#Mining Regulatory Clarity Act | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

blogchaindeveloper · 9 months

Text

Cryptocurrency Regulations Around the World

From the United States to China, and various countries in between, governments are grappling with the task of overseeing the burgeoning crypto space. In this comprehensive guide, we navigate through the current regulatory frameworks and developments in different nations, shedding light on how they approach the complex realm of digital currencies.

For those eager to learn cryptocurrency trading and become a cryptocurrency expert or crypto advisor, understanding the regulatory landscape is crucial. As the demand for knowledge in this field grows, Blockchain Council's crypto trading courses emerge as a beacon, offering unparalleled insights into cryptocurrency trading and the broader realm of digital assets.

United States

The United States, a key player in the cryptocurrency market, has witnessed significant regulatory shifts in recent times. In 2022, a new framework emerged, paving the way for enhanced regulation. Market regulators such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) gained authority in this evolving landscape.

The SEC, led by Chairman Gary Gensler, has taken proactive steps towards regulation, exemplified by the high-profile lawsuit against Ripple. Gensler has emphasized the need for investor protection, referring to the crypto markets as "a Wild West." The White House has also expressed its intent to address illegal cryptocurrency activities, contemplating amendments to existing statutes and evaluating risks associated with decentralized finance and non-fungible tokens.

The prospect of a digital dollar is on the horizon, with the Biden administration recognizing "significant benefits" in exploring a central bank digital currency (CBDC). Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell sees a CBDC as a means to eliminate the reliance on alternative coins in the country.

China

In China, cryptocurrencies are classified as property for inheritance purposes. The People's Bank of China (PBOC) has imposed bans on crypto exchanges and Bitcoin mining, citing concerns about public financing and regulatory approval. Despite these restrictions, China has been actively developing its digital yuan (e-CNY), officially initiating the next phase of its CBDC pilot test program in 2022.

Canada

Canada takes a proactive stance on crypto regulation. While not considered legal tender, cryptocurrencies are subject to capital gains tax. The country approved the first Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), and crypto trading platforms must register with regulatory authorities. All crypto investment firms are classified as money service businesses, necessitating registration with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC).

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, cryptocurrency trading is considered property, and exchanges must register with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The regulatory landscape gained further clarity when the lower house of the British Parliament recognized crypto assets as regulated financial instruments, extending current laws to cover stablecoins.

Japan

Japan adopts a progressive approach, recognizing cryptocurrencies as legal property under the Payment Services Act (PSA). Crypto exchanges must register with the Financial Services Agency (FSA) and adhere to anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) obligations. The country treats crypto trading gains as miscellaneous income and has been actively working on regulatory aspects, including taxation.

Australia

Australia classifies cryptocurrencies as legal property, subjecting them to capital gains tax. Exchanges must register with the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) and comply with AML/CTF obligations. Regulatory requirements were introduced for initial coin offerings (ICOs), and privacy coins were banned on exchanges.

Singapore

Singapore, like the UK, classifies cryptocurrency as property. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) licenses and regulates exchanges under the Payment Services Act (PSA). Long-term capital gains are not taxed, making Singapore a favorable environment for cryptocurrency activities.

South Korea

South Korea mandates registration for cryptocurrency exchanges and virtual asset service providers with the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (KFIU). The country imposed a 20% tax on digital assets, which was initially set to take effect in 2022 but has been delayed until 2025. Legislation, known as the Digital Asset Basic Act, is underway to regulate the crypto space.

India

India remains in a state of regulatory uncertainty regarding cryptocurrencies. While a bill circulates proposing a ban on private cryptocurrencies, it has not been voted on. India imposes a 30% tax on crypto investments and a 1% tax deduction at source (TDS) on crypto trades. The country launched a tokenized rupee pilot program in late 2022.

Brazil

Brazil has not designated Bitcoin as legal tender, but it passed a law recognizing cryptocurrencies as valid payment methods. The regulatory framework, known as the "Legal Framework for Virtual Assets," designates the Brazilian Central Bank to regulate crypto exchanges.

European Union

Cryptocurrency is legal across most of the European Union, but individual member states govern exchanges. Taxation ranges from 0% to 50%, varying by country. Recent directives, such as the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), aim to enhance consumer protections and introduce licensing requirements.

Ongoing Global Developments

As the cryptocurrency market evolves, regulations worldwide are a work in progress. Many countries are actively developing policies and legislation to address the unique challenges posed by digital currencies. In the U.S., crypto exchanges face regulations, and in the EU, legislation requiring crypto service providers to seek an operating license is on the horizon. While crypto regulations are gradually taking shape, the process remains slow and subject to controversy.

Conclusion

In conclusion, cryptocurrencies demand a nuanced understanding of regulatory intricacies, making crypto trading courses indispensable for those eager to learn crypto trading. As governments worldwide seek to strike a balance between innovation and oversight, individuals aiming to become cryptocurrency experts or crypto advisors must stay informed.

Blockchain Council's cryptocurrency trading courses, designed to impart in-depth knowledge of cryptocurrency trading and the top cryptocurrencies, stand as a gateway to mastery in this dynamic field. Whether you're starting your journey or seeking to enhance your expertise, Blockchain Council's crypto trading courses provide the essential tools to navigate the intricate world of cryptocurrency with confidence and proficiency.

#crypto advisor #learn crypto trading #cryptocurrency trading

0 notes

blockgeni · 1 year

Text

Despite the crypto industry achieving a major victory in terms of regulation, Bitcoin is likely to end August on a low note. Market participants predict that the cryptocurrency may spend September stuck in a range. According to the report, this month's cryptocurrency price fall is expected to be 10%. Following a federal appeals court's recent decision to support Grayscale over the Securities and Exchange Commission in a crucial crypto ETF issue, Bitcoin just experienced a 7% increase. That didn't, however, get the leading cryptocurrency back up to the $29,000 mark. Thin trade volumes and liquidity are causing investors difficulty. Bitcoin prices may remain rangebound throughout September despite the fact that cryptocurrency investors have a lot to be happy about. Rob Ginsberg, an analyst at Wolfe Research, wrote in a note on Wednesday that if bitcoin can show some follow-through, the price should retest resistance above 29.5-30k in the coming weeks. In the end, we expect it will break through that level and start a fresh leg higher, but if it fails to do so, we will probably be talking about the critical $25,000 support level once more. These drawdowns so far have been prevented by quick legs higher, which were primarily fueled by catalysts, the analyst claimed. With Grayscale's decision in favor of the bitcoin spot ETF on Tuesday, we witnessed the most recent one. Our long-term optimistic outlook is also supported by the possibility that this may allow major institutions to become more involved. According to Will Tamplin of Fairlead Strategies, increases in the company's short-term metrics are what cause the initial increase. Additionally, it advises "follow-through in the upcoming days within the context of bitcoin's trading range." Similar to its downtrends in May and June, bitcoin may experience another consolidation over the medium term. According to Tamplin, $28,800 will be the next important threshold to test. The next level to watch would be $31,900. Since the banking crisis sparked a surge in March, Bitcoin has been ranging between $25,000 and $30,000, with sporadic spikes beyond $30,000 that haven't been able to hold. The market is still being held back by the general lack of regulatory clarity, even while particular regulatory initiatives have acted as small steps forward. Also, keep in mind that historically, September has been a volatile and negative month for the equity markets, and crypto has mostly followed that pattern, according to Elliot Han of Cantor Fitzgerald. Han pointed out that bitcoin's biggest loss occurred in September, just before the 2020 halving. Bitcoin's halving halves the incentive for mining the cryptocurrency, and it's set to happen again in spring 2024. Any favorable news on US regulation will be welcomed, but none is expected except from ETF applications," he noted. This is not to say that we cannot be shocked on the positive or negative side. All eyes are on Washington. September begins with an expected update from the SEC on at least one spot bitcoin ETF application. The SEC is anticipated to respond to submissions from Bitwise, BlackRock, Fidelity, VanEck, and others as early as September. On Thursday afternoon, the SEC postponed its decision on WisdomTree and Invesco's bitcoin ETF applications. According to Kristin Smith, CEO of the policy-focused Blockchain Association, the regulatory environment is crucial for this next stage because the institutions who are looking at this want to see more regulation than what is already in place. They fear that if they rush in too quickly without the proper foundation in place, it will ultimately come back to bite them. She continued, This kind of legislative progress has really caught the attention of traditional finance institutions. It's possible that they had been considering this before but had put it on the backburner, but now they are being forced to want to be in place when legislation ultimately becomes law. Source

0 notes

primorcoin · 2 years

Photo

New Post has been published on https://primorcoin.com/ethereum-founder-vitalik-buterin-crypto-industry-shouldnt-be-enthusiastically-pursuing-institutional-capital/

Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin: Crypto Industry Shouldn't Be 'Enthusiastically Pursuing Institutional Capital'

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin weighed in Sunday on the regulatory debate surrounding crypto, providing his thoughts on what industry rules should—and should not—include.

Regulation could make crypto more palatable to mainstream financial institutions and legitimize cryptocurrencies as an asset class. But new rules and policies could also alter the industry’s DNA, particularly as it relates to principles like censorship resistance and decentralization.

Buterin said he believes preserving the latter should be the priority.

“I don’t think we should be enthusiastically pursuing large institutional capital at full speed,” he said. “Regulation that leaves the crypto space free to act internally but makes it harder for crypto projects to reach the mainstream is much less bad than regulation that intrudes on how crypto works internally.”

Basically, especially at this time, regulation that leaves the crypto space free to act internally but makes it harder for crypto projects to reach the mainstream is much less bad than regulation that intrudes on how crypto works internally.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) October 30, 2022

Buterin’s Twitter thread comes ten days after a controversial blog post by Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and chief executive of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, in which he outlined his regulatory vision for the industry.

Bankman-Fried subsequently capitulated to Crypto Twitter after receiving pushback on potential rules related to DeFi, such as requiring autonomous programs to comply with U.S. sanctions and making crypto websites register as a broker-dealer. He revised the post and said he will continue to do so.

Regulatory uncertainty is seen as a barrier to institutional crypto investing, according to a new Fidelity Investments survey. The Institutional Investor Digital Assets Study found that out of more than 1,000 institutional investors, 16% said a lack of clarity around regulation was an obstacle to investing in digital assets.

On the other hand, more than 8 in 10 (81%) of the institutional investors surveyed view digital assets as having a role in investment portfolios. In addition, 43% of institutional investors said they would be interested in a Bitcoin ETF.

Segments of the crypto industry have been pursuing institutional capital for almost a decade, ever since the Winklevoss twins’ initial filing for a Bitcoin ETF-like trust in 2013. While futures-based products trade on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Securities and Exchange Commission has dragged its feet on approving a spot-based Bitcoin ETF.

That’s not a bad thing, according to Buterin.

“I’m actually kinda happy a lot of the ETFs are getting delayed,” he said. “The ecosystem needs time to mature before we get even more attention.”

