Transcript: Lauren Rodriguez on the Samourai Wallet Prosecution and the Fight to Free Her Husband

Marty Bent [0:02] Lauren, I wish I didn't have to have you on the show. We were just talking. Before we had recorded, when I spent some time with you and Keoni. Over the years, and it was clear to me that you guys liked staying out of the limelight and just putting your heads down and working on Samurai Wallet and... You've been thrust into the public eye as you are forced to fight for the freedom of your husband. And I've been thinking about this interview for a few days now. And it's like where to start. And I guess the best place to start is how are you? How has this whole process been for you?

Lauren Rodriguez [0:53] Hi, well first, thank you for having me on Marty. As you said, we have known each other for a while. So, you know, it's nice to be speaking to, you know, kind of a friend in that sense, but yeah, I'd rather not be here. I'd rather not be in this position. It's hard. It's hard to wake up and not have my husband here and not have, you know, the person I would. turn to to ask advice on kind of these speaking matters or what to say or how to keep fighting for him. And I can't ask him. I can't turn to him. I can't message him.

Lauren Rodriguez ⋮ I have to wait for when he can call from prison. And that's a difficult position to be in. But I'm also grateful that people like you are allowing me a platform to talk about the real injustices of this case and the fact that we're still here and still fighting. his kind of memory and, you know, him as a person isn't dying on the outside, that people can know that this is still going on. So thank you.

Marty Bent [2:15] No need to thank me. We've been in this battle together for many years before even the case began because I think what Keone, Bill and others who being persecuted right now really fought for is something that I deeply believe is a human right, which is the right to privacy and in this case financial privacy. I think Matt O'Dell says it best. You can't have freedom without financial privacy. It is a prerequisite. If you want to build wealth, you need to be able to do that in a way that protects your privacy. that's why we supported Samurai Wallet on Rabbit Hole Recap via 1031 for many years, because it's something that we truly believe in.

Marty Bent ⋮ And it's crazy that we live in a time where It is looked at as something that is dirty that you shouldn't want to find. And as we accelerate toward the AI future, where it seems like the digital panopticon can get even stronger, it's incredibly scary that freedom fighters fighting for the right to privacy being thrown in a cage.

Lauren Rodriguez [3:32] And so much of this is just, you know, obviously it's been ramping up. as you so rightly pointed to the, the potential with AI, but a lot of this came about in the nineties and then the early two thousands with the Patriot act. Like this in our lifetime has massively ramped up this attack on, on privacy. And you said you can't have, you can't have freedom and liberty without, without privacy, financial privacy. you know, that's also goes to speech, know, speech transactions, who you interact with via your, your money is, is a form of speech. And so it's just affects so much of the founding principles of this country. And yes.

Marty Bent [4:17] Was this a topic that you and Keone bonded over or was this something that you came to learn just via osmosis by hanging out with him?

Lauren Rodriguez [4:29] I was definitely in the libertarian leanings when we met, but he's brilliant and I definitely have learned a lot from him over the years. Yeah, but I think that's something that bonded us initially, that we had those similar sentiments.

Marty Bent [4:49] How is he doing?

Lauren Rodriguez [4:55] It's, it's hard. mean, thankfully he's safe. He's not in a dangerous place, but at the same time it's prison. He doesn't deserve to be there. It's unjust like yesterday. So the way prison works is you have a certain amount of minutes in a month and that's, that's capped. So you kind of have to budget those and kind of say, okay, so we're going to call for this, this many minutes a day so that we can talk. And usually we have a six, six AM call. And that didn't come. And by like 10 30, I was getting really anxious because it was an hour. I called the prison and they give some nondescript BOP answer that yeah, he's there and he's well, not sure what that means, but, uh, and then it hours later.

Lauren Rodriguez ⋮ And then finally he was able to call and there was a, there had been a system wide outage for the emails and the phone system, but. My mind obviously goes to, okay, well, as the time ticked on, you know, worst and worst case scenarios, is he injured? Do they not know he's injured? you know, did something happen? Like, so while it is safe and thankfully he's, he's fine. And it was just a technical issue. Those feelings are, are always on my mind. it's also for, for his side, for someone who was building something that he loved and believed in for. you know, a decade and really putting his heart into it, you know, way more than 40 hours a week, right?

Lauren Rodriguez ⋮ Like that's, what he breathed was, was building Samurai Wallet and kind of what was the ethos behind that. And then sort of have that stripped away as well. It's, it's very difficult for I think anyone who is a contributing member of society. to be thrown into a cage, really your, you know, boredom, boredom is what gets you the monotony of day to day. And, and just trying to, you know, one hour stretch in and they feel like a week, like it just really kind of grinds you down. So while he's fine, it's, it's, and you know, he'll get through it. It's still not a good place.

Lauren Rodriguez ⋮ It's still prison.

Marty Bent [7:23] Yeah, I mean, and you're in a prison of your own, Though you're out here, it's like you just described. You don't have your husband there to answer questions. And that can be a mental prison, like you said, the worry that you had when you didn't get the 6 AM call. And that's like the most disheartening thing about all this is the collateral damage. for you and everybody else, the chilling effect that spread across the industry. And when you get down to the brass tacks of it, mean, it seems clear to me that what the DOJ was charging Keoni and Bill for was not legitimate. I mean, as defined by FinCEN when they went to ask for an opinion, what was it, three or six months before they actually charged them.

