A cryptocurrency-focused advocacy group is challenging the validity of the US sanction against crypto mixing service Tornado Cash.
On August 8th, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed a ban on Tornado Cash citing that the protocol is used in illicit activities such as money laundering and terrorism.
The non-profit group Coin Center is now challenging this decision in a suit filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida on October 12th.
The think tank argues that the OFAC does not have the authority to sanction the smart contract and that Americans have the right to use tools that protect their privacy.
“Today, Coin Center, along with a group of normal privacy-seeking workers, donors, activists, and public figures, filed a lawsuit against the Treasury Department to keep privacy normal, to delist Tornado Cash privacy tools from sanctions, and to enjoin Treasury from enforcing against ordinary Americans exercising their self-evident and basic rights to privacy.”
According to the group’s executive director, Jerry Brito, part of the reason that Coin Center is suing the OFAC is to prevent similar bans from being imposed in the future.
“Not only are we fighting for privacy rights, but if this precedent is allowed to stand, OFAC could add entire protocols like Bitcoin or Ethereum to the sanctions list in the future, thus immediately banning them without any public process whatsoever. This can’t go unchallenged.
We intend to win this challenge even if it’s necessary to go to the Supreme Court, and we’ll keep you posted as the case unfolds.”
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