Opinion Forum

Still More Domestic Terrorism Has Been Revealed

March 20th, 2011

When Will They Ever Learn?

According to the Citizen Times and as also noted in the Daily Beast, a North Carolina man recently found guilty of minting and distributing “Liberty Dollars” was, as stated by U.S. Attorney Anne Tompkins, a domestic terrorist. The conviction resulted from an investigation which began in 2005. As reported in the Citizen Times,

“Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism,” U.S. Attorney Anne Tompkins said. “While these forms of anti-government activities do not involve violence, they are every bit as insidious and represent a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country.”

We are determined to meet these threats through infiltration, disruption and dismantling of organizations which seek to challenge the legitimacy of our democratic form of government,” Tompkins said.

Continue reading this article at The PJ Tatler »

Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: coins, currency, distributing, Liberty Dollars, minting, terrorist, von NotHaus
Categories: Economics, News, Politics | Comments (10) | Home

10 Responses to “Still More Domestic Terrorism Has Been Revealed”

Dan Miller | March 20th, 2011 at 1:28 pm

A photo purporting to be one of the terrorist coins can be found at Comment #19 here. It has the inscription “Liberty Dollar” and the notice “Not intended to be used as legal tender or coin.” It also identifies its maker, “888.Lib.Dollar — LibertyDollar.org,” and states that it contains “two-fifths ounce .999 fine silver.”

Obviously, some people, particularly those unable or unwilling to read, could easily be deceived.

Tom Carter | March 20th, 2011 at 2:46 pm

Well, you know how all those non-Muslim terrorists are (if you can find one). Always trying to pass off fake coins as legal tender, even marking them as not legal tender. Next thing you know, they’ll be blowing up buildings and bombing airliners.

Brian | March 20th, 2011 at 4:50 pm

Those guys weren’t very good counterfeiters. Made it to where the USSS could just call them on the phone and talk to them.

Maybe I could see a point to the prosecution if they were passing this off as fine silver and were using pot metal…but counterfeiting? I was always under the impression that there had to be intent to defraud in order to make a counterfeiting case, but that’s just me and my silly forgery detective experience talking.

Dan Miller | March 20th, 2011 at 5:48 pm

Brian,

I don’t know whether they committed a crime, and that’s not the point I attempted to make in the rather snarky article. What got me was the U.S. attorney’s quoted statement,

“Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism,” U.S. Attorney Anne Tompkins said. “While these forms of anti-government activities do not involve violence, they are every bit as insidious and represent a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country.” (emphasis added)

Not every crime is a terrorist act and many acts of actual terrorism have been touted as nothing more than criminal activity. The attempted equivalency is troublesome and tends to dilute the meaning of terrorism, making it seem somehow less destructive.

larry ennis | March 21st, 2011 at 10:11 am

Dan
Yes, such comment’s are of course the Obamanese equivalent of don’t do as I do but as I say. How can they maintain a straight face and talk about some one being a danger to the economic stability of the country.

Brian | March 21st, 2011 at 11:25 am

Dan, I agree with you wholeheartedly and was amused by the article.

FWIW, the government cannot compel, through force of law, the medium of exchange between two private individuals. It may, however, demand that its taxes, fees and fines be paid in the USD.

We use the USD as a medium of exchange because it is convenient to do so, because we believe the USD to have some intrinsic value. When it becomes inconvenient to use the USD, or we finally perceive that the USD has little intrinsic value, we’ll cease trading in it.

Speaking of such things, there’s an interesting article at American Thinker about what’s happening with the dollar.

The Aqua Buddha | April 13th, 2011 at 3:56 am

The issue, as I understand it, revolves around the methods used to sell the Liberty Dollars (LD). In advertising on the LD site (taken down by court order, as have the archives of it) the “medallions” and the “commemorative certificates” were described as an alternative to the government’s money. The LD site had a FAQ that described how to use the LDs as actual currency, and there were merchants that accepted the LD as actual currency.

Minting “medallions” and printing “commemorative certificates” are not inherently illegal actions. It is when your products become competition to actual legally recognized tender that it becomes problematic.

Strict statutory interpretations can place Mr. Van NotHaus in the same category as other terrorists because the acceptance of his products as cash “could” cause the people to lose faith in the legal tender of the U.S., and “could” lead to a destabilization of the dollar, and the economy “could” turn even worse than it already is. Destabilizing a country’s economy is a form of terrorism.

Just my 2 U.S. pennies worth.

Brian | April 13th, 2011 at 8:24 am

@Aqua Buddha – the public laws only declare that when dealing with the government is the only time that an exchange must be made with USD. It is silent on transactions between consenting, free moral agents.

Obviously, if merchants were willing to accept LDs in exchange for their products/services, they knew that they were not trading for USD, ergo, no fraud.

Competition with the USD is irrelevant because, as I pointed out, USD are only required to pay the government, not private citizens.

Tom Carter | April 13th, 2011 at 10:21 am

Actually, there’s a lot more to it than that, Brian. Wikipedia has a good article on the controversy here.

Von Nothaus was convicted under Title 18, Sec 486 (among other sections), and he was also convicted of mail fraud.

It’s true that private currency within certain legal limits can be used and is used in the U.S., providing all parties to the transaction agree. The only kind of currency required to be acceptable is “legal tender,” i.e., USD.

Note also that the value of private currency income and transactions in-kind have to be equated to USD, reported on income tax returns, and taxes paid in USD. There’s no escaping the tax man!

Brian | April 13th, 2011 at 9:46 pm

Well, I guess the LDs could be considered a reasonable facsimile of a US coin – if the person receiving one were blind and/or illiterate, and had lost feeling below his wrists. You’re old enough to remember silver coinage. I have a few. They don’t feel or, ultimately, look anything at all like our current coinage.

I used to send people to prison for fraud, remember? We didn’t do much locally with counterfeiting except pass those cases on to the USSS. I’ve never heard of a counterfeiter that advertised his wares publicly, or provided an address or a phone number with which to contact him. Ordinarily, when the USSS gets a whiff of a counterfeiting operation, the agents literally work around the clock until the counterfeiting plant is discovered and shut down. This guy sold LDs for how long?

FWIW, the meaning of the word “dollar” as originally used in the late 18th century referred to a specific amount of silver, and if my memory serves, the French employed that word before we did. In the case of the USD, one dollar was (and still is) defined as 371.25 (Troy) grains of .999 fine silver. Yet still we have Federal Reserve Notes.

There’s a reason At I Sec 8 included this language:

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

That last phrase wasn’t included just because they thought it would be a neat idea, and it wasn’t an accident that it was included in the clause that gave the federal government the authority to coin money.