The wallets were simply protected by a passphrase and Larry couldn't be compelled to give the passphrase. The feds even told the judge they didn't have control of the funds and they could be moved to family/friends before it happened.
It sounds like Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy - the feds declared "I seize Bitcoin" but nothing happened.
Seizure is tied to possession, a legal concept [1]. Not control. Courts commonly authorize the seizure assets not yet under the government's physical control. (I agree the terminology is misleading.)
But the title is the part that is so misleading that it's essentially inaccurate - you can't steal something back that was never taken away.
This would be like the feds "seizing" a car, and you drive it away before they actually come take possession of it. Hardly stealing it back, they simply never had it.
"Taken away" muddles legal possession and control. If someone takes control of your un-attended car, we call that stealing.
> would be like the feds "seizing" a car, and you drive it away before they actually come take possession of it. Hardly stealing it back
Legally, it is. Colloquially, that's silly phrasing. (Not disagreeing at all that the headline is silly. Hacker absconds with frozen coins would be clearer. Though we'd then have a page full of questions about what frozen coins are doing in transit.)
Point being, lawyers can pretend that information is property, but some things obey physical laws and other things don't.
(edit) Maybe I'm being unclear, but your link defines seizure as "removes property from an individual's possession" and none of these terms apply here.
Free information is difficult to control. We have to add things to it, like DRM, to make it compatible with the legal concepts of possession and ownership.
Crypto, however, is different. One can control it. Had the FBI been able to move the coins to their own wallet, they would have controlled them. Crypto is information re-structured in the image of our legal senses around property. It's the antithesis of free information. (That’s why two people can look at it and simultaneously see profoundly-pure meaning and infinitely-valid meaninglessness. Legal versus tangible. Possession without substance. Money.)
All that aside, ownership and control have a long history of separating. The traditional method of reconciliation was violence. The FBI "owned" those coins on "seizing" them and thus legally "possessed" them [1], even if they didn't "control" them.
Recording and seizing are different. If a court rules the you own a bank account, that doesn't technically prohibit the bank from charging it. Possession involves ownership or control [1].
Doesn't seem right.
But i would say that taking public keys doesn't fulfill the "removes property from an individual's possession" in the law.cornell.edu link. There is no way to 'remove property from an individual's possession" while "leaving property in an individual's possession" at the same time. And if you are have done the second one of those things then you have failed to do the first.
Rooms full of lawyers getting a legal definition wrong for centuries across multiple jurisdictions is more likely than you misunderstanding a technical term?
> no way to 'remove property from an individual's possession" while "leaving property in an individual's possession" at the same time
Yes, there is. Possession involves control or ownership [1]. One can own something without controlling it and vice versa.
Having the keys is necessary but not sufficient. Namely, if other people have the same keys you don't really hold the bitcoins in any practical sense.
It's like ten people all holding a $1000 check drawn against a bank account with only $1000 in it. Whoever cashes the check first has the money, everyone else don't have anything.