Today Tornado Cash Developers were Charged with Money Laundering and Sanctions Violations by US Govt.

@`ODELL`and @`waxwing` rightly expressed their concerns and worries for all #bitcoin developers in this post

https://primal.net/e/note13vn0r7gdwy6eprj8vetl4y2yp6tc5c79q6qgzy9n73fev4zuwhnsezftd7

While I am not a criminal lawyer nor US qualified to be competent on that matter however the few bits and pieces gathered from the linked articles smell of a very "ideologically" motivated case by the US prosecutor.

I think @waxwing is right "If they didn't, then this is even worse, because it means US LE are prepared to make *really* tortuous arguments to go after privacy software developers."

Let´s remember that this is just the Public Prosecutor´s thesis and that nowadays public prosecutors are very much politically/ideologically biased. That the accusations are stretched to the max to try to build a case I would point to the following: "The DOJ further alleged that the defendants knew their service was being used to launder funds from hacks and other thefts"

Does under US Law the knowledge that a software you have built has been used for a crime makes yourself (the programmer) a criminal?`I very much doubt. How could you prove beyond reasonable doubt that I had knowledge of crimes being committed? Doubtful as well.

Also: "The DAO is an entity unto itself that, through its voting members, has demonstrated an agreement to a common purpose. As the government notes, the structure is not unlike that of stockholders of a corporation who may not intend to vote in a shareholder meeting, without this affecting the structure of the entity," the judge wrote.

Not very clear here whether the judge really understands (or cares to understand) how a DAO works. Who retains a majority of tokens/votes in this case? it is only the 2 accused or a number of token holders? Should you then prosecute all of them.

Also, once established the DAO operates automatically. How can then a token holder shut it down? The fact that the US government could not shut Tornado Cash down but only sanction it is the proven fact that the 2 accused could not change the course of events and could not stop crimes if any were committed. It is like saying: even if you could not stop the crime being committed you are charged anyways because you shuld have had previous knowledge that your software would be used for criminal purposes. Ehh??? Besides Tornado Cash and all other mixers have very legitimate uses for privacy concerned people. I would say that criminal activity is likely very marginal. Therefore it is by definition not a software built exclusively for criminal activity. Quite the contrary. Then how could the DOJ infer the developer´s criminal intent?? It is like charging the owner of a factory which manufactures screwdrivers with homicide because someone killed a person with a screwdriver.

My feeling is that we are in the area of highly politically motivated fantasy criminal charges. A good US criminal lawyer should win the case.

The bad thing though is that the DOJ will try to inflict as much pain as possible to the developers to make an example of them. Therefore I would recommend ALL #bitcoin developers to be very careful about their work and about revealing their identities. Back in 2008 Satoshi had understood this all too well.

I would also encourage you developers to keep up the great work you are doing especially on the area of bitcoin´s #privacy. Unfortunately it is all too clear to me that we are in a long term battle and that the elites and their political puppets who hold the keys to this fuckery fiat monetary system will do all they can to disrupt Bitcoin adoption. Be humble and keep your privacy levels very very high indeed. Always think in adversarial terms. Bitcoin was built for that.