Lauren Rodriguez [8:19] six months. And yeah, that's right. The regulator who's under treasury, who's mandated by Congress actually enforce these laws. And there's just so many, and that's, you know, that's a fifth amendment violation right there, right? And you can't just change when you're not supposed to just be able to change the law or interpretation of the law and charge people without any kind of notice. But that's exactly what they did in this case. And just kind of time after time, how much the system has failed in our case. And again, it's, you know, as much as like, obviously, you know, I care because it happened to me.

Lauren Rodriguez ⋮ It has opened my eyes to that. This is kind of prolific in, our system, unfortunately, that especially in kind of these white collar cases, there are some that I'm, that I'm sure adjust, but a lot of them are these, these twisting effects and you know, the way the US law is written, is it supposed to be that if there is any ambiguity in the law, it's supposed to go to the side of the defendants. So, you know, if, let's say, and I don't think it was, I think it was clear cut, you know, when the regulators themselves are saying, as you said, you know, that they did not break a law.

Lauren Rodriguez ⋮ But let's say there's somehow ambiguity in that, it should still sided with us. And it didn't. you know, every step of the way, the, our judge, like just not, not even hearing arguments on it, just, just denying all, all motions. And it's just, it's really, it's hard to come to terms with because in my opinion, you know, we no longer live in a free society. If this is, if this is the case, if they can on, on a DOJs, a, on a prosecutor's whim, just decide. that the law that you've been operating under for 10 years is, is doesn't matter anymore. And they're going to charge you and ruin your life anyways and ruin your loved ones lives.

Marty Bent [10:29] Yeah, that was, mean, talking about KNA last fall, that was the crazy thing. The SDNY particularly seems to have a particular perspective on what laws there, what statutes they can abuse in terms of not playing by the book. And I think that was the other interesting detail, is the judges switch midway through the trial, right? you attempted to say, okay, we got a new judge. Let's try to have a conversation that completely stonewalled you.

Lauren Rodriguez [11:06] Yeah. Yeah. It was actually just, so our first judge we had for over a year and the way he operated his court is he wanted all these big motions and to have one at the same time and then have one large hearing or it'd been our first real large hearing in front of him where the motions would be argued and then he would take his time and decide on it. So we had presented, I think there was probably over six different motions to him. And then three days before we were supposed to appear in front of him is when we got the change of judge.

Lauren Rodriguez ⋮ So she only had three days to review pages and pages of documents, get familiar with the case, get familiar with obviously a complex topic such as Bitcoin and CoinJoin. And these judges are supposed to be experts in the law. They can't be experts in everything kind of case that comes before them. But apparently she thought that she was enough. I would say there is bias, but you know, that's my opinion.

Marty Bent [12:10] And I mean, I imagine there are people who are listening this who are unfamiliar with the samurai case. think maybe now it's important since we're alluding to particular details of the case and the charges, maybe from your perspective explaining exactly what happened in terms of what they were charged with and where the judge fell afoul in her ruling and her view of what actually what Samurai Wallet actually was at the end of the day.

Lauren Rodriguez [12:42] Yeah. So, again, Samurai Wallet was a non-custodial open source Bitcoin wallet, like any other wallet. What differentiated them was they had some added, again, non-custodial, but privacy features built on top. They operated for 10 years and we're developing this and we're operating under guidance put out by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, FINCEN, who's, as we said earlier, the regulator in charge of uh, MSB money service business and money laundering. Like they, kind of anything to do with, finances, they're the regulator that, that implements those regulations and laws. And so they're following guidance and building their tools and going around, you know, continuing on for 10 years.

Lauren Rodriguez ⋮ And on April 24th, 2024, we were rated at a simultaneous rate at our home here in Pennsylvania, as well as, um, Bills home in Portugal is a simultaneous like international coordinated raid, the millions of dollars they must've put into that when they could have just again, messaged our attorney and said, hey, we want to talk to you. This was our first interaction. They never kind of sent letters saying, what information do you have? Can you help us? Don't destroy evidence. Like there's all kinds of procedural things that they would usually do, especially if it was. an entity that was supposed to be regulated like a bank or something.

Lauren Rodriguez ⋮ They don't just, you know, raid their CEO's house. And so that's, that's where it's where it started. And we, we've found out that they were charging with conspiracy, two conspiracy counts, one conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitter business and conspiracy to money launder. And, you know, a lot of much smarter people than I have, have gone into this and kind of explained why these really has no standing. But basically, it didn't matter when they get you in their sights, they go full steam ahead. And it didn't matter that as you said, six months prior to indictment, they asked the regulator whether we were in violation of these, Samurais in violation of these regulations and laws.

Lauren Rodriguez ⋮ And they said, no, they

Lauren Rodriguez [15:10] brought charges anyways. you know, this, these cases kind of go back to the nineties. We had the Bernstein who that went to the Supreme court and determined that code is speech. The code you put out a speech. then in a more recent case about a month ago, another Supreme court ruling where an ISP was found not liable for copyright infringement committed by their users, even though they knew. that these users were violating copyright laws. the fact that, I mean, to me that's, that's applicable to this, right? You're saying that the tools put out the code written that users did things. And was a small percentage of users that, that the claim we never actually got, got far enough to, to try to analyze to see if their numbers were accurate, but by the government's own numbers, they were only claiming.

