The problem with the 'mixer' approach to this is that the US Gov knows the bad money went into the mixer. They also know that it's harder to determine where the bad money came out to. This means that money that all of society has a valid vested interest in tracking and seizing is in the mixer. Part of having that freedom, privacy, and control is having to live with the consequences of doing business with people who land you in circumstances like this.

I don't buy any argument that hinges on:

* Someone stole my money. * But they used a privacy enhancing service to hide it. * So the authorities have no recourse.

If someone uses that service for legitimate reasons knowing that the people who steal money are also using then they just have to live with the fact that their privacy means they can't prove they weren't the ones who stole it.

To have freedom and privacy, we need due process. If a Gov agency investigating a crime wants information, they can get a warrant.

A lot of illegal activities happen over email. That doesn't mean the government can require everyone to give them access to their email so they can monitor it just in case crimes are committed.

What you're advocating for is the surveillance system China has setup where the government has a back door to access every social media post, every mobile app, every security camera, etc. Any companies that don't comply (Facebook, Google, Twitter, ...) are banned. They make the same claims that you did that "it's in society's interest" for individuals to give some of their privacy and freedom because the society has a vested interest in this information.

>they can't prove they weren't the ones who stole it.

Proving your innocence is not how the criminal justice system works in the US. If you have stolen goods, it's on the government to prove that

A) they are stolen

B) (and to criminally convict you) that you knew they were stolen

When it comes to civil forfeiture, it's pretty much the complete opposite.

We aren't talking about criminal conviction though. We are talking about something entirely different. We are talking about people freely transacting with people who the government already knows and has convicted of illegal activity. And those people who are freely transacting now have their funds difficult to spend, because because they are inextricably mixed up with illegal funds.

It's very hard to argue that you didn't know your funds were inextricably mixed up with those illegal funds because that is the a major purpose of a mixer. Choices like those have consequences. Falling under sanctions is one of them.

Or to put it another way. If you use a mixer you are knowingly helping to launder money. Which is itself a crime.

By that logic everyone with two brain cells who has worked on an interstate road crew should be imprisoned.

Of course you may consider one _knows_ launderers will be helped but have no _intent_ to help them, which may be true of the interstate road crew, bank tellers, or a user of Tornado Cash.

I don't think you can actually say you have no intent to help them. All of the other uses you mention other than a mixer have perfectly valid uses that don't involve committing a crime. But mixing your money in with illicitly obtained funds with the intention of making it so no one can tell your money apart from the illicit funds is the very definition of money laundering.

So no, your analogy doesn't even remotely apply.

Of course you can say you have no intent. Plenty of people use Tornado Cash to separate one wallet from another without any intention whatsoever to aid in any way illicit activity. Just like the road crew, they know the service will be used for illegal purposes but can have zero intent for it to happen.

This is actually not true. If you have stolen goods the government can and will confiscate them until you prove you got them legally.

This is ridiculous. The reality of the situation is that the law does make a distinction between activities/venues/products that have a significant non-criminal usage (cash/retail stores/hammers) vs. ones that have mostly criminal usage (mixers/crackhouses/lockpicks).

The only reason cash has significant non-criminal usage is that it has had time to gain a foothold in society.

If all communication apps had a backdoor for government surveillance, and one was introduced with E2E encryption, at first, criminals would disproportionaly flock to it, and you could very well argue for it to be banned under the principle you espouse. Thus you would strangle every privacy solution in its cradle before it has had a chance to become mainstream.

Ridiculous. Money laundering leads to a loss of freedom, privacy, and control because it empowers exactly the kind of people who want to take those things away from you.

Not all users of Tornado Cash are money laundering. The US government positions Tornado Cash as a system for money laundering but it is more accurately described as a system for privatizing your transactions. A user with an identifiable ENS name might want to hold and trade some ETH without broadcasting every action to the entire world - this becomes a personal security risk - and Tornado Cash is a way to do this that is decentralized and cryptographically secure.

Ridiculous. E2E encryption leads to a loss of freedom, privacy, and control because it empowers exactly the kind of people who want to take those things away from you.

I want to pay someone to mow my lawn in crypto.

I don’t want to pay them from my primary account with (potentially) millions in crypto visible thus subjecting me to a $5 wrench attack

So instead I have a “payments” hot wallet and use Tornado cash to disburse funds from my cold wallet for paying things while obscuring my total net worth/lifetime transaction history.

This is perfectly legal and moral.

Edit: incase this wasn’t clear the above is purely hypothetical.