[clucas]

If the international law enforcement community is really trying to go after "all cryptographers" why do you think we haven't seen more arrests? Why do you think they only arrested this guy?

I get that you really want to defend crypto, but I think a simpler explanation is that they have good reasons to believe that this guy was doing more than just the stuff you're trying to defend (making privacy code).

It would be like... if two dozen people were picketing outside of a big corporation, and the police came and arrested one dude. You would be the guy saying "they're coming for the protesters!" and I'm the guy saying "Well, if they're really after protesters why didn't they arrest all of them? And isn't that the guy they were investigating for a bank robbery?"

Defending literally every crypto guy is short-sighted if you're a true proponent of the tech. It's possible that there are bad people involved in crypto, and you'll be a lot more credible as an advocate if you acknowledge that possibility and wait for the facts.

[dcolkitt]

> If the international law enforcement community is really trying to go after "all cryptographers" why do you think we haven't seen more arrests? Why do you think they only arrested this guy?

Because the standard playbook for "cracking down" is to first win cases against the least sympathetic, most prosecutable targets. Once that's under your belt, you gradually expand outwards to increasingly ordinary people. It's why slippery slope is such a big deal in civil liberties and constitutional law.

When drug prohibition started, they started by arresting kingpin gangstas not students with dime bags. As abortion laws restart, states won't begin by arresting anyone who's ever donated to Planned Parenthood. But if left unchecked, some will eventually get there.

[dylan604]

Then the community needs to be better about self-policing. If there are people in your group doing shady shit with your group's tech, then get rid of them. Otherwise, you start sounding like the police with "bad apples" but not all are bullshit. If you see someone doing wrong and don't sound the alarm, then you are part of the problem.

[lalaland1125]

> As abortion laws restart, states won't begin by arresting anyone who's ever donated to Planned Parenthood. But if left unchecked, some will eventually get there.

First thing, you can't arrest people for prior donations as postfacto laws are unconstitutional.

Second, if abortion is considered murder, why should it be legal to fund illegal abortions? We generally don't allow people to fund criminal activity for good reasons.

Do you think it should be legal to donate to criminal organizations?

What are your thoughts on donations to Al-Qaeda?

[ROTMetro]

TLDR: You have no rights in America other than the ones you can afford to pay a lawyer to force to be enforced.

Dude, as someone in the system, ex post facto happens all the time. In my case I can challenge it, but if I get slapped with lets say a completely 'theoretical' $5000 ex post facto "fine" it's going to cost more in lawyers to challenge, plus piss off my judge/PO for wasting time. As someone who can't get a job due to my record and can't afford a lawyer I have 'access' to the court for remedy, but I don't have access to a lawyer for remedy. The Constitution and our government are two different things.

If something gets ruled unconstitutional, that doesn't suddenly free prisoners in the USA. Each prisoner needs to then challenge their conviction in court, and get past the high procedural bar (as a Fed prisoner, do you submit to the circuit in which you are now unconstitutionally imprisoned, or the circuit that convicted you unconstitutionally? Depends on the argument you are making, either could be right or wrong. Pick the wrong one and you waste three months minimum (so much for speeding trial, that only applies to your initial trial according the the supreme court) for the court to come back and say 'they don't have jurisdiction'. Not forward to the correct court, just denied for lack of jurisdiction. For you challenging something already found unconstitutional that should just be immediate release upon Supreme Court ruling. And don't forget, you have a time limit to challenge something found unconstitutional. You took too long? To bad, you're now stuck in prison for something found unconstitutional because you didn't understand your rights and navigate the bar placed in the form of the court system in a timely), nevermind hurdles placed in prison (mailroom only open from this time to this time, mail room not certifying your mail or 'losing' it, law library copyers broken, commissary 'out' of law library typewriter ribbons for sale), etc. If the Constitution was law, those people held unconstitutionally would be released upon Supreme Court findings. The fact they aren't and can be kept in prison for 'taking to long' to challenge their Supreme Court determined unconstitutional conviction shows the Constitution is just a 'guideline' in the USA.