Another maybe-controversial take of mine is that I don’t think we should be enthusiastically pursuing large institutional capital at full speed. I’m actually kinda happy a lot of the ETFs are getting delayed. The ecosystem needs time to mature before we get even more attention.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) October 30, 2022

Buterin divided the policy goals he envisions for the crypto industry into two categories: providing better protection to consumers who navigate the nascent industry, and stemming the illicit flow of cryptocurrency—which he said are not exclusive to the DeFi space.

To address the latter, Buterin is skeptical of requiring DeFi protocol front-ends to abide by Know Your Customer (KYC) standards. While such standards are used by financial institutions to prevent money laundering, fraud, and corruption, “hackers write custom code to interact with contracts,” circumventing the usual KYC barriers.

“It would annoy users but do nothing against hackers,” he said.

The “KYC on defi frontends” idea does not seem very pointful to me: it would annoy users but do nothing against hackers. Hackers write custom code to interact with contracts already. Exchanges are clearly a much more sensible place to do the KYC, and that’s happening already.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) October 30, 2022

There are DeFi regulations that Buterin thinks could be more helpful, such as limits on the amount of leverage a user can trade with, transparency in code audits, and requiring “knowledge-based tests” as opposed to “plutocratic net-worth minimum rules.”

Buterin said he’s also in favor of crafting regulation in a way that allows for the further use of zero-knowledge proofs, a cryptographic principle that preserves privacy.

The response to the response

SBF responded to Buterin’s points, stating he thinks they “are pretty reasonable” and expressed an openness to bringing the ethereum co-founder to Washington DC in order to give nuanced input on regulation.

“I think that policymakers/regulators would find it pretty interesting to hear from @VitalikButerin,” SBF stated. “he’s very different from the average person in DC, but in a kinda refreshing way—calmly and thoughtfully saying what he thinks.”

actually would love to do that — I think that policymakers/regulators would find it pretty interesting to hear from @VitalikButerin

he’s *very* different from the average person in DC, but in a kinda refreshing way–calmly and thoughtfully saying what he thinks

— SBF (@SBF_FTX) October 30, 2022

Buterin’s comments also appeared to receive an endorsement from Changpeng Zhao, founder and chief executive of Binance, another leading cryptocurrency exchange. The CEO responded to the thread with a thumbs up emoji.

Crypto investor Ryan Sean Adams gave a nod to Buterin’s entry into the debate as well, stating Buterin is welcome to share his thoughts at Bankless, a DAO and crypto media project.

Adams had delivered pointed criticism to SBF’s initial blog post, tweeting, “This absolutely sucks.”

Stay on top of crypto news, get daily updates in your inbox.

Source link

#Binance #Blockchain #BNB #Crypto #CryptoExchange #CryptoNews #TraedndingCrypto

#Binance #Blockchain #BNB #Crypto #CryptoExchange #CryptoNews #TraedndingCrypto #CryptoPress #Trending Cryptos

0 notes

maaarine · 3 years

Photo

How a tax haven is leading the race to privatise space (Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, The Guardian, Sep 15 2017)

“It opened its first and only university in 2003 and its military consists of 1,008 troops.

Luxembourg does not fit the image of a spacefaring nation; in fact, some have questioned whether it should even be a nation at all.

Yet Luxembourg’s very essence – as a speck in the heart of Europe – allows, even requires, it to partake in such ambitious ventures.

Its national motto is “We want to remain what we are” and, over the centuries, this independent spirit has endured occupations by the dukes of Burgundy, the kings of Spain and France, the emperors of Austria and the king of the Netherlands.

Today, the state, which only gained full independence in 1867, occupies a curious position in the global imagination: a country with an outsized economic influence that everyone has heard of, but that no one can quite locate on a map.

According to Gabriel Zucman, assistant professor of economics at UC Berkeley, the country is hard to miss in the financial world.

“Luxembourg has private banks like Switzerland, it has a big mutual fund industry like Ireland’s, it’s used for corporate tax avoidance like Bermuda or the Netherlands, and it also hosts one of the two international central depositories for securities, so it’s active in euro bonds,” he says.

“It’s the tax haven of tax havens, present at all stages of the financial industry.”

Tony Norfield, a former banker in the City of London who now writes on global finance, has described Luxembourg as “a paragon of parasitism”.

The story of how a marginal and relatively powerless country has survived world wars, economic crises and cataclysmic technological advances to become a banking and finance powerhouse tells us a lot about how far a small country can go if it devotes itself to anticipating and accommodating the needs of global capital.

It’s a contentious business: for every happy shareholder praising Luxembourg’s business-friendly rules and money-saving loopholes, there’s a critic condemning Luxembourg’s willingness to expedite the regulatory “race to the bottom”.

Then again, there aren’t many options for a country like Luxembourg besides exploiting its most valuable resource: its national sovereignty.

And Luxembourg has done this more and better than any other country in the world.

By crafting innovative rules, laws and regulations that only it could (or would) put on offer, Luxembourg has attracted banks, telecommunications companies and consulting firms before any of these industries came to dominate the global economy.

Now, by courting asteroid miners before anyone else takes them seriously, it may very well end up doing the same thing for the commercialisation of space. (…)

Since the emergence of the NewSpace sector, individual countries have attempted to lend some clarity to eager entrepreneurs, reasoning that the prospect of private property in space will encourage hard work and innovation.

The American Space Act, passed in 2015, is the first “finders, keepers” law that recognises ownership of space resources, but it only does so for companies owned by US citizens.

In October 2015, Luxembourg commissioned a study on whether it could fill that legal void.

The report, completed in 2016, noted that “while legal uncertainty remains, under the current legal and regulatory framework, space mining activities are (at least) not prohibited” and concluded that Luxembourg should pass legislation that gives miners the right to keep the extraterrestrial bounty they extract.

Such a law was drafted shortly after the study’s completion, and on 1 August 2017, it went into effect.

Luxembourg’s bill does not discriminate by nationality, or even by the location of a company’s headquarters.

In fact, the law indicates the country’s willingness to serve as a sort of flag of convenience for spacecrafts, allowing them to play by one country’s futuristic rules in the absence of universal, binding agreements. (…)

Schmitz sees space mining as a high-tech spin on an age-old scam: selling sovereignty.

“The country’s business model is hidden,” he said.

“It’s making laws that companies want, and taking a risk on those companies. But the government uses it to say ‘This is how modern we are! This is something new!”

Zucman shares Schmitz’s view. “Adapting this strategy to the business of space conquest is what being an offshore financial centre means,” he says.

“It’s not diversification. It’s just extending the logic of being a tax haven to new area.””

#politics #article #we were talking the other day #with one of my brothers #about how the ppl we know #who work finance in luxembourg #all adopted an ideology #that bends over backwards #to rationalize and sanitize #their fucked up job #some wild koolaid #just to buy a porsche suv

12 notes · View notes

bigskydreaming · 4 years

Text

Hey friendly reminder that I honestly do not want anyone to follow me unless they actually WANT to which means they are free to unfollow, refollow, leave and come back and leave again or WHATEVER as many times as they want, for any reason whatsoever. Including if my posting styles of the moment get to be too much for them or are not to their liking, etc?

BUT I have been seeing a surge in comments in notes and stuff on various posts of mine about the length of my posts or the rambling of my posts and like....I know? This is not new information to me? But I post the way I post at any given time based on the resources I have at any given time and the fact that its often a matter of I can post a long rambling post or I can make no post at all.

Like, I really truly do not like going into specifics about my situation more than necessary or when not necessary, because like, my situation is boring to me, I don’t particularly care to dwell on it any more than I have to. But the fact of the matter is its still a thing that exists so here goes: yes I have physical issues like near constant migraines and pain and also vertigo, and yes I have neurodivergencies like C-PTSD and ADHD and yes I have circumstances that include near constant stress from eternally being in the negatives, financially, as well as being almost constantly hungry from a lack of money and limited options for eating due to the physical constraints of my jaw as well as being consistently sleep deprived because there’s only so much sleep you can get when there’s no such thing as a physically comfortable sleeping arrangement for you currently, all while existing in a constant limbo of I literally have NO idea when any of this will change for me because haha fun fact WE LIVE IN A PANDEMIC.

My point is like......all of these are things I’m not shy about, but they don’t exist as bullet points in a checklist of identity or circumstantial traits, they all exist at all times as points of fact that influence and inform and interact with each other.

So my financial situation and limbo of not being able to move forward with my surgery because of the chaos of the health care industry during a pandemic directly informs both the way stress impacts my mental health issues, but also my ability to treat my mental health issues by way of medication, nutrition, rest.....ie, almost every cent I make via work, etc, goes right back out the door to keeping up my insurance premiums of $850 a month, because even though my surgery is paid for, there’s still elements like hospital stay fees, anesthesia, etc, that won’t be paid until the day of surgery itself, and which I will not be able to pay without my insurance remaining current and active. Which means that I had to prioritize an insurance package that would net me THOSE benefits, which means I had to sacrifice parts of insurance that are no longer in that package, but which previously made things like my medications, refill appointments and therapy more affordable for me.

Which means that I have to prioritize my medication and therapy etc and maintain my therapy and PTSD, depression and anxiety meds as the most important to upkeep, while my ADHD meds are pretty much priced out of accessibility for me at the moment. Like, the specifics of my metabolism and various trial and error with different meds over the years and the way my body rapidly adapts to various meds and plateaus to a point where they cease to have any real impact on me means the only ADHD medication that’s consistently effective for me is Vyvanse, which there isn’t a viable generic form of that I can take, meaning a monthly refill of it is $350 without insurance, which I flat out can not ever afford anymore, which means its been roughly two months since I last popped an ADHD pill.

So yeah, that directly impacts things like my ability to self-edit, make a point briefly, or refrain from circling back to the same point several times over and over because I literally forget that I made it.

Now of course ADHD medication is not the be-all and end-all and its not like there aren’t various other life-hacks and coping strategies for working around ADHD even without it, after all, I didn’t even get diagnosed until I was 26. But these various other adaptations rely on things like good nutrition (which I can not regularly afford, or even consume....most leafy green vegetables for example, or fruits other than berries, are literally nonstarters for me because I don’t have enough leverage with my one-sided jaw to CHEW them in the first place, and the ingredients for making smoothies regularly are again, expensive). So nutrition as a hack for ADHD management is pretty much out - I’m too busy prioritizing eating anything I can, whenever I can afford to. Other adaptations involve getting lots of rest: something that again, physically isn’t all that viable for me these days, even leaving aside the effects of constant stress on attempts at getting meaningful rest, along with the constant stress and constraints of trying to work as much as humanly possible in my circumstances, in order to keep bringing in income to go to insurance, rent, and food and meds. Then there’s also the stabilizing effects exercise and physical activity can have on the brain and various neurodivergencies like mine, but the migraines and vertigo make most forms of exercise a nonstarter for me, with most of the rest invalidated by the fact that I’m pretty much always hungry, tired, and in chronic pain.

