Topic: Legitimate Uses of Bitcoins and the Dark Government (Read 3618 times)

Sounds like a trumped up charge for the local police to grab some money. Doesn't the US realise that actions like this just push the industry into more favourable countries. They are losing so much influence in the world, and they are going the right way to lose any control or influence in banking.

"Equitable Sharing" program ended.  Very good news:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.13399046

On July 13, 2015, the federal case against Burt was dismissed at the request of the Department of Justice.  Unfortunately the debt incurred to fight the spurious charge and the damage done to Burt's reputation remains.  Thank you to those who have supported our family during this difficult time.  
-- Jean
www.jmwagner.com and www.burtw.com

Selling aircraft carriers for example. [Dark Gov't]

With this bump, I want to thank those who've heeded Jean's request(s) via posting in this thread.

You don't realise how foreign it is until you go there and spend some serious time. I loved wandering around. I loved coming back to knackered old commie Europe too.

There could've been a case for overt dodginess in 2010. Now anyone trying to paint it as evil incarnate looks like a fool after two seconds of googling.

I'm really sorry that this happened to you and your family. You have my deepest sympathy. I'm not sure there is anything you could say to or show a government official to change the situation. There are many legitimate uses for Bitcoin as you can see from all of the great examples given but ever since the Liberty Reserve takedown the U.S. Government seems to have the single minded goal of ending the private use of Bitcoin. I appreciate that you want to do as much for yourself and your family as possible but you need to get a very, very good criminal attorney as soon as possible to do this stuff for you. I won't even trade Bitcoin at licensed exchanges like Coinbase anymore because of the way the government is over reacting.

Richard Weber, head of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service criminal investigation unit, said about cryptocurrency, "If Al Capone were alive today, this is how he would be hiding his money".

Preet Bharara, a US prosecutor that was responsible for putting Charlie Schrem in jail, believes Bitcoin has been linked to crimes including credit card fraud, identity theft, investment fraud, computer hacking, child pornography and narcotics trafficking. He's making it his goal to stop Bitcoin trading.

I am so glad, I do not live in the USA.

They talk about the land of the free....  but the country are like a huge police state. How is it legal for their government to sell Bitcoins, but the citizens are arrested, when they do the same thing?

Yes, they should be regulated and they should have permission, but arresting them like criminals for buying and selling Bitcoins are very extreme.

A year or two from now, when mass adoption around the world takes place, we will look back at this and laugh at this scenario. Burt will be filthy rich, when he takes this to court and sue their ass.

Good luck and be strong.... One day, this will be all over.  

I appreciate all of you taking the time to help me out.

Whenever I post on Bitcointalk.org, the federal authorities that are spying on the Bitcoin world report back to AUSA Korver and my husband's attorney gets an earful, so I won't be posting for the time being.

Thanks, Jean

Thanks for contributing to our daughter's fund.  She was hoping to use the money for rock climbing camp this summer.

Thanks, Jean

The mere fact that the US federal government has sold Bitcoin to the public should be enough of an example to any government official - if investing in BTC was illegal then why would the US Marshals not confiscate BTC and destroy them?

http://www.coindesk.com/us-marshals-auction-50000-bitcoins-march/

We could simply end the discussion with this logic.


Ask anybody that oppose bitcoin and claim it can only be used for illegal stuff the following question:

"Fiat cash, is it only used for illegal purposes?"

When they answer no, then respond:

"Bitcoin is the equivalent of cash, only in an online form, do you still think it is only used for illegal means?"

The truth is that as a technology, the blockchain and bitcoin is neutral. The fact that some use it for illegal purposes does not make it evil.

By using that argument, by extension you should also ban cellphones, highways and the internet itself. If it was not for roads, crime would effectively be stopped, right? No drug smugglers from mexico, no rapists, no nothing!

Also keep in mind that bitcoin will be huge for remittance, and already is being used for this. I think trying to convince somebody that bitcoin is not a bad technology speaks more about the lack of intelligence of the person opposing it for those reasons than anything else.