[ROTMetro]

Caveat needed here: This does not apply if you took a plea for lesser time instead of accepting the 'trial tax' (which normally quadrupoles your sentence from say 2-7 years to 20-40) which removes your constitutional right as you agree "not to make any collateral attacks on your sentence" in the plea agreement in addition to your right to trial. (Yes the higher courts will probably override this but most guys give up when the district rejects them. It's scary as hell challenging the prosecutor/judge on your own from prison, dealing with the harassment from the mailroom cops, one out of maybe every 4 months being able to buy new typewriter ribbons in commissary, copiers down, high copier fees. The entire process is designed to discourage you from pursuing your rights.)

The system shouldn't work like insurance claim submissions that if you fight long enough/hard enough or can pay someone to fight for you ultimately grudgingly your constitutional rights are recognized. Remember, China's constitution includes democracy and free speech too, but just like our rights they enacted 'reasonable rules that happen to be barriers to those rights as an unfortunate side effect'.

[josephcsible]

> ex post facto happens all the time

Can you give an example of one such time?

[ROTMetro]

I did above. Fees/assessments that were not part of your sentence get added/imposed after the fact. The sentencing guidelines get changed AFTER what you are sentenced for occured, yet you are sentenced to the 'new' sentencing guidelines sentence, not the sentence that was called for at the time of your offense. There is a whole legal class called 'collateral consequences' that are punishments it would be inconvenient to be called punishments. They are instead 'collateral consequences' that don't fall under ex post facto and are then 'legal' to apply after the fact. Imagine that, an entire type of punishment defined as not a punishment to skirt the Constitution. The courts don't see the constitution as their guiding principle, but as bugs to try find workarounds for.

[josephcsible]

I meant a real-life example, e.g., a news article of it really happening to someone or a court decision that upheld it.

[thebradbain]

> Second, if abortion is considered murder, why should it be legal to fund illegal abortions? We generally don't allow people to fund criminal activity for good reasons.

Because it's not murder. Legislating that it is does not make it so. Full stop. That's like a government trying to legislate that the sky must always be blue, or that it's illegal to frown, or that 2+2=5. Just because it's a law does not make it just or sensible, and I would hope that in modern society we would not blindly obey unjust/unnecessary/unwelcome laws without questioning.

[pas]

Murder is a legal category, it can be whatever we define it to be, so if legislation makes abortion murder then it is.

Is it intentionally ending the life of a human being? Well, what life, what is a human being?

It's intentionally terminating a pregnancy? Yes. Is that bad? Well, if the would-be-mother doesn't want it it's definitely bad, and if the would-be-mother wants it then it definitely seems cruel to not do it, but when society tries to impose whatever morals on these people the arguments start to look very silly very soon.

The main argument against abortion is a strange begging the question fallacy mixed with consequentialism: if the abortion would not happen then things would go great and a human would born (the implied assumption is that it's somehow unquestionably good).

[thebradbain]

“If legislation makes abortion murder then it is.”

I fundamentally disagree. You objectively cannot “kill” something that is not “alive”. That is just a fact of life itself. A government can legislate all they want, but it does not make an unborn fetus any more alive. And thus any law rooted in this idea is fundamentally absurd, preposterous, and so downright stupid that on the principle alone (aside from the many others) any such ban shouldn’t be followed.

To entertain the idea that government can legislate whatever it wants is to imply that a government can dictate the laws of physics. It’s just nonsensical.

[pas]

I understand your argument, but (IMHO) it just causes confusion if you try to apply common sense to legal statutes and concepts. (Yes, sure politically one can argue that there's a difference between waiting for someone and running them over intentionally with a car and between abortion, but at the same time others are free to disagree. There's no objective framework for this.)

The fetus is alive. It's a bunch of cells. There's a causal interaction to remove it from the host which makes it a bunch of dead cells.

Legislatig physics is stupid, but what if some state said by law which interpretation of quantum mechanics is the correct one? Stupid, but not much different than building codes. Or say that prions are alive and can run for office... stupid, but there used to be a lot of absurd laws. (If someone works on Saturday they shall be put to death. Sure, what's work? And then there are many many many interpretations of what's work.)

[altairprime]

The standard playbook for arresting specific criminals overlaps with the more extreme playbook you described.

Whether it’s the former or the latter cannot be determined from this arrest alone.

[chitowneats]

"Some will ... arrest anyone who's ever donated to Planned Parenthood"

This is a hysterical prediction.