Now let’s examine work and the viability of obtaining more sources of income to help with all this. Well, my options are limited there too due to the ecosystem of factors in play. I’ve been trying for awhile to find even a part time job in my area I can do, but the problems are even though I can make myself mobile and active through my pain issues and migraines, and am even good at gritting and bearing it and acting like I’m smiling and laughing and happy even while in excruciating pain (yay, perks of childhood abuse making a career in retail viable even while practically dead on my feet, lololol)......there’s the simple physiological limitation that I just can’t stay upright RELIABLY for more than a couple hours at a time. Eventually, dizziness knocks me on my ass. Downside of a jaw that’s constantly hanging with all its weight from one side of your face, fucking with your ability to even stand up straight, not to mention causing inner ear and equilibrium problems at random whenever you open or close your mouth in the wrong way (or mere approximation of ANY kind of way).

So, standing upright at any kind of customer service or retail job is one issue. Stocking stuff, that sort of thing.....not really an option when you’re likely to drop all of it at any given moment. But then there’s bracing myself at cash registers, something like a job at Starbucks or hell there’s a Jamba Juice nearby, that’d also get me an employee discount for smoothies I can drink regularly. Course, there’s the whirring of blenders and such, which pair great with constant migraines. Etc. Etc.

BUT. I’m a well-rounded person with lots of skills....which lead to things like my freelance graphic design business as a book cover designer, as well as various writing endeavors, etc. And all of these are things that I DO do, currently. They’re how I make my income as is. There’s absolutely more jobs out there, but the fact is as a freelancer, FINDING additional jobs is a time consuming and spoon consuming process, that is additionally impacted by factors like ADHD, so not only does looking for work require time that’s not already being spent working, it also requires the management and expenditure of mental resources that I have to prioritize FIRST towards applying them to what work I already DO have, given the absence of ADHD medication and minimal coping or regulatory habits allowing for me to be all that productive WITHOUT said meds.

Not to mention the strain sitting in front of a computer all day for work in venues like graphic design, etc, puts on migraines, so there’s only so many hours I can devote daily or in one sitting to doing things like cover work. Much of my writing time is spent not actually writing, but me just dictating into notes on my phone and then copying and pasting all that into the appropriate formats for fiction, nonfiction and just random posts. Of course here then I have to prioritize applying my mental resources to first making sure the stuff I write to make money gets edited or properly pared down to size and isn’t repeating the same shit over and over and over, then doing the same to stuff I write fic wise as one of my few escapes from Real Life BS so I can at least point to having SOME kind of life (as this has been my daily existence for years, and uh.....people having things they like or like to do, as much as is humanly feasible, only becomes MORE of a necessity the more stress involved in their day to day life, not less).

Meaning by the time I even get to posting, like.....as much as it may look like I do a lot of it, the speed at which I write when I have any kinds of spoons to apply to posting or composing thoughts at ALL means I actually pour out a lot in a little span of time.....BUT that’s not like, a Skill so much as its a Fact. Its just the way I am and it comes with its downsides as well as its upsides....Im good at banging out a lot in a short amount of time, but ONLY when I just....let it go, versus try and regulate it all or squeeze it out bit by bit. I’m a sprint poster these days rather than a marathoner, even if the length of my thoughts makes it LOOK like the latter.....the reality is for me it tends to be all or nothing, its whatever I can get on the page BEFORE I lose my breath or train of thought. So that’s why it looks the way it does, because that was the only form it was coming out at the specific time and space when I had the energy and brainpower TO get it out, and going back in hindsight and editing it for clarity or brevity AFTER I gasp it all out requires energy and breath I do not have PAST that point, so it becomes a simple equation of well do I want a post to exist here at all or not at all.....and I err on the side of posting. This isn’t a defense because there’s nothing to defend, mind you, I’m simply explaining my way through my thought process, approach to things, and realities of my day to day existence for you to do with whatever you want. Its just a perspective you may not have had before. Whatever.

Of course, even this doesn’t exist in a void. Something that’s always a factor in my awareness when posting is like......I’m lucky enough to have a large enough following that cares enough about what I have to say for whatever reasons or puts enough value in what I have to say or the things I write and create, that I’ve been able to supplement my financial needs when absolutely necessary at times, by way of donation posts. I try not to lean on them more than necessary because I am keenly aware that they are a gift from people, many of whom I do not know and will likely never meet, and as such, not something I have any form of expectation for. I make donation posts when and where I do not in the anticipation of getting them met, but simply for a lack of any other options whatsoever. I’m limited in the work I can do, and the time and energy I can devote to finding more of that same work. There’s not a ton of other career paths I can pursue even from behind a computer due to my lack of a college degree, and the fact that even when I’m qualified skill or knowledge wise, I lack the specific credentials for verifying that I possess those skills or knowledge in a way employers are inclined to recognize and/or validate. Going BACK to school to get said credentials is an expenditure of time, finances, and other resources I do not have to spare at the moment or any time soon, especially not in the name of shoring up a lack of all that in the present term.

I dropped out of college freshman year after my gaybashing and rape. I never went back to it for a variety of reasons that were only half about resources and half about intent. My family is not a presence in my life and hasn’t really been in any significant way since I was eighteen, so college in the first place was something I had to be entirely self-sufficient about....I was only able to afford to go the year that I did go by way of academic scholarships that were dependent on grades I couldn’t keep up in the wake of what happened to me, and that I couldn’t exactly ever get back without a foundation to build upon, like high school and my initial academic career. Then in the half that was about intent, I eventually moved into pursuing my actual interests like writing, graphic design and acting. One of the things I’ve always loved about those is that output and portfolio nets you more than credentials most of the time....they ARE your credentials. I was actually pretty damn successful as an actor for years, not in the way that leads to being someone that people would recognize, but in the way that leads to being able to support yourself doing what you love. All the skillsets that I have but could not back up with things like a diploma were still useful to me as an actor in a way that they’re not in terms of getting things like tutoring or teaching jobs.....I speak multiple languages but I’m self taught, I have a black belt in karate, I’m a classically trained pianist, I know a whole lot of shit about random shit that I just learned because I wanted to, and all of that got me the kind of work that I was looking for and meant I COULD work and make a living off those things for years throughout my twenty....work that I would not have been able to get if I had been back sitting in a classroom instead. The primary currency of my years as an actor were life experiences and I had those in spades, and I was very good at what I did, if I do say so myself, and the reasons I never advanced further career wise tended to have less to do with whether or not I booked the roles I auditioned for and whether I got the auditions at all......

I’m getting a bit off topic here but I’m just saying there’s definitely a convo to be had at some point, about the roles and opportunities I turned down because I wasn’t willing to sleep with someone or put up with their advancements in order to do so. Something that’s a dime a dozen in Hollywood and the thing is.....I was a sex worker, for years, before I moved to Hollywood and started working as an actor. But there’s a distinct difference between the way people talk about, interact with and perceive someone who’s gotten roles because of sex, advanced up a corporate ladder because of sex...versus, gotten paid because of sex. I didn’t turn down offers of roles for sex because of my hang-ups about sex but rather other peoples’......I had a problem with various parts of the industry that would have thought nothing about me getting a role because a producer wanted to sleep with me, but would have turned up their nose at me because I slept with someone to get money for groceries before. Basically I’m just saying the specific bullshit Hollywood has not just about sex but predatory behavior got in the way of my career advancement because there were some games I just wasn’t willing to play....which hails from the very life experiences that oftentimes made me so good as an actor in the first place.

Which brings me back again to my main point......none of this exists in a vaccuum. Being the sum of our life experiences and variables means being the SUM of that, at ALL times, both in large and small ways. We are never just a LIST of identity traits or experiences. They all constantly loop back around and feed into each other and inform where we are at every second of every day and where we GO in each second, what we DO with our days and the choices we make.

Which is where so much of my discontent with fandoms, on social media in general, with PEOPLE in my day to day life comes from: this desire people have to compartmentalize, to ZERO IN on specific factors or variables or instances and act like it even CAN be divorced from all other influences. Its not that you can’t FOCUS on one thing at a time, its just even when you do that, that doesn’t like....snap all existing connections that thing has to everything outside of your area of focus.

As an example, my attitudes on being a survivor and various kinds of fiction get me a ton of pushback from various corners, and its all geared around the same premise: don’t like, don’t read. Put a wall up between you and it. Focus on just what you’re doing and forget what everyone else is doing.

But it doesn’t work like that. It CAN’T work like that. And this commitment people have to pretending it does just because that pretense has been working for them, THAT, I’d argue, is the true wedge in fandom spaces.

Everything about me is connected to something else. I’m a childhood abuse and incest csa survivor. When my therapist asks me to picture a moment from my childhood when I felt safe or protected, I got nothing. I don’t have that resource. I don’t know what that feeling is meant to feel like, because I never felt it. And that connects directly into the fact that when I was gaybashed in college, after they dumped me in a fucking park, bleeding and covered in writing, I didn’t even think about going to the hospital, the police, let alone calling anyone like my parents, I just picked myself up and walked back to my dorm, cleaned myself off as best I could, and went to class next Monday morning. That’s fucked up, I shouldn’t have had to, but its what I did, and there’s no divorcing that from any of the contexts of WHY that’s what I did, and why I didn’t think there was any other logical recourse or option for me then. Just like all of that also links back to growing up in the closet and entering high school the same month Matthew Shepherd was attacked, and then when he ultimately died two months later, and watching everybody’s reactions to that informed the fact that I did not remotely feel safe in the aftermath of my attack, disclosing what happened to people around me, or just like I didn’t take it on face value that even if they said appropriately sensitive things to me to my face didn’t mean that like when I was a freshman in high school and everyone was reacting to that, they wouldn’t revert to callous jokes about fags the second they felt a little less out of the spotlight or in the right company for those jokes.

And all of that directly links into my feelings not just when people write rape and gaybashing scenes that make no attempt at any kind of catharsis but rather only appear to exist for the fetishization, the glamorization, the VALIDATION of the idea that in the right context, those kinds of scenes can be hot to the right audience rather than demoralizing to the figure who’s pain and humaniliation is required for everyone else’s entertainment....but it also additionally plays into the reactions and attitudes I have when people look at me going “wow, really don’t like the lens you’re using here or the environment you’re creating around an experience that is never anything BUT painful and traumatic for someone who lived it, like I did” and choose to respond to that by saying things that amount to “well you’re basically just like conservative southern assholes who hate free speech when you say stuff like this,” cuz y’know.....that’s describing my literal oppressors. That’s lumping me in with the actual literal kind of people who are the SOURCE of my trauma there, all because you felt butthurt and defensive about how I said I wasn’t comfortable with the kinds of jokes and output you were making about scenes that aren’t that far divorced from my own personal reality, and that I shouldn’t HAVE to divorce from my own experiences just to exist within certain fandom spaces.

