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Comment by hannasanarion | Hacker News Reader

No, they are recorded. The government needs a warrant after convincing a judge that there is probable cause that you have committed a crime before they can pull your bank records. When you use crypto, you're just broadcasting every transaction to the world, so they can just watch.

Using bitcoin to avoid government surveillance is like saving your passport on a billboard to avoid hackers.

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> The government needs a warrant after convincing a judge that there is probable cause that you have committed a crime before they can pull your bank records.

Unfortunately, transaction records like financial records are currently afforded a very low level of legal protection in the U.S., so the "warrant" and "probable cause" parts don't describe current practice. (That would be the case for a telephone wiretap, or a search of your home, but not for access to your financial records.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine

One thing that I don't think the press ever managed to chase down -- following the Snowden revelations -- is the rumor that there was also a "bulk financial records program" which would have involved intelligence agencies and/or law enforcement getting access to search all bank transactions, without any individualized suspicion. (Recall that one thing Snowden revealed is that there was a bulk telephone records program, in which telephone metadata was turned over to the government in bulk, without individualized suspicion, which the government justified in part due to the third-party doctrine.)

In the government's view, the third-party doctrine means that it's never a fourth amendment violation if the government compels access to most kinds of transaction data in the possession of some kind of service provider or intermediary. (Some of those kinds of data may have higher levels of statutory protection but the government's position, as I understand it, has been that it's not an infringement of your fourth amendment rights even if those protections are circumvented or ignored.)

The Third Party Doctrine does not apply to Bank Records since the Right to Financial Privacy Act was enacted in 1978. Cops need a warrant to pull your bank records.

Thanks, I didn't know about that and I'll have to look at that some more.

(Technically the third party doctrine would still apply in any case, because this would be a statutory protection rather than a constitutional protection.)

Yeah, most times the Third Party Doctrine comes up these days afaik is with location tracking services.

EG, technically cops don't need a warrant or subpoena to ask Google where you were on a particular day. Though, in practice, they often still get one because they know that it's kinda unfair and judicial or statutory protections are probably coming soon and they don't want to jeopardize the prosecution should the law change during the investigation.

For example, the January 6 insurrectionists are largely being caught through location data obtained under warrant from Google. Do they technically need the warrant? No. And if they were investigating, like, shoplifters, they probably wouldn't have bothered to get one. But they don't want to let thousands of insurrectionists off the hook in case this is the case where the courts decide to flip.

"Presumably". In truth they are filtered and data mined on the spot.

A cross-country wire payment visits multiple jurisdictions already with the US getting first dibs via SWIFT.

My local IRS can also read them.

So they are effectively public for all major actors.

> Using bitcoin to avoid government surveillance is like saving your passport on a billboard to avoid hackers.

And I'm saying its main purpose is not to avoid surveillance but at as an inflation hedge.

The fact that the governments also see in real time should count as a vote of no confidence.

    >>> The government needs a warrant after convincing a judge

In theory yes, after the Snowden papers do you really think the NSA didn't find a way to weasel around these restrictions?

Granted, it's not for your local drug dealer but for higher level surveillance.

> The government needs a warrant

not everywhere. In some places in Europe (e.g. Germany) the IRS is able to pull up your banking history without the bank having to notify you, and they can query a subset of the info (time of account opening, current deposit, personal info) without even notifying the bank.

AFAIK in Germany they can ask you to submit your banking history for tax purposes (for example they have doubts about your declaration), if you fail to submit it or refuse, they can go to the bank, but you are notified way before they go through the bank and if you comply with the request, they don't go to the bank at all.

Also the request must be authorized by the state tax office, it's not like every government employee can request and obtain the list of all of your transactions.

quick googling would show that your knowledge on this is dated (laws changed in mid 2000). See linked article[1] (or many other articles like it - it was a huge topic at the time creating much outrage).

The bank will not be informed of the invasion of privacy (the excuse is so that banking customers don't have any negative impact when they realize customers get probed - it's probably more to avoid spooking the public about the frequency of how often this happens).

> Also the request must be authorized by the state tax office, it's not like every government employee can request and obtain the list of all of your transactions.

you're mistaken. These are the organs which have automated access (in addition to the IRS):

  -  social services
  -  job center
  -  bailiff
  -  state attorney
  -  customs authorities

it's designed to put pressure on low income groups in society, while the HNWI's and corporate big fish can cloak themselves with an armor of impenetrable offshore tools[2].

[1] in German (just run through any translate service): https://www.vlh.de/wissen-service/steuer-nachrichten/kontena...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Islands:_Tax_Havens_a...

Would a government need a warrant to pull records from an exchange to connect it to a real identity?

The usual way bitcoin payments are traceable are due to crypto-fiat exchanges requiring that information (AML & KYC regulations).

Wouldn't that make it effectively equivalent?

Only if they can't get you with public information. Suppose that your transactions reveal enough about you to allow the government to profile you, arrange a stake out (and thus get you in another way) or something like that. Or you could have left some trace in a direction which is not that much protected (like you bought something physical which has been delivered to you).

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