Secret Service Interrogation of Wozniak (2002) | Hacker News Reader

Secret Service Interrogation of Wozniak (2002)

archive.woz.org

214 pointsmonort101 comments

Here's a video of Woz showing his pad of $2 bills and talking about this story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ1TIYxm1vM

In this video, Woz never states that his pads assembled from sheets of legitimate, uncut 2 dollar bills. He implies that he pays a local printer to create the pads from scratch. The reactions from the host and the audience seem to reflect that, as well. What's going on here?

He is having fun making literally true, but intentionally misleading, statements. Just like he did with the Secret Service agent.

Trolling an LE agent doesn't seem to be a good thing to do.

It is a very good thing to do in that it restores a balance of power.

If it were me, I'd be afraid the security agent would chose to be a dick and put me in jail for 24 hours for whatever motive he could think of. Also, the fake ID thing is pretty risky.

Why? It's his real name and his real picture. What law is he breaking?

(I agree that he probably didn't break any laws. The ID thing is awesome, really funny.)

"Laser safety officer" is a lie, and lying to federal officials is not legal.

How is it a lie? Poof, I just created "The raldi-DanBC Club" and as President I hereby bestow upon you the title of Laser Safety Officer.

It's generally illegal to impersonate an police officer, or other government official. Laser Safety Officer is a stretch, but consider Food Safety Officer ("I taste everything that comes out of the kitchen!"). This is where those fuzzy "reasonable person" tests start showing up, much to HN's dismay, where every legal problem should be decidable by a python script.

By what logic do you equate "Laser Safety Officer" with "government official"?

The government employs a great many safety officers. I doubt many people know all of them. A "reasonable person" may conclude, upon presentation of a "Laser Safety Officer" ID, that you are there on official business.

Depends on context. It's not illegal merely to carry such an ID. It's probably not illegal to give one to a Secret Service agent, either, unless you're trying to deceive them, but that's likely skirting close to the edge.

>The government employs a great many safety officers.

So do private businesses.

The Laser Safety Officer for Rockwell Laser Industries - https://www.rli.com/resources/articles/laser_safety_officer.... - is an example of a LSO in private industry.

"Certified Laser Safety Officer" from the Board of Laser Safety ("It should be emphasized that a certificate awarded by the BLS does not constitute a license to practice, nor does it guarantee that a CLSO meets any federal, state or other requirements related to the practice of laser safety.") - http://www.lasersafety.org/uploads/pdf/clso_pp_manual.pdf .

In other words, a 'Certified Laser Safety Officer' is not a government-specific designation.

Turns out, there's even a Wikipedia reference to LSO, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_safety#Laser_safety_offic... . "In many jurisdictions, organizations that operate lasers are required to appoint a laser safety officer (LSO)." with a link to a University of Chicago page at http://safety.uchicago.edu/tools/faqs/laser_safety.shtml which says "only Class 3b and Class 4 lasers are to be registered with the Laser Safety Officer."

(U. Chicago is another non-government organization with a LSO.)

Well, I was once interrogated in a very unpleasant tone by a police officer at the airport of London Heathrow because I was carrying an empty baby buggy, since I was picking up my wife and our son from a trip. Basically I was suspected of attempting to kidnap a child, so now I try to make my encounters with police officers as short as possible.

Thanks. The next time a cop is gruff with me, I'll know why he's frustrated.

I can't help but think restores the balance of power in much the same way that sticking your thumb in the eye of a grizzly bear restores the balance.

Actually that might be a good way to fight off a grizzly bear, so I'll take it.

Grizzlies would often come down out of the mountains where I grew up. Trust me, I advise you not to.

Woz is a master troll.

I don't think he implied that he had the printer create them. He mentions that he paid a printer, who he knows through a friend, to cut the sheets, perforate them, and gum them into pads. You can see this better if you watch the video timothya linked.

I assumed he meant he had a friend at the local mint who could get him uncut sheets and perforate them.

You can just order the uncut sheets:

http://www.moneyfactorystore.gov/2currencysheetsbeptestsheet...

He's trolling. He stresses that he had a "printer" make the pads for him. It is implied that the content of the pads was printed, when it was not. Everything he says is true but you are meant to believe these are fakes that "meet government specifications". Of course they do, the government made them, but that's not what he wanted the audience to think.

The quality of the comments on YouTube? They are really so bad I wanted to puke. They believe Woz is so rich so that he could get over with "illegal tender", even secret service approves "his own printed tender".

Is this really the US general public's comprehension level?

