You already know there are many thousands of savvy operators making ungodly piles of money selling drugs and guns, not to mention pictures and videos of children, on the dark web. Today’s conversation is about the handful of do-gooders — smarter than the bad guys and powered by purpose — working to bring those monsters to justice, and in particular, a guy named Jarod Koopman who leads the cybercrime unit at IRS.
Koopman was profiled in Michael Lewis’ book Who Is Government? by my guest, the Pulitzer Prize winning writer, Geraldine Brooks. What strikes me about Koopman isn’t the billions seized. It’s the faith underwriting his work — that fairness isn’t a feeling but a practice. Roosevelt put words to that belief in 1903: “No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man’s permission when we require him to obey it.”
Here are my takeaways:
Fairness is a load-bearing wall of democracy.
The Epstein story, the rage at elites, the distrust of institutions, a lot of it traces back to this one fact: in the 2008 financial meltdown, nobody went to jail.
The people who protect us from the very worst crimes are the ones we’ve decided to defund.
Jarod Koopman could make an eye-watering amount of money protecting Goldman Sachs.
Every case breaks on a human mistake. The question is, will we keep people in place to find it?
Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society.
There are 25,000 people who’ve been making over a million dollars a year since 2017 who have never filed a tax return.
Stories change what people think is possible and who people want to be.
Purpose is what gets people up in the morning — and keeps them from walking out the door for three times the salary.
Who knew the person most able to protect children would have an accounting degree?
Where are you witnessing fairness these days? (Tell me it’s out there!)
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