Senator Charles Schumer Pushes to Shut Down Online Drug Marketplace

[mjsbuddha]

I'm not sure how effective polite letters to the good senator are anymore. If they worked, we wouldn't be where we are today.

If someone wants to send him a message, it could be along these lines ....

http://new.wavlist.com/movies/043/mtrx-iknow.wav

This should be made our official moto

SPOILER: Neo dies in the end. Lets not emulate that.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Yes, but there is only one Neo ... sacrificed for the freedom of the many. 

[mewantsbitcoins]

I'm not sure how effective polite letters to the good senator are anymore. If they worked, we wouldn't be where we are today.

If someone wants to send him a message, it could be along these lines ....

http://new.wavlist.com/movies/043/mtrx-iknow.wav

This should be made our official moto

SPOILER: Neo dies in the end. Lets not emulate that.

Satoshi is also "no longer with us"

[abyssobenthonic]

• Instead I'm using the smash-the-corporate-machine rhetoric that leftists prefer.

Schumer is, for all intents and purposes, the Senator from Wall St. (especially since Dodd retired)... the smash-the-corporate-machine rhetoric is probably not preferred by him (whether he's a leftist or not is open to some debate, perhaps)

[Anonymous]

Let's just make things worse and spray paint giant gold anarchy-esque 'B's on his car and house.

[Litt]

• Instead I'm using the smash-the-corporate-machine rhetoric that leftists prefer.

Schumer is, for all intents and purposes, the Senator from Wall St. (especially since Dodd retired)... the smash-the-corporate-machine rhetoric is probably not preferred by him (whether he's a leftist or not is open to some debate, perhaps)

So for all intents and purposes he's nothing more than a lobbyist from Wall St on taxpayers payroll. I just love the feeling I get knowing I help pay for this guys living expenses. Awesome.. 

[marcus_of_augustus]

Let's just make things worse and spray paint giant gold anarchy-esque 'B's on his car and house.

I wouldn't fancy being his sys. admin any time soon ....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYw2nj36NCM&feature=related

[mewantsbitcoins]

Let's just make things worse and spray paint giant gold anarchy-esque 'B's on his car and house.

I wouldn't fancy being his sys. admin any time soon ....

[John Kirk]

This is my first draft of a letter to Mr. Schumer. Any suggestions/critiques?

Dear Mr. Senator:

I write today in response to your recent announcements regarding Silk Road...

Respectfully,
Ian Maxwell

Notes:

• I've avoided calling bitcoin a "currency" since this is likely to lead to poorly-thought out claims of counterfeiting.
• Likewise, I've avoided any of the smash-the-state rhetoric so common around here. This guy is the state, so I don't imagine he'll be very receptive.
• Instead I'm using the smash-the-corporate-machine rhetoric that leftists prefer.
• My central point is that Bitcoin has legal uses and that there are many reasons for a law-abiding citizen to want to use it.

I would avoid challenging the Senator to campaign for Bitcoin's destruction, as you do at the end of your letter.  That seems a tad too defiant, and I don't think that is the idea you want to convey.  Instead, I would simply implore him to treat the Silk Road and Bitcoin as two entirely separate issues, and to judge each independently.

Further, I would recommend that instead of sending this off as the letter of an individual, change all references of "I" into "We", and allow members of this community to join you in a petition by adding their names to it.  A forceful statement from the larger community would be far more powerful, in my opinion.  I realize that there are many people in this community that would not be willing to sign such a petition, but I'm sure there are a number of us that would.

[Astro]

If you really what to shut him up, ask him how you can contribute to his next campaign using bitcoins.

[kidgorgeous]

I want to agree with some of the more tempered responses to this but the truth is the best thing the bitcoin community can do to disprove the money laundering/drug argument against bitcoin is to setup legitimate businesses or get larger companies to accept it. There are already plenty, I've been a customer of several and I encourage more people to use it as I see it as superior to any virtual payment system currently in existence.

However, if all people ever hear about bitcoin is how its a vehicle for laundering drug money they will believe it even if its by a bone headed senator who is simply trying to appeal to the 'law & order' crowd or whatever his half baked motivation is. I highly doubt he has ANY idea of what bitcoin is, how it works or what the goals of the community are. Rather than ask, "Did people create this currency because they're fed up with the wild printing of money by central banks?" or "Are people tired of having to rely on financial institutions that seem like they're run by greedy criminals?" or "Are people sick of the massive amounts data mining, consumer activity analysis that goes on with credit card companies?". He goes with the simple to digest answer of "drugs and money laundering". Cops do this all the time, "what are there all these muggings?" "Oh its drugs!" because categorizing complex socio-economic problems under a rubric like drugs, makes it ok, easy to digest, and utterly banal. The bitcoin community needs to really show its motivations are not nefarious but rather an expression of dissatisfaction with the status quo. For all our sakes.

