalize economies. One example is the "Miracle at Wörgl." While this system implemented by Silvio Gesell had many problems that I will not address. It did bring the communities who adopted the scrip as currency out of depression.
I agree that there's a different between Liberty Dollars and casino chips, but I've also been known to keep casino chips as souvenirs as well, so I guess they're similar in that regard.
I personally equate the Liberty Dollars to comic books or baseball cards, in that they're collectible items. Being silver, they should appreciate over time, but I would not confuse them with currency myself. I can see how others might make that mistake, but I don't see it as a fault of the company any more than I would accuse the folks who Chuck-E-Cheese of counterfeiting by creating 'game tokens'.
Well, fault of the company is in the beholder I suppose, but they named it "Dollar" and explicitly marketed it (as in paid for advertisements that say this) as an alternative currency pandering to the Ron Paul crowd. It's not like they're being accused by an idiot who mistakes Chuck-E-Cheese tokens for real currency.
But when you pay with a credit card, you're not exchanging the card itself for goods or services. You're asking a third party to pay (in real US currency) for the goods and services, and promising to the third party that you will reimburse them.
Pardon? I believe that's a little revisionist, as you stated, and what I was specifically referring to is "Currency refers to physical money."
You then list all the ways in which other forms of currency aren't currency, which is the point I disagree with. While I agree that a credit card isn't necessarily mapped to a tangible dollar figure, and that yes, it does refer to a line of credit, I disagree that it isn't considered currency on those grounds. Does a debit card more appropriately fit your definition, or is it disqualified because the actual dollars are elsewhere?
Regardless, I think all the relevant points have been made, and further quibbling on the point isn't likely to benefit anybody in particular, so I'll bow out.
You don't exchange your debit card during the transaction.
It's perfectly legal to map USD > token and exhange that token. It's legal to create a token that you will map back to cash. It's not ok to accept other peoples tokens that does not represent actual money that exists.
Travelers checks are an example of the first kind of token.
Poker chips are an example of the second kind of token.
You can accept a Travelers check from someone else. But you can't operate a business that accepts Poker chip's from someone else.
1. something that is used as a medium of exchange; money.
2.general acceptance; prevalence; vogue.
3. a time or period during which something is widely accepted and circulated.
4. the fact or quality of being widely accepted and circulated from person to person.
5. circulation, as of coin.
Currrency can refer to physical money. But it also refers to gift cards, visa cards, and any thing else that is, quoting the first definition, a "medium of exchange". Since you called a gift card a "medium of exchange" while saying it wasn't "currency" the dictionary proves you wrong.
Your understanding of my mental state and argument is also wrong, and I think you're projecting.
Since you apparently aren't familiar with the dictionary definition, I trust you will apologize for your assertions about my lack of knowledge.
If you looked at the actual laws the liberty dollar is cited as allegedly violating - http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/514.html and http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/486.html - you'll find it's quite specific about what is a problem; the former law makes illegal attempts to fraudulently pass off your currency a official US currency, and the latter makes it illegal to mint _metallic coins_ for use as current money. Gift cards/visa cards etc aren't easily mistaken for official US currency, and they're not metallic coins, nor is the physical object exchanged as money would be. So, they're not related to the liberty dollar case.
I appreciate your response, and agree that there's a gray area, but I am now more seriously wondering where parking tokens fall into this mix. They're metallic coins that decidedly represent some value (to the lot owners and offices/buildings that issue them as 'validation' at least).
I can't imagine them being easily mistaken for real money, but I honestly can't see the Liberty Dollar as being mistaken either.
Parking tokens(or arcade tokens) shouldn't have any issues.
They aren't issued for general currency like coins are, they are used to redeem a specific service provided by the people issuing the tokens.
In that way, their redeemable value never changes. A parking token means that you will be able to park in a space for a certain amount of time, no matter how much they are work in terms of actual currency.
I have looked at the relevant laws, an the liberty dollar does not violate either. They never passed it off as government money, nor did they mint any coins. (Coins are government only, so to have minted them they would have had to pass them off as government money.) These are not easily mistaken for government money, and there are a variety of other currencies, such as disney dollars, that are passed off, are physical objects, and are exchanged "as money would be" (though that phrase is not relevant legally, that standard is your opinion.)
OK, knock it off. This is exactly the kind of comment that's been leading to HN's oldest of oldtimers to conclude that there's been a decline in civility here.
edit: looks like he edited his comment while I was replying; his comment originally ended with, "I hoped your ilk would never find currency on this site, but I guess the day was going to come.", and was that way for at least 30 minutes before I replied.
I'm not sure that the dictionary definition of currency really matters here. I assume/hope that there is a legal definition of currency. Also, I think it will be very difficult to discuss this constructively without legal opinions on the definition of currency.
My understanding of economics is sufficient that I understood we'd be having a housing bubble in 2001, and by 2007, I'd profited massively from it and gotten out, well before the crash of 2008. All of that came from my application of economic principles.
I don't think I'm entitled to my own facts. But I have read the laws here, and I find your response to be devoid of any actual argument or citation of facts and full of smear and insinuation.
Having made money in the past through whatever means doesn't mean you know what you're talking about at all here.
Or, to requote the parents, "One of the signs you're dealing with a nut is that the knowledge he thinks he has allows him to accept or reject facts as he so chooses."
One of the signs you're dealing with a troll is that their ignorance is all the justification they need to make personal attacks, and they stay relentlessly focused on such attacks while failing to provide any substantive argument for their position. Often even failing to actually state their position.
There are too many trolls on HN. This is why the site sucks.
It would be cut and dry if you could show any "utterances" from the Liberty Dollar / NORFED, where they represented their products as US government money.
They did not, and further, they were careful to put disclaimers on their warehouse receipts, and various features on the physical pieces to make it clear that this was not being represented as government money. For instance, ever piece contained a copyright statement on it, something the government would not do.
> Whoever, except as authorized by law, makes or utters or passes, or attempts to utter or pass, any coins of gold or silver or other metal, or alloys of metals, intended for use as current money, whether in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design, shall be fined under this title [1] or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. [Emphasis mine.]
They were minting physical coins. They called them dollars. Just because they decided they didn't think they were legally coinage or currency doesn't change the fact that, that's very obviously the intent.
Their whole disclaimer is delivered with a wink and nudge.
"Just because they decided they didn't think they were legally coinage"
This is a dishonest characterization. They had opinions from independant council, the secret service, members of federal reserve branches, etc, all saying that the product was legal.
"very obviously the intent."
You believe this because you want to believe it. However, the decade of actions that the organization took, between 1998 and 2008, involved monthly newsletters, and repeated production of brochures, the website, and other writing all of which made it clear that people who had liberty dollars were not to put them forth as if they were us government money. They spent the majority of their educational effort in conflict with what you claim is their "obvious" intent.
"Their whole disclaimer is delivered with a wink and nudge."
I understand that you feel you can just tell lies about people and somehow you feel justified in doing so. But in honorable society, doing so reflects very poorly on your own integrity. I have to wonder, what motivates you, who have clearly no knowledge of this organization or its actions, to attack them with these dishonest smears?
Unfortunately, many americans think like you do. The FBI calls them terrorists, railroads them and people think the justice system works.
It is no wonder things are moving the way they are in the USA if your views, as I suspect, are widely echoed.
> No, they were not: "a piece of metal stamped and issued by the authority of a government for use as mony"
The fact that § 486 exists suggests that, under the law, it doesn't have to be a government minting something for it to be a coin. Otherwise nobody could ever violate that law, right? Courts consider the intent of a law when interpreting it, and it's fairly clear what is meant here; only the government is _allowed_ to mint coins, but you can theoretically mint coins if you're not the government (it's just illegal then).
> This is a dishonest characterization. They had opinions from independant council, the secret service, members of federal reserve branches, etc, all saying that the product was legal.
None of these people's opinions have any legal weight. Only a judge can actually provide a binding opinion stating that what you're doing is legal. Additionally, as cited from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Dollar#Legal_issues , there have been opinions in the opposite direction from secret service agents and the US Mint; if you're going to try to argue from authority (which is a bad idea anyway), you can't ignore contrary opinions at the same time.
Indeed, the Liberty Dollar project seems to have sued to get a binding opinion stating whether they were legal, and were raided shortly thereafter. This seems to indicate that, since the Liberty Dollar project forced the Justice department to take a side on whether they were legal or not, the Justice department prosecutors may have been forced to, well, prosecute.
> Unfortunately, many americans think like you do. The FBI calls them terrorists, railroads them and people think the justice system works.
