Bitcoin Users Beware: The Feds Are Coming For You

 
A new bill has been introduced on the floor of the US Senate that will allow the Feds to seize people’s Bitcoin accounts through “Civil Asset Forfeiture.”

The bill, entitled “Combating Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing, and Counterfeiting Act of 2017,” is aimed at regulating and centralising cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

These people are certifiably insane.

Among the bill’s sweeping provisions, the government aims to greatly extend its authority to seize your assets through “Civil Asset Forfeiture”.

Civil Asset Forfeiture rules allow the government to take whatever they want from you, without a trial or any due process.

This new bill adds a laundry list of offenses for which they can legally seize your assets… all of which pertain to money laundering and other financial crimes.

Here’s the thing, though: they’ve also vastly expanded on the definition of such ‘financial crimes’, including failure to fill out a form if you happen to be transporting more than $10,000 worth of ‘monetary instruments’.

Have too much cash? You’d better tell the government.

If not, they’re authorizing themselves in this bill to seize not just the money you didn’t report, but ALL of your assets and bank accounts.

They even go so far as to specifically name “safety deposit boxes” among the various assets that they can seize if you don’t fill out the form.

This is unbelievable on so many levels.

It’s crazy to begin with that these people are so consumed by the fact that someone has $10,000 in cash.

But it’s even crazier that they’re threatening to take EVERYTHING that you own merely for not filling out a piece of paper, without any due process whatsoever.

Oh, and on top of civil asset forfeiture penalties, there are also criminal penalties.

Right now according to current law they can imprison you for up to FIVE YEARS for not filling out the form. Five years.

But apparently that doesn’t go far enough to protect us against evil men in caves.

So this bill aims to double the criminal penalty to TEN years in prison.

And if that weren’t enough, this bill also gives them with new authority to engage in surveillance and wiretapping (including phone, email, etc.) if they have even a hint of suspicion that you might be transporting excess ‘monetary instruments’.

Usually wiretapping authority is reserved for major crimes like kidnapping, human trafficking, felony fraud, etc.

Now we can add cash to that list.

It’s not just government spy agencies to worry about, either.

Banks in the US are already unpaid government spies, required by law to fill out suspicious activity reports on their customers.

Then Congress started expanding those requirements to include other businesses and industries that might come into contact with cash.

Stock brokers. Casinos. Currency exchanges. Precious metals dealers. Pawnbrokers. The Post Office.

According to the law (section 5312 of US Code Title 31), those industries are also required to spy on their customers for the government.

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