The Online Safety Act isn't about making these things illegal. It's about making it more difficult to do the illegal things in the first place. To take an analogy: money laundering legislation exists to make it harder to use the proceeds of organised crime in legitimate life. Being a drug dealer is already illegal, yet we don't use that as an argument against such laws and regulations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...
My bicycle recently got a puncture. Is the purpose of my bicycle to get punctures?
No, a person who opposes heavy-handed, invasive KYC and AML laws does not argue that genuine organized crime figures and terrorists should do however they please with their money. The argument is instead that fighting these figures and their transactions shouldn't be designed in such a way that it also penalizes the vast majority of people who are doing nothing more illegal than tripping up some bullshit lazy, rote paranoid financial legal framework.
Also, like many other kinds of privacy, financial privacy should be a right that isn't exclusive to government black budgets and well-connected elites.
> Your response is similar to someone who opposes privacy activists and their fight for E2E encryption saying "so your position is that children should be sexually exploited online".
Re-read my accusation. I never stated that you support committing crimes, I stated that you believe that, once the crime is committed, the money can be entered into the legitimate system.
With that said, let's look at your clarification:
> No, a person who opposes heavy-handed, invasive KYC and AML laws
> their transactions shouldn't be designed in such a way that it also penalizes the vast majority of people
I need to see evidence that the "vast majority" of people are being "penalized" by this system. The most "inconvenience" I ever faced was having to provide bank statements when applying for a mortgage to prove the deposit was legitimately my money. There was a post just last week from patio11 that makes me doubt your claim that the "vast majority" of people are inconvenienced by AML. In addition, I watched this video by a former financial services advisor [1] that also suggests to me that your claims are wildly overblown.
> Also, like many other kinds of privacy, financial privacy should be a right that isn't exclusive to government black budgets and well-connected elites.
Weirdly "well-connected elites" are the people most inconvenienced by AML, KYC and PEP regulations (see above references), so I think your grasp of the issue is not aligned with reality.
No, you said essentially exactly that, that a person opposing AML and KYC is automatically supporting "scary" crime:
"So your position is that we should allow criminals to launder the proceeds of violent and organised crime"
The evidence of many, many people being penalized by AML and KYC is abundant. Either you're deliberately being obtuse or just haven't paid attention. On this site alone, posts and attending comments very, very regularly appear describing the numerous ways in which ordinary people and small businesses face financial difficulties and account freezes explicitly because of AML rules, sometimes in their worst, entirely algorithmic forms. This has applied with bank accounts, payment processing firms and perhaps most infamous of all, Paypal, which is almost universally famous for its bullshittery on freeing "suspicious" funds and transactions.
You saying that because you've had no problems, then there probably is no problem is like someone who's never personally been harassed by the police while driving saying that reports of police brutality against marginalized individuals are probably absurd. Good for you for turning anecdote into evidence.
Patio11's post, which I've seen, also does no favors to your argument. Using a mountain of verbiage, it elaborates how and why the crap I describe happens. The post also seems to justify the banks that do it as poor victims of something that they're obviously complicit in for the sake of their profitable bottom lines (since it's easier to just freeze someone out with no explanation than actually devote resources to better, more transparent support for customers who find themselves shafted by some mandated financial suspicion process)
If you really think that well connected elites are especially hamstrung by AML, KYC and PEP regulations, you should really take a closer look at several major financial leaks such as the Panama Papers and others.
Then provide evidence that it's affecting 99% or even just "the vast majority" of people.
> You saying that because you've had no problems, then there probably is no problem is like someone who's never personally been harassed by the police while driving saying that reports of police brutality against marginalized individuals are probably absurd. Good for you for turning anecdote into evidence.
No, I'm saying "I had no problems, therefore the claim that the 'vast majority' or '99%' of people have this problem will need to be substantiated."
> Patio11's post, which I've seen, also does no favors to your argument. Using a mountain of verbiage, it elaborates how and why the crap I describe happens.
I never said it doesn't happen. I specifically said it doesn't happen to "the vast majority" or "99%" of people. Patio11's post is very clear that, by definition, this does not happen to "the vast majority" of people.
> If you really think that well connected elites are especially hamstrung by AML, KYC and PEP regulations
I posted a link from a financial advisor that explains clearly that this is exactly what happens. In response, you have yet to provide evidence that these regulations affect the vast majority of people in any meaningful way.