FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names
forumserver.twoplustwo.com
forumserver.twoplustwo.com
Indictment http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/schein...
I would also add, if they are going after these poker sites for money laundering, at this point players probably will be unable to deposit or withdraw any money in to their game accounts.
from the indictment: "The United States also filed a civil money laundering and in rem forfeiture complaint (the "Civil Complaint") against the Poker Companies, their assets, and the assets of several payment processors for the Poker Companies."
That means they are taking everything Any asset that any of these defendants has, that is within US government reach will be seized. The domain names were probably the easiest part.
additionally from the indictment: "Defendants BITAR,SCHEINBERG, BURTNICK, TATE, TOM, BECKLEY, RUBIN and LANG are not presently in the United States and have not yet been arrested. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York is working with foreign law enforcement agencies and Interpol to secure the arrest of these defendants and the seizure of criminal proceeds located abroad."
That doesn't sound like a rogue US seizure of some domain names they didn't like (which was the case with the ICE seizures.)
I guess it's nice to be the King.
$ host pokerstars.com
pokerstars.com has address 77.87.179.116
pokerstars.com mail is handled by 20 mx20.pokerstars.com.
$ host absolutepoker.com
absolutepoker.com has address 66.212.244.175
absolutepoker.com mail is handled by 10 mail.absolutepoker.com.
absolutepoker.com mail is handled by 5 mx1.absolutepoker.com.
absolutepoker.com mail is handled by 5 mx2.absolutepoker.com.
$ host fulltiltpoker.com
fulltiltpoker.com has address 91.211.98.20
fulltiltpoker.com mail is handled by 200 mit-mx00.fulltiltpoker.com.
fulltiltpoker.com mail is handled by 100 mx00.fulltiltpoker.com.
$ host ultimatebet.com
ultimatebet.com has address 66.212.244.148
ultimatebet.com mail is handled by 100 mailb.ultimatebet.com.
ultimatebet.com mail is handled by 200 mailc.ultimatebet.com.
ultimatebet.com mail is handled by 10 mail.ultimatebet.com.
$ host ub.com
ub.com has address 66.212.231.205
I selfishly hope they go after everybody with money on any of those sites, because it might generate more outrage than just the domain name seizures.
[1]: http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2011/manhattan-u.s...
I cashed out using other players as intermediaries and did it myself for other players as well. There was a well established exchange rate and cost in cashing out through other players, so in a way we were also part of the money laundering problem.
Sure, but we can at least take a screenshot of our accounts for the purposes of a class-action lawsuit later, either against the site or the government, itself.
$ host 209.47.206.47
47.206.47.209.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer fulltiltpoker.com.
$ host 209.47.206.46
46.206.47.209.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer fulltiltpoker.com.
$ host 209.47.206.45
45.206.47.209.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer fulltiltpoker.com.
$ host 209.47.206.44
44.206.47.209.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer fulltiltpoker.com.
There are a few related domains that reverse resolve around that netblock. Some spot checking isn't showing a web page for me, although it is connecting to a webserver.
209.47.206.47 fulltiltpoker.com
I have nothing to do with online gambling (anymore), but this just sent shivers down my spine. Who's next?
The US Government has just strengthened the case of those who were concerned about having parts of Internet infrastructure under the control of the US government.
Domain seizures have been happening for a while (i.e. [1]), but this case will probably be the highest profile to date and will hopefully raise public awareness about this disturbing issue.
I won't be surprised to see US based domain registrars to start loosing a lot of their business quite soon.
TL;DR: About $100M-$1B of law-abiding citizens' money is currently in limbo because the government didn't consider the collateral damage of its attack on the big 3 poker sites (for all intents and purposes, UB and AP are the same site).
It will but not in the manner you hope, you see they always go after sex, drugs or gambling when they are trying to set precedence. The moral outrage hands them the jury and then they can use the precedence on less morally distasteful targets as case law gets build upon past rulings.
My primary domain is a .net. I'm loathe to part with it since the TLD is a useful descriptor in this case, but now I'm very seriously considering registering and switching over to the .eu equivalent, which is only a couple bucks more per year.
That said, they have implemented mandatory wiretapping on everyone some years ago, so I wouldn't count on EU sanity or benevolence there.
Your reference to Bitcoin is apt, as the government siezed $7M in gold, silver and platinum from a political organization who was advocating the use of generic silver and gold rounds instead of depreciating paper currency.... and just a few weeks ago succeeded in railroading the leader of that organization.
Nobody wants to do this, though, as it would destroy the fabric of the internet as we know it or something. But a simpler method would just incur more government push back in an arms race around censorship. Do what the chinese [citizens] do: go covert.
But outside of which country? You'd have to read the local news for every country in the world that currently has them, every day, if not hourly.
What happens if people start selectively paying attention to the ICANN root servers? For instance, my computer is set to use google's DNS. What happens if the DNS admins at google decide that they're going to just ignore the update from ICANN?
And what happens if there is a second-tier DNS that crops up specifically to thwart attempts at messing around with the records? (Honestly, domains being 'seized' should be treated like faulty equipment. If a drive starts bailing out, you replace it. To me, it sounds like the US gov't's ability to modify the DNS at their will is a click-of-death on the DNS)
[1] http://dot-p2p.org/ [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlterNIC
Potential legal issues aside, what you end up with is a New Internet. Of course routes all remain the same, but nobody refers to addresses or routes: they use host names. Thus you run a huge risk of networked applications just not working, which would affect everything from entertainment to commerce to government services and god knows what else (what if medical devices in hospitals needed to retrieve a firmware upgrade and couldn't connect to the right host?).
In practice there would be no technical hurdle to do this. It's simple to just configure your domain name server to include some records, leave out some records and change others. Some people do this if their ISP redirects failed lookups to some advertising-laden homepage, for example. But on a large scale, the modification of the naming system to one's personal tastes has broad-reaching negative consequences related to availability of hosts and the functional and legal consequences therein. On a personal scale (modifying only your own name server results), you get to connect to your poker site again. I prefer the latter solution. If operating systems just started including a simple GUI to modify their personal domain name caches we probably wouldn't need an alternate dns root.
I think, however, the domain seizures just emphasize the importance of using a system that doesn't depend on regularly constituted DNS and getting more and more P2P infrastructure in place. I2P should be looked at as particularly promising.
You could harvest IP addresses from the IRC channel, but you could also do that by running the client and noting down which peers you connect to. Unless you're running behind Tor or I2P, it's not hard to figure out which IP addresses have connected.
However, assuming the government had this list, what would it do? It's hard to bring charges against a large number of individuals scattered throughout different jurisdictions, and historically, the US government hasn't gone after the people using alternative currencies; they'd go after the source.
