Addled thinking on allowing and approving

Published by Tom

January 15, 2012

UK secretly allowed pirate ransoms | The Australian.

The linked story says a lot about how lost we are to liberty. The government, under various pretexts, monitors how we spend the small portion of our own money it does not wrench from us to squander. For example, I recently had to suffer the indignity of explaining to the lawyers acting on my home purchase where the money came from. The honest answer is "30 years of hard work." That, apparently, is way too suspicious.

The state has made secret policemen of our bank managers, accountants and (God forgive us) our lawyers. Many of you will feel this is a justified intrusion into liberty; necessary to defend us against terrorism and organised crime. I disagree, and this story illustrates why.

Stephen Askins, a maritime lawyer involved in more than 30 hostage and kidnap cases in Somalia, said that each ransom payment out of London had been approved by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), a Home Office police unit, and the UK Borders Agency (UKBA).

He said the law on money laundering required every company, lawyer and middleman involved in the payment of ransoms to declare them to the government.

Well, quite. But how do the press get from that to saying;

The government has secretly approved the payment of millions of pounds in ransom money to Somali pirates despite stating publicly that it opposes such deals.

How does Keith Vaz get from that to this;

Keith Vaz, the chairman of the Commons home affairs select committee, said he would be writing to the chief executive of Soca to demand an explanation. “I am very concerned that the public position of the government seems to be at odds with what it is doing privately. I’m very surprised to hear about this. Soca is designed to tackle organised crime, not to keep organised crime going,” he said.

Can no-one else see the difference between checking that a payment is not from the proceeds of crime and "approving" an innocent citizen's reluctant payment of his own money to criminals? Can no-one else see the difference between being unhappy about people having to do something and prohibiting them from doing it with the full force of the law? No? Well then you see why I don't want government involved at all in things that don't concern it. Once the government is in the picture, mini-minds such as Keith Vaz (and most British journalists), believe that all must do exactly as it orders.

The pirates are the criminals here, not the hapless business people ransoming back their own employees and vessels. If you were being mugged on the street, how would you feel if the government wanted to make your handing over your stuff illegal? Especially if the government in question had taken the muggers in question into custody and released them again as the Royal Navy did on government orders with the Somali pirates it captured?

If it were not for the offensively intrusive money laundering laws which make all transactors guilty until proven innocent, these transactions would take place entirely off the government's radar.

Rather like the piracy in fact.

7 responses to “Addled thinking on allowing and approving”

Martin Spencer

January 15, 2012

I’ve recently had the same experience: I’m 51, and have had savings since I worked in a West Riding pickle factory between 6th form and University, but my financial records only go back 15 years.If only either of my parents had left me money!
Martiness

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MickC

January 15, 2012

Of course the money laundering provisions were nothing to do with prevention of terrorism and its funding-and everything to do with Gordon Brown trying to prevent tax avoidance so he could waste the citizens money.

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Moggsy

January 16, 2012

They can always find some little old lady who does not have a clue to go on the BBC News to say something like if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear.
They just make it sound like you must be some sort of criminal to complain.
Not many people pay any attention till something messes with them. Then it is way too late.

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Single Acts of Tyranny

January 17, 2012

A coiple of years ago I was putting three grand into my account and the fat drone says “Where did you get that?” (it was a cheque) So a bit confused I said “Allliance & Leicester” which was clearly on the cheque. “No, no, I mean where did you get the oeny from in the first place?”
Anyway I wasn’t in a great mood and so I said “pimping whores, selling drugs and funding terrorism any more questions?”
She had none.

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Tom Paine

January 17, 2012

Having worked in Russia and China, you can imagine how much suspicion I used to engender among provincial British bank clerks. They seemed to regard me as what Stalin used to call a degenerate cosmopolitan.
I always answered politely, if minimally, any who asked their impertinent questions apologetically, admitting that it was under compulsion. On the other hand I told those (usually female) who tried to mask their espionage as chit chat that I had won the money in a casino and planned to spend it on fancy women. I did have a big win on my only visit to a casino, which I blogged about here – http://bit.ly/wephTz. Who is to say that any given £1,000 was not part of that? And my highly respectable womenfolk do dress pretty fancily.
Living in post-communist countries I heard from people who had survived oppressive governments by learning to lie to them, richly and without reservation. I don’t do it here yet, as I like to delude myself that Britain is not yet completely lost to tyranny. The time may come however.

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Moggsy

January 19, 2012

I do think it makes sense to provide only the information you have to. Other people can’t be trusted to look after it, or to not abuse it, or not to take advantage of having it.
Maybe not quite lost, but what sensible person would not hedge against that happening?

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Andrew Duffin

January 20, 2012

I recently opened a savings account; the bank involved asked me where the money had come from, I replied “A Post Office savings account”. No more questions were forthcoming – they just (I assume) needed to put a tick in a box to say they’d asked.
You can usually depend on the laziness of the people on the front line to defeat and undermine these sorts of things.

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