No, someone posted a comment about the abysmal rating system on youtube that promotes crap. There are no downvotes. This imbalance promotes one-sided views because people like to upvote stuff they agree with. The comment section becomes a nightmare of extreme opposites arguing and every sane person is driven out.

But this "people upvote stuff they agree with" is also leads to, upvoted and visible ones (which are over the fold) are mostly agreed with stuff. So general public mostly agrees with that.

Moderate views tend to get a "agreeable nod" and not an upvote.

I mostly read HN, but my understanding is in some counties of the US, it's a regular occurrence that poker games at home with money involved are considered contraband and a SWAT team comes and kills the dog (Don't make fun of the detail - The dog story is here because it's the only way to get public emotion about it, therefore newspapers report dog stories first). The SWAT team could even mistake the address and there are no reimbursements for damages, even if no illegal activity was carried. Obviously we only hear about the few worst cases.

Therefore would it be a stretch to imagine that any non-high-profile citizen carrying a pad of $2 bills could be suspected of illegal activities? To avoid a "SWAT inspection" don't you have to be either Steve Wozniak or in the right neighborhoods of US?

Insanity to the extreme. US is really insane on some accounts.

It depends on what you mean by avoid. There probably aren't more than 100,000 SWAT raids a year (statistics are thin, but Balko is a loud voice of opposition to them):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/02/17/s...

And there are about 120 million households. So even if you assume that all SWAT raids are illegitimate, that 100,000 is wrong by 10X, and that they spread the SWATs around on the bottom 1/2 of households, you are still looking at 60 years between them.

I'm not intending that to be dismissive of the situation, I mean to point out that it gets a lot of attention because many people think it is a significant problem regardless of the frequency, not because it is a pervasive fact of life in the US.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/01/27/fairf...

> Is this really the US general public's comprehension level?

US certainly don't have a monopoly on stupid comments! I believe the more people have access to a platform, and the dumber the comments are.

Actually, I've been using internet for 20 years and I can see how its democratization has also affected the quality of certain services (for the better and the worse).

Actually it provides a very nice image of the pad, I though it was more like a checkbook, but it's 4 bills (cut from a big sheet) with the topmost glued lengthwise (and they probably added perforations to make it easy to tear)

I wonder what's the padding between the notes, not too big I guess

While not obvious, this is the $2 bill Secret Service interview from around 2002. The page says the last modification was February 19, 2002 6:09:39 PM. His Wikipedia page suggests that his youngest was born ~1988, the story takes place "About 3 years ago", and refers to a 12 year old daughter.

Thus, a (2002) addition to the headline would not be remiss. I thought it was a new interview, and wondered if it was somehow related to his Australian citizenship process.

You can buy your own uncut currency sheets here http://www.moneyfactorystore.gov/2currencysheetsbeptestsheet...

Wow, that's expensive. $8 worth of bills is $22.50! Seems like it shouldn't be more expensive to get a set of bills that are less processed.

That is awesome. He has a lot more guts than I do. It's one thing to play a clever prank on a friend. It's quite another to play a clever prank on a casino security manager. And the secret service? Wow.

Having so much money helps a lot.

He did stuff like this long before he was wealthy. Calling the Pope with a blue box, and so forth.

If anything, most people stop kicking legal hornets' nests once they have something to lose.

The real travesty is the last paragraph:

> Well, as we were eating I glanced up at the Keno board and Sara had won $7500.

> The downside of this is that Sara gained $7500, I lost $7500, the government gained $7500 and the casino lost $7500. You see, I had to fork out the $7500 to my daughter and collect the winnings myself. But about half the winnings would be paid by me on my taxes as income, and other half of $7500 would be paid as gift tax for giving the winnings to my daughter (I'd already transferred the maximum yearly tax free gift of $10,000 to each of my kids).

Could you please explain why?

It's already explaind by Woz.

He collected the money into his account. So that $7500 is taxable as income. He lost nearly half of it now.

(Balance=savings + 7500 - 7500/2 tax)

Then he transfered $7500 to his daughters account. Up to here, He lost ~7500/2 to taxes.

(Balance=savings - 7500/2 tax)

And this transfer process is also taxable as a inheritance/gift payment. Another tax paid by his savings.

(Balance=savings - 7500/2 tax - 7500/2 gift tax)

Happy government, Happy daughter, neutral Woz :)

So where's the travesty then? Is the complaint that enabling underage gambling is tax inefficient?

There's a difference between tax inefficient, and a 100% effective tax rate.

What effective tax rate should we use for underage gambling then?

Personally, I don't believe it should be legal at all. In Australia and NZ, where I'm from, they just won't let you in until you're 18 and (I believe) 20 respectively.

