So my goal is certainly not just getting to one segment of the population, but it's making decisions accessible to whoever's interested in reading them. I do a lot of work with the Administrative Office of the Courts, our central body doing civic education and outreach to high schools, because I want college and high school students and law students to have an experience where they get a chance to talk to a judge. Then, there’s other people who might be dealing with it: family members, friends, victims who might be in a courtroom gallery, etc.īut then it goes far beyond that. We are ambassadors for the judiciary to the people in our courtroom - it's a very frightening proposition being in court if you've been federally charged, and people have perceptions of what they think can happen there in terms of fairness or unfairness. But at least, if it's understandable, then there's still some trust in the framework even if you don't agree with how our decisions are stated.Īre you trying to get through to people who are into crypto in particular? But I think there are many judges who are trying to make the judiciary more accessible, and so people can see the work that we're doing and understand what we're doing and then make their own opinions about if it's right or wrong. Humor is one way, not using a lot of legalese is another way. We're public servants! And in order for the public to have faith and trust us, they need to understand what it is that we're doing and what we're saying. Strangelove." What are you trying to accomplish with that? I mean, you’re quoting "SNL," you’re quoting "The Big Lebowski," you’re quoting "Dr. Your decisions have also gotten a lot of attention. And now I’m gone! So if they have them, I don't know if I’ll get one. But I have to say, we started with the goal of wanting to make T-shirts, and we never did that while I was there. That’s how we started out with our “Bitcoin StrikeForce,” or so we called ourselves. A lot of what we were investigating was related to following the money and so she wanted us to be this multidisciplinary unit. attorney at the time, Jessie Liu, had this idea of using financial investigations in a way that was not limited to just white collar crime, or even narcotics cases, but also for cyber investigations, to national security investigations, and in civil cases. He had the sense of “this is getting bigger, and we should start looking into it.” There was another prosecutor, Christopher Brown - you know, the other Chris Brown - and he had taken an interest in this when we were both working on financial crime in the Washington, D.C. It’s when I was a prosecutor that I really learned about it. This conversation was edited for clarity and brevity. Crypto lawyers have drawn on his prior decisions in the context of the Tornado Cash sanctions, for example.įaruqui spoke with Protocol about the power of his position, and what people in crypto should understand about the law. But the ways Faruqui has weighed on cases that have come before him can give lawyers clues as to what legal frameworks will pass muster. Bitcoin’s immutable ledger was used to find the perpetrators.Ī magistrate judge doesn’t set precedent in the same way as a Supreme Court justice - stare decisis only must be obeyed by lower courts, and Farqui’s is not the highest. Particularly well known was a case involving a dark-web site called “Welcome to Video,” which had facilitated some 360,000 downloads of sexually exploitative videos of children to 1.28 million members worldwide using bitcoin. There, Faruqui prosecuted cases that involved terrorism, child pornography, and weapons proliferation. Attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., that called themselves the “Bitcoin Strikeforce,” and worked with agencies like the IRS and FBI in federal investigations. Rather, before taking the judge position Faruqui was one of a group of prosecutors in the U.S. His knowledge isn’t the product of spending time on crypto Twitter.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |