Actually, no. Money laundering is generally defined as obscuring the source and/or destination of funds whatever the reason. It is a false equivalence to say that because one wants to hide the source or destination of funds that one knowingly is doing so with an illegal activity being the motivating cause. There is no such thing as "standard bank privacy" when nearly anyone in that organisation can look up your data without explicit justification or judicial review. In an era where, for corporations at least, money is speech, it certainly is limited for us mere mortals who can't setup shell corporations to sacrifice themselves for our causes.

Edit: I should be quite clear, I am neither for or against AML regulations. I, however, am for an equal playing field. I would like to see a world where the increasing quantity of money one has doesn't have an increasing effect on how many times one's vote counts at the expense of those who don't have as much. Privacy and the ability to act collectively to support unpopular opinions should not be a commodity that can be bought and sold in the form of a corporate veil.

> Money laundering is knowingly assisting criminal activities. You're actively hiding where the money comes from, exactly because you know it comes from illegal sources. (If the source were legal but embarrassing, all you'd need is standard bank privacy, not active laundering.)

Building an encrypted messaging app is knowingly assisting crimial activities ... all you'd need is standard communication privacy laws, not actual encryption.

"Like I said before, not everything that is illegal is wrong."

But things that are illegal are... illegal.

Nobody in this thread is really debating the morality of illegal actions we're talking about. And while debating morality can be entertaining, it doesn't really change what happened here.