[lalaland1125]

Yeah, you can't make postfacto laws.

Sure, the government might make it illegal to donate to Planned Parenthood in the future but per the constitution they can't make prior donations illegal.

[ROTMetro]

The sentencing guidelines (which direct the sentence a judge will give you) get changed ex post facto all the f'ing time. So yes, you can be given an ex-post facto sentence, it's just that it's been 'lawyered' to be constitutional (we didn't change the criminal law, just the sentencing guideline that dictated the sentence you were given for commiting the crime) even though the rule is 'Every law that makes criminal an act that was innocent when done, or that inflicts a greater punishment than the law annexed to the crime when committed, is an ex post facto law within the prohibition of the Constitution'.

The sentencing range wasn't changed, just the sentence the judge was required to give, but the range isn't a rule so it's ok. And if the judge sentences outside the guideline the prosecutor can challenge for 'sentence outside guideline range'. The constitution has been lawyered into oblivion.

[notch656a]

Unless you find that abortion was never legal because the state statute on "murder" is vague. For instance, if the court re-interprets a murder statute then I believe that would apply to prior cases and then prior donations to any establishment assisting in abortion could be pursued as conspiracy.

There's a lot of room to re-interpret laws that were already on the books in ways that make prior "crimes" illegal today when they wouldn't have been interpreted that way when they happened.

There's other things that can be done as well, like searching their residence for every single code violation possible, daily police visits, civil asset forfeiture, fine-comb tax auditing, etc. It's a pretty well oiled machine for finding ways to convict people or make their life hell through the legal system if that's the goal.

[lalaland1125]

That's not how our constitution works. Roe v Wade is binding for any actions a person carries out before it got overturned in Dobbs.

Even if a court ruling or legal interpretation gets overturned later, that doesn't allow you to prosecute people who were relying on that legal interpretation.

Judges aren't mindless machines and they realize the importance of avoiding postfacto prosecutions.

[notch656a]

You have more faith in judges than I do. I've seen judges act as mindless machines.

and below still stands:

>There's other things that can be done as well, like searching their residence for every single code violation possible, daily police visits, civil asset forfeiture, fine-comb tax auditing, etc. It's a pretty well oiled machine for finding ways to convict people or make their life hell through the legal system if that's the goal.

If the powers that be want to punish those who contribute to abortion, they will find a way to do it, even ex-post-facto.

[RavingGoat]

You sound like a white person from a middle class or better upbringing.

[chitowneats]

So do you.

Does that somehow invalidate your point?

[formerly_proven]

a) Interesting choice of words b) Donating to PP is aiding murder (née abortions), it's a small step to abetment.

[sangnoir]

Personhood is a prerequisite to murder. No jurisdiction has granted this to the unborn, but it's an interesting thought experiment if some chose to: thinking up "unforeseen" second- and third-order effects is a fun exercise (life insurance, HOV lanes, tax deductions, censuses & electoral maps, broken websites which assume all persons have names, birthdates in the future, null birthdays on death certificates)

[chitowneats]

It's hysterical in both senses of the word.

[f38zf5vdt]

Various states already prohibit using public money to fund abortions, a prohibition on private funds for an act they consider extremely illegal and equivalent to murder is not a stretch.

"12 states prohibit state family planning funds from going to any entity that provides abortions."

https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/state-family...

[chitowneats]

And you believe it will be legal for them to arrest you for donations you made before those laws were in place?

That's assuming you're correct they would try to ban private funds. A big assumption.

[f38zf5vdt]

IANAL.

No, ex post facto laws aren't legal.

If the state law says so, yes, you could get an out-of-state charge for providing financial aid to an abortion operation after contributing to an organization that funds them. With Roe v Wade gone, I am not sure there is a federal precedent for how to handle crimes relating to committing a murder in one state that is not considered a murder in another state.

[amanaplanacanal]

If planned parenthood isn't performing any abortions in a state where it is illegal, how could funding them ever be made illegal? None of this makes sense.

[f38zf5vdt]

People from illegal states already cross state lines to get abortions and then return to their home states. While it's not presently illegal, without Roe v Wade, I think that may quickly change.

