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Ethereum dev Virgil Griffith back in jail after checking $1M Coinbase account

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Re: Ethereum dev Virgil Griffith back in jail after checking $1M Coinbase account

#101

Post by eloff »

nucleardog wrote: post #98
eloff wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't sanction publicly available information. By that logic every crypto or blockchain website or video on the internet not blocked in North Korea is guilty of violating the sanctions. This doesn't make any sense, and I feel really bad for people like Griffith getting ground beneath the treads of the unthinking legal machine here. And shame on the judges for not slapping this law down, because that's they're job…

> By that logic every crypto or blockchain website or video on the internet not blocked in North Korea is guilty of violating the sanctions. Making something available on the internet has non-illegal purposes. Specifically flying somewhere that is sanctioned and presenting the information specifically to them has no non-illegal purpose. If you drop a $20 bill on the street and a member of a terrorist organization pic…

Your argument makes a lot of sense. What I don't understand though, is if you share publicly available information, how have you done any harm? How can you have violated sanctions?

Then again if you gave aviation lectures to Al Qaeda after 911, you're definitely doing something wrong, even if it's publicly available information.

Re: Ethereum dev Virgil Griffith back in jail after checking $1M Coinbase account

#102

Post by BobbyJo »

dnautics wrote: post #89
BobbyJo wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As mentioned earlier in the thread, the US is technically still at war with North Korea. If there were to be one and only one country on the face of the planet that you should not be giving any kind of information or money to as a US citizen, it is North Korea. This isn't vague or arbitrary. The sanctions against NK are very specific, and lengthy.

> US is technically still at war with North Korea No we are not. The constitution specifically says that only congress can declare war, and congress has made no such declaration.

So we were never at war with Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Vietnam. Sweet. I guess we're still on our perfect win streak yeah?

Edit: I feel bad about being facetious, but I feel like the point is relevant. The US, in a practical sense, does not need congress to ok war. Pointing that out as a reason to doubt the basis for strict treatment of North Korea is like pointing out the speed-limit is 55 when someone travelling 56 gets T-boned.

Re: Ethereum dev Virgil Griffith back in jail after checking $1M Coinbase account

#103

Post by rualca »

dnautics wrote: post #82
legutierr wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say what you will about the effectiveness of sanctions and the current state of American foreign policy, United States citizens shouldn’t undertake expressly illegal overt acts on enemy soil to assist hostile governments in undermining that foreign policy—regardless as to whether or not the information they share is already known by that hostile government—without at least expecting to attract unwanted attention from…

We live in a country that has the rule of law, you can't just arbitrarily use a vague characterization of a country being "hostile" to abridge the rights of someone. I would be alright with this if the us had a formal declaration of war with north Korea, but it doesn't.

> We live in a country that has the rule of law, you can't just arbitrarily use a vague characterization of a country being "hostile" to abridge the rights of someone.

There is no ambiguity in the classification of North Korea as a hostile regime. Not only there is the fact that the Korean war never ended with a peace treaty an only had an armistice, there is also the hostile and recently degrading relationship that in 2020 escalated to the total elimination of official communication lines between north and south Korea.

Re: Ethereum dev Virgil Griffith back in jail after checking $1M Coinbase account

#104

Post by rualca »

dnautics wrote: post #89
BobbyJo wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As mentioned earlier in the thread, the US is technically still at war with North Korea. If there were to be one and only one country on the face of the planet that you should not be giving any kind of information or money to as a US citizen, it is North Korea. This isn't vague or arbitrary. The sanctions against NK are very specific, and lengthy.

> US is technically still at war with North Korea No we are not. The constitution specifically says that only congress can declare war, and congress has made no such declaration.

> No we are not. The constitution specifically says that only congress can declare war, and congress has made no such declaration.

Do note that the US never declared war on Iraq, and that did not stopped it from fighting two wars that were very real, both of which with the support of an international coalition.

Re: Ethereum dev Virgil Griffith back in jail after checking $1M Coinbase account

#105

Post by rualca »

chrisco255 wrote: post #61
legutierr wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

North Korea is building nuclear weapons in order to threaten the United States and its allies with them. Tens of thousands of American soldiers are stationed in South Korea in order to defend it from North Korean aggression. The war between the US and North Korea—which began 70 years ago when the current dictator’s grandfather invaded the South and declared war on the United States—is technically not over, and the po…

In 2019 our own President went there to discuss peace. Dennis Rodman and many other Americans have visited NK at various times. I don't think it's moral to arrest someone for speaking about publicly available information. There's nothing Virgil could have told them that they couldn't find on GitHub or YouTube. And yes, Kim's lackeys definitely have access to the internet. Sanctions seem to work for nothing. NK got nu…

> In 2019 our own President went there to discuss peace.

From thereon the relation between north Korea and south Korea/US degraded so badly that official communication lines between north and south Korea were officially severed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea%E2%80%93South_Kore...

