According to PANews, the US Department of Justice has clarified why the motion to dismiss criminal charges against Tornado Cash founder, Roman Storm, was deemed invalid. The department reiterated that its indictment has nothing to do with whether Tornado Cash's computer code has freedom of speech or is protected by the First Amendment. The defendant was not prosecuted for publishing computer code, but for using it to promote a profitable illegal business.
The Justice Department further explained that banks use computer code to process financial transactions. If the code performs the work of a money transmitter as defined by law, then the code is not just free speech, but a piece of computer code that humans must ensure is implemented without violating money transmission laws. Tornado Cash is part of the code, part of the speech, and part of the business. Overall, it is a human creation. Storm did not just publish the code; he ran a business and made operational decisions over the years.
The department stated that Tornado Cash's protocol is not equivalent to Tornado Cash's business. Just because Tornado Cash has some open-source code does not mean that all actions involving the code by Roman Storm, as the owner of Tornado Cash's business, are constitutionally protected. The Justice Department focused on Storm's purposeful actions. Specifically, the prosecutor focused on his allegations of knowingly operating a suspected money laundering business, which brought him over $1 billion in illegal income, used to launder over $1 billion in suspected criminal funds.
