Swiss national councillor to ban Bitcoins

[Verso]

Hello,

As a Swiss citizen, I'm sad to report here that a socialist national councillor, Mr Jean-Christophe Schwab, filed a motion to ban Bitcoins in Switzerland. In particular, he argues that Bitcoins are mainly used for criminal transactions, that we should not allow anonymous currencies and that the central bank should not have competitors -- the usual anti-Bitcoin arguments, I guess. It is hard to say whether this motion has any chance to be approved, but this councillor is known to fight a lot for his ideas.

See by yourself: http://www.entete.ch/sk_lmd.pdf.

I already contacted several other national councillors that I know personally in order to give them solid arguments against this motion, but that would really help if the community and/or the Bitcoin Foundation could take part in the process before it's too late.

Thank you all in advance.

[superduh]

sad. too bad they would have to ban every single "virtual currency" and then they'll wind up messing those laws up anyways

[cypherdoc]

with Bernanke deciding to continue printing $85B/mo to hand over to his banking buddies i don't think this will matter one bit to Bitcoin.

[Cryptoman]

Silly council members think they can solve all the world's problems with legislation.  Once you have in place the basic laws against force, fraud and theft, it's all downhill from there.

Let them try to legislate away the laws of prime numbers.

[prophetx]

Hello,

As a Swiss citizen, I'm sad to report here that a socialist national councillor, Mr Jean-Christophe Schwab, filed a motion to ban Bitcoins in Switzerland. In particular, he argues that Bitcoins are mainly used for criminal transactions, that we should not allow anonymous currencies and that the central bank should not have competitors -- the usual anti-Bitcoin arguments, I guess. It is hard to say whether this motion has any chance to be approved, but this councillor is known to fight a lot for his ideas.

See by yourself: http://www.entete.ch/sk_lmd.pdf.

I already contacted several other national councillors that I know personally in order to give them solid arguments against this motion, but that would really help if the community and/or the Bitcoin Foundation could take part in the process before it's too late.

Thank you all in advance.

lmao the old home of anonymous banking trying to ban anonymous currency, that would be the day...

what exactly is his plan to stop it? take away everyone's computers, cut off switzerland from the internet?

I sent a note to the lawyer at btc foundation, perhaps they have some contacts

[Mike Hearn]

When you say "filed a motion", what does that mean? New legislation at the federal level? That would be quite remarkable if true. I suppose, politicians from all cantons would be able to vote on that, no?

I think the real motivation here is obviously ideological. He says he is "opposed to the privatisation of money creation, which must be controlled by the state". He provides no rationale for why it must be so. It's just something he believes.

Unfortunately the fractured language situation in Switzerland will make co-ordination somewhat complicated ... there are plenty of people coming to the meetups in Zurich and I'm sure lots of people could be co-ordinated together to make protests, but I have no experience of political campaigning here (I live in Zurich). I'm not even a citizen so doubt they would care much anyway.

Re: his plan. The article says "that would obviously be practically complicated, but we could ban holding of bitcoins or making transactions in them". In other words random punishment whenever they find someone and hope everyone else falls into line.

[Verso]

Just to be comprehensive, this link gives more detailed information:
http://www.parlament.ch/f/suche/pages/geschaefte.aspx?gesch_id=20133687.

[Mike Hearn]

34 co-signers, outstanding.

I guess that's of a scale that does require a real response. It's not just one crazy politician.

[pedrog]

I'm pretty sure someone tried to ban Internet a few decades ago, there are nutjobs everywhere...

[Gordon Bleu]

Just to be comprehensive, this link gives more detailed information:
http://www.parlament.ch/f/suche/pages/geschaefte.aspx?gesch_id=20133687.

That is some serious Shit, worst is the other well known Politicans who signed this too , but meh i don't care
they banned Drugs, the People still doing doing them so fuck that Conservative Communist Bullshit


and if that's not worst enough it's a Banker and the socialist Lemmings trying patronize us, by supporting Banksters after the Bailouts.

