Cryptocurrency: Bankster Warren Launches WarOnCrypto To Kill Freedom, Wallets, Miners, Fight Back!!!

[grarpamp]

> https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/the-digital-asset-anti-money-laundering-act-is-an-opportunistic-unconstitutional-assault-on-cryptocurrency-self-custody-developers-and-node-operators/
> https://decrypt.co/117221/senator-warren-crypto-bill-kyc-self-custody-wallets
> https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/technology/elizabeth-warren-cryptocurrency-regulation
> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/14/elizabeth-warren-crypto-regulation-bill-ftx
> https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-sen-elizabeth-warren-says-crypto-will-ruin-economy-community-responds
> https://www.cnet.com/google-amp/news/elizabeth-warren-targets-crypto-money-laundering-with-new-bill/
> https://www.realclearpolitics.com/2022/11/23/regulate_crypto_or_itll_take_down_the_economy_585490.html
> https://www.theblock.co/post/194941/warren-marshall-introduce-bill-to-tighten-money-laundering-rules-for-crypto
>
> https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/DAAML%20Act%20of%202022.pdf
> https://www.durbin.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/letter_to_fidelity_investments_ceo.pdf
> https://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/recommendations/March%202021%20-%20VA%20Guidance%20update%20-%20Sixth%20draft%20-%20Public%20consultation.pdf


Elizabeth Warren’s crypto bill targets financial freedom, not fraud

https://reason.com/2022/12/16/elizabeth-warrens-crypto-bill-targets-financial-freedom-not-fraud/

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is coming after your financial privacy with her
anti-crypto bill.

https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-marshall-introduce-bipartisan-legislation-to-crack-down-on-cryptocurrency-money-laundering-financing-of-terrorists-and-rogue-nations
https://www.warren.senate.gov/download/12/15/2022/daaml-act-of-2022
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/why-im-less-than-infinitely-hostile
https://reason.com/2021/12/01/turks-flee-to-gold-bitcoin-and-foreign-currency-as-government-devalues-lira/
https://reason.com/video/2022/03/11/the-canadian-government-couldnt-stop-bitcoin/
https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/20/americas/canada-trucker-protest-covid-sunday
https://www.marshall.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/marshall-warren-introduce-bipartisan-legislation-to-crack-down-on-cryptocurrency-money-laundering-financing-of-terrorists-and-rogue-nations%ef%bf%bc/
https://www.wired.com/story/20-years-after-911-surveillance-has-become-a-way-of-life/
https://www.wired.com/2011/09/911-surveillance/
https://time.com/6096903/september-11-legal-history/
https://reason.com/2016/04/27/snowden-speaks/
https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/the-privacy-lesson-of-9-11-mass-surveillance-is-not-the-way-forward
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/rolling-back-post-911-surveillance-state
https://www.cato.org/blog/warren-targets-financial-privacy-wake-ftx-fall

J.D. Tuccille | 12.16.2022

Senator Warren wants to extend the financial surveillance state cooked up by
drug warriors and anti-terrorism fearmongers to cryptocurrencies.

Beyond politically connected scammers and frothy valuations, the
attractiveness of cryptocurrencies lies in their potential for doing what
cash does, but across distances. When governments inflate money, people
turn to other stores of value, including crypto. When politicians and
their financial-sector accomplices block transactions of which they
disapprove, people look for alternative means of doing deals without
permission, crypto among them. So, when officials talk of stripping
privacy and autonomy from cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, you know they
would do the same to cash if they could.

"Rogue nations, oligarchs, drug lords, and human traffickers are using
digital assets to launder billions in stolen funds, evade sanctions, and
finance terrorism," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) huffed this week.
"The crypto industry should follow common-sense rules like banks, brokers,
and Western Union, and this legislation would ensure the same standards
apply across similar financial transactions. The bipartisan bill will help
close crypto money laundering loopholes and strengthen enforcement to
better safeguard U.S. national security."

The bipartisan bill to which Warren refers sports the tendentious moniker,
Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2022. Stripped of grandiose
claims, it attempts to extend the financial surveillance state cooked up
by drug warriors and anti-terrorism fearmongers to cryptocurrencies.
Warren and company picked an opportune moment to do just that, while the
public is occupied with a headline-grabbing financial scandal that taints
crypto's already sketchy reputation.