> No state has yet enacted a law to ban this travel. But it has been attempted: In Missouri, a bill is pending that would enforce abortion restrictions through civil lawsuits if the abortion is administered outside the state.

https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2022/can-states-punish...

[rootusrootus]

> enforce abortion restrictions through civil lawsuits

I wonder how long it will be before SCOTUS kills off these attempts to use civil litigation to end-run the Constitution. The Texas law matched the court's ideology, so they let it stand, but now that Roe is overturned I expect the court to dispense with the law before places like California can use it to render the 2A moot.

If they let this continue, the court will become irrelevant in a hurry. They may have granted themselves sweeping authority a long while back, but that can be changed easily via legislation.

[vorpalhex]

You can prohibit public money for any reason - and we do all the time, eg forcing the state to buy only US made cars.

You can't prohibit private money use in a situation like this - especially not for a political funding thing. That is actually a freedom of speech issue.

[game-of-throws]

If that were true, it would be so easy for them to swing public opinion in their favor by saying so.

Headline: Arrest of developer with suspected ties to North Korean money laundering

Body: He has also previously contributed to Tornado Cash.

But all we know is what they decided to tell us... he's a developer of privacy tech. If the facts change, I'll change my mind.

[afavour]

Usually when there’s an ongoing investigation the default is for police to not release too much information to avoid jeopardising the investigation, then release all the info when the investigation is complete. It’s frustrating and often a principle that’s applied too broadly, but I do understand the reasoning behind it.

[game-of-throws]

I agree they usually withhold details of the case. But I don't think they would flat-out lie about the charges being brought.

[voakbasda]

In the US, government agents absolutely can and do lie during the course of an investigation. This is why you should never ever talk to the police.

[dragonwriter]

> I agree they usually withhold details of the case. But I don't think they would flat-out lie about the charges being brought.

“With suspected ties to X“ isn't necessarily an element of the charges being brought. And the police can and do lie (or state “suspicion” on a very flimsy basis) when making public announcements related to arrests, and headlines often credulously repeat police spin rather than being grounded in facts.

While this tends to get the most attention (and still then not enough for the press to change) around police spin and media coverage related to police shootings, it is true far beyond that.

[lesuorac]

> But I don't think they would flat-out lie about the charges being brought.

I dunno, there's a pretty big trend going on right now of producing tv shows / prodcasts about how ineffective (with a strong hint of incompentence) cops can be.

[elefanten]

There have been a series of previous stories about North Korean state hackers using it to launder proceeds from known hacks.

This didn’t happen with no lead up or context

[game-of-throws]

Why are we not targeting the hackers instead of privacy advocates?

Should we arrest the Tor developers because North Koreans use Tor?

[theptip]

Quite hard to target hackers inside a hostile country like NK.

[akimball]

Hard to pursue the perpetrator does not justify pursuing someone else.

[Someone]

Did you read the article? It starts:

“On Wednesday 10 August, the FIOD arrested a 29-year-old man in Amsterdam. He is suspected of involvement in concealing criminal financial flows and facilitating money laundering through the mixing of cryptocurrencies through the decentralised Ethereum mixing service Tornado Cash”

So the suspicion is that he didn’t only develop the tool, but was involved in its illegal use, too.

[formerly_proven]

> It would be like... if two dozen people were picketing outside of a big corporation, and the police came and arrested one dude. You would be the guy saying "they're coming for the protesters!" and I'm the guy saying "Well, if they're really after protesters why didn't they arrest all of them? And isn't that the guy they were investigating for a bank robbery?"

Weird take because taking one or a few persons out of a large crowd is a standard LE tactic for attacking protests and similar stuff.

[clucas]

OK, fine, change the example to... imagine there are a hundred restaurants in town, and the police come and arrest one restaurant owner. OP is the guy saying "they're coming for the restaurant owners!" and I'm the guy saying "Well..." etc.

My point is, there are a lot of people on HN who seem to think any arrest or prosecution of anyone who is involved in crypto is due to a shadowy push by the establishment to maintain control of the money supply and thus our lives. I'm trying to point out (1) there are simpler explanations, and (2) if you keep trying to defend everyone involved in crypto without knowing the facts, you're going to get burned and normies are going to be a lot more skeptical about crypto in the future. Just... be careful, guys.