Did the FBI really call them terrorist? I'd like to see a citation for that. In any case, this is hardly railroading. It happened four years ago, and with a jury trial. Two years passed from the start of the investigation to the indictment and arrest. The trial itself took another two years. You may disagree with the laws themselves, but I find it hard to see how the laws were misapplied here. § 485 and § 486 are really quite clear if you read them.
The law he cites rather explicitly said "in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design" are all covered. Metal coins of original design are still illegal to manufacture (though I'd agree they shouldn't be).
Interesting, as I have a number of Chuck E. Cheese tokens that appear to fit this description. Why don't we ever hear about FBI raids of kids' pizza / video game parlors?
I suspect that if the use of Chuck E. Cheese tokens as a medium of exchange were to become widespread in a given locale (one with the profile of Las Vegas) the Secret Service would take a similar interest.
Your pretend definition of what a "coin" is has no relevance in a court of law. They were printed metal tokens that had passing similarity to US coinage. The fact that they weren't issued by the authority of the government is the problem, not the solution.
That is the first definition from the dictionary definition. It is very difficult to debate an issue with people who are not aware of the basic definitions of the terms, and, despite their ignorance, make snide characterizations like "your pretend definition".
That they were not passed as government money is an affirmative defense.
That you idiots keep chiming in making personal attacks and espousing your ignorant perspective as if it was relevant is what makes this site pointless.
I'm not even involved with the Liberty Dollar. Why am I wasting time defending them against people with no integrity like you?
If I call my chair a "knife," that doesn't change the fact that I can sit in it. It is obvious to me - and, I assume, the judge who made the decision in this case - that the definition of the word "coin" in the law is not the same as the one you are using. That is, the law uses "coin" to mean a metallic object used as currency. Issued by the government or not is not part of the assumed definition. You can't sidestep the law by using a different definition of the word.
No, they are not currencies, they are payment methods for dollars. A note that you owe someone some amount of dollars is entirely different from saying, repeatedly, in advertisements, that you're an "alternative currency".
Normally I wouldn't be this pedantic, but in a discussion about currency, it's worthwhile specifying whether you mean American dollars, $some_other_country's dollars, or the Platonic form of dollars.
I meant US dollars, but now that I think of it, you can do transactions in any currency using Visa, which is more evidence that they're a payment system rather than a competing currency like "visabucks" or something.
The principle here is that you're not allowed to compete with the US gov't when it comes to providing the currency of the land. There are a lot of good reasons for this, and some mediocre reasons to oppose it, but at the end of the day it's pretty clear that there's a difference between Liberty Dollars and a cashier's check denoted in US dollars.
I've made the legal case in defense of those wrongfully convicted.
No you haven't. Even though I happen to agree with you about this, you are talking through your hat and are arguing politics, not law. You are your own worst enemy, because you have so little knowledge of how your own system of governance or justice works that you spend all your effort on venting your anger without achieving anything. Get educated, then get organized. Otherwise you are just blowing smoke.
Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, except that in any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officer’s judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable. For the purposes of this section, any Act of Congress applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be considered to be a statute of the District of Columbia.
This law refers to race discrimination and isn't relevant to your argument.
Key part with lots of sub clauses removed for readability: "Whoever, under color of any law, willfully subjects any person in any State to the deprivation of any rights, on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both;"
No, you're rewriting it by omitting the relevant clause. The race discrimination is one of the clauses that can invoke it, not the only one.
Let me quote it with line breaks for readability:
"Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, "
So, anyone who dies this.
"or to different punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than are prescribed for the punishment of citizens, "
Or who does this based on race, residency....
"shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both"
Shall be punished.
You can invoke the law by doing the first set of things, or by doing the second set of things.
It is an OR clause, meaning if A OR B are true, then the penalties apply. IF there were an AND on race, it would be the way you read it.
After the fact you are able to try and prove that the money or assets were not used in the commission of a crime. How one could ever prove a negative is beyond me, and the burden of proof is higher than that required by the constitution which (IIRC) take the innocent until proven guilty perspective.
These poker sites have not been convicted of anything, nor was there a court proceeding where the siezure was proposed and the owners of the property had an option to defend their rights.
Further, as we've seen in case after case, even in situations where the victims are not involved in crime at all, the courts are stacked against them.
