Quote from: Gavin Andresen on June 06, 2011, 02:55:08 PM

Quote from: mewantsbitcoins on June 06, 2011, 02:11:51 PM

urthermore, I don't think any of us would mind helping law enforcement or in fact anyone to help and find real criminals behind real crimes. Bitcoin is not anonymous - you have to go to great lengths to make it such.

Exactly right. I will to do what I can to help the police catch scammers and crooks who want to steal from people. The police might use those same tools and techniques to help catch people who use bitcoin to pay for drugs; I can't stop them from doing that.

I personally don't think drugs or gambling should be illegal, because I believe you should be free to do whatever you like with your own body and your own money. But I also believe those are separate issues from bitcoin, and if I felt really strongly about it (it isn't one of my own personal hot-button issues) I would be donating money to, or volunteering to work for LEAP and NORML, not mixing "bitcoin is a great new technology" with "drugs should be legal."

And please do tell who gets to decide what a real crime is? Murder? Drugs? Money laundering? Tax evasion? Using illegal currencies?

You should definitely help those police catch people using illegal currencies. After all that is domestic terrorism: http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/stossel/blog/2011/03/22/starting-a-new-currency-is-%E2%80%9Cdomestic-terrorism%E2%80%9D .