Banned Tornado Cash code reuploaded to GitHub in free speech test Earlier this month, the US Treasury Department sanctioned cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash, claiming it provided money laundering for entities deemed national threats to America. The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) identified the following entities: the Tornado Cash organization on …
The EFF doesn't have to waste money on frivolous bollocks like this. Rather they choose to waste money on frivolous bollocks like this.
But yes, it's quite sad. They should be ignoring it, as should we all. There is no thin edge here, no slippery slope. The collective we[0] Shirley has more important fish to fry.
[0] TINW
From a legal standpoint, the EFF is not legally required to gain your approval before spending their money, yet you seem to feel that it is appropriate to air your complaints (FWIW, I agree with your right to air them, even if I find your complaint contradictory).
Github have made commitments to protect free expression (for the hard of thinking, freedom of expression includes free speech) so it seems quite reasonable to take them to task when they seemingly break this commitment. It's a shame that so many seem to have forgotten AACS (and, more recently, youtube-dl) and what it meant for private sites standing up for individuals in the face of underhanded legal pressure.
I get the feeling that much of the support for Github comes from the more myopic cryptocurrency opponents who are happier to see a little suppression now at the possible expense of their freedoms later. Again, while these aren't legally guaranteed freedoms, how we respond to their loss sets the tone for the corporations in the long run. Just as how defending free speech for individuals can see you defending hate speech, it seems (to me) like defending cryptobros is better than the alternative erosion of corporations standing up for individual rights.
This is one of the very rare occasions where I support Microsoft over the EFF. The EFF are well aware that Microsoft have the right to chose which repositories they host and which accounts they terminate. This is not a first amendment issue because Github is not the US Government and Microsoft has not passed a law. If Professor Green or the EFF has an issue with the Treasury Department's OFAC they can host a Tornado Cash git repository on their own server and argue with the US government without dragging Microsoft into the courts.
If Microsoft's choice offends you, you are very welcome to not use their products or services. You are welcome to host Tornado Cash code on your own server. You can invite the EFF to use your server to make Tornado Cash code available on the internet. You have plenty of options to express your opinion without involving a third party.
If Microsoft had on their own initiative chosen to not host Tornado Cash for ethical reasons and the US Government had decided to take away Microsoft's right to freedom of association and required Microsoft to distribute Tornado Cash source code on Github would you be cheering on the US Government for illegally taking away Microsoft's right to free speech?
I think you have misread the article. They say they "will challenge that decision in court". My reading was that this action would be against the US Government OFAC, not Microsoft.
Presumably the challenge would either be a first amendment case against the government for OFAC using threats to improperly pressure companies like Microsoft to remove speech, or a wider case regarding an improper lack of clarity in the OFAC order (the lack of clarity over "Tornado Cash").
@Graham Cobb "I think you have misread the article. They say they "will challenge that decision in court". My reading was that this action would be against the US Government OFAC, not Microsoft."
Well my reading was that EFF would take action against GitHub (Microsoft) due to this passage from the article where they claim GitHub suppressed speech and they would challenge GitHub's decision in court if they take the code down.
"Both Green and Kurt Opsahl, deputy executive director and general counsel of the EFF, previously expressed concern over GitHub's removal of the source code, arguing that code is speech and that GitHub has suppressed speech by disabling the Tornado Cash repository.
Green says the fork he published exists to test whether code removal is ever the appropriate response to sanctions. He says that if GitHub takes the code down, the EFF will challenge that decision in court."
The relevance is that we need to keep pressure on private companies not to (choose to) do the government's dirty work for them. We can, and should, pressure them to help us preserve freedom. We have every right to do that, just as they have the right, if they so choose, to not do what we ask.
This is particularly important for the largest private companies.
The problem with that (logically sound) argument is that companies these days have power over regular people that is at least comparable to that of the government. Companies can choose who they do business with, sure. But what happens if said companies not only refuse to host your source code or publish your writings, but also sell you water and electricity? Or food? What good is having rights to free speech if you are deprived of a platform to exercise it to any significant degree? Even if all of that is not happening, at least not to everyone, right now, I find the possibility worrying at the very least.
No, they don't.
Companies do not make law. Any and every company is subject to an FBI search warrant, if it comes to that, and there is no company (no, not even you, Apple) that has the right to barge into my house and search for whatever it wants.
Companies do lobby, and I do worry about the extent of their influence in that arena, but they have not yet bought the FBI.
Water and electricity companies have a legal duty to supply. If Twitfacesoft cut off my water or electricity because they do not like I say then they would be in deep legal pooh, probably to the extent of being required to split off their water and electricity businesses after paying a hefty fine and damages.
If Twitfacesoft decide not to host my content, I can set up my own version of TRUTH Social, which would be massively easier than arranging my own independent electricity supply/connection, water supply and sewage treatment. This is why utilities have a duty of supply and social networks do not.