[Gordon Bleu]

That would probably help if we try not to prove them right precisely in the thread that criticizes their claims...

Somehow i think it doesn't matter, if you didn't pay with Bitcoins, you would pay Cash.

Why they don't try to ban hawala

The Laws against Ponzi Schemes are sufficient, Laws against Drugs are beeing used to justify the worser Crimes.
But i'm also very confident that insanity will prevail,
yay let's regulate Bitcoin because it worked oh so well with our financial System.
Always the bad Drugs when probably by now most Transactions are for other trades for Profit and not the bad Drugs.
I know they just want talk about this Issue but lucky us theres no Regulation in Sight for the next Year, what really annoy's me its that this must be a Banker who brings such Thing^s to the Table. I'm very dissapointend by our Swiss Liberals, i haven't expected that from SP if such Things came from CVP or more right sided Groups that wouldn't surprise me.

[Saturn7]

Any law in Switzerland can be overturned with 50,000 signatures.
Doubt it will get passed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendum#Switzerland


Here is an awsome example:

http://boingboing.net/2007/12/02/swiss-dmca-petition.html

[justusranvier]

That would probably help if we try not to prove them right precisely in the thread that criticizes their claims...

It's best to prove them right, immediately before proving that they can't effectively do anything about it anyway.

[Gordon Bleu]

Regulations will come, in one of my worst Case Scenarios it will lead to de-anonymize the whole Internet, with blocking all crypted (except accredited ones) Traffic and flagging it for Law Enforcment like a full blown China Wall but worldwide.

Regulations could also build trust in Bitcoin, but somehow i don't want this because PayPal CC is obviously better.
but it's my freedom to buy wathever i want, i can or will ruin my Health anyway in this World with or without Drugs,
just that usual hipocrisy work yourself to death, but doing Drugs nonono it will affect the other Slaves..
at least we don^t have to listen to such Things as Bitcoin supports Terrorism.

I blame 20min for his effort because of their SR Story few Days ago, it had to come someday, now its good that Forbes covered the Story already and the Research that was done by tracking SR Transactions, it will prove aufmerksamkeitsgeile him wrong.

[_mr_e]

Re: his plan. The article says "that would obviously be practically complicated, but we could ban holding of bitcoins or making transactions in them". In other words random punishment whenever they find someone and hope everyone else falls into line.

Haha, the best part about this is that nobody actually "holds" any Bitcoins. And I don't mean physically either. All you hold is a simple set of numbers and letters that give you the ability to move some numbers around on a global ledger. He is effectively banning strings of characters. I say more power to him, this would be an amusing experiment.

[el_Tico]

Doesn't sound like the Bitcoin Foundation will establish its' HQ in Switzerland.

[solex]

All you hold is a simple set of numbers and letters that give you the ability to move some numbers around on a global ledger.

Very similar to the simple set of numbers which have controlled secret bank accounts in Switzerland for so many years.

This will be good for Bitcoin as it will generate publicity and then discussion between people who might not have heard about Bitcoin until Mr Schwab decided to do a PR job for it. Keep up the good work Schwab!

[lethe]

This will be good for Bitcoin as it will generate publicity and then discussion between people who might not have heard about Bitcoin until Mr Schwab decided to do a PR job for it. Keep up the good work Schwab!

Yeah, I suppose we'll have to send him a thank you card or something.

[stslimited]

sorry, this doesn't translate into banned.

"Because of the importance of the financial center, it seems appropriate to evaluate the impact and risks of "Bitcoin" to our country, to check its compatibility with the laws that govern our financial sector, and, if applicable to take the necessary measures."

[jedunnigan]

sorry, this doesn't translate into banned.

"Because of the importance of the financial center, it seems appropriate to evaluate the impact and risks of "Bitcoin" to our country, to check its compatibility with the laws that govern our financial sector, and, if applicable to take the necessary measures."

Yea, someone should change the title before we get a wave of FUD that hits the media (a la Thailand).