They could shut down the Bitcoin site - which would be quickly moved to an international domain. They could try and prosecute the lead programmers of the Bitcoin software, but this would not be particularly successful. It wouldn't stop Bitcoin, and I think it would be hard for them to show the currency as being illegal without, for instance, affecting MMO currencies as well.
I figure their best move would be to shut down the currency exchanges, or at least tie them up in court long enough to damage confidence in the Bitcoin economy. However, if the exchanges win, then Bitcoin has an official seal of legality, and a huge heaping of press attention.
Probably original bitcoin author remained anonymous for the fear of government's retaliation.
And there are about 300 hardcoded nodes right now from different countries.
I think hardcoded nodes are updated only manually via git.
http://kotaku.com/#!5515459/south-korea-to-impose-overnight-...
As for Bitcoin, you can research the legal history of various "digital currencies" and you will see that there have already been problems in this area. The purpose of Bitcoin, a decentralized and unregulated anonymous medium of exchange is obviously contradictory to the government's aims. It all boils down to the fact that governments want a monopoly on currencies and want to be able to monitor and tax economic activity. Digital economies are growing rapidly in size and social importance and they are no more likely to be allowed to flourish unregulated than the free sharing of copyrighted media was.
http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=po...
http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=fu...
http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=ub...
All of the domains point to nameservers at cirfu.net, which appears to be the FBI's Cyber Initiative and Resource Fusion Unit (http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Cyber_Initiative_and_Resource_Fu...)
What's more interesting (to me): the domains don't appear to have been using US domain registrars.
What's more terrifying
If this is the case, then obviously we have a very serious problem on our hands. This threatens the way the internet works at the infrastructure level. Clearly the US needs to be stripped of their root DNS server privileges.
And, i'd love to see your alternative proposal for who should run root DNS. Cause the US is nakedly political and partisan, but at least it's nakedly so. :\
But in ICANN's defence most people who participate in ICANN (remember it is a self selecting body) aren't happy about all the seizures either. I'm sure the mailing lists are going "full tilt" (pun intended) as we type.
And of course, this puts ICANN at risk itself, as it's forced to explain or decry the seizures. The FBI is taking short term actions which will have long term effects. You gotta wonder if they've got lawyers who understand the implications of what they're doing.
If they seize a .co.uk, then there's something to be worried about, but as far as I am aware that has not happened.
In the above case, (almost) no crimes were committed by anyone in an area the US has jurisdiction over; fulltiltpoker.com, at least, could be said to be actively recruiting Americans.
they seized an asset that they claim - probably rightly - is within their jurisdiction
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
A Federal law requiring US government electronic and
information technology (EIT) to meet accessibility
requirements
http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/schein...
A lot harder to avoid the money laundering charges, but they could argue that they had to process payments in that way because the banks wouldn't accept them because of an unjust UIEGA law
What I'm not sure is how they can prosecute Canadian citizens living in Ireland or Canada.
In this case though it's likely fought pretty strongly since it's possible that what they did weren't offences in their home countries.
Just because you're in NZ, AU, Can, Ireland or $Taxhaven, doesn't mean you're 'safe' from US interference.
The tail does not wag the dog. And it's a bloody big dog.
Arguably the only place safe from gross US interference is the EU, but mainly because as the world's largest government-by-committee they cannot find their arse with both hands and a map. And even then the reality is somewhat different, it isn't hard to play one side off against the other in their internal wrangles.
-----
I would guess most of those places have been leaned on by the US to also ban online gaming.
Most countries are trying to unify copyright laws (good or bad). There is no international consensus on online gambling, though.
As a professional poker player, the biggest concern right now are players balances. I know players with 250k+ bankrolls that are extremely concerned about the status of their money online.
Right now it's entirely unclear the relative size of the seizures.
If anyone has any questions from someone in the midst of this, fire way. I'll be up all night.
How do you trust these sites? A casino in Las Vegas will get huge fines if one of the employees rips off players. How do you know some internal IT guy isn't cheating you?
For someone in the US, it can be difficult depositing and withdrawing money. It's often easiest to keep your entire bankroll 'online' (in poker sites such as pokerstars or full tilt) rather than in banks or online wallets (such as moneybookers).
250k could be a standard poker bankroll for a high stakes professional poker player. My bankroll that I keep onlien is 50k USD and i don't consider myself a high-stakes player.
>>> Are there tables that you can bring 250k to?
It's 2.5 buyins for 500/1000 NL. There have been +1 million dollar pots heads up - http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/37/televised-poker/1-1-mil....
Although one doesn't normally sit with their bankroll. However due to the friction (time hassle, exchange rates, withdrawal fees) it is sensible to keep multiple buyins online at one time. I play from 5-10 to 25-50 limit and need 50k online spread across 8+ sites so I have enough to keep in action.
>>> Do these sites pay interest?
No.
They make more money by being trustworthy than not.
It has happened but it has usually been detected by players noticing unusual patterns in a players actions/win rate.
To my knowledge the highest stakes spread online are FT NL/PLO games of 500/1k (so buyin is $100k) and 2k/4k limit (you could theoretically buy in for what you like but the largest you could play in a pot would be 24 + 84 = 48k
>>> They make more money by being trustworthy than not. >>> It has happened but it has usually been detected by players noticing unusual patterns in a players actions/win rate.
Not sure what you mean here.
Aren't there deep-stacked high buy-in games now? Besides, I actually have a screen shot where I sat at a .25/.50 table ($50 buyin) long enough to get it up to $500, or 10 buyins. Surely it's possible for two players to sit at 500/1K and get the balance up over 250K. I'd even dare to say that in a reasonably-long headsup match, it would be very likely.
What I meant is the poker rooms have more to lose by getting caught being dishonest than they have to gain by skimming some profits.
There has been a few cases where employees were found to be using exploits to cheat. In these cases its usually players finding unusual patterns in their play and calling them out on it that has lead to them being caught.
> What I meant is the poker rooms have more to lose by getting caught being dishonest than they have to gain by skimming some profits.
I wish it were that easy. A recent example is Microgaming. 20 skins of that network (a network still going today with sites like ladbrokes, 32bet are part of) went down, and took with it 5 million dollars of deposits. Players weren't refunded; microgaming did not honour those deposits.
>>> There has been a few cases where employees were found to be using exploits to cheat. In these cases its usually players finding unusual patterns in their play and calling them out on it that has lead to them being caught.
In the UltimateBet cheating scandal, it is assumed the vast majority of funds stolen from players was not returned. No one involved was caught. A man strongly connected with the cheating at UB was one of the 12 named by the DoJ as an owner of UB/AP.
