Bitcoin Forum

Forfeit Your Bitcoin? Congressional Bill Draws Fire Over Border Check Rules


A group of US lawmakers wants to see cryptocurrency holdings declared at the nation's border – and advocates of the tech are pushing back.

Introduced last month, the Combating Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Counterfeiting Act of 2017 – which is actually the third iteration of a bill that debuted in 2011 – would bring a range of digital currency services under federal scrutiny, including those that provide transaction mixing services.

Yet, the provision that has attracted the particular ire of cryptocurrency advocates – especially those who prefer a regulation-light environment – is one that would make such holdings subject to disclosure requirements at US customs checkpoints. This means if a person trying to enter the country has more than $10,000 worth of bitcoin in their possession, under the proposed legal change, they would need to inform the relevant authorities.

Such requirements are already in place for payment methods like cash. But given the rising public profile of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, coupled with the perception among policymakers that they could be used to fund terrorist activities, is driving legislative efforts like the bill currently under consideration.

One observer, Joe Ciccolo of Canada-based BitAML, remarked that cryptocurrency has become the "new face in an old debate", going on to say that policymakers and law enforcement officials have long sought to expand the definition of what constitutes a "monetary instrument".

http://www.coindesk.com/forfeit-bitcoin-congressional-bill-draws-fire-border-check-rules/

US and their trying to police what the world is doing again.
Same old news. But now just attacking on bitcoin because it has reached higher than gold prices so is now on their radars when it was just a blip before when they viewed it as a non-0contender to their own USD fiat money.

Now they bring up arms the only way they know how too...
by banning it and policing it so to try to abolish it out of their citizens minds and then try and brainwash the rest of the world with their self-entitled rheoteric.
Just so sad! :'(

Ok, If these terrorists have a means to convert bitcoin to fiat, they can just have a video chat with someone in their home country and that

person can hold up a QR code with the Bitcoin address and private key and they can freeze frame it -- scan it and viola! Any amount of bitcoins

crossed the border or even more simple than that.... transfer the coins to the contact in the US and convert it. You do not have to have the

data physically with you.  ::) They are farting against the wind! In any way, people cross the border with a diamond in their ass and they fund

terrorism with that diamond on the black market.  ::) {even a ring on their finger}  ::)

I can feel that some of the politicians based in USA are getting paranoid both on the threat of terrorism and the revolutionary Bitcoin as they always think that both are intertwined and could not exist without the other. Are they not aware that terrorism is funded mostly by fiat money?

Anyway, how would they know that someone has a Bitcoin account and that it has a certain number of Bitcoin inside the account? Maybe by letting someone talk? It means they who are not really honest would be demanding all of us to be honest enough to declare everything.

This can be another classic example of a government overreach that should be stopped right in the bud.

This is really getting out of hand. Will there scrutinized every USB that is entering US to see if there is a wallet or bitcoin address in there? I think they are over reacting. And why would I forfeit my hard earn bitcoin? Do I have to explain to them how I earn it?

What a nonsense. I just need a small piece of paper stating my private key(s), and that's it. If that isn't enough, I can just add contacts in my mobile phone, and name it Sandra, with a part of a private key as supposed number. Then I do the same with Ben, Donald, Lisa, Chuck, etc. No one will notice. If that isn't enough either, I can just make use of mnemonic seeds -> hello horse barking airplane gigantic mountains microsoft agenda, etc. Who will notice that these words are giving access to potentially billions in funds? Get a life.