Allowing kids to play, and then funneling the earnings through their parents with extreme tax consequences is the kind of bizarre middle ground I'm not surprised to see from the US.

Well, it's not really allowed in the US either. Minors aren't allowed on the gambling floor, but Keno games can be played from essentially anywhere, such as the restaurant where you take your family to eat. A "it's legal if you pay extra" loophole doesn't exist except to the extent that if you lie and put the wrong name on the form, it's hard to check.

Yeah but go to any RSL club or pub and you'll see keno, greyhound racing and the trots on every TV in the family bistro.

We don't really have a moral high ground here.

His problem is not with underage gambling restrictions. It's about how expensive it's to transfer funds to family. Also he's paying income taxes on behalf of his daughter. That's unavoidable. But the gift tax? that's really insane.

The gift tax exists to prevent estate tax avoidance. Is your view that on principle estate and gift taxes shouldn't exist? I am philosophically against inherited capital accumulation, so think it should exist.

FWIW, only those who have given over $5.43 million of gifts in their lifetime pay the gift tax in the first place. Woz is by all accounts a generous person. While generous, this also reduced the size of his taxable estate by quite a bit.

In addition, each parent can give a child up to $14K tax free (now; $10K then). Spouses can give gifts to each other tax free. If I read it right, each of Woz's children probably received up to $20K in a year without paying gift taxes, though he only mentions the $10K from him personally. This gambling win would have been on top of that $20K.

It's hard for me to be concerned about 12 year olds making 20K/year tax-free.

I do not understand the rational after estate tax. It may be rational to prevent "depth escaping" in many cases but in death? I think most of the time some illegal activities or workarounds are used as subtext by government to take some more cut.

I don't know what you mean by "death escaping." I don't know what illegal activities you are referring to in this matter. The Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_tax_in_the_United_States has a pretty complete coverage of the points both for and against the estate tax.

While the gift tax is, in the US, closely coupled to the estate tax, they are distinct things. I made an error in not mentioning income tax as well was the estate tax.

Gifts could be used to get around income tax. If I pay my children to work in my store, then they pay income tax. If however I give them gifts, and they just happen, out of generousness and familial good will, happen to do the same amount of work as an employee, then that's an illegal scheme to avoid paying income tax.

Estate taxes are a reflection of a philosophical viewpoint, which is that inherited wealth is not as good for the country's well-being as wealth from labor. Consider if I were to own 1/5th of the land of Manhattan, and make money from leasing out the properties.

If there were no wealth tax, then I could pass that land to one of my children, who then passes it on to one of my grandchildren, etc. Wealth like that tends to accumulate, and lead to increased economic inequality. The philosophical viewpoint is that a humane society does not have drastic differences between the richest and poorest people. In addition, this would tend to create de facto nobility, or landed gentry, which is something the US has traditionally opposed. If Picketty is right, and r > g, then the death tax or a wealth tax or some other means is needed to limit wealth inequality.

I meant "debt escaping". Being a foreigner I made a bad typo. I don't know really the term used in English, that's a way to evade debt by transferring funds to someone else.

Unless you regard all taxes as debt, this meant to keep people from escaping from paying taxes, not paying debts.

Here's a variation of the earlier scenario. I have a company. I give people gifts of US $40,000, with no strings attached. It happens to be that, in their free time, they volunteer at my company to help me out with my business, and spend about 35 hours a week in volunteer labor.

Is this really a "gift" that shouldn't be taxed at all? If so, it's a way to avoid employment and income taxes.

To prevent that from happening, the gift taxes are going to have to be at least as high as employment-related taxes would be.

Since the gift tax doesn't kick in until $14,000/year, which is under minimum wage, the gift tax for higher valued gifts must be much higher than employment taxes. Otherwise it will still be used to avoid employment and income taxes.

It's really only applicable to folks giving pretty large amounts to their families. He and his wife can gift each kid (as well as any number of other individuals, it seems) $28k/year tax-free. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_tax_in_the_United_States

> There are two levels of exemption from the gift tax. First, gifts of up to the annual exclusion ($14,000 per recipient as of June 2013) incur no tax or filing requirement. By splitting their gifts, married couples can give up to twice this amount tax-free. Note that each giver and recipient pair has their own unique annual exclusion; a giver can give to any number of recipients and the exclusion is not affected by other gifts that recipient may have received from others.[7]

> Second, gifts in excess of the annual exclusion may still be tax-free up to the lifetime estate basic exclusion amount ($5,340,000 in 2014), although for estates over that amount such gifts might increase estate taxes. Taxpayers that expect to have a taxable estate may sometimes prefer to pay gift taxes as they occur, rather than saving them up as part of the estate.