You can sit at some tables with $100K. It's very easy to 4-table. Moreover, it's very easy to have a 10-buy-in swing. This means that at a bare minimum, a legitimate player has at least 15 buy-ins on any given site, and he damned well better have another 15-25 somewhere else (cash, other sites, etc.) if he doesn't want to risk blowing his entire bankroll (going "busto").
The players with these kinds of balances are part of a very tight-knit community that is largely centered around 2+2. FullTilt and PokerStars both have representatives that post there. It is basically to the poker world what Hacker News is to the tech world. If even one player's money was seized for an undisclosed reason, the major sites (which make money hand-over-fist daily from rake) would lose a lot of faith, and their entire business model centers on their customers' good faith.
There were a few people cheating before on UltimateBet and AbsolutePoker. Thanks to the aforementioned community reconciling various players' hand databases (each hand can be logged), they were caught and both of those sites lost a ton of business.
I also replied to your post below but just to clarify this for everyone: despite he effort from hese communities, those involved in he cheating were never caught. In fact. those named by the DoJ as the heads of Absolute Poker are heavily implicated and the company line has been that ownership had changed hands; this is clearly not the case.
And despite significant pressure, large amounts of money has not been returned to players. And despite Absolute/UB temporarily seeing great loss of traffic, they regained and were up to last night the 3rd largest American-facing network or site.
Approximately 30-50%.
>>> Do you use many sites or just one or two?
Personally I have money on 9-10 different networks/sites. FT and pokerstars were the biggest 2. I kept about 50% of my bankroll on star as I trust them the most.
Because I don't reside in the US I have a much wider selection of sites on offer. However I know many, in both the US and Europe, who play on exlusively one site, often due to loyalty (sites offer favourable terms if you put a lot of play on one site)
Along with a journalist friend we put up http://pokerfuse.com and will be updating it as news breaks. Hope it's okay to link here (my weekend project!).
http://torrentfreak.com/firefox-add-on-undoes-u-s-government...
I'm reminded of the John Gilmore quote, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
The internet is not like Usenet in that way. Its design is full of central points of failure: root nameservers, TLD nameservers, DNS registries, BGP, and AS and IP allocation, among others. Some newer network protocols like BitTorrent are indeed capable of routing around censorship and other forms of damage, but older ones like the Web are not.
I've written a bit about some thoughts on how to fix that, but I still haven't done much: http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2006-Novembe...
Nothing is a more serious menace to our society and our way of life than ... online gambling. I'm glad that in this time of unprecedented natural disasters, geopolitical unrest, and financial crisis our government still has its priorities straight.
Looks like you might need it.
I used to play online poker for a living, I had a decent chunk of cash locked up for almost a year when they came down on online poker previously (UIGEA) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAFE_Port_Act#Internet_gambling...
It's worth noting that these are NOT American companies. It doesn't look like anyone (players) has had their assests seized; but this is bad news for a lot of people.
It also appears people are still playing.
The domain seizures are very troubling, though.
Edit: There seems to be some dispute over where it's a crime to "participate" in different US states, but for the purposes of the "customer assests seized", the transaction is illegal, so it's to be expected that the "cash is locked up" as the result of government action.
If they did, smart professional players like Durrr and Ivey wouldn't keep multi-million dollar bankrolls online that are subject to loss at any time.
That's just common sense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UIGEA
UIGEA "prohibits gambling businesses from knowingly accepting payments in connection with the participation of another person in a bet or wager that involves the use of the Internet and that is unlawful under any federal or state law." but does not make it a crime for a citizen to engage in the activity.
http://www.gambling-law-us.com/State-Law-Summary/
You are right though, the UIGEA makes it illegal to transfer money from a US citizens account to an 'illegal gambling operation.' It doesn't actually define what an illegal gambling operation is.
I'm not 100% sure as it's been a while since I've kept up with this but I believe that Poker has always been in a sort of gray area. I think there is suppose to be a distinction between games of chance and games of skill. In the past only online sports books or true online casinos had ever been prosecuted in the US.
This isn't a judgement, but a real attempt to understand: why would you lock up a significant amount of money someplace like that?
Keeping money online or in a "Neteller" account was a good way to keep a bankroll outside your regular "spending money."
Most professional (or serious) players keep a bankroll as a running tally of gains/losses and for tax purposes (yes, it's true).
When the UIGEA passed, neteller had all it's assests frozen.
This is common practice though.. poker players will have a huge chunk of their networth on poker sites. Keeping money online just made sense, that's where you would use it to make more money.
So I didn't get it locked up from a poker site itself (as far as I know no one lost money that way), but from the payment processor. Everyone got their money back, it was just a long time.
I had a couple months worth of living expenses (I was small time).. but others had dozens to hundreds of 1000's locked up.
... making it just as vulnerable as virtually anything, right? So...
And until they exchange it, it's in a currency that's only recognized by a single "bank" - the Poker site - so in my mind (and this might just be me being insane) it's not really real.
If I can't buy a sandwich or a beer with it, it doesn't feel like real cash.
Where do you keep your cash? If your business deals in dollars and cents, you probably keep it in a bank account. Your clients pay you, making its way into your account, and you pay bills out of that account.
Poker players do all their business with their poker accounts. Rakeback sites deposit directly into the accounts, player transfers are often used to facilitate real-world transactions between friends, and things like concierge service can even be provided by the poker sites themselves.
For a poker player, their online accounts are both their cash and their capital. There's really no way around having a large amount of money tied up on these sites if you're a high stakes player.
And it's not irrational. These sites make so much money in rake every day that it would never make sense for them to run off with everyone's money. At least not until the government steps in, seizes their cash, and threatens their business model when it's not even clear that the act of hosting poker games is against the law.
I love cricket, but there's been a persistent series of match-fixing and spot-fixing allegations for years, almost exclusively originating from illegal south Asian (primarily Indian) bookmakers. The legal markets haven't been the source of this sort of problem at all.
Much as I might not like gambling, there is a persistent human desire for it and the evidence seems to be that banning it, as so often, exacerbates rather than minimises harm. The US government should stop trying to hold back the tide on this.
Voter preference, individual rights, domain name sanctity, jurisdiction, shortsightedness with regard to keeping control of TLD's, futility of the fight, all have no bearing when uncontested lobby money wants something, and doubly so when states think it will mean more tax dollars in their pockets.
If I saw this and was at a company like OpenDNS, I'd start considering saying "No. Sorry. We're going reverting back to the last good record." The federal government might have technical jurisdiction, and U.S. customers might technically be violating U.S. laws but the ability of the federal government to seize internet properties terrifies me because it might set a national and international precedent. (Other countries already do this, but U.S. doing it kinda makes it globally sanctioned.) I'm terrified of a slippery slope, even though I usually find slippery slope arguments dubious. (Plus, I just think this is a dumb seizure to begin with...)
(End of youthful indignation.)