Now, for any govt. department, there's always the official stance, and we must also realize that even if bitcoin is neutral, there will be vested interests that wil claim it is not, but surely, it could be worth presenting evidence to the contrary, if it will be listened to is another matter entirely.

You could also make a case for all the VC money that goes into bitcoin. This is done by legitimate investors, in legitimate companies.

Here are a few of the larger and more well known establishments that all accept bitcoins as payment:

Overstock.com
NewEgg.com
TigerDirect.com
Dell.com
Expedia.com
Chicago Sun-Times
Several Chicago area Pizza Restaurants (Rosati’s, Papa Saverio’s, Tomato’s, Taylor Street, etc)
Dish Satellite TV
The Sacramento Kings
The San Jose Earthquakes
“The D” Hotel in Las Vegas
“Golden Gate” Hotel in Las Vegas
Microsoft Gaming
Gyft
Big Fish Games
The United Way
1800Flowers.com
Reddit
Braintree (A PayPal Company)
Reeds Jewelers

Take a look at coin map.org to find over 2,000 "brick & mortar” locations in North America that all accept bitcoins as payment for products or services.

Did I mention that bitcoin is the perfect way to make anonymous donations to worthy causes.
* No middleman
* Limited opportunities for fraud
* Low overheads

For example - restoring money stolen from little girls by governments ...

Not sure if it is listed but website hosting (shared hosting and vps) is big with bitcoin. The number one reason I think it is big, is because it is so easy to make the payments.

Also, it's important to have  in mind that the US is very concerned with upholding the petrodollar. One option for those not wanting to be a part of this is to leave the US completely. Of course that will not help anyone that is already hit, but for others, the time to leave might be now.

I kind of thought about that when I saw the story as well. Trust in the government is at all time lows for a reason. If they think making an example of a few high profile people will stop us they are dead wrong.

While I don't have anything to add to your list at the moment, I just wanna say thanks for this thread.  I'm posting here so that I can see the bumps and follow it.  Cheers!

Hopefully, Burt has full records of the bitcoin that he held, and all the cash that was in the house,
prior to the seizure.

 http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-30/federal-agents-investigating-bitcoin-money-laundering-stole-over-1-million-bitcoin

"Bridges allegedly diverted to his personal account over $800,000 in digital currency that he gained control of during the Silk Road investigation.  The complaint alleges that Bridges placed the assets into an account at Mt. Gox, the now-defunct digital currency exchange in Japan.  He then allegedly wired funds into one of his personal investment accounts in the United States mere days before he sought a $2.1 million seizure warrant for Mt. Gox’s accounts."

It might be worth following up some of the earlier transactions with government agents.

Hi Jean, nice to see you here... I too contributed to the piggybank fund, hopefully we'll get it to $600 worth of BTC for Zoe (and, honestly, I'm hoping this aspect of the story will get some media play on your behalf, i.e. "Generous Bitcoin Community Replaces Girl's Money Stolen By Government Thugs" would probably be worth much more than just the $ for your daughter... newcomers to this part of the story please see this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=985596.0;all and kick in a couple bits if you can afford it!)

Anyway just a comment: seems to me that the seed of their argument's destruction is right there in their own wording, i.e. it says "FEW" legitimate uses.

FEW does not mean NONE.

IF there is even only ONE SINGLE LONE SOLITARY "LEGITIMATE" possible USE for bitcoins, then they ought to have ZERO -NO- NONE -ZIP- rights to seize them at all. Period. Full-Stop. End-of-Story.

Sure, IF the wording said "no legit uses" well okay then, maybe they have something to argue.

But it says FEW... right? THEIR WORD?

So?  They're admitting right there - by NOT saying "NONE" - that there are SOME!!!

You therefore shouldn't even NEED to make a list to enumerate them: all your lawyers really ought to need to do is get 'em to admit, in court, that "few" does not mean NONE.

Of course IANAL, but seems like a reasonable point to me. If I was on the jury and it was presented to me in this way, personally I'd agree with this argument 100% no question.

KEVLARR