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Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

Crimes require victims.

Crimes require violation of criminal law, which may or may not involve a victim (the legally offended party in a crime isn't the victim, if any, but the State; that's a pretty central distinction between crimes and torts.)

Depends on your definition of crime. From a legal sense, you are correct but from a moral human sense, the original poster is correct. A crime that hurts no one is not a crime.

>but from a moral human sense, the original poster is correct. A crime that hurts no one is not a crime.

according to whom?

Would you, as a human, say people who have hurt no one should be punished?

Would you, as a human, say the legal system is some sort of Djinn that a certain combination of words will suddenly defeat?

My goodness, that flag does look a bit gold fringed.

I would say morality and the legal system are entirely separate things and I made no argument about the latter. I merely am invoking the golden rule. Is it fair to hurt someone who has hurt no one?

Because your view is a naive reduction in an attempt to trivialize the issue by claiming nobody was specifically harmed when the matter at hand is the protection of society as a whole.

Protection of society as a whole is usually just special interest in disguise. See drug war, child pornography distribution, copyright extension etc.

1) No[0]

2) Usually money laundering means the money was obtained illegitimately. That money had to come from SOMEWHERE, and someone was probably harmed in the taking of it.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victimless_crime

More often than not the only victims are victims because of the government actions. Violence triggered purely by its prohibitions or previous actions.

You saw the part in the original link about how Liberty Reserve laundered the proceeds of credit card fraud and identity theft, right? How is that the government's fault?

That is not victimless and off topic from this sub-argument.

Identity theft and credit card fraud are victimless crimes?

Stealing CC is bad thing. But why punish LR for this and not IT professionals who stole them? Or Visa who still cannot make secure payment system? Or Microsoft who cannot make secure operating system?

Mens rea?

Conspiracy or facilitation are criminal acts because they're part of larger criminal acts (murder, fraud, etc.). From what I've read, LR knew that the monies passed through it were the result of crimes, and they knowingly structured their business so as to make it easier for customers who committed financial crimes to launder those monies. PayPal, Visa, and Microsoft do not knowingly structure their businesses or products around the facilitation of crimes, nor do they knowingly support criminal activities. Crimes happen in spite of their respective businesses, not because of them.

10,000 years of history disagrees with you.

No they don't; but they should.

This is the distinction between a crime and something that is illegal. On HN people rarely make the distinction because they think something being illegal makes it a crime.

Illegal means it violates a law. A crime is something that actually harms someone.

Gay marriage may have been illegal, but it was never a crime, for example.

Alas, these days the USA is a very authoritarian culture and the idea that there might be US laws that are themselves crimes to enforce seems alien. But logically and morally it is the case.

No. "Crime" is a legal concept. A crime at law is something for which the state is authorized to punish you. If you do something the law says is punishable by the state, irrespective of if you harmed anyone, you have committed a crime. If you plot to rob a bank, even if you do not go through with it and no one is harmed by your deeds, you can be convicted of conspiracy and jailed.

> This is the distinction between a crime and something that is illegal.

You're language is too loose to be making such distinctions. Crimes have a legal meaning so you can't just use the word crime in its moral sense only without being specific.

>On HN people rarely make the distinction because they think something being illegal makes it a crime.

HN isn't that dumb.

> Gay marriage may have been illegal, but it was never a crime, for example.

In the sense you're using the word crime (i.e. moral) you're absolutely wrong, it was a moral crime and gay people were the victims of said oppression.

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