Online gambling sites? Joe Schmoe's everywhere are about to get seriously angry.
It's sad it came to this but maybe it takes something as overreaching as this to get the attention of people.
I am however surprised that they're seizing domains as I figured this would remain one of those "live and let live" legislations, like the online gambling equivalent of brown-bagging your drink. I imagine this will not end well for whoever was involved in this decision.
Also, 2+2ers sup bro.
Nice to see other 2+2ers on HN.
http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/web-kings-life-on-the-lin...
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted and you create a nation of law-breakers."
- Ayn Rand
It's just basic common sense: Use domains/registrars which fall under the legal authority of a country in which your website is legal.
If I'd was a non-US company using a .com domain I think now is the time where I'd switch to another TLD.
There's a lot of civil liberty discussion in this thread, but I think this is actually a fascinating story about the linkage points between the internet and the real world -- in the real world, these guys needed bank processing. To get it, they went way, way over the line, as did the Bank owner.
The fact that they had to bribe a bank to open and use an account is really really sick.
I'm presuming most of the main people here don't live in the states, they are no doubt implementing their own personal Plan B's right now, and have already landed in their chosen spots.
The US citizens living in the US are in the most trouble, I'd guess.
It's funny, but you do realize the government defines what is and what is not a crime? I only hope for your sake the government doesn't make your industry illegal. Otherwise you may have to bribe others to earn a living.
It's unfortunate that many don't realize this is just the beginning. There is a multitude of other industries which are on the "edge" and trust me, if this goes well for the government (3 billion profit) they will come after everyone else with full force!
The three poker sites - PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker - have been shut down."
Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/f...
And it's not just gambling sites, in 2001 Dmitry Sklyarov was arrested on a similar basis.
That's hardly a ringing endorsement for the land of the free, is it?
All financial transactions are processed by Hoop & Javelin Holdings Ltd., Vincenti Buildings, Suite 522, 14/19 Strait Street, VLT1432 Valletta, Malta, owner of this website.
Can the FBI seize the domain because it's a .com TLD? Or, because transactions were occurring in the States?
Since I doubt the US government will start respecting international law (and ICAAN is international agreements, to which the US government has agreed) the only solution to this will be a viable alternative DNS system.
This is a serious threat to any startup... even though you're not engaged in gambling, they are constantly expanding the "crimes" they will use to sieze domains.
Having only a .com for a business feels a lot like having all your eggs in one basket now.
They don't a care a bit if a site is entirely foreign-owned and entirely legal in the country of ownership.
However, in this case it is a little bit unclear: The "ub.com" domain itself has been registered with an UK based registrar, but the nameservers point to a US company (UltraDNS). Still, from the evidence available it seems that the US directly tampered with the data at the registry (VeriSign):
* According to the UK registrar's WHOIS information the responsible nameserver for the domain is at UltraDNS.
* UltraDNS seems to return the 'correct' results.
* When asking the .com nameservers for the ub.com nameservers, they return two nameservers at cirfu.net.
* cirfu.net leads to the web page with the seizure information.
So yes, it seems that the FBI can indeed size any .com domain, even though it has been registered with a registrar outside of the US. If I'd be a company not based in the US now would be the time where I'd think about migrating to another TLD - I guess for online gamling sites even .ly domains would be a better bet than .com.
A few big ones remained operational for US players, the biggest being Stars and FullTilt, with the only change being refusal to accept credit cards as a deposit method. I'd venture to say millions of bank deposits have occurred since then within the US, and the legality of it all was never black and white, and certainly not enforced in any way.
The US gets to seize assets anywhere in the world if they have some connection to an alleged US crime?
I could see a Benelux registrar organization setting up a quality .tld that was free from seizure over stupid shit.
There are still other minor routing problems that can occur, but with proxies and DNS, that is much much more of a whack-a-mole problem than high level domain name seizure.
http://www.pokerstars.net/ http://www.pokerstars.jp/ http://www.pokerstars.de/
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/doj-indicts-founders-of-top...
Also you can register domains directly at isnic.
Shows the propagation is underway.
<HTML>
<TITLE>WARNING</TITLE>
<IMG SRC="banner7.jpg">
</HTML>
But perhaps you're right and the FBI can be sued for non-compliance.
The banner image that's there is meant to send a warning. It would have taken considerably less effort for them to put a blank message, or serve a 404 page than what I'm sure involved a committee of at least 4 people and 2 ranking executives to craft, create, get approval for, and implement the banner image that is currently in place.
Your indifference to the Blind is touching. But at least you got your off-topic troll in.
PokerStars.cz FullTiltPoker.ly
The government hasn't gone out of it's jurisdiction, technically speaking.
From the press release:
... arranged for the money received from U.S. gamblers to be disguised as payments to hundreds of non-existent online merchants purporting to sell merchandise such as jewelry and golf balls
Now, do they have the right to do this? Of course not, but not having the right to do something has never stopped the FBI before.
Remember, this is an organization that was created explicitly for the purpose of out-Mafia-ing the Mafia.
The client can use ips to auto-update with new domain names probably (it's got a pool of addresses to try). In a few days enough new links will be created to pokerstars.net that it will be reasonably visible on google. Service itself will buy loads of domains and start advertising as pokerstars.{your_tld}. In the meantime, pokerstars.net is still available as usual.
They've killed several botnets and lots of other sites, too, if anyone has noticed.
[ http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ONLINE_GAMBLING_DC]
The day the government grabs the assets of a few rich people, you can bet your ass these laws will change in a hurry.
This is the message I get when I log in: http://i.imgur.com/PfUl4.png
I also recall the difference between the poker related .com and .net sites. So fulltiltpoker.net is still up as is pokerstars.net - that, if I recall correctly, was because the .net website was aimed a playing poker with "fake money" while the .coms were all aimed at playing poker with "real money"
* Violation of Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act [5 years prison]
* Operation of Illegal Gambling Business [5 years prison]
* Conspiracy to Commit Bank Fraud and Wire Fraud [30 years prison]
* Money Laundering Conspiracy [20 years prison]
And for all of them fines double the gross gain or loss: http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/schein...
http://blogs.reuters.com/financial-regulatory-forum/2011/01/...
Winners don't conduct illegal gambling operations.
-- William S. Sessions, Director of the FBIhttp://www.businessinsider.com/boy-genius-online-poker-scand...
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/383473/white_house_r...
Pokerstars.com works, Fulltiltpoker.com works, UB.com gives me an FBI page.
pokerstars.net is still up
pokerstars.co.uk gives a 404 error, after redirecting to pokerstars.com/uk
seems like sloppy webmastership from the FBI.
edit: confirm for PS and FTP also, you can check with that webproxy: http://www.fasterthree.info/index.php
The sooner horse racing ends up where it belongs, alongside dogfighting and bear-baiting, the better.