And just like the fact that being an incest survivor is directly relevant to the fact that my stepmother always made an effort to keep me at a distance because not wanting to admit to what happened to me and how it played into our family entanglements was directly linked back to the fact that she and my aunt were both incest survivors who never got the opportunities to deal with what happened to them, which in turn directly plays into the fact that ultimately my aunt ended up taking her own life a few years ago, which also very much informs my attitude towards people interacting with incest ships as something cutesy and uwu, as my aunt was literally the only person in my family I ever WAS close to or comfortable with. And there’s no divorcing any of that into nice neat little compartments that make it easier for anyone on the outside looking in to just peek through ONE window to see what they might see, and try and act like it doesn’t matter what’s in any of those other boxes because it has nothing to do with the only one they want to concern themselves with.

And my lack of resources and emotional state post gay-bashing led directly into my sex work for various reasons, which led in various ways to better things for me in some respects, while compounding certain traumas of mine in other respects, and there’s no divorcing any of that from the rest either. There’s no ‘my time as a sex worker was good’ even though some of it was and there’s no ‘my time as a sex worker was bad’ even though some of it really was. And a lot of the attitudes of some of the rich assholes who paid me for sex and viewed me as a plaything they could do anything to directly informs my resistance to letting powerful assholes in Hollywood hold roles over my head in exchange for sex, even though the latter could have advanced my career in huge ways and led to me being a lot more financially stable and self-sufficient by the time my physical issues emerged due to the jaw joint on one side of my head eroding through and snapping completely just like that in turn was a long-building repercussion of not just my gaybashing, but my decision to never go to the hospital and get checked out after it.

None of this can be cut away from the rest and trimmed into neat little pieces that don’t color outside the lines or impact anything else. Just like my gaybashing itself can’t be divorced from my white privilege, and the fact that it played into the fact that I survived that night in the first place. Something I say not in some weird white guilt kinda way like people try and project onto others for even acknowledging white privilege, like no its not like I fucking wish I died to prove some kind of weird point, what I’m talking about is just the simple basic AWARENESS that multiple and even contradictory factors exist in even the most extreme of situations. And its never anything BUT self-serving to pretend that you can frame it as otherwise.

And so when I talk about being a survivor, just like with all the rest of this, I’m not talking about some arbitrary status of survivorhood that exists in a specific point in time and is only relevant to some singular event I survived, its applicable to everything about my life big and small. I’m a survivor every single day I’ve survived, every day I wake up and keep moving forward despite the pain and stress and lingering trauma of what was done to me one night sixteen years ago, I’m surviving what they did every bit as much as I survived it that night and in the morning after as I dragged myself back to my room. Just like my status as an abuse survivor stemming from childhood directly informs everything about not just my coping mechanisms but my entire freaking worldview as someone who grew up throughout childhood learning to view the world through a lens in which he was simultaneously not safe due to the presence of victimizers in his own home, while at the same time still having certain protections that others don’t have in life in general due to not just again my white privilege but my male privilege, my cis privilege.

And that’s what makes it so laughable and so offensive when people act like I’m defining myself by being a survivor as some kind of singular identity trait whenever I raise it as something of relevance in fandom discussions that have EVERYTHING to do with stances of abuse apologism and homophobic ideas that directly play into why I was so unsafe in certain parts and times of my life, because who the fuck is anyone else to tell me how my experiences as a survivor and how they shaped me are or are not relevant to ideas pertaining to those very things, when brought front and center and face to face with me in various fandoms due to the insistence of fandoms at large on KEEPING these things front and center in almost ALL fandom discussions? Like, the hilarious irony of people who have so wholly centered certain types of ship and content in terms of their own personal fandom identities that they can’t help but feel personally attacked when someone so much as says “I don’t like the ideas you’re broadcasting alongside your choice to amplify and signal boost this kind of content because you’re not JUST signalboosting the content itself, but these specific perceptions of it and ideas in support of and in apology for it.”....like, turning around and saying IM too defined by my views stemming from my existence as a survivor. The call is coming from inside the house, lolol.

Again, none of this can be divorced from the rest. It can be focused on one piece at a time, but its connections to everything else that informs it in various RELEVANT ways, can not be made IRRELEVANT just because you don’t like the picture that forms when you’re forced to look at the WHOLE picture instead of just willfully condensing the frame to just the part you like or want to talk about.

And to bring it all home, looping back up to what I opened with:

Do you know how often I hear people say shit about the length of my posts or the rambling nature or in various ways act INCONVENIENCED by various things about how they have to interact with my posts when that interaction itself is still completely voluntary?

Taking in everything I said in this post, the way it all interconnects and informs other things, I’d like to ask anyone who has ever objected to some post somewhere or derided one because of something as ultimately nonconsequential as the length of it, something where its literally just like....scroll a few more seconds......do you apply the same energy and scrutiny to posts that cross your dash that are filled with various things like racism, transphobia, rape or pedophilia fetishization or abuse apologism, or do you let that slide by without acknowledgment before looking at a post that makes you sigh because of how fucking LONG it was and think...this, THIS is what I’m gonna choose to speak up about?

Because that’s ultimately what this is all about. Here’s the kicker with everything I said....my life could be better, I want it to be better, from the biggest aspects of it and pain issues to stuff just like.....the fandom communities I immerse myself in for my own attempts at having something to counterbalance real life stress. But at the end of the day, there’s no my life sucks or my life rocks....its still just...my life. And it has its good as well as its bad, and that ultimately hails from my choices, and the fact that like....even while there are choices I literally CAN’T make, I can be comfortable with the ones I DO make.

And so like......would my life be easier in some respects now if I’d gone back to school and gotten a diploma and had more job opportunities available to me? Yeah, for sure. But that awareness doesn’t mean I regret my choice NOT to go back to school when I DID have more opportunities for that, because the acting career I had at those times instead was the choice I made, with intent, and its one I’m still glad for making. Those experiences still matter, still meant something and still mean something to me.

And do I wish that I’d coped with what happened to me in college in different, healthier ways that would have given me more tools for how I interact with my trauma and who I became after that, rather than how I did? Yeah, sometimes, for sure. But not without losing my awareness that the choices I did make at the time were not made in a vacuum, and can not be edited in hindsight....there were reasons I made them, reasons that were informed by everything that had happened to me previously and stemmed from a lot of things I still didn’t have control over and as such always placed a cap on the range of choices that were available to me back then, because there’s a difference between choices that exist in theory versus choices that exist as something that might viably be chosen at a particular place and time.

The world is big and complicated. Life is big and complicated. WE are big and complicated. And nothing about understanding any of that is IMO benefited by putting most of our effort into SHRINKING our worldviews, constructing artificial frames that don’t just focus us in on specific aspects of it for finite periods but attempt to then treat that as its own individual thing utterly disconnected from anything else that might be going on OUTSIDE that picture frame.

So if you’ve read this far and you’ve taken anything away from this big long rambling post that could be a lot shorter, could be a lot less rambling, but could also just not have been posted at all and I’d rather have it exist in this form than let everything in it go unsaid.....

My request would be that your takeaway be this: to look at your choices in regards to some specific finite interaction in even just one of your fandoms, and see what happens when you open the frame back up. If you widen the scope. If you let other things into the picture. Are you still comfortable with the choices you make or don’t make in light of THAT image, are they any different from the ones you made or would have made when keeping things as small and contained in your awareness as possible, just because that was easier for you to conceptualize, easier to navigate around, just....less COMPLICATED?

Because things aren’t made less complicated just by the mere fact of WANTING them to be.

And if your choices are more born of what you’d say or do IF the world were as finite or as limited as its sometimes easier to pretend it is......is that really the approach you want to go with and the reasoning you want to stand by?

And similarly, if there are choices you make and that in ORDER for you to feel comfortable making them, you feel a need to tighten your focus or shrink your worldview around one specific element or area and leave out all the rest and only then are you truly comfortable with doing or saying something, like......

Its important to remember that this isn’t the only option you have for making yourself more comfortable with things you say or do or think, or even just have in the past.

The other perfectly viable option exists: you can simply....make different choices.

#this is a post #im not entirely sure how else to describe it #just that it is not necessarily the post that it looks like beneath the cut that it looks like above the cut #so all I've got is: this has been a post #make of it what you will #lololol #its....whatever #ANYWHO

11 notes · View notes

rjzimmerman · 6 years

Link

Summary of this essay from the Center for American Progress:

In February, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its revised "Waters of the United States" (WOTUS) rule. The proposed rule dramatically restricts what falls under the purview of the Clean Water Act, the environmental law that has led to the cleanup of thousands of rivers and lakes in the United States. Despite the administration's claims, the proposed WOTUS rule would not simplify the regulatory process or provide any clarity for farmers. Instead, it appears to be a giveaway to the mining industry that would hamstring efforts to effectively protect the nation’s waters from pollution and would place an undue burden on states. The new rule would also stifle the booming restoration economy and limit safeguards for some of the most toxic forms of development. Congress should press the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to ensure that the rule reflects the best science—and it should hold the administration accountable for this blatant attempt to give handouts to favor big polluters at the expense of public health.

#Clean Water Act #Waters of the US rule #trump #water pollution #mining industry

2 notes · View notes

imspardagus · 4 years

Text

The need for necessity: a look at “reasonable excuse”

In this piece I am going to take a look at the regulations that contain the actual law that has been put in place to contain us – and, the Government hopes, the Coronavirus, Corvid-19: the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020. What I am not going to do is to examine whether the regulations were intra or ultra vires. I will leave that debate to better minds than mine.

But there still needs to be clarity. Legislating in haste is never a good idea. Nor is legislating to save face (see the history of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991if you need confirmation). Laws, particularly laws that affect people’s freedom and their relationship with authority, and threaten them with criminal sanction need to be clear and certain. That requires careful consideration and self-restraint on the part of politicians, not something they are good at. But these regulations were made at a time of unprecedented emergency. So much so that Parliamentary scrutiny was set aside. Since they came into force, social media has been awash with claims about what they do, and don’t, allow, while reports have been made of overzealous policing – most of them from the police themselves – based, we must assume, on what local forces believe that they say.

No good can come of this uncertainty. The public needs to trust the police. The police need to have the trust of the public. Trust cannot be demanded. It must be won. If people feel that they are being treated unfairly or oppressively by authority they will become rebellious and the rule of law that binds us to the common good will be damaged.

My purpose here is not to nitpick but to set in train a debate that will help us all clarify the effect of the restrictions. It is my hope that the on-line legal community will stir itself to critique what I have written and by that means bring about a fair consensus of opinion on which we can all rely.

Apologies to Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. I can only consider the English version of the regulations.

Before I start, a word about my credentials: before I retired 10 years ago, I was a barrister and, for over 30 years, a government lawyer. For 20 of those years I was a senior lawyer in charge of a team that worked at the highest levels of government and I have drafted hundreds of statutory instruments like these regulations, helped to prepare numerous Acts of Parliament, advised ministers as to their powers and interpreted legislation.