Lauren Rodriguez ⋮ think under 10 % of users is having funds from ill-gotten gains. we're not, and never were in support of criminality or scams, but that's just a fact of any open technology, the internet, messaging apps, Bitcoin as a whole. Unfortunately, if a tool works, criminals will use it. and kind of lost my train of thought, but that's like, that's what they were alleging that, they, knowing that criminals could potentially use the tool was enough to, to, to charge them with a crime, even though they had never had any interaction, there was never communication with any criminals, obviously, because they wouldn't have charged conspiracy charges at that point.

Lauren Rodriguez ⋮ They said the conspiracy

Lauren Rodriguez [17:12] began when they created, when they decided to code the wallet, to create the wallet. So it really is an attack on code and therefore speech.

Marty Bent [17:24] Yeah, and I mean, just the nature, it's very enraging when you think about the simultaneous no-knock raids, like literally showing up with military-grade equipment when they could have easily reached out to your lawyers to say, hey, We don't like what you're doing. We need you to answer some questions. And then you think about just the two-tiered justice system that exists when you think about the big banks and all the fraud that they've knowingly enabled. I mean, we can talk about Jeffrey Epstein and Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan and the fact that when it gets found out that they were knowingly aiding and abetting that particular individual, then they get slapped on the wrist with a fine that is just the cost of doing business. when people like Keone and Bill were not doing anything close to that in terms of coordination with actual criminals.

Lauren Rodriguez [18:17] And on top of that, they had OXT, which I think a lot of people forget, which was a platform for average people to be able to use the powerful tools that someone like Chainalysis has. And there were many times where they helped Bitcoiners who had been robbed or scammed to help trace their funds at no cost to the user just because it's the right thing to do. So these aren't, in no way were they encouraging or you know, crime, they were trying to help victims of crime. And again, just another tool that was taken off the board for average people for victims. And it was stripped away and taken down along with the rest of the servers.

Marty Bent [19:11] OXT was a great tool. I remember back in like 2018, think, think was before Samurai acquired OXT, but I remember hopping in there at Laurent and doing an analysis on the... the dust spamming attacks that led up to the four wars in 2017. It was just like an incredible tool how detailed it got. But I think the fact that they came down with the hammer, mean, the no-knock raids really gets to me personally, because it's like, number one, you didn't have to use that much force. I'm sure you were scared shitless while it was going on. middle of the night. It's very clearly a bully tactic to to say, hey, we can't have this.

Marty Bent ⋮ Like we can't have individuals using these these tools to attain privacy. need all the information we need to be able to tag and bag every every single person as they're transacting online, which is a very, very scary thought that that is the the position of the government or Department of Justice at the very least is that no common man, like you can't do that. You can't have privacy. We need everything. And then you think of all of the waste and overt fraud that exists in the government. it's exhausting at a certain point. like, hey, I'm just trying to live my life to save and spend in a money that I deem.

Marty Bent [21:01] to be superior to the dollar and for that thought crime of thinking that I should be able to use this alternative currency and payments rail and not only that but do so privately. frustrating for those of us who are freedom oriented, knowing that just by trying to get a little taste of freedom in our financial lives that they will come down with the force of guns and military equipment to send a message to the rest of people.

Lauren Rodriguez [21:40] So originally they came after Bitcoin and they didn't like Bitcoin. Back they can kind of call back to there. then I think they came around and realized, like you're saying, that Bitcoin without privacy is the perfect panopticon. And so how can they use that to their advantage? And that's to scare development, because it wasn't just about us. Although it was, and they took Samurai off the board. from people to be able to gain some privacy, but you have legal protections in the legacy system or you're supposed to where people can't just look into your bank account. They're supposed to get a warrant or there's some third party doctrines that kind of ease that, but there's restrictions when Bitcoin, you don't have that.

Lauren Rodriguez ⋮ with Samurai, you got just that transactional privacy back to protect yourself, to protect your loved ones. Unfortunately, we see at year on year, a ramp up of attacks on people to because something gets leaked and or trace that they might be a large holder of Bitcoin. it's just like, it was really just providing tools to give basic levels of privacy. And they've scared, I think the market away from working on that, which was the desired outcome. And it is, it just has so many implications for each and every person, each and every user of Bitcoin. It's the thing to think about.

Marty Bent [23:20] It is. I just look what's going on with the $5 wrench attacks in France. Not only France. I France gets... drawing the focus of many people, because the numbers are astounding. It's due to the lack of privacy the French citizens have, particularly as it pertains to Bitcoin ownership. They're forced to declare it to the government on their tax forms. And then, those tax forms are... are public and so you have a list for criminals who are willing to break the law to physically harm people to steal their bitcoin. You basically just hand them over a list of targets that they can begin to pick off and it's insane that this is not recognized by the government as a physical security issue.

Marty Bent ⋮ And I think to your point about what Samurai Wallet built with CoinJoin, Ricochet, Stowaway, all these different tools that made it easier to transact privately. mean, this is a physical security risk, because if you're going to be using Bitcoin as money and you're interacting with a bunch of random people as you go throughout your day to buy things, they shouldn't know, they shouldn't be able to receive a UTXO and then basically derive how much Bitcoin you have simply because you're going to buy a sandwich or a grill, whatever it may be. This is like a common sense. There's no reason that when I go to interact with a merchant that they should know how much money is in my bank account.

