[LINK] EFF Drops Bitcoin Over Concerns About Legality

[Roger Clarke]

At 21:10 +1000 22/6/11, Kim Holburn wrote:
>In Australia, lets is apparently legal: <http://www.lets.org.au>, 
>why mightn't bitcoin be?

Some relevant input, not the answer though:

The RBA's always watching payment schemes, but doesn't do anything 
more than watch, and maybe have the odd chat with the operators, 
until the volume has reached a reasonable level.

Their behaviour is consistent with the suggestion that the 
organisation has seen a very large number of schemes come and go over 
the years, and mainly go.  ('I trust I make myself appropriately 
obscure').

As the volume of funds sloshing around inside a scheme gets larger, 
the licensing requirements climb steeply.

One longstanding reason for this is the amount of money at risk, and 
hence the scope for a failure to become a political football, and the 
attractiveness of the scheme as a target for organised crime.  A 
factor of more recent origin is the scope for the scheme to be 
actively used by organised crime for money-laundering, i.e. the 
spooks are deeper into the Reserve Bank than ever before.

(Aside:  Roy Masters had a lovely little piece in the Herald this 
morning on football-wagering as money-laundering: 
http://www.smh.com.au/business/heres-a-tip-be-sure-the-moneys-clean-20110621-1gdkw.html, 
including among many other cute remarks "At last Friday's Super 15 
match between the Rebels and Western Force in Melbourne, the crowd in 
the suits section sometimes cheered at the wrong times".  The subbie 
had fun with it, by supporting the story with a photo of a 
mendacious-looking Mark Arbib).

________________________________________________________________________

>https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/06/eff-and-bitcoin
>
>>  We don't fully understand the complex legal issues involved with 
>>creating a new currency system. Bitcoin raises untested legal 
>>concerns related to securities law, the Stamp Payments Act, tax 
>>evasion, consumer protection and money laundering, among others. 
>>And that's just in the U.S. While EFF is often the defender of 
>>people ensnared in legal issues arising from new technologies, we 
>>try very hard to keep EFF from becoming the actual subject of those 
>>fights or issues. Since there is no caselaw on this topic, and the 
>>legal implications are still very unclear, we worry that our 
>>acceptance of Bitcoins may move us into the possible subject role.
>
>
>--
>Kim Holburn
>IT Network & Security Consultant
>T: +61 2 61402408  M: +61 404072753
>mailto:kim at holburn.net  aim://kimholburn
>skype://kholburn - PGP Public Key on request
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-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
			            
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                    Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/

Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University