No problem... no confusion intended, it was just a thought.

I'll go back to that post and edit-out the address right away.

-KEV

Nice, but that address on the paper wallet LOOKS like an intended VANITY address for a girl named "Kay"...?

This being intended as a long-term savings-account wallet, maybe a vanity address for Zoe would be nice?

hxxps://blockchain.info/address/-address-removed-by-request-below-sorry-my-bad-LOL


Let me know how to get the private key for this to you safely (?) IF we want to use it (? ? ?)

-KEVLARR

Very cool that this finally came thru  

Would still like to see some mainstream media coverage on it, that'd make it even better (worth more than the small $600 to overall benefit of everyone concerned, I'd think, plus calling-out of the bad cop behavior value too IMHO)

Nobody here has any media connections really?  CoinDesk?  TechCrunch? Hello??  Bueller...?  Bueller...?

KEV

P.S. I'm not even sure exactly how much btc I put into this since a lot of it was just my "dust" from various wallets.

So I'm gonna need a new worthy cause to send dust to now, LOL.  Any suggestions?

Looks like another dollar or so's worth of BTC has trickled in last couple days... IF everyone reading this would just toss in some bitcoin DUST like these loose-change transactions, I think we'd finally reach the goal.

C'mon folks, $600 fiat worth of BTC for this little girl SHOULDN'T be SO HARD!!!!!

-KEVLARR

Hey Folks... sorry I've been away from this thread for a while and didn't realize it had heated back up.

Nice to see the goal's getting close for Zoe (despite the trolling but, yeah, no such thing as bad publicity eh?)

I'm only on my phone at the moment & can't send any btc from it but I'll come back tomorrow first thing and try to pitch in a little more if I can.

OTOH, would be nice if maybe the damn price would just recover a little of the last few month's losses, so THAT alone would push us over the top vis-a-vis fiat-price exchange rate?  

Hope hope, LOL

KEV

P.S. (Edit) Ooops, never mind just noticed I did have a wallet with a little btc available on my phone - so just kicked in about another ten bucks (0.05 btc)

I really don't think this whole story has yet gotten the exposure it deserves.

The entire "Cops Take Kid's Piggy Bank In SWAT Raid" thing ought to be it's own story, even totally separate from all the issues re: Burt, bitcoins, MSB licenses, etc etc.

If it got even a little play elsewhere, outside of just this-here BCT thread, I think the $600 donation goal would be hit in a few hours.

Doesn't anyone here have any connections in "the media" to get the story broken out from ONLY bitcoin space?

KEV

Bumping thread... seems to have lost a little of the early momentum.   

C'MON YOU GUYS, ante up!  A few cents here and there and we can hit this! It's already halfway there (although, yeah, recent BTC price drop hasn't helped IF we are measuring this in fiat value for Zoe's $600 rather than just 2-whole-bitcoins, as the target goal...?)

MOST of the recent little transactions on this address have been mine, I believe, as I've just been tossing ten or twenty cents into the kitty via "dust" leftover transactions on my day to day bitcoin wallet's management (I like to keep things to whole-btc numbers if possible, and yeah I know that's kinda anal LOL).

Usually I just throw away that dust by fooling around with it in one of the online bitcoin casinos, where you can play blackjack for a fraction of a penny per hand, BUT lately I've been giving it to Zoe here instead.

IF some of y'all out there can ALSO start doing something similar? I think we'd hit this goal of 2 BTC in no time.

C'mon... 

KEV

Guys, seems to me this thread has veered a bit off into left-field.

I'd like to redirect the focus a bit back on to EXACTLY what can be DONE about this situation, not necessarily to solve Burt's problem since he's already INTO it, but rather what we-all in the bitcoin community can actually DO NOW to prevent any more instances of this kind of shit taking place.

For example, I noticed that one of the localbitcoins vendors in my area has some "legal disclaimer" text at the bottom of his listing, outlining such things as like "buyer acknowledges and agrees that by replying to this ad that any bitcoin or portion thereof shall not be used for any illegal purposes" and even things like "buyer acknowledges and agrees that this transaction represents only a person to person, constitutionally protected TRADE transaction and not anything related to COMMERCE, interstate or international etc inclusive" and "does not represent professional business or corporate activity but only private party, personal use, hobbyist exchange" etc etc etc.

MOST vendors that I see listing sales on LBC do not have anything like this in their ad: is that just because they don't know any better or is something like this really not going to do any good in fact?

Also, very important question regarding the "Just Get A License, Man" argument:

BURT, I hope you can answer... did YOU have the Federal-Level FINCEN paperwork, i.e. "free license" before they targeted you? If no, why not...? 

And to Special Agent Arran McWhirter or AUSA Michele Korver (we know you're all, on the other side here, reading this thread from your complaints about it to Burt's lawyers) IF in fact Burt HAD this FinCEN license, would that have BEEN ENOUGH FOR YOU GUYS TO LEAVE HIM ALONE???

OR would you have done exactly what you did to him and his family ANYWAY, on the basis of the STATE/LOCAL license/law issues, even IF he HAD gotten the Federal FinCEN paperwork??

