Bitcoin Forum

In the United States, the Freedom of Information Act allows any US citizen to submit a request for information on a particular thing from the government.  As long as that information isn't classified, it will be sent to them.

I've searched for bitcoin using their partial search tool, and there were some things about that guy who tried to trademark bitcoin, a couple news articles, and a couple cybersecurity presentation slides.  This only searches information that must be proactively made public.  There is likely more information that is not on this list.

http://search.usa.gov/search?affiliate=foia.gov&locale=en&m=false&query=bitcoin

Along with the FBI, there are several other departments requests could be submitted to.

http://www.fbi.gov/foia/requesting-fbi-records
http://www.foia.gov/report-makerequest.html

I'd be interested to see if there were any results.  Up to a certain amount of pages is free, but then they charge per page.  I don't know what kind of information would come up.  Does anyone know if this worth starting a bounty on or even worth doing at all?

BitCoin (digital anonymous currency often double spent) - lol

lol indeed.  The other presentation seems to understand it better.

May be worth looking for related info on Satoshi Nakamoto or other topics....

It would be interesting to see what a FOIA request turns up, but it's not possible to use FOIA to request information on a living person other than yourself, so Satoshi's secrets are safe with the FBI.

Send the requests.  If they ask for a fee, then ask for donations.  Otherwise, there is no way to know how much you will need to collect.

Hmm, even if its just a pseudonym?

They'll take any opportunity they can get to deny the existence of records or to avoid disclosure - and, frankly, in this case I think it's fair - after all, there is at least one underlying human, but we just don't know their name.

http://www.muckrock.com (http://www.muckrock.com) might be a good starting point for this project.

EDIT: Someone's already done it, see https://www.muckrock.com/foi/view/united-states-of-america/bitcoin-and-silk-road/1385/ (https://www.muckrock.com/foi/view/united-states-of-america/bitcoin-and-silk-road/1385/).

I asked FINCEN about de-centralized virtual currencies a few weeks ago; here's what I got:
  http://dl.dropbox.com/u/38065353/FincenFOIA.pdf (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/38065353/FincenFOIA.pdf)

Only the first page is interesting.  Reading between the lines, it looks like they're thinking about us.

I can do the FBI one if you want.  I'm actually kind-of curious, will do it later.
EDIT:
Just sent the email.

They're probably thinking about you more now that you put that on Dropbox.  :)

An FOI request in the UK has been turned down for "reasons of national security". This means UK authorities neither confirm nor deny the existence of any records related to Bitcoin or the Silk Road.

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/119099/response/301544/attach/html/3/CR23081%20Response.pdf.html (http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/119099/response/301544/attach/html/3/CR23081%20Response.pdf.html)

Courtesy of Runa Sandvik (@runasand) on Twitter.

Well... the FBI has something.
https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/bitcoin-and-silk-road-1385/

I got the processing letter from the FBI yesterday.  Parents freaked out.

lol

Are they charging a processing fee?

Haw!  "Dang it Mother, I told you he was up to no good down in that basement!"

Just kidding, plz keep up the great work.

Not sure yet, they didn't mention it in the letter.  I'll make a dropbox with it in a sec.  Also going to make a separate thread, this one seems kind-of old.

http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=103276.0