The treasury is expanding the Patriot Act to attack Bitcoin self custody
tftc.io657 points by bilsbie 18 hours ago
657 points by bilsbie 18 hours ago
The Patriot Act itself was supposed to be temporary and “narrow.” Two decades later it’s the foundation for a financial dragnet that assumes privacy is the problem rather than a basic right.
Just like encryption, once privacy becomes associated with criminality, you end up weakening security for law-abiding users and concentrating power in a few regulated intermediaries. That’s not healthy for innovation, or democracy.
> [The Patriot Act] contains many sunset provisions beginning December 31, 2005, approximately four years after its passage. Before the sunset date, an extension was passed for four years which kept most of the law intact. In May 2011, President Barack Obama signed the PATRIOT Sunset Extensions Act of 2011, which extended three provisions. These provisions were modified and extended until 2019 by the USA Freedom Act, passed in 2015. In 2020, efforts to extend the provisions were not passed by the House of Representatives, and as such, the law has expired.
Also it dosent matter if it's expired anymore. It was kept on for 20+ Fing years. During that time it was used to permananly shred constitusional rights and human rights.
They got what they wanted from it beyond their wildest dreams.
> In 2020, efforts to extend the provisions were not passed by the House of Representatives, and as such, the law has expired.
The wording is confusing. Two provisions expired, not the entire Patriot Act.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250306093943/https://www.nytim...
The Wikipedia article is quite confusing, and seems to imply that those two provisions expired because they were the only two provisions not sunsetted already. The table indicates that most of the law sunsetted on March of 2006:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act#Section_expiration...
But then they say "The first act reauthorized all but two Title II provisions. Two sections were changed to sunset on December 31, 2009"
But the first act was passed in 2005, and so it's unclear whether it reauthorized provisions only until 2006 or a longer term.
I looked into this a little more, and these were the final two provisions of the Patriot Act, so the did law expire.
Unfortunately, that doesn't mean a whole lot, as many of the provisions live on in the USA Freedom Act.
Was not aware of the USA Freedom Act
details on it:
Reauthorization of Other Patriot Act Provisions: The USA FREEDOM Act extended two other provisions from the Patriot Act that were set to expire: "Lone Wolf" Provision: Allows for surveillance on individual terrorists who may not be directly linked to a foreign power. "Roving Wiretap" Provision: Enables surveillance to follow a suspect even if they change their communication methods or devices.
Everyone should be super clued in whenever the government chooses to classify something as 'terrorism' because of these provisions.
There appeared to be a lot of "good things" associated with this Act but also... as things go. Not great things such as above.
The wording is confusing.
Being confusing, I'm almost certain, was the entire point.
"USA Freedom Act"
We're truly living in Orwell's world.
For nearly quarter of a century.
Longer than that. I feel like people have completely forgotten things like Iran-Contra, or the Gulf of Tonkin.
Or, for that matter, that Orwell based 1984 off his experience writing propaganda for the British Ministry of Information during WW2.
Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ensuring Effective Discipline Over Monitoring Act.
It's just an acronym bro, don't get all worked up about it, now let's go down, the Two Minutes' Hate is about to start.
We're incredibly lucky the 'just an acronym' ended that way then. Had they named it the 'Joining and Reinforcing the Nation by Satisfying Liberties and Guaranteeing Efficient Control Over Surveillance' we would have ended with the JRN SLGECOS Act.
Apparently I forgot to close my sarcasm tag.
I chuckled, at least.
Seeing the rise in the amount of bots on YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, basically all the major and a lot of minor social networks over the last ~decade has really been something, too. Tons and tons of people with account names that all follow similar regex's saying the same things around the same time.
I suppose it feels closer to Brave New World than 1984 but it's eerie, and those are just the accounts that stand out. I imagine the "premium propaganda" option from the companies and agencies providing the bot services are even harder to discern.
Stuff is so Orwellian that it really looks like a joke for those who do not know what USA Freedom Act means.
You can forget about liberties until you come up with a better acronym
Would you settle for a catchy motto, mayhap?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Free_or_Die
> "Live Free or Die" is the official motto of the U.S. state of New Hampshire, adopted by the state in 1945. It is possibly the best-known of all state mottos, partly because it conveys an assertive independence historically found in American political philosophy and partly because of its contrast to the milder sentiments found in other state mottos.
I suppose one must die, since living free is not an option.
Note to self: stay out of New Hampshire.