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Comment by LewisVerstappen | Hacker News Reader

Just a side note, but it's funny how the Patriot Act is commonly decried by everyone as an overreach of government power & invasion of privacy.

But, when you mention these KYC laws (which were put into place in the US by the Patriot Act), no one bats an eye and just assumes KYC rules are reasonable.

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The Patriot Act is a broad-ranging piece of legislation, and the anti-money laundering provisions in Title III are less controversial than other titles.

What is unreasonable about brokerages and crypto exchanges being subject to KYC and AML regulations? How is that at all comparable to the government being able to eavesdrop on my private communications and violate my 4th amendment rights without a warrant?

Financial transactions are private communications.

This is becoming an increasingly rare sentiment, and oddly even on HN. Thank you.

You can simultaneously believe that financial transactions are private communications, and also that a securities broker being required to verify their customer's identity pursuant to KYC and AML regulations is reasonable. Your post is very vague (since the comment you're giving thanks to focused on a semantics "gotcha" and completely avoided the actual point) so I'm curious as to why you think KYC/AML regulations are invalid and brokerages and centralized crypto exchanges shouldn't be subject to them in the light of "private financial transactions".

And how does that make KYC unreasonable?

Party > Policy

KYC is the reason we have an archaic banking system while the rest of the world leap frogs us.

Tough to solve when petrodollars are still the reserve currency globally.

Every country I’ve lived in across continents has KYC & AML. Not that it solves corruption, but it’s the bare minimum for functioning societies.

Do tell us which countries have no KYC regulations and are leapfrogging the rest?

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