[microsage]

> The language in the indictment about BTC-e’s “criminal design” mimics the indictment against Liberty Reserve — an anonymous currency service taken down by law enforcement in 2013 — which also accused the online exchange of having a “criminal design” and a system “designed so that criminals could effect financial transactions under multiple layers of anonymity.”

Basing the indictment on the intent of the design - something hard to prove or reason about objectively - seems like a very slippery slope. Couldn't a similar statement be made about almost any system that protects user privacy? Or maybe they're referring to specific legal requirements not being conformed to rather than a general "criminal design"?

[21]

There is no such thing as privacy from the state when dealing with money.

I don't know your salary and income, you don't know mine, but the state wants to know this for everybody.

This is the law of the land pretty much anywhere, and any large scale operations which try hiding this from the state (not from you and me) will be in trouble.

So if you don't do the KYC/AML thing, that can be called "criminal by design" since KYC/AML is kind of universal in the western world (including Bulgaria/Cyprus/BVI)

[rothbardrand]

The money laundering statutes are so broad that you are a felon under them if you take money out of your savings and put it in your checking in order to make your credit card payment one month. Even if all three are at the same bank and none of the money is the result of a criminal activity.

[dboreham]

Citation?

[thephyber]

I highly doubt that scenario exists without some other incriminating action, behavior, or police observation.

Civil Asset Forfeiture is an attack on private property and the legal principle of "innocent until proven guilty", but there has to be _some_ suspicion of a crime (usually alleged drug paraphernalia) or simple corruption on the part of the police and/or judges.

There is a money-laundering-related charge, IIRC called "structuring", in which the reporting threshold of $10k/day/person is intentionally avoided (eg. by $9,999 transactions on consecutive days). This isn't usually charged "out of the blue". In the recent Hastert structuring case[1], he told a bank employee that he was avoiding the reporting threshold even though his money transfers weren't actually money laundering after profiting from a crime.

There is a lot that I disdain about money laundering laws and civil asset forfeiture, but I'm not inclined to believe that "rothbard-rand" (the surnames of two famous Libertarians) has no dogs in this fight, so to speak.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Hastert#Indictment

[mirimir]

Right. They can target anyone they like, and create some plausible bullshit to justify it.