> Furthermore, transfers (whether by bequest, gift, or inheritance) in excess of $1 million may be subject to a generation-skipping transfer tax if certain other criteria are met.

Woz wouldn't come out neutral here though, he'd come out $7500 in the hole.

He wins $7500 but gives it all to his daughter, so now he's at $0.

But he's still paying (say) $3750 in income taxes on his daughter's behalf (since she's not old enough to even play Keno) and letting her keep the whole $7500 (nice guy!) Now he's $3750 in the hole already.

But then he has to pay the gift tax (again, on the whole $7500, since that's what he gave her!), so let's say again that's another $3750. Now he's $7500 in the hole. Taxes aren't ultimately exactly 50% so it probably wouldn't be that bad, but it makes for simple calculations; and either way, he's guaranteed to be net negative.

If instead he gifted only the after-tax proceeds to his daughter (which would be more reasonable), he would only be "down" $1875 after the gift tax, and even then he could just take that out of her gift, which would mean that she would only get $1875 in total (assuming 50% tax), and he would net $0.

He's a nice guy for giving her the whole $7500 though.

If woz chooses to pay the tax for his children's earnings, that's his prerogative, but it's not a travesty.

I really like this phrase: "It's hard to separate rights from reality"

It probably amounted to a real crime. I had my driver's license as well. But you only live once and only a few of us even get a chance like this once in our lives.

I've always admired Woz but it's lines like this that make me love him.

>We covered each of my friends' names and phone numbers because I couldn't remember which one had gotten the $2 bills gummed and perforated for me.

That's not cool.

My grandmother did the same thing with bound "pads" of $2 bills for years, gave them (in a checkbook-style holder) as Christmas gifts. I don't think the serial numbers were in order, though, as she got the $2 bills from a local bank.

The idea of legal tender not being recognised reminds me of a situation here in the UK.

The Bank of Scotland prints its own notes, but are rarely in circulation in the rest of the UK. Somehow it's mildly amusing passing over a Scottish fiver to an unsuspecting checkout assistant in London, and the ensuing suspicion.

A minor point: that's not what legal tender means.

http://www.royalmint.com/aboutus/policies-and-guidelines/leg...

The shops are free to reject the note, and possibly to lose your custom.

Thanks for the correction, interesting.

Why does the US govt sell uncut sheets of bills? Are they just for fun or is there a legitimate use for them?

Just for fun.

People use those dollar-bill sheets as wrapping paper: http://www.luxuo.com/super-rich/uncut-sheets-of-real-dollar-... .

There's something weird about paying $55.00 for 32 $1.00 bills, though. I mean, I can understand shipping and handling, but a 71% markup seems a bit much.

Buy the uncut sheets straight from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Bureau of Engraving and Printing at http://www.moneyfactorystore.gov/

The $100 Currency Sheets are _beautiful_ because it is so colorful. http://www.moneyfactorystore.gov/100currencysheets.aspx

The markup is much lower on the $100 4-Sheet since it costs $480 for $400 of spending power. Or reduce the markup further by buying 16-Sheet for $1,800. Then cut them up into smaller sheets of 4 each. Markup then is only $50 (or 12.5% over face value) per final 4-sheet.

Ive never heard anyone describe any US currency as colourful before! (I looked and they do have a bit more colour).

Well, it's like buying a commemorative coin from the US Mint: you're getting a nice-looking novelty or collector's item for a price that's even higher than usual (seigneuriage ftw) above the cost of production etc.

So because Woz failed to give straight answers to the Casino man and joked around, he got a visit from the Secret Service. Because Woz failed to give straight answers to the SS man, he spent 40 minutes under interrogation.

Moral of the story: don't joke about if someone asks you about whether you are committing a crime?

Or, do if you're out of fucks to give.

I don't understand how he didn't get into trouble for what he did. Why wasn't Secret Service able to prosecute him?

What did he do? I'm reading this and understanding that he bought real dollar bills as sheets, then had them perforated so they were easy to tear off...

He did nothing illegal, but (admittedly) acted a bit dodgy with the wrong (or right, if you want a good story) sorts of people.

What he did is not illegal but perhaps not very smart as the uncut sheets of currency that are for sale by the BEP cost (significantly) more than the face value of the actual money that you're getting.

The only reason USSS got involved to begin with is because the casino security officer was (rightly) suspicious of some guy in the casino ripping bills off a pad and feeding them into a slot machine...

I didn't get the impression he put them into a slot machine, it seems unlikely it would accept 2 dollar bills.