That does not mean much in the grand scheme. There are many practising lawyers and judges against whose skills mine are insignificant. It is those people we need to hear from. I have not written this to show how clever I am, or to prove myself right, but to give them a ball to kick around, a cock-shy. Nonetheless, I have given it my best shot.

Where to begin?

Let’s start at the very beginning (a very good place to start). These regulations have been made -

“…in response to the serious and imminent threat to public health which is posed by the incidence and spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in England.”

That is in the preamble, the part of the regulations that sets out the Secretary of State’s powers to make them (they are what is known as “delegated legislation”, which is to say that they are made by the authority of Parliament and must be in conformity with the powers – vires- that it has bestowed by primary legislation – an Act). If those powers are exceeded, the regulations can be set aside – quashed – by the courts and actions taken in reliance on them will be unlawful. But on the other side of the coin, it means that a court looking at what the regulations mean will try to find an interpretation that fits within the powers. And that in turn means that if someone is authorised by the regulations to do something or required by the regulations not to do something then the courts will try to construe the authorisation or prohibition in a way consistent with, not broader than, the enabling powers.

In the preamble, the Secretary of State confirms that he –

“considers that the restrictions and requirements imposed by these Regulations are proportionate to what they seek to achieve, which is a public health response to that threat.”

These opening words are important because they are the benchmark against which all that follows must be measured. They reflect a statutory limitation placed on the making of regulations such as these (section 45D(1) and (2) of the Public Health (Control of Diseases) Act 1984 which, oddly, is not cited in the preamble) so it is not so much a question of what the Secretary of State “considers” as what he must abide by.

From here on, my focus is going to be on Regulation 6 and the enforcement that attends it.

Reasonable excuse

Regulation 6 starts well, with a simple and clear statement:

“During the emergency period, no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse.”

By the time we arrive at regulation 6, the “emergency period” has already been defined, in regulation 3. It started at 1pm on 26 March and all we need to know is that we are in the middle of it.

We do need to know what is meant by “the place where they are living” and here we hit our first uncertainty because it is not defined. Regulation 6(3) offers us help but only is so far as what is included in the place where we are living:

“the premises where they live together with any garden, yard, passage, stair, garage, outhouse or other appurtenance of such premises”

The absence of a comma between “live” and “together is poor drafting (sadly not the only example) but the ambiguity it produces hardly signifies.

The regulations could have used other formulations: home, place of abode, normal residence. For reasons which probably have to do with the need to keep people where they were at the time the emergency period started, whether it was their home or someone else’s, or where they have ended up if they have had to vacate their home, the drafters went for a broader, less specific “place where they are living”.

But this does raise the question whether that place can change over time. Jumping ahead to look at the list of “reasonable excuses”, it would appear that it can: see regulation 6(2)(l) –

“to move house where reasonably necessary”.

That implies that you can change the place where you are living.

But it does not mean that you can wander from place to place. This is not a case of “wherever I lay my hat is home”.

But what about that list in regulation 6(3)? Not “any garden, yard, passage, stair, garage, outhouse”. That would be too broad. But any which is an “appurtenance” of the premises. What does that mean?

The legal meaning of “appurtenance” is a right, benefit or privilege that allows for the use and enjoyment of a property that belongs to you. The most obvious is a right of way. If your house can only be accessed through someone else’s property, then you have a limited right to come and go over their land. That right attaches to your property. It is an appurtenance. But there may be others. Your ownership of your property may come with the right to park in a residents’ car park, to use a communal garden, to come and go through the common parts of a block of flats, to use a bin store, to drive to a garage separate from the actual living accommodation over land owned by the freeholder of the estate where you live. All these, if they were part of the package that you acquired when you bought your property, are appurtenances. And all of them, according to regulation 6(3), extend the boundaries of “the place where you live”.

They do not have to be your appurtenances. All they need to be are the appurtenances of the place where you are living. If they are, you have not left that place when you are availing yourself of them.

Regulation 6(2) does not say in terms that you have the right to leave one part of the place where you are living to visit another, detached, part of it, but it does not prohibit that either, and that is important because what is claimed to be forbidden must be clearly and unambiguously forbidden. That is what the criminal law demands. As we will shortly see, the list of “reasonable excuses” in regulation 6(2) is not exhaustive. There can be others. If, say, your car is parked in the residents’ car park, across the road, and the residents’ car park is an appurtenance of the place where you are living and you need your car to go shopping, it seems “reasonable” that you should be able to leave your house to go to your car.

Another issue has been picked up by one of Twitter’s legal experts, David Allen Green. In a blog, he has suggested that as the regulations are drafted it does not matter why you are away from the place where you are living provided that you had a “reasonable excuse” when you left it. It is hard to deny the force of that as a strict interpretation. However, I have to say I rather doubt the courts will want to bless a view that drives the proverbial coach and horses through a very important piece of regulatory legislation.

Before we leave the place where you are living however let’s just celebrate the good fortune of the homeless. Sadly, I jest. It amounts to not being subject to the restrictions on not leaving the place where you live without reasonable excuse (regulation 6(4)). So they are not confined to the miserable shop doorway or park bench that they had made their place of refuge on 26 March. They are free to be moved on and otherwise ignored just as before. But at least they can’t be fined into the bargain. Lucky people.

So let us now move on to what constitutes a “reasonable excuse” for leaving the place where you are living.

Regulation 6(2)

There has been a lot of careless misinformation about reasonable excuse. Several police forces have written the word “essential” into the restrictions. Let us nail that one straightaway. The word “essential” appears only once in the list of reasonable excuses, qualifying “upkeep” in regulation 6(2)(a). There is no concept of “essential” travel, “essential” exercise, “essential” medical assistance or “essential” care and support of the vulnerable.

I have already pointed out that the list in regulation 6(2) is not exhaustive. What does that mean and what are the implications?

Legal definitions come in two forms: exhaustive and inclusive. In an exhaustive definition, we are told what a word means. That provides its absolute limits. An example exists in the regulations themselves:

““coronavirus” means severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)”

(regulation 1(3)(a))

So no other respiratory syndrome, just that one.

But an inclusive definition merely provides examples. It says, in effect, these things definitely come within the definition, but leaves open up the possibility that there may be other things that do.

Regulation 6(2) opens with the statement that –

“For the purposes of paragraph (1), a reasonable excuse includes the need”

That means that the list that follows is not an exhaustive list of reasonable excuses. The ones it lists are definitely reasonable excuses but others may exist.

An inclusory list does more than that, however. It also establishes guidelines for other contenders for inclusion. It says, in effect, “excuses like these”. If you want to claim a reasonable excuse that is not on the list you have got to show that it resembles those that are.

I am not going to hazard a guess at what might be a reasonable excuse that is not on the list but the authorities must be open to the possibility that something is.

Okay, I willhazard a guess, because it has already come up in the media. If you are a woman (or a man or a child) who is living under threat from your partner, or someone else in your house, it is a reasonable excuse if, to place yourself beyond danger, you leave the house. That much is explicitly covered by regulation 6(2)(m) –

“to avoid injury or illness or to escape a risk of harm”.

But suppose you leave to avoid the risk to another? Your child, say. Or, if you are a child, you leave home because your mother is fleeing. That surely must be a reasonable excuse, by association with regulation 6(2)(m). But then again, suppose you leave the home not because of a threat of harm but because it has become intolerable for you to stay? Can it be that the law requires you to remain? That is a more uncertain situation which requires judgment, proportion and discretion.

On whom does the onus of proving a non-listed reasonable excuse fall? Ultimately you. If the case goes to trial, it cannot fall to the prosecution to prove that you have no reasonable excuse, though once you have tendered what you believe to be one they may have to show that it wasn’t. I will come back to this when I look at enforcement.

For now I want to look at the listed excuses that are most likely to affect us and address any problems that I see.

The first excuse has been mis-categorised as “essential shopping”. Both words are wrong. In a curious tautology, the excuse starts with –

“the need … to obtain basic necessities, including food and medical supplies”.

It is not hard to see the difficulty facing the drafter of this. No doubt the policy instruction was that we needed to curtail mere retail therapy trips. But “the need to obtain basic necessities” opens up a whole landscape of uncertainty. What is a necessity? What is a basic necessity? What constitutes a “need” for one?

Clearly basic necessities go beyond food and medicine, because the regulation says that they “include” these, thereby indicating that food and medicine are only examples. But how to we arrive at a rational, workable understanding of what the drafters meant by “a need … for basic necessities”?

In vast areas of the world a bowl of rice and a jug of clean water constitute the basic necessities of life. That and shelter. For us in the self-pampering remainder of the world, bread and milk may be regarded as necessities (but not if you are gluten or dairy intolerant) whereas elsewhere they are luxuries. But we take our idea of need and necessity well beyond these limits. Bedding, heating, hot and cold water, refrigeration, crockery, clothing, even TV, all these are often regarded as necessities. Groceries, as a classification, tend to be regarded as necessities, but is caviar – manifestly a grocery – a necessity? Is St Agur cheese a necessity? Can anyone really claim that pork medallions are a basic necessity? Ice-cream? Coffee? And this is before we get to alcohol and tobacco. or school uniforms?

And these are just generic notions. When it comes down to specifics, Can anyone claim that 24 toilet rolls are a basic necessity? In the West, shoes are a necessity. But is a new pair of shoes a basic necessity if you have at least one sound pair at home?

We tend not to think about it but most of what we buy is not the result of need but of income-based lifestyle choices: neither basic nor necessary except in the version of reality to which we adhere.

So how should the police go about enforcing the reasonable excuse of obtaining basic necessities? What help can we give them?

The starting place, perhaps unhelpfully, is that regulation 6(2)(a) does not place any specific restriction on the words. It expressly excludes no form of food or medicine and it indicates that even these are not the limit of basic necessities.

Perhaps the most direct help comes from elsewhere in the regulations. Because in regulation 5, restrictions are placed on the kinds of business that can remain open to trade. Businesses that can continue are listed in Part 3 of Schedule 3. They include:

· Food retailers (includingfood markets and supermarkets)

· Off licences (includingbreweries)

· Newsagents

· Non-dispensing pharmacies

· Homeware and hardware stores

· Post offices

· Banks and cash points

· Pet shops.

If the regulations specifically allow these to remain open for business, then there is a strong inference that people are permitted to do business with them. And that is confirmed by the final words of regulation 6(2)(a)

“including from any business listed in Part 3 of Schedule 2.”

And that implies that their products, or at least some of them, can be taken to fall within the ambit of basic necessities, because there is no other construction that does not result in an intention of the law being frustrated. If an off-licence – primarily a purveyor of alcohol – is included, then it is reasonable to assume that alcohol is a basic necessity. If a newsagent – primarily a purveyor of newspapers, magazines and tobacco products – is included, then it is reasonable to assume that tobacco and the printed media are basic necessities. If pet shops are included then it is reasonable to assume that pet food is a basic necessity. And so on.