I've been investing for a long time. I've lived thru two bubbles already- the dotcom bubble and the housing bubble. I lost money in the first and made a killing in the second.
I won't say whether this is a bubble or not, but the number one thing I look for is businessweek (or newsweek) saying that "things have changed!" A mainstream publication putting the bull market on its cover is the prime indicator that it is a bubble and that it will be a painful crash.
It is almost a cliche.
The real bubble right now is in the dollar. We've been able to inflate, an export that inflation, for nearly 100 years, and we got away with it because of military might and manufacturing might (and bretton woods). 2 of those 3 are gone and the last one is losing respect rapidly. It is gonna be a bloodbath when those dollars come home to roost. (and it will kick off a bubble in gold.)
Maybe the bursting of this "tech bubble" (if we're in one) will be the trigger that causes the end of the dollar bubble.
Unfortunately I'm not aware of business week putting the dollar on the cover and saying "This time its different". (But maybe one of their covers for gold will count.)
The interesting thing about the gold market is that there is 40x more "paper" gold ownership then there is actual gold in the world.
They can do this because the rules say if someone calls in their gold, they can just give them the value of it in dollars if there is not enough metal to cover it.
nika, good input! one insight though. I have a friend working high in hierarchy in one of the biggest precious metals trader in the world. He told me what you saying about gold (and other P.M.), but he said that White House is drafting an Executive Order for president (Obama if still?) to actually ban sell and export of P.M. you see, they know when dollar loose its green face, it will be nothing more than paper, and then P.M. will soar. In order to stop or slow it down, the government will be entitle to take ownership over your precious metals (it happened in the past!) and cruel penalties will apply if you do not submit. further to cool of the US market it will be forbidden to import/export not to create a shell in US for cheap/expensive p.m. tradeoff.
The biggest trade houses are advising clients to stash pm. or certificates in foreign countries. he also told me they lobby hard to allow IRS to tax other-than-bullion P.M. Right now, as you know, you dont need to report gold and silver coins to the IRS (bullion only).
I think you are right about the bubble, but this one will be "revert-bubble": it will grow naturally through market need, but will be artificially killed by US government and its sanctions.
I have 80% of wealth in us silver great eagle/canadian coin since $21. I think we will see $100 on it, but I may be wrong.
How many reading this article, and are disgusted by these clearly unconstitutional actions, are still living in the USA? How many of you are paying taxes to the very government that is using this money to fund this harassment, among other illegal activities?
You're providing material support to a terrorist organization! (presuming some number of harassed people are terrorized by the harassment.)
What are you doing to compensate for this material support? Are you going to stop it, withdraw your support? Or are you going to expend energy to compensate for the aiding these oppressors?
This is a rhetorical question. I've my own answer, and I hope you have yours.
It's not as easy to move out of the country as you seem to think, for a lot of us. Yes, it really is disturbing that I now live in a country that tortures people, and holds them for years without any trial at all. It's disturbing that it seems that humans are getting to be less and less important to our government than corporations all the time.
Still, what can I do? I'm disabled, and dependent on the government for survival. The only way I'm going to be able to get out of this country is by dying.
Maybe they were thinking they could buy the name from cisco, which is what happened pretty soon after. Have you considered the possibility that Apple had talked to cisco quite a bit prior to announcing the iPhone, and knew they were going to be able to acquire the name, and the subsequent "noise" cisco made about suing apple was a negotiating tactic?
Their agreement was pretty mild-- cisco wanted apple to support its VPN technology on the iPhones which they did.
Apple generally, if it finds someone else owns a name it wants that doesn't already infringe on one of Apple's names, buys the name from them.
It doesn't just copy the name and wait to be sued, as Amazon did here.
What would really make my iOS life easier is a good RSS client. I'm hoping for something that I can give a URL to and which will give me back an NSArray of dictionaries of entires, or something like that.
Too much to ask? Or should I just go the XML parsing route? (which seems like it would be a lot of work and brittle) I've not yet dug into this, but this is the next set of functionality I have to work on.
As someone who has, PMs are not technical people, at least not in that company at the time I worked there.
I think ignorant college students who are not smart enough to know the limits of their own knowledge are the reason that hacker news has gone the way of slashdot.
Oh, since you're probably under 20, slashdot used to have good discussion from actual engineers who were knowledgable, then it got overrun by ignorant gnu weeneis around 2001 or so-- back when you are 8.