Also, I don't have a lot of casino security experience, but if a guy rips bills of a pad, it seems more likely he is joking around instead of counterfeiting. If you were counterfeiting currency you wouldn't want it on a pad, that's not very realistic at all.

Assuming no counterfeiter also comes up with the "it's so outrageous it must be legit" theory.

I had to look up the Secret Service because I thought it was strange that the President's bodyguards would be interested in a suspected counterfeiter. Apparently their protection role was introduced after their primary mission, which is fighting financial crime. Weird.

Not really.

Currency protection is one of the absolute most critical functions of a government, if people lose faith in your currency it causes a ridiculous number of problems.

When the US was young it's presidents didn't require the level of protection they require now (in fact a few of those presidents would have been as likely to shoot an attacker as not).

Eventually they realised that presidents do require protection but deciding who to use for that protection is quite a nuanced task, there are risks involved in having military protection or police protection (remember the political climate at the time was one of ongoing revolutions around the world and in Europe) so they needed an agency that existed, was extremely professional and likely wouldn't ruffle too many feathers.

The US Secret Service fit the bill ideally.

Being the cofounder of Apple means you can get away with a lot of shit. I'm sure the secret service could have prosecuted him if they wanted to. They just chose not to.

Well, owning 2$ bills and using them to pay for stuff or tipping people is legal. Nothing they could or wanted to do about that.

Giving a fake ID to a secret service person might be illegal, but at that point they might have figured out he was pulling their leg. Even government officials sometimes have a sense of humor.

$7500 pays for at least two more interviews with the Secret Service.

holy crap I just have a renewed respect for Wozniak. He is a true thug.

So, "because it's funny, huh!?"

People should know that there's a time for serious business and a time for jokes.

Talking to LE or even a Casino Security is not one of them.

How would you feel if you went to a doctor and he acted humorously and dismissively of your complaint (and it looks serious)?

How is the example of the doctor even relevant? Woz didn't seek out these people to prank them, they came to him with unwarranted suspicions.

I don't want to live in a world where talking to "Casino Security", not sure why they get capital letters in you world, about a matter where you have done nothing wrong "is serious business".

They wasted his time, he wasted theirs. It all balanced out.

The example of the doctor is relevant because the doctor is downplaying someone who has a legitimate query.

While you've done nothing wrong they have a job to do, and I didn't write it with capital letters because I overestimate them.

Woz just needed to answer "I buy the sheets from US Mint and glue them together", not go on a diatribe that although technically correct might be not so obvious

Of course a sense of humour is important, it's more important to know when to use and what are its limits.

Or feel free to call fire in a crowded theater and tell it's a joke.

Unlike your doctor and theater examples, Woz's behavior here wasn't harming anybody. What's the problem?

I might as well stand in front of someone's house and begin taking pictures in a suspicious manner. I'm not harming anybody and it's perfectly legal.

And then when the owner asks me about it I answer "this is legal, I'm not doing anything wrong, I have nothing to say, now go away", then be surprised when the owner calls the cops.

Calling the cops makes sense, but you seem to be arguing that he shouldn't have done this stuff, not merely that he shouldn't have been surprised.

I think the point is not that you shouldn't use $2 bills, but that when someone asks about them, you don't reply with "a little BS about buying them from a guy that hawked basketball tickets."

Yes, that seems to be the point, but my question is: why not?

To address your earlier point that woz wasn't harming anybody, insinuating to casino security that you're passing counterfeit money is essentially saying "I am doing you harm." We generally frown upon people saying that, even when there's no real harm to accompany the statement.

Considering that the casino security person admitted the 2 dollar bills were legit currency, the fact that he intruded on someone doing nothing wrong and proceeded to basically interrogate him, it would be more accurate to say that the casino security person was the one essentially saying he intends to do harm.

Hopefully in the future he decided to not waste other people's time on his idle curiosity.

" casino security person admitted the 2 dollar bills were legit currency"

I think he said "it works with the pen", now this is a test but it's not very reliable

"Using such pens is not a foolproof method of checking that a banknote is genuine"

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/Pages/retailers/hin...

(they probably checked other security features, but the older notes have less features)

> How would you feel if you went to a doctor and he acted humorously and dismissively of your complaint (and it looks serious)?

If casino security was paying Wozniak to answer questions, then they'd have a right to be miffed if he didn't.

Sure, except that if someone was paying the casino with fake notes (hence, using a service without payment), they would have been in debt with the casino.

Someone is in debt until the payment is settled to the satisfaction of the parts (and legal limitations), which wasn't the case there.

Huh? I am not a lawyer or particularly knowledgeable about the law, but to my mind if someone has paid a casino with fake notes they have defrauded the casino. They do not owe the casino a debt.

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