The Fraternal Order of Police, the largest law enforcement organization in the United States with over 382,000 members, is opposing a key provision of the CLARITY Act.
In a letter to Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott and Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren, FOP National President Patrick Yoes said the organization "strongly opposes" Section 604 of the bill, which would exempt non-controlling developers and providers from being classified as money transmitting businesses.
The FOP argues this change would "strip prosecutors and law enforcement of the statutes used to track and take down criminals using digital assets to commit crimes" and would make it "even easier" for criminal organizations to profit from illegal activity.
This is exactly the provision that matters most for open-source developers. The same section the FOP wants removed is the one that would protect developers from being prosecuted for what their users do with their software. Without it, building privacy tools, non-custodial wallets, or mixing software could make a developer criminally liable under money transmission laws, regardless of whether they ever touched a user's funds.
The FOP says it supports the right to trade digital assets. It just wants to make sure law enforcement keeps the ability to prosecute the people who build the tools those assets move through. That distinction is the entire fight.
In a letter to Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott and Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren, FOP National President Patrick Yoes said the organization "strongly opposes" Section 604 of the bill, which would exempt non-controlling developers and providers from being classified as money transmitting businesses.
The FOP argues this change would "strip prosecutors and law enforcement of the statutes used to track and take down criminals using digital assets to commit crimes" and would make it "even easier" for criminal organizations to profit from illegal activity.
This is exactly the provision that matters most for open-source developers. The same section the FOP wants removed is the one that would protect developers from being prosecuted for what their users do with their software. Without it, building privacy tools, non-custodial wallets, or mixing software could make a developer criminally liable under money transmission laws, regardless of whether they ever touched a user's funds.
The FOP says it supports the right to trade digital assets. It just wants to make sure law enforcement keeps the ability to prosecute the people who build the tools those assets move through. That distinction is the entire fight.
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