[sinner]

first sentence of article:

"Senator Charles Schumer is asking federal authorities to shut down a secretive narcotics market operated online with anonymous sales and untraceable currency."


is gold. 

[ThomasV]

Drug trafficking IS illegal in the united states. This rich and powerful man now sees drugs and bitcoins as indivisible and mining and trading bitcoins as a criminal offense. He is actively trying to convince his rich and powerful friends of the same directly because of silk road. Silk road is a thread to the bitcoin network and I personally want to see it exterminated.

I agree.

The owner of Silk Road also registered a domain name ; it should be possible to track him from here : http://www.whois.net/whois/silkroadmarket.org
I guess the DEA and journalists already contacted the registrant.

[genjix]

This is an absolutely terrible way for Bitcoin to break out. I was at least hoping firstly we were going to see articles about the positives of Bitcoin before we started seeing about the illegal stuff. Everything we've been working on for months has been to protect Bitcoin from attack. Things like this are frightening if this is a prophecy of future news reporting on Bitcoin.

Please be only a one time thing.

[Astro]

If this is how you guys are going to react to a little bad press, I'd hate to see what happens when a showstopping client bug is found, or some other issue like that.  Seriously, people around the world who are seeing bitcoin as a savior from oppressive government control of the banking system don't give the first shit about Chuck Schumer.

Relax and party on.

[bitcoinBull]

I actually agree that drugs should be legal and one should be allowed to ingest anything they please. But what should and shouldn't be has little to do with what IS and ISN'T. Drug trafficking IS illegal in the united states. This rich and powerful man now sees drugs and bitcoins as indivisible and mining and trading bitcoins as a criminal offense. He is actively trying to convince his rich and powerful friends of the same directly because of silk road. Silk road is a thread to the bitcoin network and I personally want to see it exterminated.

Let's put aside the issue that all websites on the internet are not under US jurisdiction (relevant since nobody knows from where SR is hosted), and that the trafficking of certain drugs IS LEGAL in certain states.

If you consider SR a threat to the bitcoin network, where do you stop?  Do you also want to exterminate all bitcoin poker and gambling websites, regardless of where they are hosted, since those are also illegal in the US?  If it wasn't SR, it would be online gambling.

County Police Net $470,000 in Online Gambling Seizure - June 2, 2011

And if it wasn't online gambling, it would be something else.  Schumer or any other rich and powerful man would have no shortage of justifications to criminalize bitcoins (money laundering, tax evasion, wire fraud, unlicensed securities yada yada, the list goes on and on).  If you want to exterminate every part of the bitcoin network the rich and powerful find threatening, what will be left is no bitcoin network at all.  "First they came..."

The way this will play out is that if they attempt to publicly display total control, until it is completely obvious to everyone that they in fact have none, they will lose all credibility.  To avoid that, they will stop short with ostensible displays of control.  Look at the way Cannabis legalization is playing out: it is bought and sold in plain daylight, in stores in the middle of strip malls, in states around the country.  But it is federally illegal. 

If "they" want to do the same to bitcoin (i.e. illegalize it with ostensible displays of enforcement), there is little chance we can prevent it.  But there is nothing they can do to stop us.

The only thing the bitcoin network has to fear.. is fear itself.

[marcus_of_augustus]

The pipes and tubes of the interweb belong to the people, they meddle with it at their peril.

[Tawsix]

Let Chucky throw his tantrum, people who would have been interested in Bitcoin and might not otherwise have heard of it will come aboar, and people who are wary of us "domestic terrorists" don't need Chucky to tell them to be afraid, they've already been prepped and brainwashed.

[Fhtagn]

This is my first draft of a letter to Mr. Schumer. Any suggestions/critiques?

Well written; similar in tone and content to my recent bucket of emails to various Senators and Representatives.

[Anonymous]

Whoever owns the silkroad domain should redirect it to the donation page of erowid.org - which accepts bitcoins. I think that would be a statement without actually reacting to the dickheads.

http://www.erowid.org/donations/donations_bitcoin.php

The tor site shouldnt be affected.