It was obvious to me then that this was a violation of due process. Also, it is not authorized by the constitution, and thus every act of seizure under it is criminal act. (There is a federal law that makes it a felony to violate constitutional rights under color of law. Fourth amendment prohibits this.)
Notably, Bush the First, Clinton, Bush the Second and Obama have not made any moves to undo this legislation.
Meanwhile, this has been used to take money from bikers on their way to buy a motorcycle, and random motorists in Florida and Texas who get pulled over for speeding. "It could be drug money" says the "law enforcement officers" who take life savings and then spend it on themselves.
Just because they haven't seized your assets yet, doesn't mean you aren't at risk.
When the government can take whatever it wants, without any legal restraint, and in violation of the ultimate law of the land, that government is not a legitimate government.
We should be outraged. We should be throwing the bums out-- from Obama down to the local state congresspeople or local sheriffs and judges who fail to take actions overturning this, or who themselves participate in this. It does not matter what party they are from, they are all culpable, and they are all criminals.
Edited: I removed the reference to my property that was stolen by the FBI because it prompted many people to attack me below. I really would rather the discussion be about how to resolve this issue for domain names, or maybe some discussion about how to overturn these seizure laws.
Edited: I've made the legal case in defense of those wrongfully convicted. I cannot keep up with the tide of people who have no citations of the law, but are quick to disparage me personally, for my crime of defending victims here.
Frankly, I think that the ease with which people assume that "naturally" these people were "bad guys" and therefore what they did was "illegal" despite the law and the constitution, is the very proof of my central point that the government is out of control, and they are getting away with it because people can't be bothered to challenge the belief-- taught by government in government schools-- that the "rule of law" holds sway.
Never heard of that. Link?
USC 18-242
I called it a felony though the law only makes it one if a "dangerous weapon" is involved.
Key part with lots of sub clauses removed for readability: "Whoever, under color of any law, willfully subjects any person in any State to the deprivation of any rights, on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both;"
Let me quote it with line breaks for readability:
"Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, "
So, anyone who dies this.
"or to different punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than are prescribed for the punishment of citizens, "
Or who does this based on race, residency....
"shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both"
Shall be punished.
You can invoke the law by doing the first set of things, or by doing the second set of things.
It is an OR clause, meaning if A OR B are true, then the penalties apply. IF there were an AND on race, it would be the way you read it.
If you do A OR B based on C
A: Deprivation of rights B: Different punishments
where C is on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race
I removed B to make it more readable in my initial comment because you were only talking about A.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/42/usc_sec_42_00001983----...
Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, except that in any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officer’s judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable. For the purposes of this section, any Act of Congress applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be considered to be a statute of the District of Columbia.
But if you read it, it is very clear.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
It is cut and dry. All of these siezures are not taking evidence, they are stealing property.
Money is property, it is not evidence of any crime, especially when it is electronic funds in a bank account.
This doesn't mean what you think it means.
It doesn't mean that the government can't take your stuff, full stop. It means that the government can't take your stuff without due cause and process.
Both of which were followed in this case, it appears. The indictment was posted here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2451482
Sometimes we can't rely on our elected officials, even though we should be able to; a SCotUS case might be the best way to change this.
If you can't read the document and deduce it's meaning, why use this document? Is this an emperors clothe type of thing?
The constitution is pretty black and white, and this is a good thing, because it means you can tell what is set out by it, and what is up to the legislature.
All the areas where the constitution enumerated powers it gave the legislature a free hand to determine what is right.
Thus for the areas that the constitution does address, it is pretty black and white and it is meant to be enforced by the people.
... and it really isn't hard to understand, nor does it require much interpretation. Just careful reading.
If our fate is in the hands of a few judges (it is), doesn't this void our "democratic principles"?
I can't help but feel our understanding of government isn't much more than catch phrases and sentiment. Patriotism, we the people, one nation under god, the greater good, public servants, all total bs. If we criticized the processes of government like we did start-ups (such as the costs of value added), we'd be a whole lot wealthier. /rant
A simple example is wiretapping laws. Because of historical stare decisis interpretations of the Constitution, it is ruled a violation of the 4th Amendment for the government to wiretap a citizen without a court order. Nowhere in the Constitution is this protection written -- it required the application of the spirit of the document to the 20th century by the Supreme Court.
Fortunately, we don't need to bicker about this because you seem to hold the Constitution as the preeminent law of the land. Since the Constitution is correct by definition (according to you) and it gives the Supreme Court jurisdiction over its interpretation, the Supreme Court is also correct by definition.
To the contrary, my point is this document is ambiguous and subject to interpretation. So, who interprets it? The judges of course! The very people this document is supposed to protect me from. Seems a bit circular. Fast forward to year 2012, and judges say it's OK to seize domain names. How can the constitution defend my right to free speech and also defend the government's right to seize domains?
Then it's Constitutional by definition. Congress, however, can pass a law amending the Constitution to prohibit the seizure of domain names. Then it's no longer Constitutional. Do they not teach the three branches of government or checks and balances in middle school anymore?
[citation needed]
Ever played a board game and had people disagreed on what the rules said. If you play games of any complexity, it happens all the time. Life is considerably more difficult than any game.
He was actually a quite fair ref.
It's not good in sports and it's far worse in government.
The document does have a court system, but if you read it closely you'll realize that nowhere in it does it say that the courts have the ability to rule on the constitutionality of anyone else's actions, nor does it say what the courts can do if the constitution is violated. That was a power that the courts themselves decided that they had. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison for details.
Why teach the illiterate to read? What good are words if people need teachers to explain them?
But most people do not do the research. Most people assume that only the government can "make money" and most people fall for the idea that putting the word "dollar" on something somehow makes it counterfeit. It is this ignorance that lets them get away with such crimes.
I'm not trying to call you ignorant (as a pejorative). I'm just trying to say that I read the relevant laws, including the ones cited in the case against NotHaus et. al. and they do not prohibit what the Liberty Dollar was actually doing. Not at all.
In fact, the only thing illegal would be to make exact copies of US currency and pass them off as real. That is counterfeiting.
I can make a currency out of coffee beans or silver and try to get people to trade in it... and there's nothing illegal about it.
It is also known as barter.
If you were to take some time to study the laws--or high school economics--or the cardholder agreement you sign when you apply for a Visa card--you'd know this is incorrect.
I bet you have "research" that tells you that credit cards are currency or something, contrary to very basic legal and economic interpretations of the word. One of the signs you're dealing with a nut is that the knowledge he thinks he has allows him to accept or reject facts as he so chooses.