Seems to me a very simple and direct answer to this question would go a long way to clearing up EXACTLY WHAT IS REQUIRED so that this "problem" won't ever happen again.

Please... all parties concerned, answer this.

Burt, of course check with your lawyers first but I'd personally really like to know this, and very much HOPE you can answer.  You've already been very forthcoming in your replies here in this thread, and I for one want to thank you very much for doing that (possibly even against the advice of your attorneys, but I think in the hope that your going thru this might help others avoid it... very much appreciated man. Gracias.)

Of course, asking anyway but NOT gonna hold my breath for any intelligent reply from Burt's oppressors 

(The "other side" here in this situation is probably far too COWARDLY to actually speak up here, and HELL YES this is an insult BAIT to make you people fucking ANSWER US here... got it?) Let's HEAR it, and please never forget you are a PUBLIC SERVANT and WE, THE TAXPAYERS out here in the real world are the ones who are PAYING YOUR SALARY that enables you to DO this SHIT to undeserving citizens like Burt and his family.

KEVLARR

Um, sorry, "no" - please see my last post, above... and/or please ENUMERATE exactly and *precisely* what this "Hey Just Get A License" non-argument response, SPECIFICALLY *Means*...?

What's the "license" exactly?
What does it cost?
Where are the exact forms to fill out?
With *exactly* WHAT agency, where?
Of the Fed or State (or even local) government?

LOOK, unless and until *somebody* around here can specifically and EXACTLY do this, in some detail, I personally don't wanna even HEAR one more instance of this goddamn stupid "Hey Just Get A License, Man" argument response.

Puh-leeze.

That ain't hardly what ANY of this is about. Wake Up.

KEVLARR

P.S. Just posted this and *then* saw your post above... my point stands, i.e. it's not about the Federal FinCEN paperwork, based on what I wrote above and Burt's case involving LOCAL STATE LAWS, this "Get A License" answer is IMHO still an insufficient non-answer...

Here's the problem that I have with people who are answering this whole f**ked-up situation with the "just get a license" reply:  In certain STATES that's totally not feasible.

Case in point, check the Michigan Dept of Insurance and Financial Services info where it says that licensees for Money Transmission Services Act need to have net worth of $100,000 minimum and provide surety bond up to $1,500,000 to qualify.

This is clearly not intended to be something applied to ordinary individuals running any kind of "Small Business".

Furthermore, a search on their website, here...

http://www.dleg.state.mi.us/fis/ind_srch/ConsumerFinance/Search.asp

...to see exactly WHO and what KIND of actual business currently *IS* licensed for this, turns up exactly ONE actual business located in MICHIGAN, and SEVENTY-FIVE other businesses, ALL located in OTHER STATES and ALL of which appear to be multi-million or billion dollar LARGE corporations operating *Nationally* and even *Internationally*, such as PayPal, Western Union, GreenDot, etc etc etc.

Is there really a point to getting the FinCEN license for Federal "Approval" IF at the STATE level they're going to end up trying to apply this onerous impossible "license" to a lone-individual or even "small business", sub-$1000 per day, local bitcoin hobbyist type amateur trader anyway??

Other states may be better, but I'm sure others may be worse too.


Well, just *voluntarily* giving up on doing any kind of person to person trading out of FEAR is probably exactly what they want to achieve with this attack on Burt and his family (and, sadly, from Armis' reply above it seems that strategy may actually be working).      

KEV

Hi Jean, nice to see you here... I too contributed to the piggybank fund, hopefully we'll get it to $600 worth of BTC for Zoe (and, honestly, I'm hoping this aspect of the story will get some media play on your behalf, i.e. "Generous Bitcoin Community Replaces Girl's Money Stolen By Government Thugs" would probably be worth much more than just the $ for your daughter... newcomers to this part of the story please see this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=985596.0;all and kick in a couple bits if you can afford it!)

Anyway just a comment: seems to me that the seed of their argument's destruction is right there in their own wording, i.e. it says "FEW" legitimate uses.

FEW does not mean NONE.

IF there is even only ONE SINGLE LONE SOLITARY "LEGITIMATE" possible USE for bitcoins, then they ought to have ZERO -NO- NONE -ZIP- rights to seize them at all. Period. Full-Stop. End-of-Story.

Sure, IF the wording said "no legit uses" well okay then, maybe they have something to argue.

But it says FEW... right? THEIR WORD?

So?  They're admitting right there - by NOT saying "NONE" - that there are SOME!!!

You therefore shouldn't even NEED to make a list to enumerate them: all your lawyers really ought to need to do is get 'em to admit, in court, that "few" does not mean NONE.

Of course IANAL, but seems like a reasonable point to me. If I was on the jury and it was presented to me in this way, personally I'd agree with this argument 100% no question.

KEVLARR

Ha... I just posted above and looks like two people had exactly the same idea at the same time.

Two separate transactions just came in for 0.00215648 each from different addresses: someone trying to top it up to exactly 1.0 bitcoin

KEV

Interesting to know if any or all of these other cases were people *confirmed* to be working on LocalBitcoins.com too... or if they were doing things some other way?

