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It's interesting that the idea that 'banks should refuse to do business with potential terrorists' is something that most people I know support, or don't care about.

Until it happens to them. Then suddenly they get quite passionate about the state that the world is currently in.

I don't have data on how many people are being debanked, but anecdotally it definitely seems to be some kind of 'line go up' number, and I wonder if cumulatively it will get to some kind of critical mass where we have a large enough percentage of people make enough noise that the laws are reigned in, or if they'll be 'that group of weirdos' forever.

(I almost got debanked once -- I had my account re-instated after many weeks of extreme stress https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37925678)

5 comments

> It's interesting that the idea that 'banks should refuse to do business with potential terrorists' is something that most people I know support, or don't care about.

I tell them about the "terrorists" truckers who went on strike in Canada and who got debanked for going on strike.

> (I almost got debanked once -- I had my account re-instated after many weeks of extreme stress ...

You tell me. I had to fill nearly a PDF with nearly 50 pages justifying where and how I bought groceries and how I put tank in my car because they somehow thought I may not be living in the country I said I was living in.

Same things: weeks of insane stress but, eventually, they said things were OK.

You're not a weirdo. People don't realize we live in a Brave New World, complete with secret ESG score (assigned by banks to customers), etc.

Many simply have blind love for the state and they'll never question any rule made by the state.

So they'll state: "But banks are only following the law!". Which is precisely the problem: such laws shouldn't exist.

I live in a country where it's all about banking finance and most don't realize they don't produce anything at all. It's all about KYC/AML/compliance/SARs/fiscal lawyers/etc. A big, gigantic, void.

While you see SpaceX going from their Raptor 1 design to their Raptor 3 design, using the "idiot index", where things become more efficient and way cheaper, bureaucracy (and their banking following dogs) works the other way: everything becomes less efficient and more costly.

all of the laws meant for terrorists are being applied to normal citizens at an astounding rate, things like border crossings and these unconstitutional laws like the patriot act have really undermined people's rights

A few years ago in Russia, when protesting was still barely legal and possible, prominent opposition leaders were 'fined' for ~1M USD each for damages to businesses what happened due to some protest activity. Banks simply deduced every account balance by -50000000,00 RUB and have a nice day.

Whoever thinks that 'but that was bad, evil Putin's government and our nice, good government would never do such a thing' should think again. The government should not have such power at all, neither directly, nor via bank proxy that would 'independently' refuse you service.

When you happily cheer that in EU you can't pay with 500 EUR bill (because tax evasion, crime, etc!!!), you are basically helping the government create means to financially strangle anyone the government doesn't like. One day it might strangle you.

How could they not have the power? All power the banks have is directly derived from their ability to operate as they do within a currency regime that is directly controlled by the state. Best case is it's your state; plenty operate in a system controlled by a foreign state.

> How could they not have the power?

People in countries that are still free should take it away from them and legally protect direct money transfer between people. Cash, anonymous cryptocurrencies,etc, so that no middleman can ever take someone's money.

The problem I have with this debate is that it's targetting the wrong thing. Of course tyrannical states are a problem, but they are a problem because they can ride roughshod over your rights. Having a legal right to money transfers or whatever is only worth the value of the legal right. If the legal right is ignored or revoked, you're in no better a situation than never having the right in the first place.

The problem is a political one - if you want your state to be not shit, then you need to make your state not shit, not campaign for some magic work around to the state.

And terrorist is a word created to deny enemy combatant a PoW status because we said so.

Everyone is a "potential terrorist". Actual criminals are people who are tried and convicted of crimes. Everyone else is, by definition, innocent.