Cryptocurrency: Govts Claim Human Privacy Is Criminal, Force 1984 Court Secrecy Chainalysis

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US Government Frames Bitcoin Privacy As "Criminal"

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/legal/us-government-frames-bitcoin-privacy-as-criminal
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.232431/gov.uscourts.dcd.232431.206.0.pdf
https://go.chainalysis.com/rs/503-FAP-074/images/Crypto_Crime_Report_2023.pdf

Authored by 'L0la L33tz' via BitcoinMagazine.com,

In another unfortunate turn of events for anyone hoping their right to
privacy to be protected as guaranteed by the US Constitution, the UN
Declaration of Human Rights, or applicable state and federal law, the
US government has argued that the disclosure of proprietary
Chainalysis heuristics information in the case US vs. Sterlingov would
“jeopardize numerous law enforcement investigations and impact the
effectiveness of law enforcement tracing tools” by enabling the
development of “criminal countermeasures to blockchain analysis.”

The oath each and every US government employee pledges when first
taking office reads: “I do solemnly swear that I will support and
defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies,
foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to
the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental
reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully
discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So
help me God."

Apparently, this oath is only applicable so long it serves the US
government’s agenda.

While attempting to retain a protective order to seal the disclosure
of Chainalysis heuristic information, the US government has, in
essence, argued that the right to privacy does not exist when
transacting on the blockchain.

In the newly released court documents, the US government defines
software developed to protect individual financial privacy on the
blockchain, such as coinjoins, as “adversarial”, contending that the
disclosure of Chainalysis training methods and techniques bears the
reasonable expectation to enable “circumvention of the law.”

Unfortunately, it is unclear which laws the US government is referring to.

The argument that the disclosure would enable “ criminals, drug
trafficking organizations, and terrorists” to circumvent law
enforcement cannot be made in good faith, as Chainalysis’ own 2023
Crypto Crime Report has found the overall transaction volume of
illicit activity to lay at merely 0.24%.

Just as the early internet was allegedly only used for crime, the
share of day-to-day commerce on the blockchain increases as Bitcoin
adoption grows. It therefore cannot be argued that the development of
privacy protecting software is adversarial in any sense of the word,
except to Chainalysis’ business model and the surveillance agenda of
the US intelligence complex, who invested $1.67 Million USD in
Chainalysis in 2020 and another $1.64 Million USD in 2021 via the
Central Intelligence Agency’s venture capital fund In-Q-Tel.

As long as the development and use of privacy protecting software such
as PGP, E2EE or VPNs cannot be deemed as criminal under the first and
fourth amendment, neither can the development or use of software aimed
to protect one’s financial privacy in Bitcoin. However, it appears
that constitutional frameworks do not stop the US government from
putting forward statements which directly undermine the people’s right
to protection from unwarranted surveillance.

Classifying blockchain surveillance countermeasures as criminal is
just another step the US government has been taking towards the total
surveillance of US citizen’s communications in recent years. In 2015,
congress voted for the prolonging of the Patriot Act via the USA
Freedom Act, which continues to allow the bulk collection of
telecommunication data via telecommunications providers, and the
proposed EARN IT Act, which, in essence, would outlaw end-to-end
encryption.

So far, the only attempt to circumvent the law in the US government’s
response to minute order is to be found in its own argumentation.