Lauren Rodriguez [24:55] Exactly that. Yeah, you're exactly right. that's, and that's when coming after Samurai and, and then the repercussions of other companies pulling out of offering their services to Americans. And then, you know, has the implications of the wider world, right? What, policy is set here dictates to other countries as well. And there's a lot of people in other countries that, you know, you mentioned France, but there's dictatorships that their ability to transact privately in Bitcoin is literally a life or death for these freedom fighters. And so it has global implications.

Marty Bent [25:40] What have you become disheartened throughout all this as a reaction? What do you think the reaction from the overall community or the builders? it has been interesting to watch. the proliferation of things like ecash and I think proliferation is a strong word, I think the maturation things like ecash which have a trade off you get increased privacy for a custody trade off. The interoperability between all these second layer networks seems to be increasing privacy and the advancements are certainly moving forward and they seem to be relatively. Under the radar so I'm actually personally pretty bullish on private Bitcoin usage from a tech perspective but do think we're in a sort of. Quiet lull where the state is just like OK we've got a couple examples on the board will lay low and then come down with a hammer later where do think we're actually making. progress on getting the message out there that privacy is a human right and we should be able to use these technologies privately.

Lauren Rodriguez [26:55] I think it's a real risk. think every builder in the space specifically, you you're saying these and they're all very, very smart options. These layer twos and different things, but the actual coders are at risk. The precedent, the sets that is if you're working on something that they don't like and a cost user of your software could do something with it that we deem is bad that we will come after you. You are liable. for the actions of your users. This has implications for miners, you know, lightning node channel operators, for eCache. whatever they're called, Mint operator. Yeah, it really does. again, outside of even outside of the Bitcoin space, which obviously that's what we care about. But I think a lot of us probably are using some kind of, secured messaging app and all of these. Also, if you're writing code, if someone's using your messaging software to plan a bank heist,

Marty Bent [27:36] Mint operators.

Lauren Rodriguez [28:04] You're now part of that conspiracy by providing them software. That's what this says. And so as much as I'm, I'm hopeful and it's great to see that there are so many, know, you and, and Matt had mentioned, when the pan, one of the panels at the conference about how percentage wise between kind of cypher punks and you'll say suits. their percentage might be higher, but the overall number of people working on kind of cypherpunk technology is up. And that's, that's so great. But I do worry that they're, you know, they can come and bring the same theories, the same charges again. And there might be, you know, someone else's wife and you might have to develop, you know, be interviewing someone else's wife in a couple years when they decide that, okay, they.

Marty Bent [28:55] Yeah.

Lauren Rodriguez [28:58] You know, these Bitcoiners are still a nuisance. Let's show them a little force again.

Marty Bent [29:03] Yeah, no, that's something that everybody who's listening should be aware of too, because I mean, you may be in a lull in terms of indictments and charges being brought against developers in the space, but if you actually pay attention to what the administration is putting out there, what's, or not even the administration, but what's being put in the Genius Act, Clarity Act, and I think... The smoking, the smoking gun in terms of the long-term trajectory of where just the government, I won't pick on an administration, but I just think the federal government in general wants to go. But if you look at the crypto brief that was released last July, mean, they explicitly say that they want to expand the Patriot Act to include digital currencies, which would... Preclude that open source software developers try to embed KYC AML compliance into their projects, is number one and non-starter, number two, technically infeasible. If it's open source software, anybody could fork it and take out the KYC AML compliance.

Lauren Rodriguez [30:10] And not to mention pointless, as we've seen since the Patriot Act was introduced, that criminals will find a way and it only hurts law abiding your average citizen. And those are the only people that are hurt, the people that are willing to follow these laws and give their selfies with their IDs and then to have that data stolen.

Marty Bent [30:32] Yeah, and then on top of the physical risks, not only the data stolen, but the data used too. locate you in meat space and hold you at gunpoint to steal your bitcoin. And it's not only bitcoin, mean credit fraud, all that, steal your credit card information and put you into insane amounts of debt and force you to go through the legal system to try to prove that hey, this wasn't me that spent this money. It is completely ineffective. think the data as of five years ago, I think it's the last time I checked, I think if you're... 01 % of money that was deemed to be laundered was actually prevented by these KYC AML regulations.

Marty Bent ⋮ so, and that's what I worry about is like how much of a sunk cost. It is a massive sunk cost fallacy because we're what? When was Patriot Act passed 2002 to 2003? So we're 24 to 23 years into this and it's just become the water we swim in is that we're all expected to just comply and give up all this information and time and time again, literally every week now. There's another hack of a database that leaks sensitive personal identifying information to the dark web and just increases the physical attack surface of everybody that is interacting with products and services that demand this data.

Lauren Rodriguez [32:12] Yeah, this is something that, know, Keoni and Bill were so passionate about. so, you know, again, their life work that they put in to try to, try to help people and protect people from, from this. was a big reason. It wasn't, you know, as much of the reasons they didn't take KYC was, and they built their software so that they weren't required to by the regulation. They stayed within those bounds was so that they wouldn't have that data. for someone to steal, they didn't want to have that responsibility because it's a grave responsibility that I think a lot of these companies don't take seriously enough. because, you you seem, you get data breaches and it's kind of, sorry, you know, sorry this happened to you. Good luck. And there's still people getting, you know, emails and getting scammed from, from data breaches that were almost 10 years ago. And it's, yeah.

