If you know for sure that NSA/CIA... are watching bitcointalk.org will U use it!

[hedgy73]

I see lots of feer and problems  too bad

Yes, of course. Go and troll elsewhere.

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[point0]

I see lots of feer and problems  too bad

Yes, of course. Go and troll elsewhere.

Thats exactly what im gonna do.

[BurtW]

I got nothing to hide.  I don't do anything illegal with bitcoin.  They watch everything anyway.  If they want to know what kind of porn I watch I can save them the trouble.  Lesbians.

They don't give a crap about porn unless you do kiddie and you have assets to seize.  It's assets, assets, assets.

I'm sure there are many departments that are monitoring this forum, reddit, and other bitcoin related activites as well. Some of those departments might communicate with others, some may not. While the NSA, CIA, and FBI did not feel a need to get involved directly in your case, they very well may be monitoring things.

There was quite a lot of paperwork involved in getting the warrant to put the tracker on my car.  I expect there is even more paperwork to bring in something from the NSA or CIA into a case like mine and they get almost everything they need directly from the companies under their thumb with a lot less paperwork.  For example, my cell phone carrier (Sprint, but that does not matter they will all do it) coughed up every phone number in and out of my phone and every text sent and received even the texts that I deleted.  So I expect that unless there is a very good reason they don't bother with the extra effort needed to bring in the recordings we all know they keep of every phone conversation etc.

By the way, if you ever happen to be in the Chicago area, let me know.  Maybe we can get together for a drink or a meal.  I'd love to have a chance to sit and talk with you a bit.

Likewise if you are ever in Boulder let's get together.

BTW

I will be giving a talk entitled "BurtW - Arrested for Trading Bitcoins" in the Denver/Boulder area.  Here is my current speaking schedule:

Libertarian Lunch
Thursday, September 10, 2015
12:30 PM
Carelli's Restaurant, 645 30th Street, Boulder
Libertarian Party of Boulder County

Colorado Bitcoin Society Monthly Meetup
Monday, September 14, 2015
6:00 PM
Southern Hospitality, 1433 17th Street, Denver
Colorado Bitcoin Society

Republican Breakfast
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
7:00 AM
The Plaza Conference Center, 1850 Industrial Cir, Longmont
Reservations:  Rebekah Vicknair

[hedgy73]

If you dont mind me asking BurtW how much money were they after you for?

[tvbcof]

I got nothing to hide.  I don't do anything illegal with bitcoin.  They watch everything anyway.  If they want to know what kind of porn I watch I can save them the trouble.  Lesbians.

They don't give a crap about porn unless you do kiddie and you have assets to seize.  It's assets, assets, assets.

I'm sure there are many departments that are monitoring this forum, reddit, and other bitcoin related activites as well. Some of those departments might communicate with others, some may not. While the NSA, CIA, and FBI did not feel a need to get involved directly in your case, they very well may be monitoring things.

There was quite a lot of paperwork involved in getting the warrant to put the tracker on my car.  I expect there is even more paperwork to bring in something from the NSA or CIA into a case like mine and they get almost everything they need directly from the companies under their thumb with a lot less paperwork.  For example, my cell phone carrier (Sprint, but that does not matter they will all do it) coughed up every phone number in and out of my phone and every text sent and received even the texts that I deleted.  So I expect that unless there is a very good reason they don't bother with the extra effort needed to bring in the recordings we all know they keep of every phone conversation etc.

Glad to see you back, and it's nice to hear some seemingly high quality info as a debrief.

I figure that 'parallel construction' is a tool which is used more often than some might think, but even that has to be a serious hassle and fraught with risk so it's probably used less often than others think.

In other news, my dear old friend cypherdoc seems to have gone dark, at least here on trolltalk.  Do you suppose he retained the same attorney who provided you with what sounds it was probably sage advice about keeping one's mouth shut?  That's got to be a tough row to hoe for a guy like Dr. Lowelife.

[BurtW]

If you dont mind me asking BurtW how much money were they after you for?

Well it turns out the "justice" system is more about "let's make a deal" than anything to do with justice.

From the moment I was arrested until they dropped the charges it felt more like a real estate deal than anything else.

First we discussed a me pleading to a "lessor felony" - I said no.
Then we discussed pleading guilty to a misdemeanor - I said no.

At this point I did not like the direction of my attorney and the law firm and they didn't know a Bitcoin from a hole in the ground.  I had already spent $25,000 - a lot of it explaining to them what Bitcoins are how they work etc.  So, my wife found me a new law firm that knew what Bitcoins are and more importantly is in California.   Why does that matter?  I am glad you asked.  In order to get any kind of adversarial activity from your attorney you must get one that does not deal with the same prosecutor day in and day out.  An attorney from a law firm in Denver can't be too adversarial with the prosecutor because they know that they will be dealing with the same prosecutor next month, next year and they need to be able to maintain rapport in order to cut the deals for their (guilty) clients that is their bread and butter.

Things went better with my new attorney:

They offered to drop all charges for a forfeiture of, if I remember correctly, $160,000.
I countered, they countered, we countered, etc. and finally settled on a payment of $80,000 half in cash and half in Bitcoin.

For this they dropped both the criminal case against me and the civil cases against all the property they seized from me.

This was a bargain since it was estimated that going to trial on the criminal case was going to cost me between $75,000 and $100,000 and going to trail on the civil case against my stuff was going to cost me a minimum of $50,000.  And, of course, it was not a forgone conclusion that I would win either or both of the cases.

So they dropped the charges and I got everything else (computers, phones, boxes of financial records, the rest of my Bitcoins, etc.) back.

[BurtW]

In other news, my dear old friend cypherdoc seems to have gone dark, at least here on trolltalk.  Do you suppose he retained the same attorney who provided you with what sounds it was probably sage advice about keeping one's mouth shut?  That's got to be a tough row to hoe for a guy like Dr. Lowelife.

Anyone with an active case will go dark.  I worry about DeathAndTaxes, he has been dark for a long time.

[tvbcof]

In other news, my dear old friend cypherdoc seems to have gone dark, at least here on trolltalk.  Do you suppose he retained the same attorney who provided you with what sounds it was probably sage advice about keeping one's mouth shut?  That's got to be a tough row to hoe for a guy like Dr. Lowelife.

Anyone with an active case will go dark.  I worry about DeathAndTaxes, he has been dark for a long time.

Yes, he seemed to know the rules and seemed to play by them if his writings here were semi-accurate representations of his behavior.  As someone who tried to do likewise it causes me some concern.  I never did any buying and selling except through Tradehole and Coinbase and was anal about paying my taxes so I hope I don't have much to worry about.

Fuckin' pisses me off that the state are such blatant extortionists that it would make a guy in my situation feel concerned.  I've seen first hand people unjustly push the power of the state around in an unrelated event having to do with the DEQ.  Like you say, what actually did or didn't happen or what is or isn't a problem is utterly irrelevant...it's about whether you have money that can be squeeze out, and what it would cost in court to defend yourself.  It's deeply wrong and disturbing, but there it is.  Ultimately they will push to many people to far I'd guess.  That's probably why so many agencies are developing their own militarized enforcement capabilities.

I delight in pointing out to my friends that the first time the FBI did anything of consequence in Bitcoinland (Silk Road) they immediately stole the loot for personal gain.  What is the point of having state sponsorship of enforcement if they are as big a crooks as any and empowered by that sponsorship?

[Quickseller]

Then we discussed pleading guilty to a misdemeanor - I said no.

You must have balls of steal. Regardless of guilt or innocence, I think the vast majority of people would have plead guilty to a misdemeanor (especially if the deal involved no jail time) if they were facing the charges you were facing.

Sometimes it is a good idea to take a small loss in order to avoid the prospect of many years behind bars. I am not saying this is a good feature of our country's judicial system (I don't think it is), however it is an unfortunate fact of life.

They offered to drop all charges for a forfeiture of, if I remember correctly, $160,000.
I countered, they countered, we countered, etc. and finally settled on a payment of $80,000 half in cash and half in Bitcoin.

