Crypto security expert Michael Lewellen has sued the US Department of Justice over what he calls a “flawed and unfair” approach to developing blockchain code.
Lewellen, a lecturer at the University of Dallas and director of the Texas Blockchain Council, has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice against the government's legal crackdown on cryptocurrency mixers such as Tornado Cash and their developers. Ta.
Federal prosecutors are seeking to classify protocols like Tornado Cash as money transfer services. Lawsuits and sanctions accuse blockchain developers of knowingly writing code that criminals could exploit in the future.
The cryptocurrency industry strongly opposes this interpretation of the law, likening the Justice Department's arguments to automakers' liability for traffic accidents.
A federal judge previously ruled that code creators cannot be held responsible for creating decentralized protocols, and Tornado Cash was subsequently removed from the Treasury Department's sanctions list. However, the developer of Tornado Cash and other individuals associated with the cryptocurrency mixer remain on the Justice Department's list of indictments.
This lawsuit aims to ensure that innovators can create without fear and that laws cannot be misused to hinder progress. For too long, the Biden administration has used a lack of clarity to scare builders away from new technologies or out of the United States. It must end.
Michael Lewellen of X
Mr. Lewellen's complaint raises three main issues. The Justice Department does not have the legal authority to sue software creators for allegedly operating a “money transfer business,” the crackdown violates the First Amendment, and the Justice Department's actions violate due process. This is what we are doing.
The lawsuit is backed by crypto advocacy group CoinCenter and represents the latest industry effort to protect rights to code.