Giving an anonymous donation to a legal defense fund should not result in the FBI having your information, but that’s exactly what happened to hundreds of donors to a foundation called Free Barrett Brown.US journalist Barrett Brown was previously sentenced in 2015 to 63 months in jail and almost $900,000 in fines at the end of the FBI investigation into the 2012 email hack of global intelligence company Stratfor.He was officially charged with accessory after the fact, obstruction of justice, and threatening a federal agent.As of late November 2016 he is out of prison; however, him and his supporters are now in the midst of a new legal battle to bring financial privacy, and thus the beginnings of legal anonymous money, under constitutional protection.The FBI violated the First Amendment when seeking records on the anonymous donations to Free Barrett Brown, which is no surprise given their track record with the Fourth Amendment.Over the last few years, many people around the world have donated to Free Barrett Brown, an organization that was set up to help Barrett Brown with legal defense costs.

It turns out, the FBI subpoenaed one of Free Barrett Brown’s payment processors, WePay, for all available information on every donor… and WePay complied.It’s important to note that the subpoena was issued without any sort of search warrant, and the affected donors were not notified by WePay.Kevin Gallagher, the former director of Free Barrett Brown, stated: “Learning that these records were sought and obtained was highly unsettling, and I felt that I had to do something about it.If we don’t send a message to the government that it’s not okay to target private legal defense efforts, then they will continue to get away with these sort of things.” Donors to the Free Barrett Brown Foundation are now suing the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation for violating their financial privacy.The lawsuit argues that the FBI broke the First Amendment, the California Constitutional Right to Privacy, and the Stored Communications Act by unconstitutionally compelling companies to give up private financial information.

What the FBI’s actions reveal, and only because they were caught, is that many companies are not interested in protecting your constitutional rights.Under a regime where private information on your monetary transactions, even donations, are subject to search and seizure, there is no such thing as protected anonymous payments or even any semblance of anonymous money.bitcoin ripoffUnder the first amendment where payments, transactions whether donations or for goods or services, are considered freedom of association, anybody’s donation to any organization could be protected under new case law.bitcoin v bulgariaAs an example, if i make a donation through PayPal, given the past actions of the US government, I cannot know that PayPal will keep that donation safe.litecoin canadian price

But if this case is successful, PayPal will have to think twice about giving up that information without due process, even if they have it securely stored because of other legal MSB requirements.In the meantime, if you’re interested in donating to Free Barrett Brown or any other movement before the issue of anonymous fiat donations are settled, you should use a cryptocurrency.bitcoin miner linux ubuntuThe Free Barrett Brown foundation does currently accept Bitcoin donations.linux bitcoin mining guideAs for what Barrett Brown himself is doing now, according to Wired, he’s out of jail and working on activating a new online activist platform called Pursuant.litecoin amd cpuTo see the filing against the Department of Justice and the FBI, click here.ethereum coin wiki

About Caleb ChenCaleb Chen is a digital currency and privacy advocate who believes we must #KeepOurNetFree, preferably through decentralization.Caleb holds a Master's in Digital Currency from the University of Nicosia as well as a Bachelor's from the University of Virginia.litecoin calculatorHe feels that the world is moving towards a better tomorrow, bit by bit by Bitcoin.will litecoin increasePreet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Diego Rodriguez, Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), and Robert Sica, Special Agent-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the United States Secret Service, announced today the unsealing of criminal complaints charging ANTHONY R. MURGIO and YURI LEBEDEV with running an unlicensed Internet Bitcoin exchange, which they operated through a phony front-company and, at times, a federal credit union that MURGIO acquired for purposes of the scheme.

The defendants were arrested today at their residences in Florida, and are expected to be presented today in federal court in the Middle District of Florida.According to the allegations contained in the criminal complaints unsealed today in Manhattan federal court1: Since at least late 2013, MURGIO, LEBEDEV, and their co-conspirators have knowingly operated Coin.mx, a Bitcoin exchange service, in violation of federal anti-money laundering (“AML”) laws and regulations, including those requiring money services businesses like Coin.mx to meet registration and reporting requirements set forth by the United States Treasury Department.Through Coin.mx, MURGIO, LEBEDEV, and their co-conspirators enabled their customers to exchange cash for Bitcoins, charging a fee for their service.In doing so, they knowingly exchanged cash for people whom they believed may be engaging in criminal activity.MURGIO and his co-conspirators have also knowingly exchanged cash for Bitcoins for victims of “ransomware” attacks, that is, cyberattacks in which criminals (here, distributors of the ransomware known as “Cryptowall”) electronically block access to a victim’s computer system until a sum of “ransom” money, typically in Bitcoins, is paid to them.

In doing so, MURGIO, and his co-conspirators knowingly enabled the criminals responsible for those attacks to receive the proceeds of their crimes, yet, in violation of federal anti-money laundering laws, MURGIO never filed any suspicious activity reports regarding any of the transactions.In total, between approximately October 2013 and January 2015, Coin.mx exchanged at least $1.8 million for Bitcoins on behalf of tens of thousands of customers.In addition, in the course of the scheme, MURGIO transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars to bank accounts in Cyprus, Hong Kong, and Eastern Europe, and received hundreds of thousands of dollars from bank accounts in Cyprus and the British Virgin Islands, in furtherance of the operations of his unlawful business.MURGIO, LEBEDEV, and their co-conspirators engaged in substantial efforts to evade detection of their scheme by operating through a phony front-company, “Collectables Club,” and maintaining a corresponding phony “Collectables Club” website.

In doing so, they sought to trick the major financial institutions through which they operated into believing that their unlawful Bitcoin exchange business was simply a members-only association of individuals who discussed, bought, and sold collectable items, such as sports memorabilia.More recently, in an effort to evade potential scrutiny from these institutions and others, MURGIO obtained beneficial control of a New Jersey-based federal credit union (the “Credit Union”) which served primarily low-income local residents.MURGIO then installed LEBEDEV and others on the Credit Union’s Board of Directors, and transferred Coin.mx’s banking operations to the Credit Union, which MURGIO, LEBEDEV and other co-conspirators operated, at least until early 2015, as a captive bank for their unlawful business.At that time, after discovering that substantial payment processing activity was being conducted through the Credit Union, the National Credit Union Administration forced the Credit Union to cease engaging in such activity, and MURGIO thereafter found new, overseas payment processing channels for his unlawful business.

MURGIO, 31, of Tampa, Florida, and LEBEDEV, 37, of Jacksonville, Florida, are each charged with one count of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, and one count of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, each of which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.MURGIO is also charged with one count of money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and one count of willful failure to file a suspicious activity report, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.The maximum potential sentences in this case are prescribed by Congress and are provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendants will be determined by the judge.Bharara praised the investigative work of the FBI and the Secret Service.He also thanked the National Credit Union Administration for their assistance with the investigation.The prosecution of this case is being overseen by the Office’s Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit.