US Government To Study Bitcoin As Possible Terrorist Threat

randomErr (172078) writes "The US Department of Defense is investigating whether Bitcoin and other virtual currencies are a potential terrorist threat. The Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office (CTTSO), a division within DOD that identifies and develops counter terrorism abilities and investigates irregular warfare and evolving threats, has listed Bitcoin among its topics for research and mission critical analysis related to terrorism."

Sounds reasonable

[Mr 44]

It's a bit immature for people to be blindly making fun of this. At the risk of RTFA:

An unclassified memo from January unearthed by Bitcoin Magazine detailed solicitations for CTTSO projects. The memo states that one of the mission requirements is for "innovative...solutions to develop and/or enhance new concepts and constructs for understanding the role of virtual currencies" in financing threats against the United States.

The memo said the blurring of national lines is facilitating the transfer of virtual currencies: "The introduction of virtual currency will likely shape threat finance by increasing the opaqueness, transactional velocity, and overall efficiencies of terrorist attacks," it stated.

This sounds like a perfectly valid thing for someone to think about, and consider the implications of. Honestly, whatever your business (or governmental responsibility), if you aren't thinking about the impact of crypto-currency, you might be being negligent.

Stupid headline and summary.

[jklovanc]

They are not investigating Bitcoin as a threat.They are investigating how crypto-currencies can be used to finance terrorism. The editors need to be fired.

Back in January, Bitcoin Magazine unearthed an unclassified memo detailing some of the CTTSO projects. "The introduction of virtual currency will likely shape threat finance by increasing the opaqueness, transactional velocity, and overall efficiencies of terrorist attacks”, the memo said.

Re:Sounds UNreasonable

[TheGratefulNet]

quite unreasonable.

don't you know the drill, by now?

if this competes with the existing power-brokers (and yes, it does) then it can't be allowed.

to stop things we don't like, we label them as child pron or terrorism.

nothing new about this; we've seen this old play redone hundreds of times during the last 10+ yrs.

this is just about controlling currency and stopping anonymity. has absolutely nothing to do with 'terror'. only an moran would buy that story.

Re:Your tax dollars hard at work

[khellendros1984]

America looks more and more like a communist country every coming decade.

I think the words you were looking for are "totalitarian police state", or the like.

Re:Your tax dollars hard at work

[Anonymous Coward]

America looks more and more like a communist country every coming decade.

I think the words you were looking for are "totalitarian police state", or the like.

Maybe Right Wing totalitarian police state considering what passes for Left Wing in the USA.

Re:Your tax dollars hard at work

[Ralph Wiggam]

And I can't even imagine how harsh would be the punishment for those who get caught laundering money for terrorists. Let's say if a big bank (i.e. HSBC, or Santander) got caught, certainly hundreds of people would go to jail, right?

I feel so safe with all these laws protecting us.

I'm so sick of seeing the HSBC case referenced by people who have no clue about the actual case. Nobody at the bank had any involvement in "laundering money for terrorists". Other people laundered money using HSBC's accounts. The HSBC employees did not follow regulatory reporting rules that might have revealed the laundering. So like any regulatory violation, they were slapped with a massive fine. It would have been ridiculous to charge anyone with a crime.

If the night security guard at a bank falls asleep, and someone robs the bank without him noticing- you wouldn't charge the security guard with bank robbery.