Visa is an abstraction of my money. A better example would be american express gift cards. I can buy american express gift cards, and I can trade these gift cards or goods or services. The gift cards have a non-static real-value that is tied to the United States dollar (it's value in GBP, for instance, will fluctuate based on currency values).
I can take $100 USD, give it to a third party to hold, then slowly spend it as I see fit (effectively).
How is doing this with gold something that they should have covered in "high school economics class"? (No high school I've ever seen or heard of teaches an economics course, by the way)
I take $100, and give it to somebody who gives me an abstraction of that $100, gold.
To me, this sounds like literally the exact same thing as a gift card, just shinier.
The Liberty Dollar guy was found guilty of imitating U.S. currency. The OP believes the application of the law is unjust because, mentally, he's equivocated currency with other numismatic instruments. But this is wrong.
The high school economics jab is to call attention to the OP's lack of knowledge in something he thinks he knows a lot about. My high school did teach economics.
1. something that is used as a medium of exchange; money. 2.general acceptance; prevalence; vogue. 3. a time or period during which something is widely accepted and circulated. 4. the fact or quality of being widely accepted and circulated from person to person. 5. circulation, as of coin.
Currrency can refer to physical money. But it also refers to gift cards, visa cards, and any thing else that is, quoting the first definition, a "medium of exchange". Since you called a gift card a "medium of exchange" while saying it wasn't "currency" the dictionary proves you wrong.
Your understanding of my mental state and argument is also wrong, and I think you're projecting.
Since you apparently aren't familiar with the dictionary definition, I trust you will apologize for your assertions about my lack of knowledge.
I can't imagine them being easily mistaken for real money, but I honestly can't see the Liberty Dollar as being mistaken either.
They aren't issued for general currency like coins are, they are used to redeem a specific service provided by the people issuing the tokens.
In that way, their redeemable value never changes. A parking token means that you will be able to park in a space for a certain amount of time, no matter how much they are work in terms of actual currency.
In the context of economics and law, currency is physical money.
I think you are more interested in winning the argument than being correct.
edit: looks like he edited his comment while I was replying; his comment originally ended with, "I hoped your ilk would never find currency on this site, but I guess the day was going to come.", and was that way for at least 30 minutes before I replied.
In economics, currency refers to physical objects generally accepted as a medium of exchange.
I don't claim to have the requisite knowledge on the argument at hand, so I won't speak to that, but it appears that the assertions you're arguing as fact are incorrect.
This is simple -- you're not allowed to compete with the US gov't when it comes to providing the currency of the land. There are a lot of good reasons for this, and some mediocre reasons to oppose it, but at the end of the day it's pretty clear that there's a difference between Liberty Dollars and casino chips.
I personally equate the Liberty Dollars to comic books or baseball cards, in that they're collectible items. Being silver, they should appreciate over time, but I would not confuse them with currency myself. I can see how others might make that mistake, but I don't see it as a fault of the company any more than I would accuse the folks who Chuck-E-Cheese of counterfeiting by creating 'game tokens'.
I agree. Competition usually hurts the market. . .
There are several examples of competing currencies being used to revitalize economies. One example is the "Miracle at Wörgl." While this system implemented by Silvio Gesell had many problems that I will not address. It did bring the communities who adopted the scrip as currency out of depression.
Money is an object or record that serves as a medium of exchange.
You then list all the ways in which other forms of currency aren't currency, which is the point I disagree with. While I agree that a credit card isn't necessarily mapped to a tangible dollar figure, and that yes, it does refer to a line of credit, I disagree that it isn't considered currency on those grounds. Does a debit card more appropriately fit your definition, or is it disqualified because the actual dollars are elsewhere?
Regardless, I think all the relevant points have been made, and further quibbling on the point isn't likely to benefit anybody in particular, so I'll bow out.
It's perfectly legal to map USD > token and exhange that token. It's legal to create a token that you will map back to cash. It's not ok to accept other peoples tokens that does not represent actual money that exists.
Travelers checks are an example of the first kind of token. Poker chips are an example of the second kind of token.
You can accept a Travelers check from someone else. But you can't operate a business that accepts Poker chip's from someone else.
I don't think I'm entitled to my own facts. But I have read the laws here, and I find your response to be devoid of any actual argument or citation of facts and full of smear and insinuation.
Or, to requote the parents, "One of the signs you're dealing with a nut is that the knowledge he thinks he has allows him to accept or reject facts as he so chooses."
There are too many trolls on HN. This is why the site sucks.
It seems extraordinarily cut and dry to me, but I'm not a lawyer (and by your post I assume you're not either).
They did not, and further, they were careful to put disclaimers on their warehouse receipts, and various features on the physical pieces to make it clear that this was not being represented as government money. For instance, ever piece contained a copyright statement on it, something the government would not do.
For further details (since the judge ordered the liberty dollar website taken down): http://www.chambersburglibertydollar.com/disclaimer.htm
They were minting physical coins. They called them dollars. Just because they decided they didn't think they were legally coinage or currency doesn't change the fact that, that's very obviously the intent.
Their whole disclaimer is delivered with a wink and nudge.
No, they were not: "a piece of metal stamped and issued by the authority of a government for use as mony"
"They called them dollars." So does disney: http://www.disneydollars.net/
"Just because they decided they didn't think they were legally coinage"
This is a dishonest characterization. They had opinions from independant council, the secret service, members of federal reserve branches, etc, all saying that the product was legal.
"very obviously the intent." You believe this because you want to believe it. However, the decade of actions that the organization took, between 1998 and 2008, involved monthly newsletters, and repeated production of brochures, the website, and other writing all of which made it clear that people who had liberty dollars were not to put them forth as if they were us government money. They spent the majority of their educational effort in conflict with what you claim is their "obvious" intent.
"Their whole disclaimer is delivered with a wink and nudge."
I understand that you feel you can just tell lies about people and somehow you feel justified in doing so. But in honorable society, doing so reflects very poorly on your own integrity. I have to wonder, what motivates you, who have clearly no knowledge of this organization or its actions, to attack them with these dishonest smears?
Unfortunately, many americans think like you do. The FBI calls them terrorists, railroads them and people think the justice system works.
It is no wonder things are moving the way they are in the USA if your views, as I suspect, are widely echoed.
The fact that § 486 exists suggests that, under the law, it doesn't have to be a government minting something for it to be a coin. Otherwise nobody could ever violate that law, right? Courts consider the intent of a law when interpreting it, and it's fairly clear what is meant here; only the government is _allowed_ to mint coins, but you can theoretically mint coins if you're not the government (it's just illegal then).
> This is a dishonest characterization. They had opinions from independant council, the secret service, members of federal reserve branches, etc, all saying that the product was legal.
