National’s Anti-Money Laundering & Countering Financing of Terrorism Monster - iPredict the State Gulag

This piece of Soviet legislation took down the brilliant iPredict today:

Prediction website iPredict is to be closed down, with the Government deciding it represents a money laundering risk.

The site, run by Victoria University of Wellington's commercialisation arm, VicLink, issued a statement to its website and on Twitter on Thursday.

According to the iPredict statement, Associate Justice Minister Simon Bridges refused to grant it an exemption from the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act, declaring that it was a "legitimate money laundering risk" because of the lack of customer due diligence.

The raison d’etat of the Act revolves around identifying all individuals to a financial or property transaction. The cost of that on the economy, however, is huge. I have a small client base, but the reach of the Act’s bureaucracy is too much for me:

What a bizarre and nutty decision by the Government.  https://t.co/D9KhSneTOr

— David Farrar (@dpfdpf) November 25, 2015

@dpfdpf This governments anti-money laundering legislation has reached the point of total idiocy. It's so draconian I'm shedding every 1/2

— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) November 25, 2015

@dpfdpf independent trusteeship I do. The cost on the economy must be enormous, so I'd love to see the supposed scale of crime is to ...

— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) November 25, 2015

@dpfdpf justify it. Just this last week I've charged a three hour trip to a client to have my signature verified by a lawyer who has

— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) November 25, 2015

@dpfdpf known me for 20 years, and over an asset I have no beneficial interest in. It's ludicrous .. above for @JudithCollinsMP

— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) November 25, 2015

Although, of course, my problem is chiefly philosophical. It’s always about philosophy. Put this Act together with the tax surveillance state, and the Soviet reference in my first sentence is no hyperbole (remember Twitter – don’t mind the typo):

I always hated our anti-money laundering legislation because of its (total) inconvenience, and cost to the economy, but the worst aspect 1/x

— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) November 26, 2015

@MarkHubbard33 of its central motif, identity, is also what makes it for the govt and integral part of the surveillance state.

— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) November 26, 2015

@MarkHubbard33 I don't get it why people don't understand that the surveillance states of the West go deeper than Orwell now. #EndOfLunch

— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) November 26, 2015

Yes, the Left getting in will finish off the economy and take us all to the Big State Gulag (also), but these National autocrats are way past their use-by date. If I could stand people in numbers – I can’t – I'd say go get your pitchforks and meet me in the foyer.

PS: hope everyone got their flag voting slips in (FFS). National, the party which put back the ‘us’ at the front of useful idiots.