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Early Bitcoin User Interviewed By Federal Officers
MrBingoBoingo (3481277) writes Recently a Bitcoin user reports being interviewed over their past use of a now defunct exchange service by agents from the FBI and Treasury Department. This encounter raises concerns that earlier Bitcoin users who entered the space inocuously and without ties to Dark Markets or The Silk Road might need to prepare for Law Enforcement questioning about their early Bitcoin related activities.
A Law Enforcement Encounter: If you ran a Bitcoin related service before the thing hit $100 you prolly ought to be somewhat concerned and/or prepared
The rest of the article suggests he was only interviewed because of that service as well. So unless every single early user of bitcoin started up an exchange service, the part we have on slashdot is almost entirely fictional.
Both the summary and headline (on slashdot - it's different on TFA) are a bunch of horseshit. Here's what the headline looks like on TFA:
A Law Enforcement Encounter: If you ran a Bitcoin related service before the thing hit $100 you prolly ought to be somewhat concerned and/or prepared
The rest of the article suggests he was only interviewed because of that service as well. So unless every single early user of bitcoin started up an exchange service, the part we have on slashdot is almost entirely fictional.
Yep, my take on the article was what you said, and that they have crappy records for that service, so they were on a fishing expedition to see if they could find anything good/relating to the silk road stuff. In all honesty, it sounded like due diligence to me, in other words, the Feds were doing the detective work they needed to be doing.
Be seeing you...
If you had any sense, you'd understand that regardless of the reason(s) you've found yourself interacting with the police, the only sensible course of action would be to have all communications handled by your lawyer(s). Don't worry, you're far from alone in your lack of sense, and that is precisely why fairly rudimentary law enforcement pressure (rightly or wrongly) works as often as it does.
Write failed: Broken pipe
If the police catches a car thief, they will likely visit anyone buying a car from him. They can't know that you bought his car that he purchased before he started his thieving career, or the car which he purchased himself with money he made from thieving (which would then be legally yours, unlike a stolen car that you bought off the thief), until they ask you.
That's the purpose of interviewing that man - to figure out if he had anything to do with illegal activities or not. Apparently he didn't. So what's the problem?
The problem is that very often someone who thinks he is (or is) completely innocent will talk to the cops, and as a result the cops decide he's committed a crime, prosecute him, and he goes to jail. Here's an example http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10... of the scientist Thomas Butler.
Notice that the cops can lie to you, but if you lie to them, you're committing a crime (and a lot of people went to jail for lying to cops, including the roommates of the Boston bomber).
On Youtube there's a lecture by a law professor about why you should never talk to the cops without a lawyer present, even if you're innocent (and certainly not if you're guilty). He gave many scenarios, based on real cases, about how that has gotten people convicted of crimes, even falsely.
For example, suppose you go to Pigtown, buy a bottle of milk in the grocery store, and go home. Somebody gets shot around that time in Pigtown. The cops ask you whether you were in Pigtown that day. You say yes.
Then the cops show your picture to Mary Misidentification, who honestly but wrongly thinks that she saw you shoot the guy. You go to court. The cops use your admission to prove that you were in Pigtown that day. They use Mary's testimony that she saw you shoot the guy. Put those together and they send you to jail.
In the Bitcoin case, you may have done something that you think was legal, but was actually a crime. (Or something that they could interpret as a crime.) If you kept your mouth shut, the FBI wouldn't even know about it. But if you admit to doing it, that's a confession, and it's an easy conviction for them. You won't even get a chance to plea bargain.
Unless a crime was committed against you or somebody you're concerned about, talking to the cops can't do you any good, and it can do you harm. So it's foolish to do it.
It's too bad, but the cops are acting like pigs, so you can't do it.