If, generically, this is true, then is there any justification for claiming that some of the produce that falls within those categories is a basic necessity but some is not?

Here it may be useful to return to that preambular “commitment” of the Secretary of State. Remember –

“the restrictions and requirements imposed by these Regulations are proportionate to what they seek to achieve, which is a public health response to that threat.”

Does it serve, proportionately or otherwise, any public health response to Coronavirus to say that a pack of Tesco sausages is a basic necessity but their 32-day dry aged Cote de Boeuf is not? No. In fact there is an opposing case to be made, that if those who would normally opt for the Cote de Boeuf are required to eschew it in favour of the Tesco sausages a shortage of supply may occur making the handling of the crisis worse.

We should go easy on the drafters of regulation 6(2)(a). They were working in a flat out panic to produce something that looked plausibly like controls. The temptation would have been to use language that appeared to import meaning without requiring too much precision. Sadly, when regulations come to be enforced, this expedient cracks open to reveal a nest of issues. It behoves all of us to seek a pragmatic resolution, one that is neither Draconian nor laissez-faire, one that serves the purpose. And the police and those others charged with enforcement would do well to have regard to regulation 8(8):

“A relevant person may only exercise the power in paragraph (3), (5) or (6) if the relevant person considers that it is a necessary and proportionate means of ensuring compliance with the requirement.”

While we are on the subject of the meaning of regulation 6(2)(a), the excuse does not simply permit trips to the shops. Other businesses that are permitted to remain open are those that provide “hot and cold food for consumption off the premises” – takeaways, in other words. So your trip to the local chippy is sanctioned despite its not being expressly listed as a reasonable excuse. And it does not limit you to one trip, or any other number of trips. The question it poses on each occasion that you are out is whether you are out for the permitted purpose.

In practical terms, if Tesco don’t have what you need, you are entitled to find out if Sainsbury’s or Morrisons or your local corner shop do. Just don’t use it as an excuse to be out all day.

Regulation 6(2)(a) extends the reasonable excuse beyond getting basic necessities for members of your own household. It covers –

“supplies for the essential upkeep, maintenance and functioning of the household”.

But I think the same arguments apply as to interpretation.

Regulation 6(2)(a) also allows you the excuse of leaving your place of living to obtain stuff for “vulnerable persons”. Other provisions supplement that. I will look at these separately.

But let’s now move along to exercise. Again, this “reasonable excuse” has suffered from the misdescription of “essential exercise” and from the imposition of a limitation of one bout of exercise per person per day. None of this is reflected in regulation 6(2)(b) which simply says:

“to take exercise either alone or with other members of their household”

That’s it. No numerical or time limitation no qualification as to the type of exercise. No limitation as to the location of the exercise. Nothing to tell you that you can’t exercise while exercising your dog, or even your pet crocodile. Or someone else’s (though beware of the risk of transmitting the virus via an animal’s coat).

And remember, that what is not prohibited is permitted. That is not an exhortation to irresponsibility. We each owe ourselves and others a moral duty to refrain from exacerbating the risk of infection by acting stupidly and selfishly. The question here is simply what we may be required to do or refrain from doing on pain of criminal penalty. In this case, what is prohibited is being away from the place where you live without reasonable excuse.

Vulnerable persons

I want to look finally at a theme that runs through regulation 6(2): that of help for others. Regulation 6(2)(a) allows you to shop for a vulnerable person. Regulation 6(2)(d) allows you to –

“provide care or assistance, including relevant personal care within the meaning of paragraph 7(3B) of Schedule 4 to the Safeguarding of Vulnerable Groups Act 2006(1), to a vulnerable person, or to provide emergency assistance;”

A vulnerable person is defined in regulation 1(3)(c). Again it is an inclusory, not an exhaustive, definition. It includes –

“(i) any person aged 70 or older;

(ii) any person under 70 who has an underlying health condition, including but not limited to, the conditions listed in Schedule 1;

(iii) any person who is pregnant.”

The age requirement is arbitrary, as all such requirements are. What it means is that if the person is 70 or over, they are automatically classed as vulnerable. It would not prevent an argument being made that a person who is, say, prematurely aged or infirm was equally vulnerable.

The health condition is not dependent on the age requirement. It stands alone. And again it is inclusory. The list of medical conditions is however exclusively physical. The link between them appears to be that they render the sufferer at greater risk from the virus than would otherwise be the case. It cannot be said with any assurance that a person whose vulnerability was mental would be included, even though it is recognised that your mental state can seriously undermine your immune system. It is to be hoped that a sympathetic view would be taken of such a case.

The third category is self-explanatory but leaves open the question of the mother who has recently given birth, or had a miscarriage or termination, and who may be suffering from the effects of these or complications arising from them. Again, one hopes a reasonable view would be taken. There is scope for doing so.

But what do the reasonable excuses themselves permit?

Regulation 6(2)(a) permits you to be out shopping for a vulnerable person. What it does not expressly allow is that you can take the shopping to the person concerned. But again we need to hold on to common sense, backed up by the knowledge that these excuses are not exhaustive, that they are meant to be applied intelligently and that the only permissible restrictions are those that are laid down and are proportionate to the purpose of responding to the threat.

The question here is, let us remind ourselves, not whether a person should risk the health of another person by entering their presence. The question in regulation 6 is whether they should be away from the place where they live. That is the only contravention with which the regulations are concerned if we are not considering public gatherings (regulation).

It can be fairly safely assumed as an interpretation that if you are permitted to shop for a vulnerable person you are entitled to travel to and from their location to deliver the shopping. Otherwise the purpose of the shopping is frustrated.

Regulation 6(2)(d) is more direct. It enables you to provide “care and assistance”. It does not say what care and assistance amounts to but, helpfully, it separates “care and assistance” from “emergency assistance”. The clear import of this is that care and assistance is not limited to that which the vulnerable person needs in an emergency.

It may be assumed that if your vulnerable person needs a household problem sorted, for example putting out the bins for refuse collection, that is assistance. If they need help dressing, that is care and assistance. If they need to be cooked for. If you are providing them with a meal you cooked for them, that is care and assistance. If they have a dog that needs to be walked, that is assistance.

And what if they need company? Many a carer is engaged simply to provide human company to a housebound person. A sympathetic view of the regulations would respond positively to such action. Is there a reason based in proportionality that defeats it? Remember again that what is not prohibited is permitted and what is prohibited is being away from the place where you live without reasonable excuse.

The distance travelled

We have seen examples of people being stopped and even threatened with prosecution because they have driven to open countryside for their exercise or travelled to a shop further away than the nearest to their home. The simple response to this is that such sanctioning is not supported by the regulations. Nothing in regulation 6(2)(a) determines how you get to your destination for obtaining your supplies. Nothing prevents you from making a round trip to multiple suppliers. The only issue is the purpose for you being away from where you live. The same is true of your chosen place and type of exercise. If you are a walker, runner or cyclist you are entitled to find a location where you can walk, run or cycle without endangering your own or someone else’s health.

Similarly, and obviously, when you have finished your business you must be entitled to travel home from it. That, though not explicitly stated in the regulations is a necessary implication if you are not to be stranded, an outcome that would defeat the object of the restrictions.

Are there any caveats here? Well, again it all hinges on “reasonable excuse” and that word “need”. If you want to travel halfway across the country to climb a hill, you cannot expect to find much sympathy for your view that you are away from home with a reasonable excuse. It may be an excuse but is it reasonable? If you eschew the Tesco in your home town to travel to a Tesco 10 miles away, you may have difficulty persuading someone that you needed to do it. Be sensible.

Enforcement

Enforcement of regulation 6 is given to three kinds of “relevant people”: a constable, a police community support officer and a person designated either by a local authority or the Secretary of State.

It is important to understand what form “enforcement” takes.

Regulation 8(3) says that where a relevant person considers that you are outside the place where you live “in contravention of regulation 6(1)” they may direct you to return home or return you to that place.

That is step one. They can use reasonable force when returning you home if it is necessary.

Remember that being “in contravention of regulation 6(1) means leaving the place where you live without reasonable excuse. Simply being away from that place is not enough to constitute a contravention of regulation 6.

And, as we have already noted, regulation 8(8) requires the relevant person to form a view that it is “necessary and proportionate” to secure compliance with the restriction for them to direct you or to return you home.

Step two is the offence of contravening regulation 6. Whether you have committed that offence is a question of fact and law, not the relevant person’s opinion.

But if you obstruct a relevant person, or without reasonable excuse, do not heed the direction they have given you under regulation 8, those are each separate offences.

If you do not consider that you have contravened regulation 6(1) – if, in essence, you believe that you have a reasonable excuse to be away from the place where you live -,, you may have a reasonable excuse for ignoring the direction. But your belief has to be reasonable. And the test will be whether the magistrates think it was reasonable, not whether you did. Be reasonable, be sensible, be co-operative where you can.

You will not be guilty of an offence unless you are prosecuted and found guilty.

But the regulations have set up another procedure.

Fixed penalty

An authorised person (essentially the relevant person from above but not a person designated by the local authority in the case of breach of regulation 6(1)) can issue you with a fixed penalty notice if they believe you have committed an offence under the regulations. This is your chance to avoid prosecution and swell the coffers of the state. Think of it as the modern day equivalent of the indulgences paid by the rich to monks in expiation of their sins.

There are multiple infelicities in regulation 10, which provides for fixed penalties, surprisingly. Given the prevalence of this fraud on the criminal justice system, you would think they had enough precedents for how to draft it.

Properly speaking the fixed penalty system provides you, the accused, with an opportunity - a choice - to avoid prosecution, with an additional incentive of a reduced charge for taking it quickly. Not so here.

The relevant person is here cast as judge, jury and executioner in a devastating breach of human rights. The assumption is that you will pay up and end the matter and to help you down that road there is a rapid escalation of penalties if you don’t. In other contexts this would be called extortion.

The power is there to issue these tickets. What is not made clear is whether you can reject the fixed penalty and insist on due process. What is also not provided for is for you to appeal against the issue of a fixed penalty notice.

What is laid down, however, is the required content of a fixed penalty notice: it must -

“(a) give reasonably detailed particulars of the circumstances alleged to constitute the offence;

(b) state the period during which (because of paragraph (4)(a)) proceedings will not be taken for the offence;

(d) state the name and address of the person to whom the fixed penalty may be paid;

(e) specify permissible methods of payment.”

It is your right to be provided with such a notice and if you are not no penalty can be lawfully demanded.

Good luck with that. Better to try to avoid being served with one. Be responsible, be sensible, be reasonable, be co-operative.

#coronavirus #police powers #regulations #leaving home #reasonable excuse #fixed penalty

0 notes

xtruss · 5 years

Text

Trump Administration Strips Pollution Safeguards From Drinking Water Sources

Rollback of clean water protections for streams and wetlands

Obama-era rules have long been targeted by Trump

An egret looks for food along Valhalla pond in Riverview, Florida. Trump has called clean water protections ‘very destructive’.