Marty Bent [33:09] No, it's like what Now you got Marty Jones coming out. Like what does the government, like what is it supposed to exist to do at the end of the day? It's supposed to be, as the founding fathers laid out, it's supposed to be very small surface area. Just an agreement between the states and the federal government, okay, we'll protect you. At the end of the day, the brass tacks, it's like hey, we will provide protection for the states when need be and help coordinate interstate. commerce and they're not, I think it's become abundantly clear, at least in our lives as millennials, that a lot of the actions that the government takes makes our lives worse off, whether it's taxation, if you look at healthcare regulation, I think it's become pretty clear that the American Care Act has increased healthcare costs significantly.

Marty Bent ⋮ If you look at... where tax money is being funneled to these Medicaid and Medicare projects that are just being raided by overt fraudsters who don't seem to be getting reprimanded for that. And then obviously you have the money printing aspect where people are, most people, 99 % of people I would say are just regular common man people who just wanna work a job, build a family, live somewhat comfortably, and the government. in its current form seems to make that harder and harder to do. They want more of your money. They want more of your liberty. And it just forces you to ask the question, like, what are we even doing here?

Marty Bent ⋮ Why does this thing exist? going back to, like, it's just the water we swim in. When do people sort of come to the surface and say, I don't like this water. It's pretty filthy. We need to change something here.

Lauren Rodriguez [35:06] And I really hope, and I think that people are starting to kind of wake up to that, at least, you know, what you said, like the fraud that we've seen being exposed by citizen journalists from the American government or how they haven't been holding up their end of the bargain, we'll say, for not doing the responses that they should or that they're expected to. And it goes back to the old saying, One of the scariest phrases you can hear is I'm from the government and I'm here to help. that's, you know, in our, our case, right. They part of the end result of this is, is there was a forfeiture of the website and the app and, and stuff, but the government then allowed the website to lapse and some scammers reset up the samurai website.

Lauren Rodriguez ⋮ probably to try to commit some kind of scam on innocent people. that was the government's, that was forfeited to them. That was their property to protect and protect the American people and people at large, right? That's why they took over. it remained in, had it not been forfeited, I'm sure we could have kept it up and it wouldn't have been offering anything, but at least it wouldn't have fallen into the hands of scammers. And that's just like, Another way that there were no victims in this case, they never pointed to any victims because what they were saying, it was a compliance violations. But there were real potential victims as a result of actions that the DOJ took.

Marty Bent [36:48] comedically poetic that I mean they're I mean from a dollar amount I think I mean who knows exactly how much money flowed through that but it could be very clear like even if it was a dollar like more people were harmed directly or scammed directly from the DOJ lapsing there then then Keone and Bill actually running the service itself It's laughable and it is funny because I don't know if you can tell but a bit of apprehension in my voice right now because it's like in the back of my mind like, don't want to piss the government off by saying all this stuff and it is that chilling effect that exists.

Marty Bent ⋮ It's like the act of even highlighting these very clear. and absurd realities just the chilling effect is real or is like, am I going to be put on a list now for saying that I don't like this? And I'm probably already on all the lists, but it's still it's like, the self-censoring is real. And that's again, going back to the point of like, what are we doing here?

Lauren Rodriguez [37:49] Yeah.

Marty Bent [37:59] What is the water that we're swimming in? think anybody listening, it's important to ask that question. Like, should we be afraid to even talk about this? Because not that I'm afraid, but I'm a bit apprehensive to really go full-born to what I'm thinking right now.

Lauren Rodriguez [38:15] I mean, so much of what they used in the case as, as quote unquote, evidence against, again, conspiracy charges. So they were trying to, the government pulled out posts, public posts and other comments taken out of context, but it was, it was all speech that they had typed or written. And most of it was, was twisted in some way to say something that really wasn't the intent. if you, if you knew. Either of the guys are interacted with them. You could see, where they were being facetious or, you know, humorous or whatever. but it's true. And people say, well, they shouldn't have said that. Okay.

Lauren Rodriguez ⋮ They are operating within the bounds again of the laws and regulations. Had they not been, I'm sure they would have been watching what they say. If you're, if you're, if you are a criminal and doing criminal things, you would not be going around and trying to say things that might be, as you said, challenging. You'd probably watch what you say, but unfortunately, I think this case shows that everyone needs to kind of be watching what they say because they could take something you said in a chat 10 years ago to a buddy and use it to throw you in jail for years.

Marty Bent [39:39] What, how, how are you feeling in terms of the progress towards getting a part in right now? I think there's been a lot of momentum. I've been talking a lot with, some people who are working on it and I think we're definitely getting some attention. There definitely needs to be more attention. I think that's part of the reason I'm bringing you on is to draw more attention to this because it is a grave injustice and any day, any minute. that Keone and Bill and others that are in a similar situation for writing open source software, they're sitting in a cage. They need to get out immediately.

Lauren Rodriguez [40:21] Yeah, it's hard. didn't think it would take this long. I'll say maybe that's naive, but we saw what the Bitcoin community can do when the now president of the United States got on stage at the Bitcoin conference in 2024 and announced he's going to free Ross. And he did. The Bitcoin community when and I know community, know a lot of people don't like that phrase, but it is a powerful group, a powerful entity. There's 35 to 70 million adults. Sorry, my dog is squeaking. I don't know if that's coming through. I hear of course.

Marty Bent [41:08] It's okay.

