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Joking About Giving Money To ISIS Can Cost You Money (arstechnica.com)
Reader rudy_wayne writes: A person who was using Venmo, an app that allows people to send money to each other via their phones, sent $42 to repay a friend, and jokingly labelled it "ISIS Beer Fund". He immediately got an e-mail from Venmo questioning the purpose of the money. Although he tried to explain "The $42 was payment to a dear friend for two pitchers of Samuel Adams Boston Lager" he was informed "Due to OFAC regulations, we are not allowed to give the funds back to you or issue a refund." The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control is a 54-year-old institution, quietly working to keep money out of the hands of America's enemies.From the report, "It turns out -- shockingly -- this isn't the first time someone's Venmo transaction was cut off at the knees with a reference to subjects that are a matter of national security. Venmo won't explicitly say what words will trigger blockage, Gawker pointed out in October.
Meanwhile, terrorists are smart enough not to label a money transfer as ISIS BOMB FUNDING.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Why would they read and analysed the reason of the transfer... I guess this will drive people using other technique such as Bitcoin.
Do they really think that the terrorists explicitly mark the reason for their payments?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Well, it works for tax-evasion accusations — why not for terrorism ones?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Meanwhile, terrorists are smart enough not to label a money transfer as ISIS BOMB FUNDING.
Yeah, but if it turned out it really was for ISIS and the institution knowingly ignored and help facilitate the transfer of funds, they would be liable civilly and criminally.
Yeah they probably memo that as "Payment to a dear friend for two pitchers of Samuel Adams Boston Lager"
And the Department of Financial Security Monitoring (comrade) goes "Oh that's so nice - we approve of that".
Why does the Office of Foreign Assets Control regulations apply to an unarguably domestic transaction?
Is this some sort of goofy legal technicality that because the transaction went through the internet they routed it to an off shore server and back just so they could listen in?
Meanwhile, terrorists are smart enough not to label a money transfer as ISIS BOMB FUNDING.
Actually, not all of them are. Just the ones that are around long enough to be noticed by anyone besides the people that hunt them.
Remember, terrorists are not super-human. Just like everyone else, 50% of them have a double-digit IQ.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
In a sane and just society, civil court wouldn't be the right place to deal with it. In reality, this is a simple issue of theft and all the guy should have to do is file a police report and wait for the perp at Venmo to get arrested.
But of course, we live in an insane and unjust society where essential rights are allowed to be abrogated by contract law. Until we fix that, we will never progress.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I once transferred money from my savings to checking account and wrote 'supplies for meth production' in the optional for section and it was rejected.
Sure, and that explains why the money didn't get to the recipient, but does not explain why the money was stolen from the sender.
We never should have let the authoritarians get away with their war on politically incorrect drugs. It led to our government being able to steal whatever they want.
Taking them to court for $42 doesn't really seem worth it, especially considering in the article that was published he admitted knowing what he was doing (but probably drunk).
Making a joke, even in poor taste isn't against the law unless explicitly defined such as yelling "Fire!" in a theater. The amount should be of secondary importance compared to the principle of standing up to anyone who confiscates your money when you have broken no laws that would give them legal standing to do so.
The rules vary by location and such but in general, getting small amounts of money that are rightly owed to you is precisely what small claims court is for. You generally do not need a lawyer for most small claims suits.
Sadly, on average we have become an extremely lazy and complacent society. The entities that want to take your rights away know this and have gamed the system by purposely making it inconvenient to stand up for your rights. Nothing will change until people stop being lazy and stand up for their rights even if it is inconvenient and requires some effort.
Land of the Free Home of the Brave. Or as I like to say in cases like this: Land of the oppressed, home of the wussies.
Knowingly ignored? Because four English letters that don't even represent the name of the terrorist group, but do represent many other things: Accidentally typing a common English word twice, An Egyptian god, a lunar crater, and asteroid, many geographical locations... a whole bunch of stuff actually: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
That's as much of an app as Venmo. Either gives you the option of using the web site instead.
Taking them to court for $42 doesn't really seem worth it
This is exactly what they are counting on.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
As stated in the subsequently linked article, it is not some weird mystery / secret what words are flagged. Dept. of Treasury maintains an easily accessible list of "Specially Designated Nationals" which is their compilation of probably most/all of the keywords that will be searched to find if there are matches.
In this case, "ISIS" is all over that document, like in 30 different places.
More relevantly, it's a wake up notice to share-everything 20-y.o.s to be aware that not everything is a happy go lucky social media commenting platform with no consequences. And Venmo should make that clearer to users that the comment field is not just a joke.