The Trump administration has completed its rollback of environmental protections for streams, wetland and other bodies of water, a process that has stripped pollution safeguards from drinking water sources used by around a third of all Americans.

Clean water protections strengthened under the Obama administration have long been targeted by Donald Trump, who has called it a “very destructive and horrible rule”.

Trump has been backed by ranchers, farming groups and golf course operators, who claim the so-called “Water of the United States” (Wotus) rule impinged upon landowners’ rights.

The Obama-era water rule was repealed last year and on Thursday the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a weakened replacement that removes millions of miles of streams and around half of America’s wetlands from federal oversight, potentially allowing pesticides and other pollutants to be dumped into them without penalty.

The move has dismayed former EPA staff who worked on the expansion of protections to ephemeral streams that supply drinking water to an estimated 117 million people in the US.

“The new rule is scientifically indefensible and socially unjust,” said Betsy Southerland, who was scientific director of the EPA’s office of water for three decades before departing in 2017.

“This EPA’s Wotus definition, which will limit federal water quality protections to a very small set of waters and wetlands, will result in the impairment of drinking water, fisheries and flood control for communities throughout the US.”

The Trump administration had promised the demise of the water rule to industry groups that lobbied against what they saw as costly federal overreach. “This new rule will provide much-needed clarity and regulatory certainty for companies that site and build infrastructure that delivers essential energy to America’s communities,” said Karen Harbert, chief executive of the American Gas Association.

But opponents of the repeal point out that the replacement regime not only scraps the Obama-era rule but also reverses protections reaching back to the 1972 Clean Water Act, such as requirements that landowners seek permits that the EPA considers on a case-by-case basis.

The new, far narrower, definition of water protections will maintain safeguards for major rivers such as the Mississippi River and the Colorado River but not short-lived streams that feed into them after it rains or snow melts. About 60% of streams in the US are dry for part of the year but then connect to large rivers following rainfall. Wetlands not situated next to large rivers will also be excluded from protections.

People living in the western US are set to be particularly affected by the new rule, with ephemeral streams making up around 89% of Nevada’s stream miles and 94% of Arizona’s, for example.

Environmental groups warn that as many as 75 endangered species dependent on temporary streams will be imperilled by the move, while any degradation of wetlands would also harm wildlife and worsen the climate crisis by lessening their ability to store carbon.

Trump told the World Economic Forum at Davos this week that the US has “among the cleanest air and drinking water on Earth”, despite widespread contamination with chemicals such as PFAS and neurotoxins such as lead in Americans’ water.

The Trump administration has dismantled about 100 environmental rules while in office, including the reversal of a ban on mining companies dumping their waste into rivers.

“The ‘dirty water rule’ will put clean drinking water for tens of millions of people at risk, especially the low-income communities and communities of colour already disproportionately impacted by polluted water,” said Madeleine Foote, deputy legislative director of the League of Conservation Voters.

“Clean, safe drinking water is a basic human right and we should be doing more to protect our water resources, not less,” she added.

Another expert warned of additional risks.

“The goal of the Trump administration rollback is to reduce the obligations of farmers, ranchers and other landowners in their requirements to protect water quality in the US,” said Catherine Kling, an environmental economist at Cornell University.

“This will lower regulatory costs to that group of Americans. But there are costs to the environment that will be borne by other Americans.”

These include, Kling said, the loss of healthy drinking water, algal blooms that sicken swimmers and pets and reduced value of properties near waterways.

—Guardian USA | Oliver Milman in New York | Thursday January 23, 2020

0 notes

joshuajacksonlyblog · 5 years

Text

Russia Prepares Law to Allow Cryptocurrency Confiscation

According to local reports, Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and other law enforcement agencies are developing proposals to confiscate cryptocurrencies. These proposals could evolve into Russian laws as soon as 2021.

“Russia plans to develop a legal mechanism for the seizure of virtual assets for their confiscation,” according to a translated report from RBC. “The relevant proposals should be prepared by December 31, 2021 by the Ministry of Internal Affairs together with [federal financial monitoring branch] Rosfinmonitoring, the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Investigative Committee, the Justice Ministry … the Federal Customs Service and the Federal Security Service with the participation of the Supreme Court.”

Decentralized, blockchain-based cryptocurrencies like bitcoin would be very difficult, if not impossible, to confiscate. The initial report did not elaborate on how, specifically, the government would seize cryptocurrency under a new regulation.

Russia and Cryptocurrency Regulation

Many Russians have a positive relationship with cryptocurrencies. Ironically, even the government has had its hand in blockchain- and cryptocurrency-based initiatives.

President Vladimir Putin met with Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin in June 2017, leading many to believe it was a signal of support for digital currencies from the Kremlin. The president also attended the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum that same month, where he claimed that enhancing the Russian economy and increasing average income could be achieved through the adoption and acceptance of “innovative technologies.” One of Putin’s aides leased an abandoned aluminum plant located in northern Russia to a Bitcoin mining company.

However, regulation around cryptocurrencies in Russia has been a tad murky.

In May 2019, local news medium Fontanka reported that Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian prime minister, had dismissed the issue of regulating cryptocurrency. While speaking at a legal conference in St. Petersburg, the lawmaker had explained that cryptocurrency may have lost its appeal to the masses.

“Nowadays, the popularity of cryptocurrency has decreased, and regulatory issues may not be so relevant,” he argued.

So, those who advocated for regulations believed that Russia would get its day when crypto prices rose again. And prices did rise. Bitcoin surged to about $13,500 in June 2019, but this didn’t move the Russian government, as many had expected, to regulate the sector.

But some progress toward cryptocurrency regulation clarity in Russia was made this year.

Called Russia’s “digital rights act,” it defines smart contracts and digital tokens in a legal sense. Whether it was due to the involvement of his aides or just a fascination with the technology, President Putin seemed ready to open Russia’s doors to the innovative technologies that he touted in St. Petersburg.

Cryptocurrency Regulation as an Effort to Fight Crime in Russia

However, any cordial relationship between cryptocurrencies and the Russian government appears to be fraying. And this may be exacerbated by the fact that some high-profile crimes in the country have been connected to cryptocurrency.

On November 4, 2019, police in St. Petersburg reportedly got an anonymous letter from a man who threatened to set off explosives at several train stations across the country if he wasn’t paid 50 BTC (worth about $460,000 at press time).

In October 2019, Denis Baykov, a maintenance worker at a nuclear warhead facility in the western town of Sarov, was handed a $7,000 fine after he and two of his co-workers were found trying to mine bitcoin with the facility’s supercomputer. The Sarov nuclear plant is registered as a state secret, and by connecting the supercomputer to the internet, the three men risked compromising the facility’s security to hackers and other external threats.

But instead of reversing the progress that Russia has made with regulations or banning cryptocurrencies (in the way countries like China and India have), the Kremlin is now looking to ensure complete oversight and control over their use.

Can Russia Really Confiscate Cryptocurrencies?

Konstantin Golikov, co-owner and CEO of digital rewards platform DailyRich, explained to RBC that success in a government-led initiative to confiscate cryptocurrencies would require clear regulations on how it classifies digital assets. This may allow cryptocurrency-based businesses to operate more easily in the country.

“If law enforcement agencies begin to discuss the forfeiture of cryptocurrency, then, in fact, they are launching a mechanism for legalizing cryptocurrency on the territory of Russia,” he said, adding that, while the Russian Central Bank might resist this, there are already many precedents for cryptocurrency seizure by a court decision.

As for the prospect of going through with confiscation, there are still plenty of questions. As RBC noted, cryptocurrencies are generally kept on exchanges or in private wallets. These assets can’t be taken by anyone without access to the wallets, and in most cases, only the owners (and perhaps the asset custodians) have access to them.

If the government wants to get its hands on these assets when it pleases, it may require the cooperation of asset holders. In any case, this effort would have to be preceded by more regulatory clarity.

The post Russia Prepares Law to Allow Cryptocurrency Confiscation appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

from Cryptocracken Tumblr https://ift.tt/2X3yq8k via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Cryptocracken Tumblr

0 notes

cryptoquicknews-blog · 6 years

Photo

New Post has been published here https://is.gd/XThH0Y

From the UK to Malaysia: How Countries Have Been Classifying Crypto Across the World

This post was originally published here

On Jan. 23, the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA), the domestic financial regulator, released a 50-page-long consultation paper dubbed “Guidance on Cryptoassets.”

As the U.K. seems to be moving closer toward rolling out a definitive regulatory framework, it is time to reassess how other crypto markets, specifically the major ones, are dealing with cryptocurrencies on the juridical level.

“Guidance on Cryptoassets,” reviewed: How the U.K. is going to deal with virtual currencies

Given the tone of the new FCA paper, the U.K. government seems to be leaning toward a rather neutral approach for cryptocurrencies.

The primary goal of the document is to provide more regulatory clarity for crypto market participants. Specifically, the FCA aims to help them understand whether their digital assets of choice are within the regulatory perimeter, what regulations apply to their business and whether they need to be authorized with the agency.

In the paper, the regulator outlines various possible definitions of crypto assets and currently applicable U.K. laws. Specifically, the agency notes that crypto assets could be considered “Specified Investments” under the state’s Regulated Activities Order (RAO) or “Financial Instruments” regulated by the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II. The regulatory body also mentions that such assets could be subject to E-Money Regulations or Payment Services Regulations.

The FCA’s consultation paper then breaks down cryptocurrencies into three potential categories: exchange tokens, security tokens and utility tokens.

Thus, as per the agency, exchange tokens are those “not issued or backed by any central authority and are intended and designed to be used as a means of exchange.” The FCA cited the example of Bitcoin (BTC) and Litecoin (LTC) in the context of that particular type of digital asset, adding that exchange tokens are usually decentralized. Consequently, the regulator adds, such tokens can be used for the buying and selling of goods and services without the need for conventional intermediaries, such as banks.

Security tokens, in turn, are assets that “are the same as or akin to traditional instruments like shares, debentures or units in a collective investment scheme.” The FCA adds that such tokens likely fall under RAO and are hence “within the perimeter” of the watchdog’s purview. The FCA avoided mentioning specific examples of such security tokens, but nonetheless outlined a more abstract example:

“Firm CD, incorporated in the UK, has created a social trading platform, called the CD Platform, for users to easily exchange fiat currencies for exchange tokens. The firm issues ‘CD Tokens’ which are exchanged for fiat funds and these tokens are used to purchase other exchange tokens.”

In this scenario, the FCA writes, CD Tokens might be categorized as security tokens, as they “confer on the holder a right of ownership of the CD Platform.”

Finally, coins referred to as utility tokens are those that give users access to a product, but do not grant the same rights as security tokens — and hence are not covered by the regulatory regime, unless they can be classified as e-money by definition.