Lauren Rodriguez [41:13] One second, sorry. Sorry, I'm so sorry. Get out.

Marty Bent [41:17] No need to apologize.

Lauren Rodriguez [41:24] So right in the middle, of course. There's 35 to 70 billion estimated voting age adults within the United States who own Bitcoin. That is a huge voting block. And as we just saw this past week, they're here and they want something from Bitcoiners. They want your votes. They want your donations. They're coming. to the conferences, they're talking about it on the floor of Congress about Bitcoin. The momentum and the fact that we were able to get something done and get Ross free, which I'm so thankful for. I think if we let them know that this is another cause, we don't want to see Bitcoin developers in sitting in prison for non-custodial open source software and that they need to make this right too and fix the sub justice. And I think it's a powerful enough group to get that done.

Marty Bent [42:39] No, I think it certainly is too. And that's again, to reiterate, I think it would be naive of anybody listening out there who's looking at the proliferation of technologies like eCache, Arc, Spark, Lightning, their interoperability and the advancements that are being made to think that we are in the clear, I think without. freeing the political prisoners, like Keone and Bill and others. And then not only that, but writing, we need to write into law, like if you're a developer, the precedent is there, like you said earlier. in the nineties during the PGP wars, we got it stated by the Supreme Court that code of speech.

Marty Bent ⋮ This is no different, which is one of the most frustrating things is we've already have the precedent. It's there. the, the ability to write software, issue it on GitHub in an open source manner should be a nonstarter, like pretty black and white. It is legal code of speech. And if we don't free the political prisoners and then enshrine again, unfortunately it seems like we have to do it again, enshrine the right to develop and program computer software in a way that is deemed speech that every American citizen and hopefully everyone on the planet should have the right to, we're... we're living with a false sense of confidence.

Marty Bent ⋮ I think do not, do not rest on your laurels here because I think the, depending on who's in office at any given point in time, the tenor can switch rather quickly.

Marty Bent [44:34] until we get the political prisoners released and enshrined into law, that it is okay to write code that allows people to use Bitcoin in particular ways that were not out of the clear. Not only that, maybe in a more dangerous position than anybody realizes, because maybe they're just waiting in the tall grass for people to build up enough of a privacy infrastructure to come down with a... the sledgehammer and say, no, you're not doing this.

Lauren Rodriguez [45:05] Yeah, unfortunately, we still have people like Senator Elizabeth Warren, who she despises everything. And we have judges, there was a judge within the Southern District of New York, not our judge, but another one, one of her colleagues that made a statement shortly after our case that said, Judge Radcoff said he saw no point of cryptocurrencies other than for crime and scams. So these are the people that are kind of lording over us until, like you said, if we need to get some actual protections. And this was supposed to be an uplifting speech given by our acting attorney general, Todd Blanch, at the Bitcoin conference about how it should be safe to develop.

Lauren Rodriguez ⋮ You should feel comfortable developing within the United States. But he said, there was one little part that he said about Knowing that you can't can't something along the lines of developed knowing that criminals could are using your software. Well, anyone again, as we talked touch on earlier, anyone developing any kind of software knows that criminals if it's open source, if you don't have a closed, I don't know, you know, if you can't download it from anywhere, you're you're distributing software or making software available or writing software with the knowledge that someone could take your software and use it in a way that you never intended.

Lauren Rodriguez ⋮ So yeah, I completely agree that we need to keep pushing to have some protections to free the political prisoners left over from the war on crypto. And, you know, it's not really over until they're free and then going further and getting some real protections so that people can. develop within the United States and make it, you know, as President Trump said, he wants it to be the crypto capital of the world. Well, you know, there's going to be a real flight of development talent if these things aren't fixed.

Marty Bent [47:14] Yeah, like what if somebody kidnaps somebody and somebody else and they torture them by playing a song on loop for 120 hours for an extended period of time and they use Spotify to play that song to torture somebody. Like is Spotify liable for that torture mechanism? is that a tool of torture right there for some people? Right?

Lauren Rodriguez [47:35] Yeah. They should have known. They should have known that if someone's playing a song for 120 hours that yeah, it should have flagged on their back end, I guess. Yeah.

Marty Bent [47:45] Yeah, no, but I mean, just to highlight the absurdity of this all, mean, if you extend the logic that is being used in the case of Bitcoin, privacy tools, open source privacy tools, I mean, I think if you stretch the interpretation of the law far enough, like by, I guess, reductive reasoning, you'd say, well, yeah, Spotify should have known that people are using... Cocoa Melon songs to torture people for 120 hours a week. It's, again, it's the absurdity of it all. What can anybody listening do to help your efforts and the efforts of others looking to not only free the political prisoners, but also make sure that nobody else becomes a political prisoner in the future?

Lauren Rodriguez [48:39] org. org. There you can find links to sign our petition calling for a presidential pardon, as well as links to donate. Unfortunately, I hate to do this. This is not something I don't think anyone likes to do, but we are millions, $2 million in debt legal fees and to try to kind of continue raising awareness, it does take money. That's just kind of the bottom line of that. But further than that, if you have connections or ideas or something, please reach out to me. I would love to speak with you. You can find me on, on X is probably the best place or contact me.