In fact, Sam Bankman-Fried's shenanigans at FTX, perhaps concealed by
generous political donations, look old-school, including mingling personal
and corporate funds in ways that would have raised red flags long before
digital tokens. But they cast further shade over a crypto sector that had
yet to gain acceptance by the American mainstream. After years of breathy
warnings that cryptocurrency is shady, and speculative values detached
from reality, many people are prepared to believe the worst.

"Crypto is an interesting technology that had one terrible piece of bad
luck: its standard-bearer, bitcoin, went up in value 10,000x over a few
years," wide-ranging commentator Scott Alexander wrote earlier this month.
"When something goes up in value 10,000x, it's hard to think of it in any
other context. Whatever it was before, now it's 'that thing which went up
in value 10,000x'."

Alexander points out that, despite the shellacking the crypto sector is
taking in the press and from politicians, it remains popular in countries
where it's used for its intended purpose as a store of value and a means
of exchange in defiance of authoritarian controls. "Vietnam uses crypto
because it's terrible at banks," he notes. "There's a history of the
government forcing banks to make terrible loans, and then those banks
collapsing." In socialist Venezuela, "cryptocurrency provides a
hard-to-ban alternative which has caught on among Venezuelan hustlers and
small businessmen."

This played out in Turkey when the government got serious about turning
the lira into toilet paper and people bought gold, foreign currency, and
bitcoin. Bitcoin also became a means for Canadian protesters to work
around government attempts to financially isolate their protest movement.

"Of course a technology centered around avoiding governance and banking
failures will be centered in the countries with the most governance and
banking failures!" Alexander adds.

But any technology that can be used by good people can also be used by bad
people. That's as true of window curtains as it is of crypto (or cash).
The same privacy sought by a family going through evening routines might
serve a terrorist building bombs, just as businesses and activists evading
a hostile state might use the same currency that purchases bomb parts.
Politicians love playing up potential abuses.

"Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, our government
enacted meaningful reforms that helped the banks cut off bad actors' from
America's financial system. Applying these similar policies to
cryptocurrency exchanges will prevent digital assets from being abused to
finance illegal activities without limiting law-abiding American citizens'
access," insists Sen. Roger Marshall (R–Kan.), co-sponsor of the Digital
Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2022.

When politicians hold up the post-9/11 panic that supercharged the
surveillance state as their model, take them seriously. The legacy of that
time is widely recognized as an over-powerful government that intrudes
into Americans' lives, subjecting our activities and communications to
monitoring and diminishing our liberty. With their bill, Warren, Marshall,
and company want to extend that surveillance to financial technology that
was explicitly developed to empower individual liberty and privacy.

"The bill first seeks to classify self‐<U+200B>hosted wallets as money
service businesses," cautions the Cato Institute's Nicholas Anthony. "For
those unfamiliar, self‐<U+200B>hosted wallets are merely the digital
equivalent of a wallet in your pocket or purse. ... Where much of the
financial surveillance in the United States depends on what's known as the
third‐<U+200B>party doctrine, self‐<U+200B>hosted wallets offer individuals
protection from government surveillance and censorship. Yet Senator
Warren's bill would put an end to that protection."

The bill, says Anthony, would "classify cryptocurrency miners, validators,
and network participants as money service businesses." It "also sets its
sights on cryptocurrency mixers" who "offer individuals the opportunity to
enhance their privacy when using cryptocurrencies on public blockchains."

In fact, the bill's language specifies that "the Secretary of the Treasury
shall promulgate a rule that prohibits financial institutions from ...
handling, using, or transacting business with digital asset mixers,
privacy coins, and other anonymity-enhancing technologies."

Senators Warren and Marshall talk about "terrorism" and "drug lords," but
their clear goal (whether or not its within their reach, which is another
matter) is to strip crypto of its ability to be used privately and without
permission in the same way we use cash. Their objections to digital money
also apply to banknotes and coins. Ultimately, it's not crypto they fear,
but our liberty to earn, purchase, save, and donate without being
impoverished, scrutinized, or stopped by government officials.

Bitcoin and other digital tokens have their flaws, but they're an attempt
to fulfill a widespread desire for reliable stores of value and means of
exchange independent of control. And while all such forms of money are
vulnerable to fraud and theft, that's already illegal. The Digital Asset
Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2022 doesn't even attempt to address such
crimes, instead, it's an attack on financial privacy and liberty. For all
the reasons politicians are coming after crypto, you can bet that cash is
next.