In case you had illusions that law enforcement respected the rights of the citizens for whom they work:
I am writing on behalf of the members of the Fraternal Order of Police to advise you of our strong opposition to section 604 of the substitute amendment for H.R. 3633, the “Digital Asset Market Clarity Act,” which would limit the ability of prosecutors to pursue cases of financial crimes in which cryptocurrency is used.
The FOP recognizes the right of Americans to trade digital assets through cryptocurrency. However, the reality of the situation is that these alternative forms of currency are often used by criminal actors to hide the profits from their illegal activity. Under current Federal statutes, law enforcement officers have been able to track down those who use these currencies to violate the law. By following these financial trails, prosecutors and law enforcement are able to build prosecutable cases and bring these criminals to justice. However, certain provisions of the Section 604 amendment would seriously hamper ongoing and future efforts to target these types of financial crimes.
Under the proposed amendment, “non-controlling developers or providers” would be exempted from being considered “money transmitting businesses.” This change would strip prosecutors and law enforcement of the statutes used to track and take down criminals using these digital assets to commit crimes. Criminal organizations, which already rely on these types of currencies, would find it even easier to commit crimes if this provision is adopted. Make no mistake, stripping law enforcement of its ability to track blockchain financial transactions would impede the work of our members in preventing criminals from profiting from their crimes. We are urging the Committee to reconsider this amendment, in order to ensure our officers aren’t working with their hands tied behind their backs. The FOP believes that through collaboration with law enforcement professionals, the Committee can pass regulations that benefit consumers while preserving justice in the digital asset sphere.
On behalf of the more than 382,000 members of the Fraternal Order of Police, thank you both for considering our views on this issue. If I can provide any additional information about this legislation, please do not hesitate to contact me or Executive Director Jim Pasco in our Washington, D.C. office.
https://www.dnb.com/business-directory/company-profiles.fraternal_order_of_police.54d313292ef3bb3c5b4cea4684dda70e.html
BREAKING NEWSBREAKING NEWS
The Brotherhood Cult of Flying Fuck are giving an official answer to Fraternal Order of Police:
WE DON'T GIVE A FLYING FUCK ABOUT YOUR BULLSHIT.
This letter is garbage
[Not criminalizing writing code will]
I mean, if law enforcement had the ability to approve or disapprove every financial transaction, I'm sure it would help them feel like they are enforcing the law. Of course, as we always see, they might succumb to the temptation to enforce it slightly differently for friends and family.
There are lots of things that make life easier for law enforcement. Trouble is they make life miserable for the rest of us.
I'd argue that the best method to make law enforcement's life easier would be to just remove some laws.
I don't think they are interested in easier in the sense of having less to do. I think they are interested in easier in the sense of having more power...which probably isn't easier at all, but seems so to people who think they know what's best for others.
That may be true. It's good that I'm working on encryption already because otherwise I'd have to make a note to self to spend more time working on encryption.
they might as well oppose 2A & manufacturers, by this logic.
I guess we will remember who our friends are.
anyway, pretending like this is more than just in-group hustle from the marketing department for State Control Corp. is silly... it's not like the FOP understands what's going on with money. undoubtedly run by the boomerest boomers imaginable
guys... don't forget to sign the petition for permission to use bitcoin.
It will help immensely.
The FOP letter assumes devs can be turned into choke points for tracing, but Bitcoin's public ledger already gives investigators the chain data they need without conscripting coders. Treating non-custodial software authors as money transmitters just shifts the target from actual criminals to anyone shipping open-source wallets or protocol fixes, which raises the cost of maintaining the very tools that make self-custody viable.
The framing of 'non-custodial dev protections' as a law enforcement threat is worth paying attention to. Once a narrative gets institutionalized in a letter like this, it has a way of becoming the default position in policy conversations, even when the technical reality doesn't support it.
This translates to, keep the posture broad enough to indict anyone in the stack and sort it out later. That is not investigation. That is leverage.
The honest version of this is that they say they built their case law on chokepoints and the chokepoints are disappearing, so please hand us a man to prosecute when the math refuses to cooperate.
Cash gets used by criminals. So do cars. So does encryption. The standard for taking a developer’s liberty cannot be “your code was useful to a bad person.” If that becomes the standard, every Linux maintainer is one indictment away from a federal docket.
382,000 members and not one of them noticed that code is speech.