
Congressman Calls To Ban U.S. Dollar In Response To Plea For Bitcoin Ban - milesf
http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/05/congressman-calls-to-ban-u-s-dollar-in-response-to-bitcoin-ban/
======
ck2
When they are done goofing around, how about restoring the ban on
congressional inside trading?

Because they quietly undid the ban.

They come out of secret meetings with insider knowledge that is privilege to
them and then go buy stock.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=congress+insider+trading+rep...](https://www.google.com/search?q=congress+insider+trading+repealed)

~~~
MrZongle2
You expect the foxes to uphold Robert's Rules of Order in the henhouse?

------
rakoo
> Bitcoin [..] an untraceable alternative to an official government-backed
> currency (the dollar).

I know people even in tech aren't aware of this: Bitcoin is actually the
_most_ traceable currency ever made by man.

Every _single_ unit can be traced down to who generated it. If an account
suddenly receives a lot of money, _anybody_ can trace it back to who emitted
the coins. And if you have special rights to know who's behind an IP (ie any
police force in the world), then you know which individual is involved.

Bitcoin is the best way to keep a trace of all exchanges. Please don't spread
the wrong assumption that you can hide with it.

~~~
tinalumfoil
The issue is, unlike a bank account, the bitcoin address is not attached to a
person. If I'm using Tor, I can make it almost impossible to trace me. If I'm
using a bank, the government won't even need to do anything, as the bank will
contact the FBI for large transfers or give them information as needed.

~~~
rakoo
Yes, if you're using Tor. My point is: Bitcoin doesn't hide anything; Tor
does, whether you're using it for paying hitmen with bitcoins or sexting with
XMPP. It's the Tor part alone that does it all.

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nostromo
Jared Polis is the only congressperson that would fit right in at a HN meetup.
He's the type of congressperson SV deserves.

I'm glad he's not afraid to break ranks and take on old-school Dems like
Manchin.

~~~
d23
Sucks to see Manchin responding like this. Always thought he was one of the
good ones.

~~~
saalweachter
Eh.

Politicians are people who hold a spectrum of beliefs and positions which
overlap with your own to some extent or another. Sometimes they have more
information than you on a subject, sometimes they have less, and sometimes
they are just starting from different values than you have, which colors their
perceptions of the available information in a different way than yours. You
should neither expect a politician to always take the positions you would
prefer, nor to never take a position you agree with.

------
Chromozon
"Congressmen who worry Bitcoin will hurt uninformed investors want it
regulated or banned entirely"

Uninformed investors are going to be hurt no matter what investment currency
they use.

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milesf
Here's his press release:

[http://polis.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=3...](http://polis.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=371808)

March 5, 2014

Dear Secretary Lew, Chairwoman Yellen, Comptroller Curry, Acting Chairman
Wetjen, Chairman Gruenberg, Chairwoman White:

I write today to express my concerns about United States dollar bills. The
exchange of dollar bills, including high denomination bills, is currently
unregulated and has allowed users to participate in illicit activity, while
also being highly subject to forgery, theft, and loss. For the reasons
outlined below, I urge regulators to take immediate and appropriate action to
limit the use of dollar bills.

By way of background, a physical dollar bill is a printed version of a dollar
note issued by the Federal Reserve and backed by the ephemeral “full faith and
credit” of the United States. Dollar bills have gained notoriety in relation
to illegal transactions; suitcases full of dollars used for illegal
transactions were recently featured in popular movies such as American Hustle
and Dallas Buyers Club, as well as the gangster classic, Scarface, among
others. Dollar bills are present in nearly all major drug busts in the United
States and many abroad. According to the U.S. Department of Justice study,
“Crime in the United States,” more than $1 billion in cash was stolen in 2012,
of which less than 3% was recovered. The United States’ Dollar was present by
the truck load in Saddam Hussein’s compound, by the carload when Noriega was
arrested for drug trafficking, and by the suitcase full in the Watergate case.

Unlike digital currencies, which are carbon neutral allowing us to breathe
cleaner air, each dollar bill is manufactured from virgin materials like
cotton and linen, which go through extensive treatment and processing. Last
year, the Federal Reserve had to destroy $3 billion worth of $100 bills after
a “printing error.” Certainly this cannot be the greenest currency.

Printed pieces of paper can fit in a person’s pocket and can be given to
another person without any government oversight. Dollar bills are not only a
store of value but also a method for transferring that value. This also means
that dollar bills allow for anonymous and irreversible transactions.

The very features of dollar bills, such as anonymous transactions, have
created ubiquitous uses from drug purchases, to hit men, to prostitutes, as
dollar bills are attractive to criminals who are able to disguise their
actions from law enforcement. Due to the dollar bills’ anonymity, the dollar
bill market has been extremely susceptible to forgers, tax fraud, criminal
cartels, and armed robbers stealing millions of dollars from their legitimate
owners. Anonymity, combined with a dollar bills’ ability to finalize
transactions quickly, makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to reverse
fraudulent transactions.

Many of our foreign counterparts already understand the wide range of problems
that physical currencies can have. Many physical currencies have enormous
price fluctuations, and even experience deflation. 20 years ago Brazil had an
inflation rate of 6281%. In 4 years (2001 to 2005), the Turkish Lira went from
1,650,000: $1 to 1.29 to $1. In 2009, Zimbabwe discontinued it’s dollar.
Before it was eliminated, the Zimbabwe dollar was the least valuable currency
in the world and their central bank even issued a $100 trillion dollar
banknote. A person would starve on a billion Zimbabwe dollars and it took an
entire wheelbarrow full of $100 billion dollars in notes to purchase a loaf of
bread.

The clear use of dollar bills for transacting in illegal goods, anonymous
transactions, tax fraud, and services or speculative gambling make me wary of
their use. Before the United States gets too far behind the curve on this
important topic, I urge the regulators to work together, act quickly, and
prohibit this dangerous currency from harming hard-working Americans.

Sincerely,

Jared Polis Member of Congress ​

