Why the War on Money Laundering Should be Aborted

Richard W. Rahn made an important presentation on February 20, 2001 at FC 2001 in the Cayman Islands entitled, "Why the War on Money Laundering Should be Aborted". Dr. Rahn is a senior fellow of the Cato Institute and the Chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth. He also served for two terms (2002-2008) as the first non-Caymanian member of the Board of Directors of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority, which regulates the world’s largest offshore financial center. Rahn states:

"Financial cryptographers are heroes, because their efforts both increase the economic well being of most of the world’s peoples, and more importantly, preserve their liberty."

"As a result of easily usable and almost unbreakable public key encryption, the Internet, and rapidly developing digital money products, the ability of governments to detect and control the movement of money and other financial assets will be almost impossible without governments knowing everything about everyone’s financial affairs. History teaches us that governments abuse the information they have about their citizens. Both the US Constitution and the UN Declaration of Human Rights recognize and guarantee basic privacy rights, including financial privacy."

Typically a cryptography-oriented event organized by the International Financial Cryptography Association, Financial Cryptography and Data Security Conference is a major international forum for research, advanced development, education, exploration and debate regarding information assurance in the context of finance and commerce. The conference covers all aspects of securing transactions and systems. Submissions focusing on both fundamental and applied real-world deployments are solicited.

The goal of the conference is to bring security and cryptography researchers and practitioners together with economists, bankers, implementers and policy-makers. Intimate and colorful by tradition, the FC program features invited talks, academic presentations and panel discussions.

For further reading:
"The $7 Billion Laundry Bill", Daniel J. Mitchell, Forbes, April 17, 2006
"Anonymous Money, Moral Sentiments and Welfare", Vesa Kanniainen and Jenni Pääkkönen, August 2004
"Money Laundering: Past, Present and Future", Peter C. Wayner, February 27, 1997