Tom Emmer: "U.S. Treasury Sanctions Against Tornado Cash Are Unprecedented"

Article reading time:
1 min.

Congressman Tom Emmer said sanctions against Tornado Cash are "unprecedented" and their impact could have a negative impact on privacy and innovation.

Last Thursday, speaking on the programCoinDesk TV "First Mover", U.S. House of Representative Tom Emmer shared his concerns with listeners about the events triggered by the actions of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Treasury Department.

According to Emmer, bringing Tornado Cash into the "blackOFAC list and the subsequent arrest of the service developer Alexey Pertsev, became an unprecedented step that threatens privacy and innovation not only in the crypto industry, but also in other highly informatized industries. Emmer considers these events enough for the US Congress to question their legality.

"I would not like my speech to soundas if I strongly oppose OFAC's position regarding the oversight of crypto-related violations. Their top priority is protecting US national security. The problem is that sanctions against Tornado Cash are an unprecedented move in OFAC policy. Open source software that is not controlled by any person or organization has been repressed. So we need to think about how these events will affect the right to privacy and innovation,” said Emmer.

On the upcoming Saturday, the initiative group,which advocates the development of open source software, plans to hold a rally in Amsterdam in support of the arrested developer Tornado Cash.