None of these people's opinions have any legal weight. Only a judge can actually provide a binding opinion stating that what you're doing is legal. Additionally, as cited from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Dollar#Legal_issues , there have been opinions in the opposite direction from secret service agents and the US Mint; if you're going to try to argue from authority (which is a bad idea anyway), you can't ignore contrary opinions at the same time.
Indeed, the Liberty Dollar project seems to have sued to get a binding opinion stating whether they were legal, and were raided shortly thereafter. This seems to indicate that, since the Liberty Dollar project forced the Justice department to take a side on whether they were legal or not, the Justice department prosecutors may have been forced to, well, prosecute.
> Unfortunately, many americans think like you do. The FBI calls them terrorists, railroads them and people think the justice system works.
Did the FBI really call them terrorist? I'd like to see a citation for that. In any case, this is hardly railroading. It happened four years ago, and with a jury trial. Two years passed from the start of the investigation to the indictment and arrest. The trial itself took another two years. You may disagree with the laws themselves, but I find it hard to see how the laws were misapplied here. § 485 and § 486 are really quite clear if you read them.
These were not coins. They were not issued under government authority, nor were they represented as such.
That they were not passed as government money is an affirmative defense.
That you idiots keep chiming in making personal attacks and espousing your ignorant perspective as if it was relevant is what makes this site pointless.
I'm not even involved with the Liberty Dollar. Why am I wasting time defending them against people with no integrity like you?
As it is, come on. Their budget is finite.
For those not familiar with them, a Casino Chip has a current denomination ($1, $5, $25, etc) and the name of the Casino on it. For a long time Casinos, as service to their customers, didn't care if you played with another Casino's chips so you could just carry them around from place to place and play them. At the end of the day the Casinos would settle accounts and exchange chips and cash to make it all come out even. It was a great convenience and while occasionally people would try to counterfeit chips, at that time if you were caught doing that you literally disappeared. Of course businesses near the Casinos, 7-11, restaurants, etc, started accepting chips in lieu of cash since they could just walk next door and exchange them for cash. It was a kind of fun and "just one of those things."
And then the secret service came and said "Under the constitution only the US Government can make a currency, stop accepting chips or go to jail." And they did a few stings and there were some high profile wrist slaps (I don't think anyone actually went to jail) and the whole thing stopped.
Had the Liberty Dollar folks read that bit of history they would have seen where their enterprise was headed.
Relinquishing the right to create a currency was one of the pre-requisites to ratifying the Constitution [1] which took that power for the Federal government and removed it from the states and the citizenry.
You're misunderstanding the constitution and what the "right to create currency" means. There are many currencies in circulation, and there have been many state and even private currencies over the years. Even today there are localities that make their own currencies- such as the Ithica Hour http://www.ithacahours.com/
What the constitution reserves to the federal government is merely the power to determine how many grains of silver are contained in a given dollar.
Thus, actually, the current paper US dollar, which is not denominated in silver, is illegal, it is counterfeit!
Thus it is clear that tradition has long ago seperated from the law. But this is relatively recent. In 1930s it was that the government made ownership of gold illegal and switched from silver certificates to unbacked dollars, but even then the dollar was backed internationally with gold, until Nixon closed the Gold window in the 1970s and defaulted the US government.
An excellent book on the history of Money in the USA, is "The Creature from Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin.
You may be correct, I have noticed a strong correlation however between how the government behaves with respect to alternative currencies and my understanding of the legalities of same. And while I also recognize that correlation is not causation, I find this sort of correlation useful in predicting whether or not my future actions would be viewed as "sanctioned" or "not sanctioned" by law enforcement authorities.
It's certainly true that behaving as the government wants you to results in less hassle, but we should be clear that "not sanctioned by law enforcement authorities" is absolutely not the same as "illegal" in the U.S.
As a side point paper money is obviously extremely vulnerable if abused (see Zimbabwe) however the idea that your money supply should be dictated by mining is beyond primitive. Periods of rapid economic expansion will lead to deflation unless the state controls mining and has sufficient mineral reserves which then becomes the same thing as printing money.
Any modern currency reform should instead concentrate on public banking with a Fiat currency. This combination allows for controlled market expansion, with the everyday banking profits being distributed across the commonwealth. It should be noted that this would have no affect on the profits of investment banking, and would not require any substantial change to our current US Dollar economy.
To me what is shocking is that most people thing the Federal Reserve (which is probably the most powerful institution in the country) is part of the government and not privately owned.
I work for a very large bank and most employees here think you're crazy if you tell them the Fed is a private bank.
This is similar to the way Pachinko parlors work in Japan and Taiwan - you collect a ball from the machine when you win, and with a certain amount of balls you can receive various token prizes. This prize can then be redeemed around the corner at a different location for cash. Cash was exchanged - there were just middlemen involved - but it still comes down to gambling.
If you are intending to replace currency with something else not produced by the government, then you are not bartering, you are introducing private currency and that is illegal.
Disney Dollars: http://www.disneydollars.net/ BerkShares: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jul2007/sb20070.... Buy Local—With Town Currency Dollar alternatives, such as BerkShares in Massachusetts, are shoring up local economies by keeping money in the community Microsoft Points: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/Live/MicrosoftPoints Pittsboro Plenty: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/9/north_carolina_town_pri....
But on the note of the parent:
> Where does one draw the line between bartering with chips and paying with chips?
It's not bartering when you are trying to get around things intentionally.
Don't bother, I don't care. I'm just amazed at the BS this topic has elicited from people, and I am done defending these guys.
All the BS is just proof of why the country is going to hell- why the FBI was able to steal $7M in gold, silver and platinum and get away with it.
It is because you, and the rest of the ignorant government "educated" americans can't be bothered to think critically.
According to the documents posted, the poker sites in question are attempting to get around the legalities of U.S. citizens placing monetary wagers or bets on international gambling sites. This would be an intentional circumvention of the law.
The example I posted in regards to Pachinko parlors circumventing their local laws by allowing people to trade in fake token prizes for cash is an example of people circumventing their local law.
There is nothing wrong with bartering or the barter system - and it is perfectly legal in it's intended use, but it can be used to circumvent other laws and would be illegal based on the legal definition of intent. As for the government stealing assets illegally - yeah that's wrong. Confiscation of these .com's bothers me a great deal - but that wasn't the topic I was replying to.
I am not an "ignorant government "educated" american" - and while my self education in legal matters may very well be off at times, I am able to think critically and be reasonable in what I do and don't know.
The problem is, that you are unable to have a conversation with someone that may be right or wrong on a topic - and it might not always be right that you can convince someone of the true nature of matters even if you are right. That doesn't mean you can act like an asshole - which you are. You don't know me, and because of one statement you are more than willing to blame everything you conceive as wrong on someone like "me". Get off your pedestal and learn to have a civil conversation - it's an awesome trait to have.
