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FTC Creates Office Dedicated To "Algorithmic Transparency"
jfruh writes When Facebook's EdgeRank algorithm filters a meme you posted out of your friends' feed, you might find that annoying. When your bank's algorithm denies you a mortgage, that has a serious effect on your life. But both kinds of algorithms are generally opaque to customers and regulators, and the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection has set up an office dedicated to figuring out these algorithms affect our lives and intersect with the law. Perhaps they can start with how the IRS selects people to audit, and whether constantly shifting TSA policies make sense.
It's perfectly legal to make a $10k cash deposit into or withdrawal from your bank (assuming that the underlying use/source of the cash is legal, of course). It is, however, definitely ILLEGAL to make a $9999 deposit for the purpose of staying below that $10k limit. It's called structuring, and can get you into a lot of trouble.
As an example, you sell a car for $13,000, and get paid in cash. If you go and deposit that $13k in cash in the bank, you're entirely kosher. It'll generate a currency transaction report, but they're not at all uncommon.
If, however, you deposit $9k, and then $4k, to stay below that $10k ceiling, you've just committed a federal crime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
...before this new "office" starts demanding access to not only the underlying data, but the specifics of the algorithms themselves. The amount of heavy handedness that focusing on the algorithms, as opposed to say the effects of the business practices themselves, that can be brought raises the bar on a government way too willing to be heavy handed.
Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
You need to get a Credit Union. The credit union I deal with bends over backwards to avoid fees. For example, there have been times that my paycheck deposit has come late in the day but withdrawals have come out earlier and should have caused an overdraft fee. But because my regular pattern was to deposit my pay that day no fee was charged. That is one of the many reasons I deal with a Credit Union and not a Bank.
All the "suspected terrorist" lists are notorious for their unrestricted inclusion/non-existent removal policies, none more so than the No-Fly list.
It might not be glamorous to review a blank 'algorithm' but it would be a significant step for transparency in government. That is where the focus should be. We need to make a lot of noise to support this point of view. Otherwise all the usual race-baiters and niche-problem whiners will disperse and ruin what could have become a powerful tool.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
But to too many US "law enforcement" agencies the fact a criminal may also do something similar gives them enough leeway to seize your money and use it as their own.
Civil forfeitures laws in the US are so ridiculous that if you happen to get pulled over for speeding on the way back from selling your motorcycle for cash, the cops can seize the money "just in case", or more related to this depositing issue, if you happen to run a small store and do nightly deposits under 10k (because that's what was in the till at the end of the day) they will seize your accounts.
Even when they know with certainty there was no crime committed and you have all the legal justification in the world to have done what you did with your money they will gladly seize it and make you spend the next 6 months+ fighting to get it back.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
So instead of fixing the algorithm, they wrote a new law making it illegal to exploit the algorithm.
That's your federal government at work!
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
That still doesn't explain why $10,000 is a better number than $9,999 or $10,001.
Round numbers are easy to remember and deal with. It is the same mechanism that sets limits for severyity of theft and damage laws. For example, theft under $1000 is a different degree of severity than theft over $1000. The former is usually a misdemeanour while the latter is a felony. These numbers are arbitrary and have changes by amending the laws over the years.
How would you know whether the number is too low?
When too many transactions get reported and the investigation teams get swamped.
Why wasn't that same mechanism used to help write the law long ago when the cost of making changes to the law was much lower?
Because the mechanism is subjective and laws have to be objective. Any subjective changes in criminal law must be voted on by elected officials to become law.
You're partially correct. It's an example of how knowing a poorly designed algorithm can facilitate gaming the system.
Do you have a better algorithm? It is easy to say why you think is bad but much harder to fix the "problem".
You want all banking transactions reported to the Feds? Personally, I'd rather not.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Don't monitor money transactions in the first place.
Certainly an option, but would make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to stop money laundering, and hence effectively increase the profitability of a lot of illegal activity.
I don't have a problem with that. I think a lot less illegal activity should be illegal.
I know you're probably purposely being obtuse here, but the IRS doesn't seize your money if you deposit more than $10K at a time. If they did, I would be broke, as they would seize my paycheck every month. The $10K "limit" is a threshold for an alert, not extra-jurisdictional action to seize your money. That the $10k level was imposed decades ago, when it was far less common for individuals to be making deposits or withdrawals of that amount, still holds today is just another example of how short-sighted and slow moving the federal government is. The size of the transfer isn't the only key, either. Financial institutions may also need to track the country of origin & destination of money transfers (i.e. so you can't wire money to/accept from Iran or North Korea).
The $10K transfer "limit" is akin to the $100 bill being made the largest physical denomination. It doesn't make it illegal to have more than $100 in cash, it makes it impractical to have significantly more than that in hand, physically. (There're even calls to make $50 or $20 USD the largest physical denomination). Basically the US federal government wants to make it illegal/difficult/impractical to move large sums of US currency surreptitiously, at least without being noticed and recorded/tracked.
They have access to the data, which I'm not real happy with. I'd rather not see all transactions automatically reported.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes