[NicolasGorden]

> "global cyber campaign to expose injustice and corruption and to support causes it deem[s] beneficial... The group... funnelling ... bitcoin to ... "worthy recipients"

> The Pentagon war game documents ... revealed after ... Representative ... called for the government to "freeze" the money of demonstrators after country-wide protests

> "One of the most important tools in the authoritarian toolkit is the ability to freeze the funding of legitimate political dissent,"

> By separating the infrastructure of money from the infrastructure of state power, bitcoin makes it that much harder for this type of politically motivated confiscation.

People have been using bitcoin to donate to Snowden or get money to people in place like Venezuela. Cyprus happened. Now it might happen that anyone who protests might lose their ability to access banking services.

Yet somehow many here think this is just a scenario.

[root_axis]

> Now it might happen that anyone who protests might lose their ability to access banking services.

What? Why? How? Did you just make that up? Beyond that, if you lose access to banking services then bitcoin isn't going to help you since you need banking services to turn bitcoin into usable money.

[NicolasGorden]

RTFA it's literally in there. Admittedly it says 'freeze the money'. Though I'm really not sure how that's different than 'lose their ability to access banking'. Come to think of it, freeze their money is worse, since that implies losing access to existing funds and the system, not just losing access to the banking system.

[root_axis]

> Florida Republican Representative Matt Gaetz called for the government to "freeze" the money of demonstrators

That is not even remotely close to "it might happen", that's just partisan bloviating from a Florida state rep.

[NicolasGorden]

I took a government representative saying they are considering doing something as a sign that the government is considering doing something. Crazy.

I agree it's mostly likely just political 'bloviating'. But the Patriot Act did happen and we did create the category of 'enhanced interrogation' and 'enemy combatant'. If I were to tell my grandparents that was going to pass in the 90s they'd have said the same thing; just political bloviating.

So you'll have to forgive me if I take the governments own words as a sign to be defensive about what the government might do, even if it is unlikely.

[root_axis]

> I took a government representative saying they are considering doing something as a sign that the government is considering doing something

Ok, but that's not how the government works, like not even close. A state representative making a statement doesn't mean "the government is considering doing" it, there are more than 1000 state reps across the country, willfully assuming anything they say is going to happen is just silly.

[NicolasGorden]

It was my understanding that the Representative quoted in the article was from the US House of Representatives which has 435 voting members. The senate has 100. These two bodies are in charge of drafting and passing legislation (hence the legislative branch). I though legislation begins with discussions within the house and then a bill is presented and then it moves to congress. Ultimately it is sent to be signed or vetoed by the president (the executive branch). Alternatively, the president does have some ability to sign some types of executive orders.

It was also my understanding that both legislation and executive orders are subject to judicial review, mainly in the form of supreme court case review but also in the form of statute reviews. Though these don't happen very frequently and many times the result is counter intuitive, it seems supreme court cases can go many ways depending on the complex legal interpretations of the justices.

I am an immigrant who had to learn about this on a naturalization test prep. So I know that my knowledge is SUPER basic and really it's the least any person who can vote in the USA should know. In my own country my political knowledge is much deeper as I learned about it in high school and college.

Maybe you could explain to me as an apparently knowledgeable person where you came up with 'more than 1000' number? Hopefully you can tell me from the point of view of an American who knows his country and learned about it through his years of schooling.

Also, since 'this is not how the government works', maybe you could explain to ignorant old me how it does work? Save me from being silly and illuminate me with your wisdom!

- Summer Glau