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Comment by SilverElfin | Hacker News Reader

Good. Debanking and censorship through blocking payments or withdrawals or storage is bad for free societies. All sides should be against this.

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You're right that debanking shouldn't be allowed; but the solution should be legislation that bans or heavily regulates debanking across the board, not executive fiat that specifically protects the president's friends and allies.

What about customers that slide into unsavory activity, or customers who you think are doing illegal things, but don't have evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt? Are citizens not allowed to decide not to associate with someone?

I otherwise applaud your commitment to the rule of law.

Citizens as individuals, sure. But banks that are massively concentrated are more like public utilities not individual citizens, in terms of their criticality to a functioning society. They need to be regulated like that.

Both US banks and utilities are considered critical infrastructure under Executive Order 13636 of 2013. The government is charged with ensuring their resilience and availability to maintain a stable society (in the face of cyber threats).

If politics is a risk to stability (I know at least one fortune 100 finance company that does have it in their risk register) then this Trump executive order against de-banking is aligns with the former one from the Obama administration.

A defense against de-banking is a bi-partisan win.

How often do cellphone companies ban drug dealers?

The executive order is not expected to be specific to the “the president's friends and allies”, but just politically motivated bank actions in general. But I agree, legislation is preferable. And I wouldn’t support such an executive action if it were one sided.

It's really disheartening when people completely miss the underlying issue, whether in good faith or bad. This is another cut to you democracy to its death by a thousand cuts. This should be obvious to everyone by now.

Yep. Next in line is going to be debanking political opponents and opposition PACs, preventing them from campaigning effectively. And from the news yesterday, Texas has already taken a step ahead and has begun trying to arrest Democrats who are out-of-state.

William Dudley Pelley and George Rockwell would be so proud of the Republican party today.

Im a little concerned by the combo “and crypto companies” in fact I don’t think this is for ideological reasons I think this is for risk reasons. All sides should be against this.

Also, isn’t this coming at the same time as laws that say doctors can refuse patients for ideological reasons?

Would this prevent banks from targeting marijuana companies?

> Would this prevent banks from targeting marijuana companies?

The EO isn't out yet-- it might. Might not.

Right now the incentives are such that banks are likely to crap on anything they think the federal government may not like, because there are infinity penalties available for displeasing the government and nothing but losing a customer on the other side.

So anything that shifts the balance at all may have a fairly broad effect at improving access to banking.

And we think the administration that had used all its weight to get educational institutions to do its bidding is going to apply this fairly? If so why is this an EO and not an act of Congress? (And the answer to c the marijuana question is no, not as long as marijuana is still illegal

Don't we allow pretty much everybody to discriminate based on viewpoint? Except the government, and common carriers. Nobody is going to force me to do business with Nazis, for instance, regardless of any executive order.

Unless the employee is in a union, unless you're a landlord in a state that protects political ideology in housing, unless you're an employer in a state that protects political ideology, unless you're a hospital that takes Medicare.

Lots of government rules that force you to do business with nazis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...

Thoughts? You must feel conflicted. Since Trump's actions are in violation of this logic.

Why would I feel conflicted? One is about cakes from a small business with lots of alternatives for customers to choose from. The other is about large banks which are few in number, have privileged access, immense power, and provide a public utility.

In what world view does it make sense that banks provide a public utility? They're profit seeking, risk averse, Con men run businesses that work to extract as much "value" (money) as they can, from you, to give to others.

In one brilliant sentence, you've described both Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) and Wells Fargo.

Banks also create currency and manage all transactions in the economy. How is that not a public utility?

There are over 4000 FDIC insured banks in the US, and another almost 3000 FDIC supervised banks, along with over 4000 credit unions. This is nowhere near a monopoly situation.

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