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

[MF Doom]

- snip -

Did you read anything I have said in this thread?  Or did you just come in here and drop your steaming pile of opinion on us?
- snip -

BurtW,

Don't waste your time responding to people that are participating in a sig ad campaign.  They generally don't read the content of the thread, and make a minimal effort to even guess what the thread is even about.  Then they drop in an "opinion" so that it looks like they are making an actual contribution to conversation so that they can collect their pay from the ad campaign manager.

They don't really care what the thread is about, nor do they have any interest in any facts or details.  Responding to them just gives them an opportunity to blindly respond to your response to get additional posts in and make it look like they are participating in a conversation.

You're more likely to get well thought out logical discussions from a Colorado District Attorney than you are from someone participating in a signature ad campaign.

not sure if you will see this or not, but as a participant in a sig campaign I think bulk blocking all sig campaign participants is a little extreme.

I posted for a long time before finding one to join, and will continue posting after the campaign ends.

I legitimately try to post strictly to the topic at hand, as I have here (aside from this).  I see what you say about a lot of low quality posting going on, but mass blocking doesn;t seem conducive to actual conversation.

[Bagatell]

Don't waste your time responding to people that are participating in a sig ad campaign.  

I need to give this some thought. But in the meantime Sig deleted. Did you add me to your list? Have you deleted me from your list?

[BitcoinNewsMagazine]

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 should be more concerned about the OS you are using.

[Mr.jatt]

That shouldn't be a problem to me.
I mean that I'm not using my real name as my username so they'll not find out who am I.

[BurtW]

BurtW,

Don't waste your time responding to people that are participating in a sig ad campaign.  They generally don't read the content of the thread, and make a minimal effort to even guess what the thread is even about.  Then they drop in an "opinion" so that it looks like they are making an actual contribution to conversation so that they can collect their pay from the ad campaign manager.

They don't really care what the thread is about, nor do they have any interest in any facts or details.  Responding to them just gives them an opportunity to blindly respond to your response to get additional posts in and make it look like they are participating in a conversation.

You're more likely to get well thought out logical discussions from a Colorado District Attorney than you are from someone participating in a signature ad campaign.

Yes, I know.  But sometime I, we all, get frustrated when we spend a large amount of time telling people what is and it gets buried under the whole signature campaign thing.

not sure if you will see this or not, but as a participant in a sig campaign I think bulk blocking all sig campaign participants is a little extreme.

I posted for a long time before finding one to join, and will continue posting after the campaign ends.

I legitimately try to post strictly to the topic at hand, as I have here (aside from this).  I see what you say about a lot of low quality posting going on, but mass blocking doesn;t seem conducive to actual conversation.

Yes, of course, not everyone abuses the sig campaigns.  I actually used to have one, Bitmixer if I recall, and maybe SWC back in the day.  I choose now to use that space for my own agenda but might someday use it again to raise some funds.

[AtheistAKASaneBrain]

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

Thank u.

I have always assumed that NSA, CIA, FBI, are watching bitcointalk members.

I still use it, and I'm happy to announce to any of them exactly who I am and where to find me.

Same here buddy I'm not doing anything wrong either same as most on here. I'll make them a nice cup of tea if they knock on my door.

What if bitcoin is wrong and you are supporting it!

What do you mean "bitcoin is wrong"? Bitcoin it's what it is, the source is open, there's no possibility to not know what you are supporting, and it turns there is no way to hide stuff, we say it recently when XT tried to pass some anti privacy code.

[BurtW]

Back on topic:

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.

I can't claim to have tungsten testicles but the deal involved them keeping all my Bitcoins and a lot of other conditions so that made it easier to say no.

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.

Agreed.  Live to fight another day...

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?

If it looks like extortion and it smell like extortion and it sounds like...

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.

It is legal because I agreed to it.  Conceptually, legally, at least in theory, I could have always chosen to take the criminal and all the civil cases to trial, right? 

If the DA AUSA (Assistant United States Attorney - remember this is all Federal) 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.

The AUSA and my attorney both agreed that the criminal case was a "coin toss" if sent to a jury.  We had a few pre-trial motions to try and assume they all failed the only thing left would have been:  Was what I was doing, trading Bitcoins on localbitcoins.com a business or not?  They claimed it was, we claimed it was not.  Since those wet noodles over at FinCEN did not define what constitutes a business as far a volume of transactions and/or volumes of trades and left it specifically ambiguous as "a matter of fact and circumstance" it would have been up to a jury to decide who was/is right.

BTW by not taking my case to trial this question has still not been decided.

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.

Extortion certainly is one way to look at it.  But guilt or innocence of the charge, operating a money transmittal business without a licence, was not decided in my case.  In essence we agreed to disagree on the definition of what constitutes a business.

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.).

Since I never disputed the fact, and still do not dispute the fact, that I did trade Bitcoins using the localbitcoins.com platform this case really never was about the evidence.  It was about the definition of what constitute a business.

