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Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash

nytimes.com

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Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash

#461

Post by dcolkitt »

esotericimpl wrote: post #409
dcolkitt wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I rig up my car to explode Mechanical devices are not protected as speech. > If I hire a hitman.. I am guilty of murder. SCOTUS has already carefully defined this in the Brandenburg test . Speech is only not protected when it results in direct, imminent lawless action. And SCOTUS has consistently ruled that the boundary for the test is extremely concrete. (Contrary to popular opinion yelling fire in a crowded th…

The person you're responding to wasn't making a "free speech argument". And I don't see how this is in way way a free speech issue. He's saying just because you set up an ATM in the middle of a city and say, and then say feel free to wash your illegal cash here to do some money laundering. The act of it being on blockchain and "decentralized" wont make a difference, anyone offering said "launder ATM" could be convict…

An ATM machine is not protected as speech. Courts have consistently ruled that software is protected speech. So, yes blockchains do make a substantial difference because they divorce the act of writing software (protected by the 1st Amendment) from the act of operating the business around that software.

SCOTUS has consistently required an extremely high bar to regulating speech, so it's simply not enough to say "well we regulate this other non-speech thing, what's the difference".

Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash

#462

Post by intrasight »

null0pointer wrote: post #454
chizhik-pyzhik wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument made by the plantiffs is that they were harmed by the Treasury Dept's action. One of the plantiffs deposited funds into Tornado for personal privacy, and now cannot legally access these funds. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txwd.11...

Is it possible the court will just say "Plaintiffs get a one-time opportunity to declare the source of and withdraw their funds from the contract"? I don't know if this is the sort of thing a court can do but it seems like the obvious solution to eliminate the damages to the plaintiffs while keeping the sanction in place.

That would be a good outcome

Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash

#463

Post by wollsmoth »

LatteLazy wrote: post #421
wollsmoth wrote: post #292

I think my crypto info is behind the times. Can someone explain to me why people don't just exchange crypto for monero and then back if they want to "wash" it?

This is effectively a test case for banning Monero etc. This is similar because it's just a tumbler, not a currency etc with a Tumbler built in.

Well idk how one would go about banning Monero. You can ban it from exchanges that connect with the banking system but via decentralized exchanges it's still possible to convert.

Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash

#464

Post by woodruffw »

ok123456 wrote: post #446
woodruffw wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Might be used for illegal purposes" is a significant understatement. The chief selling point of Tornado Cash is money laundering, which is in and of itself a crime in both the US and Netherlands. Normally, there'd be an aspect of plausible deniability: torrent index operators can, for example, rightfully claim that they're facilitating legal filesharing, or that they're entirely agnostic to the content being shared…

> The chief selling point of Tornado Cash is money laundering The same thing could be said about paper money.

No, it can't. The chief selling point of fiat is being an efficient medium of exchange. This is a very nice property to have!

Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash

#465

Post by woodruffw »

psychlops wrote: post #459
woodruffw wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(B)(ii) does not require specific intent. It requires knowledge that the transaction fails to meet reporting requirements. The intent in question is manifested in Tornado Cash's design, which doesn't pass the malfeasance smell test: you can't absolve yourself of illegality by automating the illegality.

You should read about high frequency trading sometime.

I know a little bit about HFT, and I don't have anything particularly nice to say about it. But it's more or less unrelated to the particular crime of money laundering.

Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash

#466

Post by giantg2 »

notch656a wrote: post #336
wcfields wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ban cash Well, it's not banned, but over $10k USD in cash you need to fill out an IRS form 8300 [1] precisely to curb criminal use of cash. (Although I'd argue it should be upped and pegged to inflation as 10k isn't what 10k used to be.) [1] https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...

Wouldn't filing a form 8300 be unconstitutional violation of the 5th amendment if the cash is an element of the crime of both parties? As an example, felons can't be charged with NFA violations for owning a short barrel rifle for example because registering their firearm would be self-incrimination. I believe Timothy Leary also got out of being charged with Marijuana reporting [tax] requirement because filing for the…

Criminals are still required to pay taxes, they just aren't required to list its source (misc entry on income form). Leary's case was won on the basis that the registering provision violated the right to not self-incriminate (and that you couldn't pay that tax without registering).

Similar for the NFA case - they can't get then for the failure to register, but they can still get them for manufacturing/possessing it (especially since it was amended after the ruling).

Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash

#467

Post by Daishiman »

bombcar wrote: post #365
joyfylbanana wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is that on ethereum it's not possible to censor a deployed contract. It is possible, via a hard work. Similarly as it was possible to transition from PoW to PoS. The question is, if there is political will for that. Clearly changing the protocol rules is possible has it has been done with ethereum in the past, including for censorship reasons (in the earlier hard fork the reason was to cancel a hack).

At some point the law can say "you must do this" and ethereum can either go underground or comply. The countries can higher blockchain experts as well as anyone else can, and word the laws as needed.

It is ridiculous how most crypto people fail to understand that the government can compel you to do a bunch of things and if the blockchain doesn't allow they don't just shrug their shoulders and move on with their lives.

Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash

#468

Post by notch656a »

giantg2 wrote: post #466
notch656a wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't filing a form 8300 be unconstitutional violation of the 5th amendment if the cash is an element of the crime of both parties? As an example, felons can't be charged with NFA violations for owning a short barrel rifle for example because registering their firearm would be self-incrimination. I believe Timothy Leary also got out of being charged with Marijuana reporting [tax] requirement because filing for the…

Criminals are still required to pay taxes, they just aren't required to list its source (misc entry on income form). Leary's case was won on the basis that the registering provision violated the right to not self-incriminate (and that you couldn't pay that tax without registering). Similar for the NFA case - they can't get then for the failure to register, but they can still get them for manufacturing/possessing it (…

>Criminals are still required to pay taxes, they just aren't required to list its source

>they can't get then for the failure to register

A criminal filing an 8300 would be effectively "registering" their illegally owned money, including the source from who the money is received.

Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash

#469

Post by giantg2 »

notch656a wrote: post #468
giantg2 wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Criminals are still required to pay taxes, they just aren't required to list its source (misc entry on income form). Leary's case was won on the basis that the registering provision violated the right to not self-incriminate (and that you couldn't pay that tax without registering). Similar for the NFA case - they can't get then for the failure to register, but they can still get them for manufacturing/possessing it (…

>Criminals are still required to pay taxes, they just aren't required to list its source >they can't get then for the failure to register A criminal filing an 8300 would be effectively "registering" their illegally owned money, including the source from who the money is received.

Please read prior comment

"and that you couldn't pay that tax without registering"

Re: Investors sue Treasury Department for blacklisting crypto platform Tornado Cash

#470

Post by vorpalhex »

dcolkitt wrote: post #461
esotericimpl wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person you're responding to wasn't making a "free speech argument". And I don't see how this is in way way a free speech issue. He's saying just because you set up an ATM in the middle of a city and say, and then say feel free to wash your illegal cash here to do some money laundering. The act of it being on blockchain and "decentralized" wont make a difference, anyone offering said "launder ATM" could be convict…

An ATM machine is not protected as speech. Courts have consistently ruled that software is protected speech. So, yes blockchains do make a substantial difference because they divorce the act of writing software (protected by the 1st Amendment) from the act of operating the business around that software. SCOTUS has consistently required an extremely high bar to regulating speech, so it's simply not enough to say "well…

An ATM isn't a dog either.

Executing code isn't free speech. The code may be. The execution not so much.

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