Lauren Rodriguez ⋮ There's an email address at the bottom of that website. And then. you know, further, like if this is something that resonates with you, like your voice is not too small. You know, you can, you can post about it. can speak about it. You can let your families know. can contact your representatives and say, Hey, you know, you want something for me? We have midterms coming up and these politicians are out there looking for something from you. It's okay to ask them for something back. And that's to lend their voice as well to calling for an end of this, you know. this war on crypto and free the political prisoners.

Marty Bent [50:08] How does so just think about it was doing this last week at the conference for Bitcoin de minimis block spun up this website to easily go to and find your representative and send them a message about that. In the case of pardons is it just as impactful obviously they're not passing a law but if we get enough. pings to different representatives across the country. And they shoot it up the ladder of the president, like, hey, lot of my constituents are very worried about this particular. this particular these particular prisoners and would like to see them released is basically just a social pressure campaign that eventually you had a tipping point where it's like okay there's there's enough of a critical mass that seems pretty clear that these guys were were wrongly charged and thrown in prison

Lauren Rodriguez [50:59] I think it is, know, the President Trump is, he's dealt with this office that came after us, like the Southern District New York came after him and his family. I think he, if he was actually presented with the case in front of him, like would definitely see the merits of it and understand it. Cause I think he is a fair guy. But it's a matter of, he is the president, there's a lot going on. So it needs to be. raised to a level where he, you know, it's, on his agenda by whoever that is, you know, I'm sure he has a lot of people working for him saying this is something that matters.

Lauren Rodriguez ⋮ So that's why, although it is just with, you know, the one person, president of the United States, Donald Trump to grant the pardon. As you said, I think it is kind of the, the pressure and the calls to action that this is something, you know, we care about and. And we're not just going to sit silently and, know, you did one thing for us. And you're talking about de minimis and other things, right? Like kind of, there's been a lot of promises, a lot of, I think, proposed laws. But, you know, what have you done for Bitcoin lately? And, you know, to me it's lacking, but.

Marty Bent [52:21] I would concur. I would concur. think focus is not where I would like it to be. And last, just to wrap up, there's gonna be a ton of people out there say, privacy isn't worth it, or privacy isn't necessary. If you're looking for privacy or doing something nefarious and I have no sympathy for developers who are writing tools, what would your message be to the... I guess the naysayers out there are the people who don't understand what samurai wall was or why privacy is important in the first place.

Lauren Rodriguez [53:01] First, privacy is important to everyone, whether you recognize it or not. Privacy is allowing you as a person, you get to decide. It's not hiding things, but you just get to decide what information you share. It's back to the classic examples why we have blinds on our windows and locks on our doors. If you come over to my house, I might invite you into my living room, but I might not have you upstairs into the bedrooms and you're definitely not looking through my underwear drawer. That's privacy. I don't have anything to hide in there, but... You know, I'd rather not have people that I don't know that well in those private spaces.

Lauren Rodriguez ⋮ So this is our finances as we, as we said at the beginning of this are indicative of our speech, who you transact with, who you donate money to, what organizations you support, what causes, you know, it's just all of this is indicative to speech and it's a freedom. If you don't have financial privacy, you can't have financial freedom and. You know, the way it is today, you need finances. There's very few people who can go, you know, live off grid and be completely private that way. you know, we have to interact and have a medium of exchange with people. And that's what hopefully Bitcoin will be going forward.

Lauren Rodriguez ⋮ And you need privacy for that. So that's the first thing. And why you should care. Maybe you don't, you know, at this point, right, we're feeling kind of good in the Western world. But as we saw with COVID and with the trucker convoy in Canada, that can switch where they will cut off your rights to interact, to transact. And when you need, when you need privacy, you want, you want tools to be there. You might not think you need it now, but there may be a point in time where you need it. And if they've thrown all the privacy developers, In prison, it's lot easier to take away the rest of your rights, just like with guns, right?

Lauren Rodriguez ⋮ It's the same kind of the same arguments they used in these cases against us of, there's these, this small percentage of bad actors using this tool. Same act, same thing they use to try to take away second amendment rights. And in the countries that we've seen where they do have taken away their rights to bear arms, other freedoms follow shortly after. So, you know, it's just really.

Lauren Rodriguez [55:27] slippery slope. It's, it's kind of, you know, I guess I wish there's another term, but it's something that we need to stay on top of and not let it to continue to be eroded as it has been.

Marty Bent [55:38] Yeah, that's what I worry about complacency. I've going back to the Patriot Act, saying we're 23, 24 years into it now. And that's what I worry about. The frogs boiling water. I think if we don't stand up for this, think Bitcoiners and obviously your husband and Bill being sort of the shining examples of this of recognizing the slippery slope and. this frog boiling a water effect that we're all being subjected to with the KYC and AML compliance and the financial surveillance that has been erected around us over the 21st century. If we do not push the tide in the other direction and use the tools that give us the ability to do that, which Bitcoin, I believe, is the strongest tool to do that.

Marty Bent ⋮ You don't have to ask permission. You can build... build on the protocol and the protocols being built on top of it without needing to go to the government and get a license or ask permission to open a bank account. can simply download software and access this network and it is an incredible tool to push back against the encroaching. Surveillance state that that is only getting stronger as time goes on and if we don't act Intentionally and with a sense of urgency we could wake up Not to in the not too long future and find that that we've lost all of it and getting it back at that point will be a much a Much harder task than it is today and so the I think whether or not you're recognizing it or you're just simply somebody who goes about their day.

