Quote from: nullius on October 04, 2020, 10:22:30 PM

Now, turning back to BitMEX, you did mention jurisdiction:

Quote from: JayJuanGee on October 04, 2020, 01:16:21 AM

I am NOT proclaiming that the various departments of the US justice system (who are purportedly representing the interest of the US people) are without a variety of justifications, but surely they need to have jurisdiction over the matters that they are alleging and charging, and due process of law should be allowed, including in criminal cases there are presumptions of innocent until being proved guilty. Therefore evidence needs to be shown in a court of law, and criminal cases surely have intent elements that must be proven in a court of law, too.

Whereas if jurisdiction is lacking, then why should a defendant suffer trial before a court lacking proper authority, for alleged violation of laws that do not bind the defendant?

Of course in the law, there are various issues that are considered threshold issues, and of course, jurisdiction is one of those areas.

Of course, also some states (governments) could be superimposing jurisdiction, and surely those kinds of injustices and overbearingnesses do take place. I agree with your earlier example of Julian Assange. Assange likely has fairly top notch attorneys but somehow they are seeming to have difficulties limiting the case to jurisdiction and keeping the USA govt sufficiently at bay.

Quote from: nullius on October 04, 2020, 10:22:30 PM

Why is the presumption of innocence even an issue? Why should proofs be sought?

I agree with you also that jurisdiction seems to be even more foundational in terms of threshold issues than presumption of innocence.

Sometimes attorneys will argue issues that are further up the ladder because if they end up losing on some of the more foundational / threshold issues and they present NO arguments on the other matters, then they would end up losing everything merely based on losing on the threshold issue. Some lawyers and clients are going to be more willing to stick to ONLY arguing the one issue - but many times, they do end up arguing the other issues, too, while at the same time NOT waiving their right to be totally correct on the foundational/threshold issue that allows the bringing of the case in the first place.

Quote from: nullius on October 04, 2020, 10:22:30 PM

If a tinpot dictator on the other side of the world were to pass, within his jurisdiction, a decree that I, personally, am completely banned from Bitcoin, and if I were to violate his “law”, then should I seek “due process” in his court? Or should I laugh?

The law can be pretty god damned crazy, sometimes, because it is NOT really uncommon for attorneys to make internally inconsistent arguments, just to make sure that their bases are all covered - but frequently also, they will make their strongest arguments first, and sometimes cut off weaker arguments in order to NOT seem to be grappling at straws ... but I would think that the vast majority of western judges are well able to accept that parties will sometimes make inconsistent arguments... but still tactically, sometimes, it may well be better to just stick to the stronger arguments and to eliminate the weaker and inconsistent arguments or the non-threshold arguments - like you seem to be suggesting.

Quote from: nullius on October 04, 2020, 10:22:30 PM

On these types of issues, the only difference between that hypothetical tinpot dictator and the United States is guns, more guns, bombs, more bombs, tanks, aircraft carriers, ballistic missiles, and nuclear warheads, plus the economic and political muscle to seduce or coerce other countries’ corrupt governments without even bothering to shoot up and incinerate a bunch of civilians.

Of course, those kinds of hard powers do allow some countries to be BIGGER bullies than other countries would be capable of being outside of their territories.

Quote from: nullius on October 04, 2020, 10:22:30 PM

Quote from: JayJuanGee on October 04, 2020, 01:16:21 AM

I am more inclined to presume that injustices are taking place on the side of the accused, when I see members posting about the guilt of these various players way before evidence has even been adequately described (and sure in the court of public opinion, we might even be relying upon more flimsy evidence regarding how we might feel about the situation).

^^^ THIS.

I am alarmed and, frankly, a little bit shocked at the general tenor of some of the talk here.

Of course, many of us are going to have differing opinions here, and some member will change their minds and their positions with the passage of time. Historically, my mind has been changed on topics (sometimes in BIG ways and sometimes merely tweakenings of my ideas and maybe better buttressing or even eliminating some of the rationales that I had previously thought) after participating in thread discussions of various matters.

Quote from: nullius on October 04, 2020, 10:22:30 PM

Just how did this U.S. government action suddenly, within a matter of days, so blacken the name of an exchange that, to my knowledge, has had a sterling reputation? There are exchanges with credible scam accusations, theft under the rubric of “shotgun KYC”, rampant shitcoin pump-and-dump pushing, and all manner of other sleazy shenanigans. I have never heard any such thing about BitMEX—still haven’t. And now, some people are suddenly talking about them as criminals just because a U.S. prosecutor said so!

You and I seem to recognize a lot of these same facts, logic and conclusions, and I would not write off too many of the WO members as if you think that they do not have a brain because several of them will likely come around or at least, consider and reconsider the facts, the logic and their conclusions (opinions) with the passage of time.

On the other hand, it is possible that you and I (or one of us) might find out that Bitmex's behavior was more egregious than we had earlier considered, and we might adjust our opinions or maybe the strength of our opinion(s) might change with the learning of new facts and logic.

Quote from: nullius on October 04, 2020, 10:22:30 PM

There’s an old saying—I don’t know where I first heard it—that in the United States, a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich.

I quickly googled it, and I found this in wikipedia:

>>>>New York State chief judge Sol Wachtler was famously quoted by Tom Wolfe in The Bonfire of the Vanities that "a grand jury would 'indict a ham sandwich,' if that's what you wanted."<<<<

Yes, the expression suggests that the prosecutor has a lot of power and ability to persuade juror members into doing what they want in terms of being able to get an indictment.

Quote from: nullius on October 04, 2020, 10:22:30 PM

All I see thus far is news that, at first impression, looks very much like regulatory and prosecutorial overreach from a country that collectively acts as if it were the emperor of the world.

What else is new? I see that, too.

Quote from: nullius on October 04, 2020, 10:22:30 PM

Quote from: nullius on October 03, 2020, 06:26:23 PM

Note: I have no connection to BitMEX, and no financial interest in the foregoing statement. My experience with centralized exchanges is pretty much nil; and I don’t know anybody at BitMEX.

Quote from: Last of the V8s on October 04, 2020, 08:40:15 PM

[Assange]

Thanks for indirectly reminding me that I had the foregoing almost completed in my offline drafts box. (Most of what I write is never posted, and much of it is never completed.)

Quote from: Last of the V8s on October 04, 2020, 08:40:15 PM

Jacob Applebaum

Probably quite old news that I somehow missed, but... He’s back in action? Cool. Although I disagree with many of his viewpoints (like Assange’s), he (like Assange) was always one of those principled types who would not stop at those invisible lines that you are never supposed to cross.^* I think that that’s why he (like Assange) was targeted in some scandalous way.

(* Just for perhaps the least instance of that, Appelbaum considered Cloudflare to be an Internet-wide security bug, and accordingly opened a Tor issue that I tried to keep open back in 2017—around the time that my first Newbie-rank post here thanked theymos for telling the truth about Cloudflare. 2020 update: Nothing has changed; Cloudflare is still a tool of corporate censorship and mass surveillance, as Appelbaum said. They are untouchable. In tech circles, the talk about them is almost all praise. And that is relatively nothing compared to the dirt that Appelbaum was dragging out about the NSA and other intelligence agencies!)

I hope that he is still the same will-not-shut-up deadly-principled, stubborn loose cannon as he was before. The world needs a few more of those.

inb4 anyone accuses me of hypocrisy

I doubt that there is any need to make this kind of disclaimer because we should assume that you do not have such connections... but if you were to have such connections, there might be a need for you to disclose such information, perhaps?