[peyton]

One fact is that it’s Dutch law enforcement, not international law enforcement. A second fact is that Dutch law enforcement have stated “multiple arrests are not ruled out,” so we’re not talking about “just one guy” anymore.

Finally, I’m not optimizing for credibility when stating my opinion, nor am I defending a single person. I do not think arresting developers is an effective solution for preventing money laundering. It matters not to me who the “bad people” may be.

[plgonzalezrx8]

> we’re not talking about “just one guy” anymore.

Bad people can also work in groups.

> I do not think arresting developers is an effective solution for preventing money laundering.

You're essentially reducing his role to "Just a developer" while ignoring that he might be a lot more than just a developer and might be involved with actual money laundering at many different stages of the process other than "Just writing a little bit of code".

Im not defending one side or the other, just pointing out that by ignoring everything else and calling him "Just a developer" you're not being objective.

[BTCOG]

Sorry, but this is nonsense. This was strictly done because of US pressure and sanction. Netherlands would have done nothing and likely the US did the logging and tracing of this individual.

[petre]

We'll see if he gets extradited to the US.

[photochemsyn]

The 'compare and contrast' case is that of not a single HSBC employee or executive being arrested for helping the Sinaloa drug cartel launder over $2 billion in profits.

> "Across the world, HSBC likes to sell itself as ‘the world’s local bank,’ the friendly face of corporate and personal finance. And yet, a decade ago, the same bank was hit with a record U.S. fine of $1.9 billion for facilitating money laundering for ‘drug kingpins and rogue nations.’"

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61349754-too-big-to-jail

[gfodor]

> think a simpler explanation is that they have good reasons to believe that this guy was doing more than just the stuff you're trying to defend

This isn't a simpler explanation than the even simpler one that goverments have decided that cracking down on crypto is a good idea for a wide variety of reasons, and are executing on this decision. The way governments do this kind of thing is by starting to prosecute people who they think they have the best chance of willing a case against. This doesn't mean the case, ultimately, has merit, just that they've decided it's the most likely success.

[kazinator]

> Why do you think they only arrested this guy?

Because he was working on something specialized, where he was in effect a supplier to a single customer. Thus, he's turned into a ready scapegoat.

You can't easily scapegoat someone if their pieces of code (or ideas) are also used, say, in every browser for securing connections, or whatever.

If you're closer than arm's length from some people who are engaging in criminal activity, an in particular doing exclusive work for them, you are prosecutable.

[bufferoverflow]

That's a straw man argument. They don't have to arrest all to scare most into doing what they want them to do.

[Kiro]

No hacker should support this. Period. Don't let your hate for crypto blind you.

[tgflynn]

It could be the first of many. Up until yesterday we lived in a world (by which I mean the Western World) where no one had ever been arrested just for writing open source code. It appears that this is no longer the case. This is how the Overton window gets moved, one step at a time, not in huge leaps. And clearly there are powerful forces interested in moving it in a direction that would likely be detrimental to many of us here.

[clucas]

How do you know that this guy was arrested "just for writing open source code?"

The whole point of my comment was that he was probably arrested for more than that... Or at least, we should wait to see what the evidence against the guy is.

If you go around saying "the sky is falling! they're coming for the developers!" then it turns out the guy was actually doing bad stuff to help launder money, you're going to make it that much harder to get people's attention when there is an actual abuse of police power.

[tgflynn]

> How do you know that this guy was arrested "just for writing open source code?"

I don't know that, but that currently appears to be the case and I have yet to see any evidence to the contrary.

EDIT: The title of the page is "Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash". So they are certainly making it appear that they consider having developed Tornado Cash to itself be worthy of arrest.

[InitialLastName]

The article doesn't actually say he was arrested for being the developer of Tornado Cash. It might be trying to imply that (or offer an explanation of what the connection is between the arrest and the investigation into Tornado Cash). All the article asserts is that he is suspected to be the developer of Tornado Cash, and that he was arrested "[under suspicion] of involvement in concealing criminal financial flows and facilitating money laundering" via Tornado Cash. That could (and likely does) mean that he was involved in far more than just development.

[chii]

> where no one had ever been arrested just for writing open source code.

But was he arrested for _just_ the code he wrote? Or more, and the code was just an ancillary property of the person being arrested?