What are the consequences of donating bitcoins to WikiLeaks?

6

The WikiLeaks website provides a bitcoin donation address 1HB5XMLmzFVj8ALj6mfBsbifRoD4miY36v

According to this article from the Sydney Morning Herald, Julian Assange of WikiLeaks has been declared an "enemy of the state" by the US.

Declassified US Air Force counter-intelligence documents, released under US freedom-of-information laws, reveal that military personnel who contact WikiLeaks or WikiLeaks supporters may be at risk of being charged with "communicating with the enemy", a military crime that carries a maximum sentence of death.

Has there been any clarification or further analysis by US govt (or anyone) as to what the consequences would be of sending bitcoins to WikiLeaks?

Highly Irregular

Posted 2012-10-24T02:42:40.907

Reputation: 10 514

1They would probably be the same as sending other money to them, just a bit harder to trace. I don't think there is much of a Bitcoin-specific problem here. – ThePiachu – 2012-10-24T05:02:42.360

It's an interesting point, but would it be better addressed on Reddit or the forums rather than here? – Gary Rowe – 2012-10-24T07:46:31.170

@ThePiachu, if you arrange a trade with someone and they provide that address for payment, you wouldn't want police turning up at your doorstep! I believe that makes it Bitcoin specific. – Highly Irregular – 2012-10-24T08:36:23.163

@HighlyIrregular Hmm, good point. I think I'll make some new question about that issue. – ThePiachu – 2012-10-24T08:38:58.027

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/5152/323 – ThePiachu – 2012-10-24T08:47:53.257

1

Bitcoin's anonymity is usually over-estimated by its users. Researchers were able to associate certain donations to Wikileaks with certain bitcointalk users even though the said users probably thought it was anonymous.

– mazi – 2012-10-24T09:46:24.787

I would gladly donate to any enemy of the state. – flaab – 2012-10-25T12:42:57.093

Answers

1

Having been in the Army and understanding the stance that the US government has taken, I'm sure t will be up to the commanders. Many of whom will not look kindly on the gesture. The official stance will be known when they take action.

As you know the transactions are public and there are a number of efforts to build visualization and data mining tool sets. This article address the anonymity of transactions and describes nicely why there is no real anonymity if someone wants to dig.

http://anonymity-in-bitcoin.blogspot.com/2011/07/bitcoin-is-not-anonymous.html

You'll also notice two other important things about the article. One is that it focuses on WikiLeaks and that they are using Visualization tool sets. this tells me someone is already looking to make connections.

mjc

Posted 2012-10-24T02:42:40.907

Reputation: 179

Asked: 2012-10-24T02:42:40.907

Viewed: 282 times

Active: 2012-11-25T19:53:14.670