I have an ISIS flag on one side of my house, a Pakistani one on the other, and an al Qaeda sign over the door. I live in a bad neigbourhood, but never have to worry about it because my place is watched by the CIA, the NSA, the Secret Service, the DHS, and the ATF.
for the Panamanian tax evasion account. They let that through automatically.
What I want to know is if any supporter of major terrorist organizations has ever labelled their money transfer as "ISIS Donation"/"Bomb Fund"/"Al-Qaeda". Just give me one person in the history of the world stupid enough to do that, and there is at least some argument to me made for this ridiculous sounding policy.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
So everyone, add spook.lines to your outgoing money transfers.
^ https://github.com/emacs-mirror/emacs/blob/master/etc/spook.lines
isn't against the law unless explicitly defined such as yelling "Fire!" in a theater.
Sigh, not this again.
There is no law against yelling fire in a theater, even if there isn't a fire, and even if it's a crowded theater.
However, the law does hold you responsible for your actions. So, if you cause a panic, by yelling fire or dropping your pants or whatever, and people panic and get hurt, you will be held responsible for the damage and harm you caused.
But if you yell fire, and nobody reacts because they know you're a dumb joker, then you won't get fined or punished, because there are no laws against that. Unless you keep doing it, ignore requests to leave the premises, and get arrested for trespassing.
"No ma'am, we at the FBI do not have a sense of humor we're aware of."
Surely the money can't remain with Venmo?
I would have thought that it would have to be remitted to a government department complete with a report detailing why it was seized, who the people involved in transaction were etc etc. Otherwise you have a massive incentive to a company to make up reasons to seize money and you are not providing any evidence to the security forces that would want to track money to terrorist organisations.
If the money is sent to OFAC or similar it should be possible to have that money returned to you on completion of 200 forms and waiting 11.5 months.
Fine tidbit: The fire in a theater quote was originally from a Supreme Court ruling (and now considered one of the worst of all time) that went on to do a lot more than outlaw stirring up a stampede needlessly, and uphold a law making it illegal to publish pamphlets that urged people to "resist the draft using all legal means", during WW I.
The ruling argued it interfered with Congress' power to raise armies via recruitment. The judge who authored it soon changed his mind, but it was not overturned until freaking 1969.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The policy is not at all ridiculous at all, you just miss the point. Terrorism is a very serious business and we cannot have people making fun about it. Not at airports, not anywhere. The more serious people take terrorism, the more funding is available.
I have a brother in law that prays to Mecca 5 times a day... and drinks alcohol. His wife claims to be a Muslim and eats pork. Saying "Muslims don't drink alchohol" is a bit like saying "Mormons never have sex outside of marriage" or "Catholics never use birth control", isn't it?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
It's been confiscated? Pretty sure that's not legal, it's called theft.
Unless they are from Lake Wobegon in which case they are all above average.
We can't blame a company for using code word triggers to hold up a payment, but the false positives should cost them. Send the money back and make the algorithms better. When every Joe has to alter behavior to please the algorithms, the machines have already won.
Yet another company that I will never have any dealings with. I suggest everyone else follow and spread the word.
But of course, we live in an insane and unjust society where essential rights are allowed to be abrogated by contract law.
Using PayPal is an essential right?
You want to use their system, why shouldn't you agree to their terms? You aren't forced to use it. It's a convenience for you.
The biggest insanity of society today is the number of conveniences that people are now claiming as essential rights.
Actually, for better or worse there are some people who seem inclined to take any reference, that is not serious (or perhaps reverent) enough, to be a BAD THING©. In some places, making certain references will get you in trouble. An example would be making a bomb joke in an airport. Probably not gonna be considered funny by anyone - not even if you're a comedian. It's probably going to result in a variety of repercussions.
So, for better or worse, I don't know what nation you live in but it's certainly not the United States of America. No, they've been working on reducing the right to free speech for quite a long time. It's probably not too late to stop it without bloodshed but I doubt cooler heads will prevail and I suspect we'll slide toward greater and greater tyranny and control. It also seems likely that it will be at least partially at the behest of the majority or, at the very least, a very vocal minority.
If I had to, I'd further speculate that such is the natural progression of governance. There's a pendulum and, quite often, the pendulum swings with violence. I'd even suggest that if we could stop the pendulum before it swung too far then there would be less violence. That'd require rational actors and humans are not rational beings, they're rationalizing beings.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
1. Become a worshipper of the Egyptian goddess, Isis. 2. Create the ISIS Beer Fund 3. Wait for Venmo to pull the plug 4. Sue the pants off of them for violating your religious freedom 5. PROFIT!