In other words, they were extorting you for $160,000 but let you go for $80,000?

I really don't see how it could possibly be legal for them to be negotiating with you to drop the charges in exchange for you to drop the claim against your property which would allow them to keep a portion of your property.

If the DA believes you are guilty, and believes they can prove it then they should take you to trial; if they do not then they should drop the charges. I don't see what how much of your property the government gets to keep has to do with your guilt or innocence. If the conversation really was something along the lines of that the government would drop the charges on the condition that you would not oppose the seizure of $80,000, then I cannot see how that can be anything other then extortion.

I believe that discussions regarding if charges should/would be dropped should be something along the lines of that there is strong evidence the defendant is innocent, and/or there is little enough evidence that a defendant is guilty so that a guilty verdict is highly unlikely and the above is not based on some technicality (e.g. incrementing evidence is thrown out, evidence is not allowed because of an inadvertent mistake in collecting such evidence, etc.).

edit: I also believe that discussions regarding pleading to a lower charge should involve something along the lines of the fact that you are honest enough about your crimes to admit to them so you get a lesser punishment as a result and/or the government has sufficient evidence to convict you of your charges, however it would be very expensive to bring your case to trial, so in exchange for avoiding a trial you get a lesser punishment and/or there is sufficient evidence to convict you, however bringing your case to trial would cause one (or more) witnesses to have to go through significant trauma/pain in testifying against you and in exchange for allowing them to avoid this you get a lesser punishment.
/edit

I am curious to see/know what evidence they has presented to be used against you, especially forum posts.

(Hopefully you can get a chuckle out of this) Did you at least get tickets to the police ball?

[Elwar]

Is it on the Internet? Then the NSA is watching it.

Or you can just go to meetups and talk in person. Though if there is one guy there that has a really short haircut and is pretty physically fit for a computer geek and seems very interested in getting peoples' personal information...then they're watching that meeting too.

[desired_username]

They don't have to watch it. They only need to ask theymos for the db or any information they require.

[point0]

They don't have to watch it. They only need to ask theymos for the db or any information they require.

HAHAHA, maybe 

[Kprawn]

This is the thing, if you are not a USA citizen.... Why would you want a foreign agency to browse around in your financial matters? Mike Hearn tend to forget that Bitcoin is a global currency, and his backdoors he is

coding into Bitcoin for these USA agencies, are not welcomed by other nations. They choose not to live in a police state for a reason, why would they use a currency if that currency infringe on their foreign interest?

They have no right to spy on people outside of the USA anyway. Once they enter the borders of the USA it's a whole other story. If you lived in the USA and you get spied on by another country, would you mind?

Same for Bitcointalk... if you live in another country, and you do nothing to harm US citizens, they should leave you alone. I have nothing to hide but my right to have financial privacy.  

[lahm-44]

cartoon network O.o why the hell will they will watch me?iss they are going to realize a series on me? well anyways nasa is always watching everyone..but I don't think he has time for watching me doing cheap tricks or helping anyone here on bitcointalk lol

[Digit-0]

i wonder if u got proofs that NSA/CIA/FBI/Cartoon-networks/... are watching bitcointalk's members will U still use it!

Thank u.

im pretty sure that they have been doing it since long time agoo, dont forget that this is his job, i mean to recover information, but even if they are doing it i will never care, i have nothing to hide and from my point of view we are not doing nothing bad here, so i fell really safe

They don't have to watch it. They only need to ask theymos for the db or any information they require.

HAHAHA, maybe  

just LOL xD

[NorrisK]

This is the thing, if you are not a USA citizen.... Why would you want a foreign agency to browse around in your financial matters? Mike Hearn tend to forget that Bitcoin is a global currency, and his backdoors he is

coding into Bitcoin for these USA agencies, are not welcomed by other nations. They chose not to live in a police state for a reason, why would they use a currency if that currency infringe on their foreign interest?

They have no right to spy on people outside of the USA anyway. Once they enter the borders of the USA it's a whole other story. If you lived in the USA and you get spied on by another country, would you mind? 

You know that unless you hide your tracks extremely carefully, everybody has insight in your personal bitcoin wealth? Everything is public and can be tracked..

[Xialla]

i wonder if u got proofs that NSA/CIA/FBI/Cartoon-networks/... are watching bitcointalk's members will U still use it!

Thank u.

you don't need any proof. if you are using "standart" internet without cryptography, tunnels, certificates and proxies, you should behave like "they are watching me right now" all the time, when you are online.

so yes, you can apply this even on this forum..welcome to 2015:(

[Kprawn]

This is the thing, if you are not a USA citizen.... Why would you want a foreign agency to browse around in your financial matters? Mike Hearn tend to forget that Bitcoin is a global currency, and his backdoors he is

coding into Bitcoin for these USA agencies, are not welcomed by other nations. They chose not to live in a police state for a reason, why would they use a currency if that currency infringe on their foreign interest?

They have no right to spy on people outside of the USA anyway. Once they enter the borders of the USA it's a whole other story. If you lived in the USA and you get spied on by another country, would you mind? 

You know that unless you hide your tracks extremely carefully, everybody has insight in your personal bitcoin wealth? Everything is public and can be tracked..

Yes, that is exactly my point... you do not want the whole world to know your financial wealth. {This include hackers & thiefs etc. etc.}

I do not go into too much detail to hide my real identity, because it's a waste of time. The big brothers of this world have enough tools to follow you on the internet, no matter what you do. {VPN's, Tor etc...}

Just keep it legal and they should not need to track you individually. You still have the right to protect your money matters from thiefs... and that is where I draw the line, with whoever is watching.

This is no different from you trying to do that with your cash or with online transactions you do with other payment options. {PayPal, Credit cards ...}

If you doing something illegal, you should be worried... Bitcointalk does not protect your privacy and it's not a platform to commit crimes.... We discuss Bitcoin matters here.

[BurtW]

i have nothing to hide and from my point of view we are not doing nothing bad here, so i fell really safe

If you doing something illegal, you should be worried... Bitcointalk does not protect your privacy and it's not a platform to commit crimes.... We discuss Bitcoin matters here.

What if there is a law out there, a Federal felony that carries up to five years in Federal prison and a $250,000 fine, that you do not know you are violating?  

What if this law is so esoteric that when you are arrested your top notch $500 per hour Federal criminal attorney has to look it up because he has never heard of it?

What if said law was modified by Marshal Law (the "Patriot" act) to allow Civil Asset Forfeiture to apply in your case.

What if said law is one of the handful of Federal felonies that has no requirement of intent on the part of the defendant?  In other words not intending to break said law is not a defense.

What if you and your family are investigated by Homeland Security for 18 months, whatever "evidence" they collect, concoct, or flat out lie about is taken to a grand jury?  Said testimony is forever sealed so that neither you or your attorney ever get to see it (unless you go to trial) - thus allowing them to concoct or flat out lie with impunity?

As an example what if one of the lead investigators/experts that testifies states that it is his belief that "there are little or no legitimate uses for Bitcoins", hypothetically of course.

What is said secret sealed indictment is then used to generate a secret sealed search warrant for your home and business?

What if the Feds then execute said secret sealed search warrant and take all of your cash, bitcoins, computers, all of your personal financial records and all of your corporate financial records and anything else they can get their hands on?  Now, all of the stuff they take is assumed to be guilty of a crime and it is up to you to hire an attorney to prove that your stuff is innocent of any crimes - or they get to keep it all?

No, I guess you are right, you have nothing to worry about since you have read and fully understand all Federal, State and local laws.  Good for you.

[jonald_fyookball]

What if the Feds then execute said secret sealed search warrant and take all of your cash, bitcoins, computers, all of your personal financial records and all of your corporate financial records and anything else they can get their hands on?  Now, all of the stuff they take is assumed to be guilty of a crime and it is up to you to hire an attorney to prove that your stuff is innocent of any crimes - or they get to keep it all?
 

Thanks Burt for warning us to the dangers.  Did they seize bank accounts too?