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posted by martyb on Tuesday December 05 2017, @05:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the all-your-coin-are-belong-to-us dept.

In May, the bill S.1241 (archive) was introduced in the U.S. Senate by Chuck Grassley, a Republican Senator from Iowa. The bill, if enacted, would call upon the Department of Homeland Security to develop

a strategy to interdict and detect prepaid access devices, digital currencies, or other similar instruments, at border crossings and other ports of entry for the United States

According to a story at btcmanager.com (square brackets in original),

the bill would "criminalize [those] intentionally concealing ownership or control of a [digital currency or digital exchange] account.

The Senate held a meeting about the bill on November 28. Witnesses included Charles Davidson of the Kleptocracy Initiative of the Hudson Institute conservative think tank; Douglas Farah of IBI Consultants, which specializes in "issues of national security, transnational crime, terrorism, terror finance and non-state armed actors"; and Kathryn Haun Rodriguez of Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange. Ms. Haun, however, made no mention of cryptocurrency in her testimony (PDF).


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Immerman on Tuesday December 05 2017, @07:27PM (4 children)

    by Immerman (3985) on Tuesday December 05 2017, @07:27PM (#605770)

    Sure, but that storage device doesn't need to be on your person.

    For example you could store your wallet on Dropbox, or any other file storage service anywhere in the world. In a file encrypted using some nondescript photo on your phone as a keyfile, if you want to be properly paranoid but still have convenient access.

    As you cross borders, there's no evidence such a file even exists. Meanwhile you have immediate access to it from anywhere in the world with an internet connection.

    That's a simple, obvious solution - and the only way to detect it reliably would be extremely invasive surveillance of the criminal long before they decided to leave the country.

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  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday December 05 2017, @09:09PM

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday December 05 2017, @09:09PM (#605817)

    Sure, but that storage device doesn't need to be on your person.

    For example you could store your wallet on Dropbox, or any other file storage service anywhere in the world. In a file encrypted using some nondescript photo on your phone as a keyfile, if you want to be properly paranoid but still have convenient access.

    This stuff is completely ridiculous. Every Senator born in the 1930s knows full well that the only way to move money across borders is in person, and that this law will work just fine in physically preventing people from moving money across borders without authorization.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 05 2017, @09:18PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 05 2017, @09:18PM (#605821)

    a. You didn't carry it across the border.

    b. You did, in your head.

    Either way, we can use a brain scanner to find out about it. There are probably ways to reveal a password even. For example, read off supposed passwords, watching the brain, and note when the signal changes -- that is the first incorrect part of the password.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday December 05 2017, @11:44PM

    by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Tuesday December 05 2017, @11:44PM (#605893) Journal

    Absolutely correct. However, if I understand the summary (and won't read the TFA), they can ask you: Do you have any cryptocurrency accounts? And you say, "No," and they have absolute proof (thanks to the CIA or FINCEN or whatever) that you do. You are then guilty of a crime, and not only can you be refused entry or deported, you most likely can be held in Guantanamo or black sited.

    They aren't looking to catch you with a USB drive with a Bitcoin wallet - though this will be the pretext for getting the law passed and DEA or whatever will take you down if you do.

    And Extremely Invasive Surveillance of the Criminal Long Before They Decided to Leave the Country = NSA.

    --
    This sig for rent.
  • (Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday December 06 2017, @01:26AM

    by legont (4179) on Wednesday December 06 2017, @01:26AM (#605940)

    It does not matter if coins cross the border at the same time as the body or not. They can simply check the source when coins are spent. It is either a buy from a reputable dealer with traceable funding source or mining with a paid electrical bill. Lacking last two would prove illegal border crossing. Note that any exchange of coins in an attempt to anonymise transactions would be repeated crossing and I can imagine say 100000 violations * 1 month each prison term.

    --
    "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.