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

The entire process of the plea bargain is always sold as a time and money saver.  However, at its core, the process destroys the entire system and here is why:  If the cops and procecutors knew that every single person they arrested would be given an (expensive) fair trail before an (expensive) jury using qualified (expensive) attorneys on both sides then they would never in a million years be able to arrest, charge and jail as many people as they think they need to.  In other words they would be a lot more picky about who and what they did with their limited resources.  The plea bargain system allows them to churn more people through the system.

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?

Yes, that was another funny, sad, infuriating, cop doing the wrong thing but thinking he actually is doing the guy a big favor video.  Well at least he did not shoot him.

[Kprawn]

BurtW,

Don't waste your time responding to people that are participating in a sig ad campaign.  They generally don't read the content of the thread, and make a minimal effort to even guess what the thread is even about.  Then they drop in an "opinion" so that it looks like they are making an actual contribution to conversation so that they can collect their pay from the ad campaign manager.

They don't really care what the thread is about, nor do they have any interest in any facts or details.  Responding to them just gives them an opportunity to blindly respond to your response to get additional posts in and make it look like they are participating in a conversation.

You're more likely to get well thought out logical discussions from a Colorado District Attorney than you are from someone participating in a signature ad campaign.

Yes, I know.  But sometime I, we all, get frustrated when we spend a large amount of time telling people what is and it gets buried under the whole signature campaign thing.

not sure if you will see this or not, but as a participant in a sig campaign I think bulk blocking all sig campaign participants is a little extreme.

I posted for a long time before finding one to join, and will continue posting after the campaign ends.

I legitimately try to post strictly to the topic at hand, as I have here (aside from this).  I see what you say about a lot of low quality posting going on, but mass blocking doesn;t seem conducive to actual conversation.

Yes, of course, not everyone abuses the sig campaigns.  I actually used to have one, Bitmixer if I recall, and maybe SWC back in the day.  I choose now to use that space for my own agenda but might someday use it again to raise some funds.

I really appreciate the way you see this whole signature campaign thing... there are loads of people who misuse the chance they get to earn a little extra money to post constructively on this forum.

I quickly spot them, and ignore them when I browse the threads... I do not add them to a ignore list, because they might have something constructive to say in other threads.

DannyHamilton is a bit extreme in his approach to this, but I respect his needs and I still value his inputs even though I am also added on his shit list. He is a excellent

contributor to this forum and I learn a lot from his contributions, even though I do not support the way he approach this whole signature campaign thing.

As a member of this forum, you still have the option to join whatever service is offered here... if that voids your opinion in some members eyes.. so be it.. they have rights too. {Like having a spam free experience}

I like to contribute and share what I have learned here and on other platforms and to learn from people like DannyHamilton.... if I get a little extra for my effort.. why not..

it's my time and my kids enjoy the extra pocket money I give to them, for the stuff I do here, when I am away from them.

BurtW... Did they reveal any methods or sources to you, on how they gathered evidence against you? Surely most of this evidence should have been acquired through

legal methods like subpoena and not through entrapment? { I did not see anything mentioned on this, from your other main thread on this subject? }  

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/24/we-need-geneva-convention-for-the-internet-says-new-un-privacy-chief  

[MoorChael]

Yes. I'm still going to use Bitcoin. I have nothing to fear, I'm not doing anything illegal.

[BurtW]

BurtW... Did they reveal any methods or sources to you, on how they gathered evidence against you? Surely most of this evidence should have been acquired through

legal methods like subpoena and not through entrapment? { I did not see anything mentioned on this, from your other main thread on this subject? }    

You bring up a very interesting topic.  Another one of those TV myths everyone believes.  The subject of entrapment.

tl;dr:  For all practical purposes there is no entrapment defense left.

Over time this defense has been slowly eroded by case after case.

In the old days a person had to actually do a crime.
Then they were allowed to entice and the suspect had to do the crime.

Now if they shove the crime down your throat and you do not immediately refuse and report it while it is being shoved down your throat they can use that against you.  Basically they can rape you and say you were asking for it.

In my case one of their undercover operatives solicited a large purchase of Bitcoins from me.  I suggested that we do it at my bank.  They refused (since it would blow their whole audio and video recording setup they had planned at the coffee shop).  So I said that I would prefer to do it at my bank but OK we can do it at the coffee shop.

Later I was told that it was not entrapment because the burden is on me to insisted on using the bank.

The entrapment defense is a thing of the past.  

A lot of "evidence" was collected through just asking for it:

They asked for and got all of my bank records for the last four years from every bank account of mine, my wife and my companies.
They asked for and got all of my phone records and all of my text messages (in and out and deleted).
They simply copied and pasted a lot of what I said on here.

Then they did a few undercover Bitcoin purchases which they followed me to, recorded, and then followed me from to see where I went next.

They put a tracker on my car to see where I went, who I met with, etc.

They interviewed some of my Bitcoin friends.  They were scared to death and one even cough up most of his Bitcoins to make them go away.

They distorted the truth to match their narrative of who they thought I was (huge drug lord with millions in cash and Bitcoin).  They, specifically the Homeland Security Agent in charge of investigating my case, were really hoping for a "Dread Pirate Roberts" size of bust for their resumes.

