Proposed Comments to submit concerning UIGEA Regulations

[DeadMoneyDad]

[ QUOTE ]
What do we gain by secrecy? All our legal arguments, if needed after the regs are finalized, are already stated in the iMEGA and Kaplan cases. Are there secret ways to comment on proposed regulation that actually make a difference? For the record, I will be happy to contribute lots of comments. But don't ask me to be optimistic that all our comments will matter.

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As a hypothetical.

Lets say one of the "our" lawyers thinks if we can change a few words through brute force comments that makes the ultimate published rule easily defeatible in a court challenge... We don't want to post that idea in an open forum(the lawyers strategy), the brute force comments we plaster the receiving office with. Considering the review a reg gets in the administration this hypothetical is a little far fetched but not out of the realm of past history.

Some comments are open and public intended to raise the ire of the opposition into doing something stupid or forcing them to take an opposing position with more venom that in the end favors us. You've seen some of the stupid stuff that get printed in the various public exchanges like in the BW forum exchanges. Some of "our" comments were childish. Some of their arguments fall over on their own. Why shout obsenities when a reasoned wisper is more effective?

Some of our opponets positions we want them to win without a fight or second consideration of the ultimate value of their position, as it is advantagious to us, as helping them clairify their position to one of greater strength actually hurts us.

Again this is only a personal suggestion and purely hypothetical until the proposed rules are published.

Sometimes I loose arguments only to be proven right in time, sometimes I over think things, sometimes I am completely wrong........


D$D

[JPFisher55]

D$D, you are assuming that the lawyers on the other side will not recognize the legal significance of our suggested changes in language in our comments. I think that the DOJ of FOF lawyers will recognize the legal significance of any of our comments. I am not so sure about the lawyers in the USTR. Their performance in the WTO-Antiqua case has been lacking to say the least.
Our difficulty is that it will be difficult to coordinate comments without discussing the stratedy behind them. Maybe the regs will be simple enough to accomplish this task. However, I think that the regs will be complex and vague so that we will have to carefully review and discuss them just to figure out what transactions they affect and what standard of knowledge a bank must have to be liable for processing a transaction. If you read my previous post in the other forum on the regs, I think that it may be difficult to determine what type of reg that are proposed 2. or 4.

[TheEngineer]

[ QUOTE ]
As a hypothetical.

Lets say one of the "our" lawyers ........


D$D

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That reminds me of the U.S. Army decision to not use the Browning Automatic Rifle (the BAR, the finest machine gun of the era and still in use during the Vietnam War), during World War I, out of fear that the Germans would get their hands on it. The concern over some probability of Germans successfully copying the technology kept us from using it with 100% certainty. In other words, we may as well have not invented the BAR in the first place, for all the good it did us.

Secrecy for us tends to be the same, IMO. An idea not broadly shared is the same as an idea that never existed. Also, as we're still very much the underdogs, there's little reason to not take the fight to the enemy as ferciously as we can.

I've been harping on this a lot because this goes right to the root of what we do here. Our philosophy has always been one of openness. If we weren't, I'd not write the "Action Plan", as I'd be concerned that our enemies could see our ideas. Of course, if I didn't write the plan (or if I made it so bland that no one was motivated by it), we'd be like our WWI soldiers with those horrible machine guns that barely functioned, rather than BARs. I want us to have BARs. I want us to have all the info, and input, we need to take the fight to our opponents. Again, by "I", I mean my personal opinion.

[permafrost]

[ QUOTE ]
I have no idea of what the proposed regs are going to look like and what might be the "perfect" strategy for effectively combating them.

But I have been on both sides of proposed rules fights.

Given that there are quite a number of both straight forward and asymetrical ways to defeat a proposed rule and given some of the talented people on this board, IMPO the less "sunshine" of our more creative ideas the better.


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If the regs do have areas ripe for player comment, will those comments get much priority? Since the regulations will be aimed at "designated payment systems"; will comments from them be the highest priority/importance?

If the regs simply list the handful of lawful state IG schemes not to be blocked, is there much for a player to comment on since it's now an 'argue with your state' situation?

[DeadMoneyDad]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I have no idea of what the proposed regs are going to look like and what might be the "perfect" strategy for effectively combating them.

But I have been on both sides of proposed rules fights.

Given that there are quite a number of both straight forward and asymetrical ways to defeat a proposed rule and given some of the talented people on this board, IMPO the less "sunshine" of our more creative ideas the better.


[/ QUOTE ]



If the regs do have areas ripe for player comment, will those comments get much priority? Since the regulations will be aimed at "designated payment systems"; will comments from them be the highest priority/importance?

If the regs simply list the handful of lawful state IG schemes not to be blocked, is there much for a player to comment on since it's now an 'argue with your state' situation?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well after a year of thought I doubt that will really address the regulatary shceme required by the UIGEA law, but you never know. When I was the receiving officer for a proposed rule I had to write a summary of all the comments, tally all the various opinions, keep track for the record all comments, present all of this in meetings, as well as craft some sort of response to every comment.


D$D

[Legislurker]

So spam can actually produce results for this?

[DeadMoneyDad]

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So spam can actually produce results for this?

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We you know you will affect at least one person.

The cumulative results are hard to judge in a vacume. Most people willing to comment on a reg will also call the committe members for that agency as well as their own members and any other members remotely dealing with that Agency. So when we would as appointees have discussions out side the regular staff meetings those comments as expressed through Execuative and Legislative offices carried a different meaning to some of the staff but not all.

So the answer is yes, no and maybe.


D$D<--way too long inside the beltway........

[flight2q]

There have only been some 44 comments posted so far (it looks like they post them in a batch once a week). Early on there were a few heartfelt comments that expressed their dislike of UIGEA. But I believe what we need to have more of is expressing dissatisfaction with the regulations, not attacking the legislation that was already enacted.

Some Greyhound racing organization posted their comments. And now some individual Greyhound operators are posting. The poker players are behind the curve.

The regulations are a serious problem. You can see that the Greyound folks are concerned that the banks will destroy their businesses, even though no one should be thinking that the legislation meant to do that. They are concerned about how overblocking is penalty free while failure to block is risky for the banks.

But the Greyhound folks just want themselves specifically mentioned in the regs. We should be pressing it as having a broad impact and trying to get the overblocking danger entirely removed - plus every other concern we have with the regs.