Bitcoin Forum

Here is the government press release on the Liberty Dollar case:

http://charlotte.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel11/ce031811.htm (http://charlotte.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel11/ce031811.htm)


I worry that Bitcoin can be seen as even more of a threat to the supremacy of the dollar, which by this reasoning would make it terrorism. An extreme claim, to be sure, but apparently the U.S. Is willing to go there.

The government also advances this theory:


Now this is really stretching the truth. Until the Civil War era, there was no U.S. currency as such, rather paper money was issued, perfectly legally, by private banks. There is no Constitutional prohibition of private currency. There is a law that prohibits private metallic coins, 18 USC 486 (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/718/usc_sec_18_00000486----000-.html), which is what they used against LD. It's ominous to see the U.S. expanding its claims like this, to the point where they would cover Bitcoin.

To be fair, the liberty dollar was very focused on the united states, actually existed as a hard currency, had a central issuer/authority and mimicked the US$ quite a bit.  These things don't apply to bitcoins.

Wow, I guess the attorney never looked up the word "terrorism" in the dictionary.

Kitty activism FTW!

Perhaps my faith in humanity is too great, but I think most people will read US Attorney Tompkins' quote there and think he's way out of line comparing the minting of silver dollars to terrorism.

Unfortunately, the misappropriation of words happens far too much.

hahaha haven't people already said that the economic crisis might have been an economic terrorist attack?
I said the US might try doing something like this a bit ago and some people laughed. I'm not surprised and by the wording they could use it against btc.

I think the biggest defense for btc is that it's not designed for the US as much as the world. Obviously there are a lot of Americans using it but not exclusively for sure. Hell wasn't even started (far as I know) by an American.

Also anyone that thinks btc is below the radar is wrong.

Care to elaborate?

+1

These days, American politicians and law-enforcement agencies label just about anything they don't like as "terrorism." I'd be willing to bet that if I searched hard enough, I'll find some idiot who called a natural disaster a terrorist attack (or at least compared it to one).

Sure. I can't prove that it's being actively watched etc but if you just glance at some of the things being talked about on here it's pretty obvious that it's going to draw some attention. With the amount of posts that are full of anti government / anti US statements plus hacking / potential illegal uses of btc and everything else that gets talked about on these boards and associated with btc there's no way it doesn't generate some heat. Look at the amount of people that have been arrested over a joking facebook post that someone thought was dangerous then multiply that by who knows how many that were investigated but they didn't take any action. There is a significant amount of people talking about things that the government (some rightfully) would be concerned with. I'd bet everything I've got they're well aware of btc and keeping tabs. I don't see how any system that automatically parsed keywords wouldn't flag these boards in a heartbeat and it's publicly known that they're more than capable of that.

Internationally traded electronically-generated P2P credits are not the concern of the North Carolina State Attorney's office ... as much as he might wish them to be.

In fact, they are of no-one's concern, they are completely unregulated as far as I know, as in there are no regulators that have a concern or a legal remit encompassing what these are. For now, we are off the reservation of the debt-fiat tax slaves.

Bleeding-edge freedom. One step ahead of the drones and their parasitic handlers.

Yeah but there's a big difference between being "illegal" and really not appreciated by the US gov.
I'm not saying it's illegal just that it has their attention. Also it doesn't have to be illegal for them to try to do something about.
It also doesn't have to be illegal to be labeled an attack on the US or terrorism. I honestly don't see it being too long (assuming btc continues to grow) before it gets labeled as the premier choice of criminals because it meshes so well with dirty money and illegal activities. Of course the same could be said of cash but no one is going to try and ban it based on that. 

Anybody who wears a turban in the United States is considered a terrorist.

Same goes for anybody of darker complexion.

I wish I could accuse you of hyperbole. Sadly, you are correct.

My name is Hasheem the Terrorist and I approve of BitCoin

I was thinking about making this post with the subject "Al Qaeda now accepting BTC donations"
Honestly nothing would stop them from doing that and it would provide an easy way for people to support them and get away with it.
Let's say this does happen, I could see the backlash / press being huge. I picture people like my mom seeing btc as evil after that. Of course we can always go with the no bad publicity viewpoint.

Bitcoin is perfect if you are stuck in a cave hiding out.

Signed
Obama Bin Laden

I read those comments earlier today on www.zerohedge.com with rage.  The jury should have nullified:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification  The next time you are called for jury duty, don't avoid it.  Your first duty is to weigh whether the law benefits the citizens:  if it doesn't, argue for not guilty or hang the jury.  Whatever happened to

 "...Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government..."  

I don't like the nonfederal noreserve creating fiat currency out of nothing and gifting it to their best connected friends at the expense of the citizens.  At least Bitcoins go out in a fair lottery.  It's time to fight back with Bitcoins.  Put your surplus goods up for sale for Bitcoins (on sites like Biddingpond) and support the price on Mt. Gox.  Withdraw consent for US$ fiat toilet paper and move to alternatives like gold, silver, barter, Local Exchange Currency and Bitcoins.

I'm with you 100% I've got a product I'm developing that I think the bitcoin community will really be interested in. Of course I'll accept USD or whatever but I am also going to sell for BTC and I might even offer a slight discount.

By not under the radar I mean "they" are well aware of what's going on. If Bitcoin is "too late to stop" as you said and the goal is to provide competition to the USD and be able to secretly / instantly send money then "they" should be concerned because this is a huge problem for "them".  In this case you can substitute whatever you want for "they" be it bankers, politicians or whoever. The government would lose in a lot of regards if Bitcoin were bigger. I see Bitcoin benefiting a lot of people but the few elite that have 100000x the influence of an average person not benefiting and being against it.

if you even know what jury nullification is, you will be eliminated from the pool immediately.

We have to win the PR war before it becomes a problem. A government must ultimately bend to the will of its people. If we can make bitcoins popular, if we can make any action against it unpopular, then we won't have much to fear. We need some sort of vehicle for bitcoins. Something that will be wildly popular, innocuous, and built on bitcoins. Something that the government could never squelch without looking insane. Bitcoin needs a Farmville.  ;)

I found it interesting that the press release was very specific about the clauses that granted Congress the powers to issue money, but very vague on exactly which laws prohibit anyone else from doing it. I hope von NotHaus appeals.

How about a public domain real time strategy game that use bitcoin to represent energy resources?

It fulfill the "kitty activism" requirement.

1. innocuous
2. fun, one would hope.
3. Also, it's public domain. It's a gift to the people.

Bitcoins needs Girls .... they are the killer app.

Girls and money as old as Adam and Eve.

Ah, so that's why a paper note can say "USD", the dollar sign "$", and "IN GOD WE TRUST".

From a related thread:

Bitcoin is easily replaceable by other, centralised currencies in a game like Farmville.  There isn't a strong enough reason to switch to Bitcoin.

Bitcoin needs an open source, decentralised MMO, where game asset ownership must be recorded in a block chain because there is no central authority.  A Diaspora equivalent of Farmville.

People are pissed at twitter for stabing developers in the back. I read a blog post by dave winer on scripting news where he suggested letting users pay a yearly amount based on extra characters to their tweets.


An alternative to twitter using open tools for  microblogging where bitcoin payments every year support it and its ad free.

 :)