According to recent California law, "a gift certificate with a cash value of less than ten dollars ($10) is redeemable in cash (not a new certificate or merchandise) for its cash value."
Disney dollars are generally available only in denominations of $10 or less, so they may actually be an incredibly-inconvenient cash equivalent in California.
"Disney Dollars DO NOT expire. The oldest bill from 1987 can still be used today. As they are worth real money. They also may be exchanged back for the U.S. Dollars or purchased using the same.
They may used to pay for anything that can be normally paid for with cash including the following locations: (only Disney locations)"
They are exactly like casino chips, which is to say that within the Disney properties they can be used equivalently to cash, and even converted back into cash.
Given the Las Vegas experience however, I suspect that people in and around Orlando or other Disney locations, who aren't associated with Disney, should not accept them in lieu of cash.
One of the parallels to remember, the Secret Service wasn't going after the casinos for their chips, they were going after people who accepted them as cash even though they had no business relationship with the casino.
[1] http://disneydollars.net/where_can_disney_dollars_be_used.ht...
As it turned out the Digi-cash folks had all the patents and were being real dicks about licensing so we never got to test the question.
I can absolutely predict that if you can buy several hundred thousand dollars worth of bitcoins from person X, and then go to persons P, Q, R, ... Z and redeeem them back for cash, that the authorities will shut down that sort of thing quite quickly.
It's already been done:
That's 400k BTC (about $400k) being sent to a number of different accounts.
edit: Ah, I see your point. You said "redeem back to cash". Yes, that probably wouldn't work in an economy only worth a few million :)
So trading a Malibu Barbie for a Space Barbie, or perhaps a Barbie Dream Home would not be a 'currency' transaction, giving someone a Malibu Barbie to pay for a lunch that was nominally $25 and having the person who got that Barbie then take it and buy $25 worth of groceries, and having the grocer be able to deposit it in their bank account and get credited with $25. That would be treating it like a currency.
There is a wonderful discussion on currency and what it is in the course Economics [1] offered by "The Great Courses". There is a wonderful story about an island which trades ownership interest in large rocks on another island as their currency. If you commute to work I highly recommend these courses as a way to pass the time and learn something (or at least get something to think about) while doing it. Don't be afraid of the price they regularly put things on sale for lots off. And if you have a library nearby you can sometimes check them out.
[1] http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.asp...
update: I remember that one of the key things about the test of whether something was a currency or not, is if it could be exchanged back into another currency. Its one of the things various "points", "miles", and other systems avoid is an explicit path to turn them back into cash. Sure you can buy a $50 VISA gift card and sell it to someone for $50 but its not like you can go to the bank and turn it back into $50.
Segment: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/02/15/131934618/the-isla...
Entire podcast (also discusses the currency test, IIRC): http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/02/15/131963928/the-frid...
Very interesting.
The test you propose about conversion is at least logically consistent, but it's not what I see applied. For example, Berkshares (local currency in the Berkshires) can be traded for USD but they don't run afowl of currency laws.
The principle here is that you're not allowed to compete with the US gov't when it comes to providing the currency of the land. There are a lot of good reasons for this, and some mediocre reasons to oppose it, but at the end of the day it's pretty clear that there's a difference between Liberty Dollars and a cashier's check denoted in US dollars.
Disney Dollars: http://www.disneydollars.net/
BerkShares: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jul2007/sb20070...
Buy Local—With Town Currency Dollar alternatives, such as BerkShares in Massachusetts, are shoring up local economies by keeping money in the community
Microsoft Points: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/Live/MicrosoftPoints
Pittsboro Plenty: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/9/north_carolina_town_pri...
At that point, they had unclean hands in my mind. The basis for an alternative currency should be consent, not confusion.
They were very careful because passing it off as if it were government money would be a crime. Despite not doing this, they have been lied about to the point that even you are misremembering.
There are many reasons to decide to not be involved with the liberty dollar-- not the least of which is the indoctrination that "money" must come from the government, something I had to overcome myself. But the claim that they were pretending it was government money is not one of them.
The entire point of NORFED-- the National Organization for the Repeal of the FEDeral reserve-- was that government money was not as good as silver rounds.
This is the video that I was misremembering (works in newest VLC): http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20050206004912/http://www.l...
via: http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20050206004912/http://www.l...
Most may assume that "dollar" means USD, but that is not the legal meaning. Dollar is a generic term, as Canadians use it, for instance. But further, if I were to say "20 USD in Silver" I'd be referring to the US dollar and I'd be naming a price for this amount of silver. This is no different than saying "$5 in coffee beans".
Edit to add: My real point is to disagree with the idea that the liberty dollar advocated (generally) passing it off as US government money, as they spent a great deal of effort trying to prevent that perception or anyone associated with the organization doing so.
I'll concede that you saw a video where someone didn't make it explicit enough that it wasn't government money and that put you off of the idea... and in fact your quote might even be exact. In which case you are not misremembering.
My point isn't really to debate the video, so much as the intent of the organization.
These poker sites have not been convicted of anything, nor was there a court proceeding where the siezure was proposed and the owners of the property had an option to defend their rights.
Further, as we've seen in case after case, even in situations where the victims are not involved in crime at all, the courts are stacked against them.
Reference?
edited to add a feature article he wrote on it: http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/26/the-forfeiture-racket
http://www.ij.org/images/pdf_folder/other_pubs/assetforfeitu... [Note: PDF]
Still, though, this feature really should be part of HN proper, especially since it's so simple to implement. I think a lot more attention would hit posts that aren't already at the top, which would encourage people to write new posts instead of responding to whatever happens to be above the fold.
It's not going to fix the comment quality problems, but it would give a bump in the direction of wider, shallower comment trees, which will probably help a bit (deeply nested comments tend to either meander off topic or degenerate into arguments between a couple of people).
I quote: "Here is an EXCELLENT alternative where it is COMPLETELY LEGAL for USA players to play and win lots of real money and prizes, and never lose any money."
You may want to consider http://www.clubwpt.com/?cmpgn_id=6242&bnr_id=110 As stated at FTC: "Use Club WPT Bonus Code PLAYFREE, No deposit needed. No Risk Play System. COMPLETELY LEGAL! " With the above link I provided, you cannot lose money, and only win money. No limit on how much you can win, but maximum you can lose is something like $0.49 per day (yes, I said 49 cents), which is what your full membership daily cost would be.
So, as you can see, or the point being, there is another model out there.
No you haven't. Even though I happen to agree with you about this, you are talking through your hat and are arguing politics, not law. You are your own worst enemy, because you have so little knowledge of how your own system of governance or justice works that you spend all your effort on venting your anger without achieving anything. Get educated, then get organized. Otherwise you are just blowing smoke.