~~~
keithpeter
Mr Polis stands in the tradition of the Rev. Jonathan Swift specifically his
pamphlet entitled _A Modest Proposal For preventing the children of poor
people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for
making them beneficial to the publick_ [1]. Excellent.

[1]
[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1080](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1080)

~~~
Blahah
A Modest Proposal was mindblowing to me as a young teenager - it made me
realise for the first time that nobody in the world, no matter what position
they are in, is beyond criticism.

~~~
keithpeter
_" Last Week I saw a Woman flay’d, and you will hardly believe, how much it
altered her Person for the worse."_

The Rev. Jonathan would be on the first flight to Kiev from somewhere like
Syria were he alive today. We have much need of these people.

The events he witnessed and satirised together with their more modern
ramifications have cast a shadow over the history of Ireland and England for
centuries, and, indeed, have played a part in the outrageous growth and
_acceptance_ of organisations such as GCHQ in the modern era.

------
protomyth
Congressman Polis did an excellent job of showing how dumb a Bitcoin[1] ban
would be.

The sad part is that in another 20 years some Senator or Congressman will
write the same letter about physical currency and be completely serious.

1) I still say bitcoins are a commodity more than a currency

------
saraid216
Clearly this means the NSA got to him. That's the problem with these
surveillance states. Look at how they're propping up their cryptocurrency by
blackmailing U.S. Senators into writing satirical pieces.

It's terrible, this state of the world. Just terrible.

~~~
shitlord
please be satire...

~~~
chc
It looks to me like an attempt to write the perfect Hacker News comment. NSA
surveillance, cryptocurrency, government corruption, no evidentiary basis or
special relevance to HN — all it's missing is a poorly constructed defense of
or attack on capitalism and a hastily written Node.js module implementing its
ideas.

~~~
saraid216
Close enough.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?q=saraid216+satoshi#!/comment/foreve...](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=saraid216+satoshi#!/comment/forever/0/author:saraid216%20satoshi)

Also, Algolia seriously needs some competent user stories.

------
sosborn
If you ban Bitcoin you might as well ban all forms of bartering and declare
that transactions can only be done via nationalized currencies.

------
ryanmcbride
This is a great article but god damn some of those grammatical errors are hard
to get past.

------
akafred
Only-slightly-OT: In Norway there is a lot of people (40% in a less than
completely impartial survey [1]) who thinks cash will be completely replaced
by electronic transactions. We have well functioning clearing of even small
transactions. Of course the authorities thinks this is a great idea for
reducing crime...

1:
[http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&n...](http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&nv=1&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=no&tl=en&u=http://www.nrk.no/norge/flere-
tror-kontantene-forsvinner-1.8303660)

------
kailuowang
To be fair, physical dollar bills is still quite different from Bitcoin. It's
a lot harder to steal (or make an illegal transaction of) $100 million worth
of physical bills than Bitcoin.

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jtokoph
I wonder if his opposition in future elections will use this against him out
of context.

"Do you really want a leader who thinks money is a bad thing? He tried to ban
the dollar bill while in congress!"

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pbreit
In a silly attempt to shame the (admittedly stoopid) bitcoin ban proposal,
instead shames US politics.

------
orn
Jared is da man !