[BurtW]

Yes. I'm still going to use Bitcoin. I have nothing to fear, I'm not doing anything illegal.

How do you explain this one?  He does not have a signature campaign yet he still thinks it is OK to just jump into a thread without reading it?

[DannyHamilton]

Yes. I'm still going to use Bitcoin. I have nothing to fear, I'm not doing anything illegal.

How do you explain this one?  He does not have a signature campaign yet he still thinks it is OK to just jump into a thread without reading it?

Generally, I assume those are "newbies" that are trying to boost their "activity" to get their "rank" up to "Jr. Member" or "Member" so that they can participate in some particular sig ad campaign that requires a rank higher than "Newbie". They don't immediately end up on my ignore list, but if they join a sig ad campaign later they'll get there eventually.

There are also plenty of people in the world that simply can't hold back from speaking without thinking about what they are about to say first.  There's nothing I can do about that, but ignoring nearly all sig ad campaign participants has made this forum tolerable enough that I didn't leave back in January.  It was getting to be so difficult to find the posts that had sincere questions, or the posts that had useful information, that it was like searching through a 40 acre trash dump to see if you could find a pair of gold earrings that someone accidentally threw away.

As it is, a significant number of members that are not participating in sig ad campaigns have gotten so emotionally and passionately wrapped up in the Bitcoin Core vs. Bitcoin XT "debate" that I'm again finding the forum to be a waste of my time.  I'll probably hold out a couple more months to see if conversation gets more valuable, but if it doesn't I'll move on to other interests.

[BurtW]

Yes, the whole Gavin/Hearn/XT/Core/blocksize debate has even tried to pollute this thread.

People please:  there are enough (dozens) of threads on those subjects.  Please refrain from polluting this thread with those issues.

[jonald_fyookball]

so Burt,

what are the fed shills doing on these boards?  Are they mostly
in the currency exchange section?  Are they trolling?  What's going on?

[tvbcof]

so Burt,

what are the fed shills doing on these boards?  Are they mostly
in the currency exchange section?  Are they trolling?  What's going on?

Are you implying that Burt is working with them as part of a plea bargain or something and is privy to their internal strategies?

[BurtW]

so Burt,

what are the fed shills doing on these boards?  Are they mostly
in the currency exchange section?  Are they trolling?  What's going on?

I cannot speak for all the agencies in all the sections but in general:

Be careful with anyone, especially noobs, who asks "How do you <insert something shady or illegal here>"

Now this can be tricky.  Is mixing bad/illegal/laundering or good/necessary/important to preserve the fungibility of the system?

My personal opinion is that it is one of the flaws in Bitcoin that mixing of all transactions in every block is not a standard part of the protocol.  That is my opinion.

But more obvious things like "Hey bra, how do I buy drugs using bit coins" are more obvious.

Mostly they just copy what you say into your "file" however they have been known to post in order to get you to say more if they think it will help them.

Are you implying that Burt is working with them as part of a plea bargain or something and is privy to their internal strategies?

I did not take his question that way.

However, early on when we learned from our mailman that Homeland Security was poking around and asking him questions about our business my wife called them three times in order to find out if we were being investigated.  The agent in charge of investigating me at that time called her back and lied directly to her stating the no, they were not investigating me, her or our business.

In other words they are legally allowed to lie to your face.  If I was one of them I could also legally lie to you.  So, don't trust anyone.

[gentlemand]

As we've seen in dark markets and carding forums half the people on them are law enforcement, often the ones actually running them. No reason why this place gets an exemption if they're after someone.

Once you're actively up on their radar then I'm sure there will be folks here researching and prodding. It sure beats having to get into a car and walk around asking questions in doorways.

I assume bots are scanning and flagging everywhere possible for red flags, but you'd have to be doing some major wrongs in their eyes to attract human attention.

[MF Doom]

so Burt,

what are the fed shills doing on these boards?  Are they mostly
in the currency exchange section?  Are they trolling?  What's going on?

I cannot speak for all the agencies in all the sections but in general:

Be careful with anyone, especially noobs, who asks "How do you <insert something shady or illegal here>"

Only thing is higher ranking accounts on here are a dime a dozen, so I wouldn't limit suspicions to just noobs, but otherwise thanks for the advice.

They (shills or whatever you want to call them) aren't limited to this forum though, but if you look up "sock puppet" accounts you'll see that the gvt employs people to post on forums, blogs & basically anywhere on the web to steer discussion and gather info, among other things.

[jonald_fyookball]

Once you're actively up on their radar then I'm sure there will be folks here researching and prodding. It sure beats having to get into a car and walk around asking questions in doorways.

As we've seen in dark markets and carding forums half the people on them are law enforcement, often the ones actually running them. No reason why this place gets an exemption if they're after someone.

pardon my ignorance, but whats a carding forum?

[gentlemand]

pardon my ignorance, but whats a carding forum?

People who trade credit card details. It seems to be a largely Eastern European thing but they're a big deal on their own. One of the biggest dark markets that did a runner with coins was run by known carders which should've been a small hint.

Look up the tale of Max Butler. It's pretty fascinating stuff.