Re: Ethereum dev Virgil Griffith back in jail after checking $1M Coinbase account

#106

Post by rualca »

dnautics wrote: post #90
leereeves wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US hasn't formally declared war on anyone since World War 2. Not Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, nor any of the many smaller conflicts we've fought. However, the United Nations did declare war on North Korea, with US support, and the US is the major participant in that war; and no peace treaty was ever signed, merely a cease fire.

that's exactly correct. If we're going to start abridging freedoms (which I concede may be necessary in exigencies), we'd better get a congressional vote on it.

I'm afraid you're just stating how you'd prefer things to be instead of discussing (and considering) how things actually are.

The truth of the matter is that declarations of war are patently irrelevant regarding whether a nation is deemed hostile or not.

Re: Ethereum dev Virgil Griffith back in jail after checking $1M Coinbase account

#107

Post by rualca »

eloff wrote: post #101
nucleardog wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By that logic every crypto or blockchain website or video on the internet not blocked in North Korea is guilty of violating the sanctions. Making something available on the internet has non-illegal purposes. Specifically flying somewhere that is sanctioned and presenting the information specifically to them has no non-illegal purpose. If you drop a $20 bill on the street and a member of a terrorist organization pic…

Your argument makes a lot of sense. What I don't understand though, is if you share publicly available information, how have you done any harm? How can you have violated sanctions? Then again if you gave aviation lectures to Al Qaeda after 911, you're definitely doing something wrong, even if it's publicly available information.

> is if you share publicly available information, how have you done any harm?

Even if your assistance adds low-value, it's still assistance.

Moreover, I don't believe it's reasonable to ignore the fact that a renowned Ethereum dev providing assistance to a hostile regime, regardless of how lame, does have a goal of conveying credibility and help push public acceptance. As a similar example, see for example how Snowden was blindsided by a guy trying to leverage Snowden's attendance as a way to buy him credibility.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/epndnz/the-bizarre-case-of-s...

Re: Ethereum dev Virgil Griffith back in jail after checking $1M Coinbase account

#108

Post by moksly »

mtrycz2 wrote: post #16
moksly wrote: post #10

I’m not going to defend the craziness of the American Government, but why would you go and do something that their treasury has specifically told you that you were not allowed to do? Hell, if you’re still dead set on doing what you think is right, why wouldn’t you obtain a different citizenship and abandon your American one first? America is the world “police” when it wants to be, and as wrong as that is, it’s also s…

Why fight authoritarianism?

How is going to jail for 20 years because a better way of fighting authoritarianism than escaping it?

Yes, it can work, but in order for it to do that, it sort of requires the world to remember you next week. I’m not sure the world even cared this week.

Re: Ethereum dev Virgil Griffith back in jail after checking $1M Coinbase account

#109

Post by moksly »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #33
moksly wrote: post #10

I’m not going to defend the craziness of the American Government, but why would you go and do something that their treasury has specifically told you that you were not allowed to do? Hell, if you’re still dead set on doing what you think is right, why wouldn’t you obtain a different citizenship and abandon your American one first? America is the world “police” when it wants to be, and as wrong as that is, it’s also s…

It's not just America though; many countries have set and are enforcing sanctions about NK and other countries like Russia and Iran, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_North_Korea for an overview. TL;DR you should not try and do business or share certain information with certain countries or you violate international sanctions.

We recently had a guy who spend 10 years infiltrating North Korea as part of making a documentary. He did things that were a lot more in violations of our sanctions against North Korea than giving a speech about things that are freely available on YouTube.

He isn’t facing 20 years in jail. Not because we don’t uphold our sanctions, but because our justice system isn’t insane.

Re: Ethereum dev Virgil Griffith back in jail after checking $1M Coinbase account

#110

Post by legutierr »

dnautics wrote: post #82
legutierr wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say what you will about the effectiveness of sanctions and the current state of American foreign policy, United States citizens shouldn’t undertake expressly illegal overt acts on enemy soil to assist hostile governments in undermining that foreign policy—regardless as to whether or not the information they share is already known by that hostile government—without at least expecting to attract unwanted attention from…

We live in a country that has the rule of law, you can't just arbitrarily use a vague characterization of a country being "hostile" to abridge the rights of someone. I would be alright with this if the us had a formal declaration of war with north Korea, but it doesn't.

Should giving technical assistance to a sanctioned regime be treated as protected speech? Is that the right that was abridged here? If Virgil Griffith goes to trial, I imagine we will eventually see whether the Supreme Court considers what he did to be protected speech, or not. Personally, I don’t think they would even hear his case if he were to appeal on those grounds.

You write as if Congress has not weighed in on this matter, simply because it has not declared war on North Korea. In fact, current North Korean sanctions were codified and authorized by Congress in the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act of 2016, which expanded upon the sanctions regime that had already been in place. Virgil Griffith’s alleged acts are not illegal because of a vague characterization of North Korea as being “hostile”, but because Congress explicitly made it illegal to travel to North Korea to give technical advice.

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