The FCA cites data previously obtained by the U.K. Cryptoassets Taskforce, noting that the country accommodates less than 15 crypto spot exchanges. Combined, they appear to have a daily trading volume of about $200 million — accounting for approximately 1 percent of the daily global trade in cryptocurrencies. Moreover, there are 56 projects in the U.K. that have held initial coin offerings (ICOs), which is less than 5 percent of projects globally. That implies that the domestic crypto market is still relatively small.

However, despite the modest size of the U.K.’s crypto industry, the local regulators have been intensifying their scrutiny: In December last year, the FCA revealed that it is investigating 18 companies over cryptocurrency use, while the U.K. tax collection service issued its first detailed tax legislation for private cryptocurrency holders. As for the FCA consultation paper, the agency is asking the public to weight in on the document and submit comments before April 5. The finalized version of the document will reportedly be presented by summer 2019.

Therefore, the U.K. might soon join the list of countries that employ a definite regulatory approach toward cryptocurrencies. Some of those players, along with the ways in which they define digital assets, will be discussed below.

Japan

Status of cryptocurrencies: legally-accepted means of payment

Japan is one of the world’s largest markets for cryptocurrencies. According to the data collected by the Financial Services Agency (FSA), the chief domestic financial regulator, the country has about 3.5 million crypto traders who conduct annual transactions to the amount of more than $97 billion. The majority of them are reportedly businessmen around the age of 30. Moreover, domestic reports showthat around 14 percent оf country’s young male workforce has invested in cryptocurrencies.

Given the significant size of the Japanese crypto market, the FSA has been notably active there. As a result of its politics, the domestic market has gained the reputation of being one of the most compliant and regulation-oriented.

Also, Japan is one of the first countries to legally recognize Bitcoin. Thus, since May 2016, the cryptocurrency, along with other altcoins, can be used as a legally accepted means of payment in the country. However, cryptocurrencies are still not defined as legal tender in Japan. In April 2017, the local Payment Services Actcame into force: The document confirmed cryptocurrencies’ role as a form of payment and outlined further regulatory measures of local crypto exchanges and ICOs.

In December 2018, the FSA decided to place Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies under a single category dubbed “crypto-assets,” according to reports from local media. The government was allegedly worried that, because cryptocurrencies were called “virtual currencies,” traders were mislead into thinking that they were purchasing legal tender recognized by the government.

China

Status of cryptocurrencies: not recognized, banned for trading

China used to be an extremely significant player in the crypto market, hosting a substantial share of Bitcoin miners (in 2017, it was estimated that 50 to 70 percent of Bitcoin mining took place in the country) and Bitcoin trading volume. However, since the government’s major crackdown on local exchanges and ICOs in September 2017, both figures have been significantly downplayed. Nevertheless, China has not abandoned crypto altogether and moved on to become a strictly blockchain power.

Thus, since the wave of regulatory repression took place, people in China can hold cryptocurrencies, but cannot legally exchange them for fiat money. According to the local government, domestic regulators do not recognize cryptocurrencies as legal tender or as a tool for retail payments, and the Chinese banking system is not accepting any cryptocurrencies.

United States

Status of cryptocurrencies: varied, depends on the agency

In the U.S. Congress holds supreme power over federal regulatory agencies, such as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), discharging them to comply with the laws it issues.

However, Congress has remained silent on the matter of regulating and defining cryptocurrencies. Meanwhile, different regulatory agencies have taken the matter into their hands, with each regulatory body defining cryptocurrencies in its own way.

The SEC, the body that oversees securities transactions, mostly considers crypto as securities. According to the 70-year-old Howey Test, which the SEC applies to determine the purview of its jurisdiction, a security involves the investment of money in a common enterprise, in which the investor expects profits primarily from others’ efforts. Nonetheless, the SEC has ruled that Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin are not securities, meaning that the assets’ ICOs won’t be reassessed by the regulator, which has been shutting down “unregistered securities” during its sweeping probe.

The CFTC, the agency that controls commodity derivatives transactions, claims that tokens are commodities. Basically, in their view, Bitcoin is closer to gold than to conventional currencies or securities, as it is not backed by the government and does not have a liability attached to it.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCen), the bureau that has full authority for Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) matters, considers tokens to be money. In their view, ICO sales are subject to the money transmitter rules under the Bank Secrecy Act, and are therefore required to register with the government, collect information about their customers, and report any suspicious financial activities.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS), in turn, believes that cryptocurrencies are not currencies, but properties, meaning that when cryptocurrencies are sold for a profit, a capital gains tax will be levied.

However, the complex supervisory situation in the U.S. might change in the future. In late December 2018, two congressmen introduced a bipartisan bill titled “Token Taxonomy Act,” aiming to prevent over-regulation in the domestic cryptocurrency space. Specifically, the paper offers more clarity in regard to ICO registration and taxation policy.

Germany

Status of cryptocurrencies: private money

Cryptocurrencies are not legal tender in Germany, but they have been recognizedas “private money” by the German Finance Ministry since 2013. Consequently, any profit made through trading, mining or exchanging Bitcoin or altcoins is subject to a capital gains tax. However, according the German Income Tax Act, if the assets (cryptos) are held for more than one year, they become tax exempt.

Crypto seems to be relatively popular among young people in Germany. According to a November poll conducted by the German Consumer Centers of Hesse and Saxony, more than a quarter of Germans aged 18 to 29 are interestedin buying digital assets.

Meanwhile, the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) has been maintaining a rather aggressive stance toward ICOs, reporting on unauthorized offerings and warning private investors to “keep away from such things.” The agency has also called for international regulations in the sector.

Switzerland

Status of cryptocurrencies: properties

Home to the famous Crypto Valley located in Zug, Switzerland is renowned for its friendly approach toward crypto-related technologies. Just recently, major global Bitcoin wallet Xapo announced it will relocate key business operations from Hong Kong to Switzerland, citing “opaque jurisdiction.”

In Switzerland, cryptocurrencies constitute properties. According to a 2014 reportissued by Federal Council, the Swiss government classifies cryptocurrency as “virtual currencies,” or, more specifically, as “digital representation of a value which can be traded on the Internet but not accepted as legal tender anywhere.”

South Korea

Status of cryptocurrencies: not defined yet

South Korea has been spearheading the crypto industry since the 2017 investor boom. Specifically, in July 2017, the local exchange market was processing over 14 percent of global Bitcoin trades, being the third-largest market after the U.S. and Japan. Soon, the South Korean crypto industry was hit with a Chinese-like blanket ban on ICOs, performed by the local financial regulator, which was lifted later in May 2018. Meanwhile, the country has been advancing on the fintech field, steadily becoming an international blockchain hub.

While there’s been a lot regulatory uncertainty along the way, it might not be the case in the near future. In late December, as many as six bills to regulate the crypto industry were introduced by local lawmakers. Specifically, the proposed legislation aims to establish more protection for private investors and deal with the lack of “definition for virtual currencies and regulations for virtual currency transactions in the current law,” among other things.

Malta

Status of cryptocurrencies: digital medium of exchange, unit of account, store of value

Malta is famously called the blockchain island, where several foreign cryptocurrency exchanges, including OKex, Binance and BitBay have set up their operations due to the development of a crypto-friendly space.

In July 2018, the local parliament approved and enacted three bills on distributed ledger technology (DLT): the Digital Innovation Authority Act, the Innovative Technological Arrangement and Services Act and the Virtual Financial Asset Act.

Announcing the changes on Twitter, Silvio Schembri, the junior minister for financial services, digital economy and innovation within the Office of the Prime Minister of Malta, claimed that the country became “the first world jurisdiction to provide legal certainty to this space.��

As per the Virtual Financial Asset Act, cryptocurrencies are officially referred to as virtual financial assets (VFA), possibly to avoid the stigma that might be attached to the word “cryptocurrencies”: For instance, ICOs have been named initial VFA offerings, while crypto exchanges have become VFA exchanges.

More specifically, VFA stands for “any form of digital medium recordation that is used as a digital medium of exchange, unit of account, or store of value,” which is, however, “not electronic money, a financial instrument, or a virtual token.” The use of virtual tokens is allowed only on “the DLT platform on which it was issued,” while the redemption for funds is available only “on such platform directly by the issuer of such DLT asset.”

Malaysia

Status of cryptocurrencies: securities

Recently, Malaysia became one of the latest countries to roll out regulatory policy in regard to crypto. Starting from Jan. 15, cryptocurrencies are now classified as securities there, which means they are under the purview of the Malaysian Securities Commission. Crypto exchanges or ICOs that continue to operate without the watchdog’s approval could face a 10-year jail sentence and up to $2.4 million in fines.

Nevertheless, the changes came in with a silver lining: According to Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng, the Malaysian government sees the potential of cryptocurrencies and blockchain to boost the domestic economy:

“The Ministry of Finance views digital assets, as well as its underlying blockchain technologies, as having the potential to bring about innovation in both old and new industries. In particular, we believe digital assets have a role to play as an alternative fundraising avenue for entrepreneurs and new businesses, and an alternate asset class for investors.”

Singapore

Status of cryptocurrencies: not legal tender, unregulated

Singapore is a booming market for crypto: Close to the end of 2018, both South Korea’s largest crypto exchange, Upbit, and major Chinese player Binanceannounced their expansion into the local market.

Meanwhile, in November, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) broadenedthe existing regulatory regime to bring certain cryptocurrencies under its jurisdiction. Thus, the central bank introduced a mandatory licensing regime for payment service providers, which are now required to apply for one of three licenses based on the nature and scale of their crypto activities.

Previously, however, the MAS stressed that cryptocurrencies are not legal tender in Singapore, and that the agency does not regulate them.

Italy

Status of cryptocurrencies: not yet regulated

On Jan. 23, an Italian Senate committee approved an amendment on the blockchain industry in what seems to be the first regulatory move of this kind for the country, putting Italy on the map of blockchain-oriented countries.

The amendment, dubbed “Decreto semplificazioni,” provides basic industry terms, such as distributed ledger technology (DLT)-based technologies and smart contract definitions, according to the document that has been published on the Senate’s website.

The document also states that a blockchain-powered digital data record will enable a legal validation of documents at the time of registration.

The decree now requires further approval from the Italian parliament — one from the Chamber of Deputies and another from the Senate of the Republic.

As for cryptocurrencies per se, there is no established regulation in Italy, yet. Nevertheless, the country’s Treasury Department of the Ministry of Economy and Finance had been working on a bill that aims to classify the use of crypto in Italy. Interestingly, the decree was specifically set to define how and when “service providers related to the use of digital currency” should report their activities to the government, which implies regulation on the tougher side.

–AltcoinToday.com

Photo via Shutterstock.

Source: Cointelegraph

loading…

#crypto #cryptocurrency #btc #xrp #litecoin #altcoin #money #currency #finance #news #alts #hodl #coindesk #cointelegraph #dollar #bitcoin View the website

New Post has been published here https://is.gd/XThH0Y

#Uncategorized

0 notes