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It is worth pointing out that the state can put out Cease And Desist orders, and warnings on its website with no: 1) Evidence of wrongdoing 2) Communication wit
by mchusma 13y ago
It is worth pointing out that the state can put out Cease And Desist orders, and warnings on its website with no:
1) Evidence of wrongdoing
2) Communication with the accused
3) Method of reconciliation
I have my own personal example:
I received a letter ordering us to cease and desist from doing online notarization through California notaries. We were not doing so, so in effect we sent back a letter stating:
"We have not, and never have, conducted the activity you accuse us of." They basically responded saying "ok, we agree that you haven't done anything wrong but if you do anything we will prosecute you to the full extent of the law."
A few weeks later, they posted a "consumer warning" on their website saying that our company was in effect defrauding companies. Then, several other states copied that language without contact. I spoke with the government officials, I told them we were hurt by these baseless accusations, and they admitted that they really had no evidence of any wrongdoing. They basically said "we are too busy to update the website right now but we will do so shortly."
After months of effort, I was able to one by one get most of these ultimately removed or reworded to a reasonable position. California was the last holdout. I basically began the process of suing them for massive damages and that ultimately was the only thing that was able to get them to change the wording.
So overall, my learning is that it genuinely scares me what government agencies can do without any evidence or judicial process. I would guess that the Bitcoin Foundation can respond with "you are wrong, please provide evidence" and get away with it for now.
- einhverfr 13y agoIndeed. Additionally there are questions regarding how clear a statute needs to be before you send people to prison for 5 years. Crime by analogy, once the bread and butter of Soviet justice, has unfortunately been becoming more common in the US (see the prosecution of Jeffrey Skilling for "honest services fraud" and the prosecution of Dr Hurwitz for unlawful distribution of narcotics).
- messick 13y agoAre you really offering up the CEO of Enron and a doctor who prescribed up to 1.6k pills per day to a single patient as victims of the big bad US Gov?
- notdrunkatall 13y agoCan you explain 'crime by analogy' a little bit? A google search yields surprisingly little.