I am massively more terrified of Big Government deciding that businesses are required to host other people's stuff on their web sites. If I have an argument with Twitface I can stop using them, find out who advises with them on stop buying those products. Twitface can be held to account via their advertisers - but only when a large majority agrees it is necessary.
> I am massively more terrified of Big Government deciding that businesses are required to host other people's stuff on their web sites
This is the exact same argument over the Christian bakers who refused to make a cake for a gay wedding.
In both cases (Ashers in the UK and Masterpiece in the US), the issue wasn't sexuality vs politics, it was sexuality vs religious beliefs. In both cases, both sexual orientation and religion were protected classes under the applicable laws. Ashers was more direct: the legal question at hand was whether the bakery could be compelled to write a message they disagreed with, in Masterpiece, it was a case of denial of service.
Which of the ten commandments is thou shalt not bake a gay wedding cake? Is it before or after "Thou shalt not boil a kid in his mother’s milk"?
If adherence to religion is required to be logical to be legally protected, it may as well not be protected at all.
For reference, I'm an atheist but I'd rather live in a world where everyone is free to believe what their sky mummy/daddy/other is telling them to do than one where they are required to defend the validity of their beliefs before they can follow them. This is because the exact sort of person who feels they are capable of determining the validity of all individual beliefs is also the last person who should be doing so; whether these beliefs are on the nature of invisible, unprovable intelligences or who should be getting consensually frisky with who.
Is religion or religious expression a choice? One can be exposed to ideas, information and experiences that might change religious beliefs over time but I don't think anyone can will themselves to change their beliefs. Equally, someone's sexual desires might change over time (others might argue that they are 'discovered' or 'developed', to suggest that they were always extant, just unknown to the individual). In both cases, while a person may not be able to change the truth of what they feel, they can change how they reveal or express it; though this expression may be driven by challenging or irrepressible desires.
I don't mean to suggest that religion and sexuality are exactly equivalent but I do think that protected classes need to be more broadly redefined to afford greater protections to individual aspects which straddle or sit outside of the current lines.
Big Government deciding that businesses are required to host other people's stuff
No one is suggesting that businesses are required to host stuff.
But we are very much allowed to ridicule them, despise them, and criticise them for their actions. We can make loud protests - even waving placards outside their offices, if we want. We can show them the serious errors of their ways, the unintended likely consequences, the conflicts with other statements they have made, or even just why we think they are expletive deleted for their actions. We can try to influence people to switch to their competitors or even to create their own protests.
I don't see why you keep mentioning the obviously true statement that GitHub are not required to host the material as if that were an answer to the criticism of GitHub for removing the accounts and material.
I just took a look, and the code is available in all the usual places (duh!). It makes absolutely zero difference what the US Government, Microsoft or the EFF have to say on the subject ... The code is out there, and anybody can freely acquire it. Green sticking the code on GitHub again is just political grandstanding. Ignore his machinations; looks like he's just after free publicity for some reason.
No, I don't use any form of cryptocurrency & attendant guff. I see no real point to it.
I haven't read the government ruling which led to the takedown on Gitbub, but wouldn't forking it, changing the name or a few lines of code make a legal way of getting around the restrictions anyway?
Even if that would still fall foul of the restrictions, once its out there, its very hard to put the cork back into the bottle. Ask anyone whos nood photos got leaked etc its wack a mole to try and keep taking down places where they pop up. And the more that people hear about the takedowns the more notoriety it gets which results in MORE people actually looking for it.
The US Government has an endless stream of taxpayers' money to hunt down and destroy anyone they disagree with. Revenge porn victims are not normally as well funded. Over the next few months we will find out how far they are willing to go to enforce this ban.
He could publish the code on his university web site or on his own - but he's probably fearing he could then have to sustain the burden of any law infringement - so keep it on GitHub so MS becomes responsible. Or may he's just another moron who thinks "if it's not on Github it doesn't exist"
But it looks to me far more dangerous for free speech when everybody flocks to to the same services, and surrender to the same thinking.
Also EFF as soon as sees the "Microsoft" name involved starts to charge as a annoyed gnu - with the same cleverness.
education is in the UK and US. Loads of fundamental "not getting it" here. And given how clever some people in the IT world must be, I oft times find myself wondering if it's all genuine or some of it is a little bit agenda-driven ???????
If you subscribe to the belief that one of the key roles of "government" is to facilitate trade with an aim to better society's existence, then you need to understand that you will have rules and regulations around trade that can affect citizens (subjects in the UK, by the way - never forget that) rights (and responsibilities).
This may or may not be directly relevant here. But it's a fact.
"arguing that code is speech and that GitHub has suppressed speech by disabling the Tornado Cash repository"
May be the case, but Microsoft / GitHub has no legal obligation to protect anyone's speech. First amendment is that Government cannot suppress free speech. Individuals and corporations are (legally) free to do so.
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