From: "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com>
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 08:11:35 +0800
To: Duncan Frissell <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: Re: FCPUNX:Jurisdiction Shopping
Message-ID: <199708262356.QAA27668@proxy4.ba.best.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 11:06 AM 8/26/97 -0400, Duncan Frissell wrote:
> Another popular reason is privacy in general.  US domestic accounts can be 
> examined by any federal, state, or local government employee who can sign his 
> name to a subpeona.  Any lawyer can also examine account records in the 
> course of discovery proceedings.  There are some limits to the above powers 
> but not very substantial limits.  For all we know, FINCEN has a nice Win32-
> based point and click browser that can tiptoe through every bank and 
> brokerage account in America.  If they don't have one yet, I'm sure they are 
> trying to get one.
>
> If domestic lawyers or governments want the same sort of access to accounts 
> in other jurisdictions, they have to spend many thousands of dollars and 
> months or years of personnel time.  Cuts down on their capabilities.

This is true to a greater or lesser extent of almost any foriegn
jurisdiction.  Even both countries are hostile to financial privacy
and have cosy relationships with each other, it is still a lot more
work for investigators in one country to get information from 
another.


 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
              				|  
We have the right to defend ourselves	|   http://www.jim.com/jamesd/
and our property, because of the kind	|  
of animals that we are. True law	|   James A. Donald
derives from this right, not from the	|  
arbitrary power of the state.		|   jamesd@echeque.com