[hga]

Just what are you trying to say here, besides pointing out the banking industry is making a significant propaganda effort right now?

Do you think the industry likes the Federal government using lawless means to force them to stop serving whomever is the target de jure?

Is it axiomatic that banks dealing with large sums of money is bad??? (I kinda thought that was their business....)

If this precedent is established and takes roots, where will it stop? What are your objections to their using the soap box to try put a stop to it?

[tptacek]

Can I for once be the origin of a crazy conspiracy theory rather than the annoying guy huffing and griping in the corner and killing everyone's fun?

How about this:

DOJ has launched a project that coordinates with the country's largest banks to constrain and monitor high-fraud businesses; say, porn sites, prepaid cards, and payday loans.

Porn doesn't have a significant lobby.

But payday loans and prepaid cards sure as hell do.

Unfortunately for those lobbies, it's unseemly to write op-eds about how the DOJ and banks are collaborating to suppress the exploitation of poor people.

It is, however, possible to get stories placed about the government's secret plan to create a Morality Police Force to eliminate pornography and, one assumes, any other form of expression the government disfavors.

[hga]

So they're now "high-fraud" businesses, vs. "fraudulent businesses" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7671113)?

And this must be some new meaning of the word "constrain" I wasn't previously acquainted with. This "operation" appears to be intended to terminate these "undesirable" businesses with extreme prejudice, and without the pesky Rule of Law getting in the way.

[tptacek]

When I called payday loan companies "fraudulent", I was letting my biases show. The more accurate way to describe them is with the phrase I used in my latter comment: a high-fraud business, one that hosts quite a bit of fraud.

[hga]

So an acceptable solution is "Kill them all, God will know his own"? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_at_B%C3%A9ziers#.22Ki...)

[tptacek]

If you want to write an impassioned case on behalf of payday loan companies, be my guest. You asked a question: what did the OP mean when it pointed out that this issue was being driven by op-eds from banking lobbyists? I provided a possible answer.

[hga]

My impassioned case is for the Rule of Law.

Do the ends justify the means?

[dkural]

Don't you find it offensive that you're purposefully misled by the two industries - who prefer to not defend themselves directly and instead use Porn as the innocent victim?

[hga]

Not at all. The general principle is the defense of the Rule of Law, and of course those fighting for it are going to use the most sympathetic victims as leading examples.

[betterunix]

Not that I want to that guy, but...

"If this president is established and takes roots"