Yes, pretty much.
This is why I'm surprised more people aren't way more terrified about OFAC than there are. It's probably one of the nastiest diplomatic tools the U.S. has in its arsenal.
This is why I'm surprised more people aren't way more terrified about OFAC than there are. It's probably one of the nastiest diplomatic tools the U.S. has in its arsenal.
With technology obviating the burden of actually doing paperwork, and essentially cranking the efficiency of the bureaucratic state sky high, as well as equipping it with the tools it needs to keep the checkers/whistleblowers at bay, you've got a frightningly powerful tool poised to crush anything in it's way. These aren't the days of "no man can do much damage in 4 years" anymore.
One of the great Checks, is becoming much less of one every day. It's scary as hell.
The laws against money laundering aren't new.
1. Developers write open source software
2. Open source software is deployed for money laundering purposes by other people
3. Developers who wrote software at point (1) are now being punished for something they did before the US deemed it to be illegal.
Let's say the speed limit is being decreased. Would it be fair to jail everyone who went over the speed limit in the past, before this decrease was even announced?
Github banning someone is categorically different from the US government jailing someone. You are conflating two entirely different things.
You seem to have taken the outrage bait that this tweet presented and ran with it without verifying the situation.
There are interesting things to discuss around both the precedent of the sanctions and the ability of large corporations to terminate accounts at will. However the "github is banning people who just contributed to open source and this is wrong because what they did wasn't illegal when they did it" outrage meme is misinformed, confused about how law works, and is generally distracting from all the actually important topics.