Is this all just some kind of big one-hit sweeping LBC roll-up attempt in Colorado?

Can anyone correlate with known LBC accounts, or (even better) get some info directly from these other parties in this whole situation?  Any Colorado area bitcoin LBC buyers here?

Also wonder if they're all working together with Burt's family and the same lawyers (?) to mount a coordinated reply/reaction to this (clearly, to me) extreme over-reach by LE and prosecutors.  If NOT, they probably SHOULD be.

KEV

Actually a couple of the sub-$1 transactions were mine too... just tossing in a little more "loose change" dust from a couple of my lesser-used wallets there.

But... "aaaaah" c'mon you guys, we're at 0.99xxxx seriously?  Someone throw in fifty cents more worth and at least tip it over to 1.0 whole bitcoin!!

KEV

Yeah sure but IF that's the case WHY then does the indictment ONLY include the stupid minimal money transmission license issue?

That's like the cops saying, "Hey, we know this guy over here killed somebody, so let's file a charge against him for the terrible crime of failure to register his gun with the State..."

KEVLARR

Not saying this is "THE" reason, personally I have no idea of anything about Burt or his family, BUT I used to know a guy who was a very smart, mathematically inclined, statistically capable dude, who worked part time as a semi-professional gambler, counting cards at blackjack in casinos.

Card counting is not illegal even though it's usually against casino policy (they can ask you to leave, legally, if they think you're doing it but you can't be arrested for it as long as no actual "cheating" is going on as well).

Playing high-skill blackjack at his high roller level required him to carry a lot of cash to the casinos, so he always had a ton of cash on hand, hidden at home etc.  He made a nice extra income from it and his blackjack work/play actually funded his family's yearly vacations to lots of places around the country and even around the world (anywhere there was a casino nearby, LOL).

But, anyway my POINT is that NONE of any of this is ILLEGAL.

It's nobody's business WHATEVER the Wagner family's reason was for keeping their money at home, in cash.

All this speculation about "what" and "why" he had some cash, at home, is all bullshit.

Suggest we leave it alone and get back to more important topics at hand, in this thread... can we?

KEVLARR

Over on the other "main" BurtW thread : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=934268.0 ... I've been trying to steer the conversation around to this, i.e. what can bitcoin people do (particularly traders who buy and sell on localbitcoins.com like Burt (allegedly) did) to protect themselves from being the next "BurtW" case.

Topics have included possibly putting a legal disclaimer with various protective agreement clauses into your LBC ad if you're a vendor, to making prospective buyers sign an agreement before proceeding with any trade, to keeping your trades under some supposedly "low enough" limit (per trade or per day or per-whatever) to the simple but most likely impractical "just get licensed, man" argument... all the way to extreme reaction that is likely the whole PURPOSE of this exercise by the government: just don't buy or sell bitcoin from anyone or anywhere OTHER than the "controlled" and "licensed" (and "monitored") government approved exchanges or sources.

There are not really any solid answers yet, but the topic is (hopefully) evolving over there.  Suggest we move any add'tl info on this subject to that thread and keep THIS one only focused on getting 1 more bitcoin for Zoe.  The FUND is already almost HALFWAY there!  Thanks to all contributors, very nice of y'all

KEVLARR

I see your point but why then does the indictment only focus on the money transmitting license issue?

That's ALL they've put on there. Nothing else?

IF they HAVE bigger guns to use against Burt?  Why not use 'em?

One would THINK that IF somebody was a heinous Dr. Evil character involved in all sorts of ugly things like: drugs, guns, fraud, ponzi scams, molesting kittens, tearing tags off of mattresses, etc etc etc then ALL of it ought to be a visible part of the arguments to the grand jury and/or ALL of it made PUBLIC in the paperwork, indictment, public story telling, etc etc etc... IF for NO other reason than ONLY to make the COPS JOB'S EASIER and make 'em LOOK GOOD for the cameras & the newspaper stories.

Right?

I mean, "smoke 'em if you got 'em, boys"... right?

IF they really DO have "something else" on Burt, WHY hasn't anyone SEEN any of it yet?

They only thing they are SAYING is "OMG OMG money transmission, no license, aaah! aaah! aaah!!!"

KEVLARR

Ha!  Yeah, I agree... maybe when we meet the target goal of $600 worth of btc to replace young Zoe's piggy bank, we should insist on transferring it only to her OWN WALLET, keeping it in bitcoin & not converting to fiat, as a condition of replacing her loss!

Would kinda drive the point home and/or make it evident for outside observers, which one is better... right?

I think her father would agree

KEVLARR

JB's just adding donator names to the end of the 1st post in this thread.  No big deal, either way really.


I don't have any connect unfortunately. Maybe if we-all here started some kind of email campaign? Sending links to this thread to the media or something?


Well okay but y'know grandma always used to say "You Catch More Flies With Honey Than Vinegar".  Not sure why she'd wanna catch flies in the first place however... LOL

KEV