Marty Bent ⋮ You go to your nine to five job, you work at your desk, you come home, you do homework with the kids, maybe you open a beer or you watch a basketball game and you think, I don't need any of this. I'm fine, I'm not operating outside the lines of what the government deems is appropriate. Like you said, that can switch on a dime.

Marty Bent [57:52] Panopticon is sufficiently robust and resilient. You could wake up one day and say, hey, you know what? We're going to need you to stay in your house for a while, and you can't go to your job anymore. And oh, by the way, if you do want to go outside, you need to get this injection. mean, it's already happened. I think a lot of people woke up during that. But again, going back to how the state or these forces, who knows if it's the state itself or. of super-national powers that really have control, but what doesn't really matter at the end of the day, they are slowly but surely taking ground, establishing precedent, lulling people into a false sense of security, and then waiting a couple years, and then taking some more ground, establishing more precedent, and... You may not feel that it's worthwhile to speak out or to act in a way that pushes back against this, but I would just caution that you may want to start thinking about it.

Lauren Rodriguez [58:58] So when the kind of reporting laws, so when third party reporting laws, when banks had to start reporting on suspicious activity, it was $10,000. And that the reason they said it that was because this was such a high number, it would be, it would stick out. Well, when they wrote that law, you know, in today's money, that's nearly $70,000. So just by the devaluing of the currency and not ever readdressing that number, they, and it's so many laws that they do this, right? They start with, we're just going to tax the billionaires. And then it just happens that it just spreads in and it gathers so many more people within their, their nets, if you will. And that's exactly what, what you're warning about there that, you know, this complacency can lead to where everyone is affected.

Marty Bent [59:54] Yeah, I mean, that's a conversation for another day, but repealing the Bank Secrecy Act is something that should be another priority of Bitcoiners. But I don't think we have enough time to tackle that in depth. Lauren, yeah, let's do that and then take that ground and then start fighting back and that.

Lauren Rodriguez [1:00:08] get them out of prison first.

Marty Bent [1:00:17] getting rid of the Patriot Act and the Bank Secrecy Act I think should be two top priorities. Uphill battle. Sounds crazy.

Lauren Rodriguez [1:00:22] So when we were doing it, right when Samurai was in development and early Bitcoiners in general, think it was so much about let's root around the state. We're going to kind of follow, they're putting out these laws. Okay, we're going to do something different. But in our case, I think it's a perfect example that the state's not going to leave you alone. If you're doing something that's actually affecting them, they're not going to just ignore you and let you continue on with your little Bitcoin. If you are actually affecting the state, they're going to, and affecting their control, they are going to come after you. So just, you know, as a warning, like this, this isn't, this isn't over.

Marty Bent [1:01:04] No. And for the grilled dads out there listening, like, I'm never gonna do that. It could come down to like, hey, you wanna send your kids to private school? You know, we could wake up 15 years from now and be like, private school's banned. You have to send them to our public indoctrination camps. Not to get.

Lauren Rodriguez [1:01:19] There's countries that are trying to shut off homeschooling. So yeah, I mean, that's very real.

Marty Bent [1:01:25] Yeah. Lauren, you're incredibly strong, incredibly brave. I know it's been difficult for you to be forced to be out here and doing this. know for sure that you would rather be doing anything but this, but I highly commend you for doing it. And I think it's good to know that you're a strong woman. and strong wives out there that love their husbands and the ideals that they fought for enough to get out there, because I know many others would crumble under the pressure. so I just want to, again, commend you, because I think you're incredibly strong, and it's incredibly important what you're doing.

Lauren Rodriguez [1:02:10] Thank you. know, Keoni actually said before he went in that even though knowing that if there wasn't someone speaking that he would, all the momentum he had gained in that last little bit where he could speak for himself would be lost. But he said, like, I didn't have to do this. I didn't have to come and kind of put myself out there because it is, it is a vulnerable position to be in to, to speak about things that are, that are personal, that I care about that affects, you know, us in a very real way. But I couldn't not. knew that if the positions were reversed, and there's so many times that I've told him I wish they were, because I think he would have just been so much better at this than I am.

Lauren Rodriguez ⋮ But I know he wouldn't have stopped, wouldn't have given up anything to see me released if I was in unjustly. So I couldn't not. He's my best friend and my husband and you know, it's partner in everything. So, so thank you.

Marty Bent [1:03:19] Freaks go to billandcione.org, support the efforts, reach out to your representatives and make some noise. Keep the noise up. That's the one thing we had a lot of momentum at the end of last year leading up to the beginning of this year. And I think it fell off a bit, but we need to get back on the train and make sure that this injustice is as wrong as righted, if you will. And we'll keep. pushing on our end here. If there's anything we can do, please let us know. And I'm optimistic. He's going to get out. Bill's going to get out. Then we're going to reset and then begin taking the ground that we need to take to make sure that this never happens again.

Lauren Rodriguez [1:04:05] Thank you. Thank you. Marty for some political office. that what you're saying?

Marty Bent [1:04:09] No, no, no, no, no, no. Maybe, probably not, probably not. I've too much social media baggage that they'll pull up and point at.

Lauren Rodriguez [1:04:13] Okay. Okay.

Marty Bent [1:04:25] High five. We'll end it there. Thank you. Peace and love, freaks.

Lauren Rodriguez [1:04:26] Sorry, sorry. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me on.