Well, it's not exactly OJ Simpson, but the stakes couldn't be higher.
I'd put it up there with SEC v HOWIE.
The stakes are huge. A literal fight for survival between the SEC and Cryptodom. If the SEC wins, the growth of the promising crypto industry could be seriously stunted - with losses in the trillions over the coming decade in lost opportunities and ballooning legal efforts. If Arise wins, the stage will be set for sharply curtailing the SEC’s infamous power and ability to strangle its rival crypto industry under the guise of "protecting" clueless investors.
It's not that Cryptodom doesn't need regulators. The scams and criminal abuse that have cropped up in the past year beg for honest, impartial, and compassionate referees to come in and sort it out. The problem is in finding that kind of referee. Right now, you can be ejected from the game, nay jailed for years, for one flinch of movement before the ball is snapped. Remember your facts differently than the FBI, like Martha Stewart, and you go to jail for 5 months. There is no sense of compassion or fairness, only domination and vengeance. I fear that the Self Regulating Body of the old financial system may be trying to regulate its competition out of existence. Who can we trust?
DISCLAIMER: This article is only my opinion, which is based on limited knowledge of what is going on behind the scenes. I have only spent about 24 hours over the past month or so studying the AriseBank situation as part of the due diligence one must do when considering doing business with another company. This all happened right under my nose as I was talking with their small group of software geeks about how their planned products might fit into our ecosystem. I am not as smart as the SEC and I have not spent more than three weeks combing through the company's emails as one of their agents claims to have done. I'm just an old rocket scientist who quickly concluded that the FEDs must not be using their vast mental and investigative resources on this case. The material errors written into their complaint are overwhelming and obvious. The draconian means they are using to prevent the company from defending itself and to smear its image in the public's eye, makes my spidy senses light up. I won't recount those errors, but you can see a summary of the worst of them at this link. Here's another synopsis: What We Know
Apparently the FEDs did not feel the need to check their facts before launching its vendetta and blocking the intended use of an alleged $600M from innocent supporters who will now have to wait years to get their money back into productive use in a rapidly growing industry. Seems to me that the damage already done by the FEDs far exceeds the damage they merely suspect Jared may have done to his allegedly unsophisticated but crypto-literate supporters.
Howie and Arise Case Essentials
You'll recall from third grade civics class that HOWIE was a 7 to 1 Supreme Court ruling which held that "An investment contract under the Securities Act of 1933 is one that involves an investment of money from an expectation of profits arising from a common enterprise depending solely on the efforts of a promoter or third party."
All exquisitely reasoned, no doubt, but the net effect was that the owner of an orchard in Howie-in-the-Hills, Florida isn't allowed to sell you a row of orange trees if he simultaneously offers you the optional services of another company to take care of them for you.
Really?
And with that, an all-powerful SEC was unleashed, able to intrude into all sorts of businesses using that simple, "well-settled" case law.
What's significant about SEC v ARISE is that it could turn out to be the opposite bookend to HOWIE. The one that puts some sort of limits on runaway intrusion into areas of American life that don't really require great sacrifice of freedom for highly questionable level's of "protection" from our government.
AriseBank is just a pawn in this proxy war. It is a perfect, ideal proxy. A striped chess piece that if played well could win the day for either side.
The Perfect Legal Test Case
To make an ideal legal precedence test case you need the perfect set of representatives from the two sides who are battling it out in the courts. It should balance on an edge, so that the real issues are exposed, leaving no room for the courts and our lawmakers to avoid fixing the underlying root of the problem. We need a totalitarian regime and a rebel victim. A compassionate regime or a reputable victim simply won't have the same beneficial outcome.
For example, in SEC v ARISE, the SEC appears carefully chosen a case that it felt it could win easily, presumably in order to establish its rights to move in and take over a competing industry or at least to intimidate it into submission. They needed someone they could smear in the eyes of the public and his peers, someone who they could box into a defenseless corner by seizing all his personal assets, and someone they could get people to hate for everything he stands for. Jared Rice fit the bill perfectly. He has long record from growing up in a tough neighborhood and several failed attempts to pull himself up by his own bootstraps. He has a street fighting temperament and a trash-talking persona to go with it. He has enemies and an ex wife who are doing their best to undermine his reputation, apparently for child custody reasons. Despite the fact that he is a Bible scholar who has written a book about his climb up from the hood and has a loyal group of software engineers convinced of his innocence, he makes a perfect target to turn into a villain for the purpose of winning a power-grabbing court case with ease.
For the sake of my present philosophical analysis, lets pretend that he has the worst possible character imaginable, just so we have the strongest possible point about the evil of smearing someone's reputation so you can deny them their rights.
This is much better than picking on, say, a humble and lovable retired Sunday School teacher with an established reputation in the industry and four decades of passing the FBI background investigations necessary to obtain the highest security clearances as a rocket scientist in the aerospace industry. If harsh treatment were applied to such a Sunday School teacher, it might create greater public outcry, but it would not be as good a precedent for reigning in the abuse of power that is increasingly evident throughout the US government.
No, what you want is a case where a person with a highly smearable reputation gets pounded into the ground over the moral equivalent of jaywalking. Hold that up to the bright lights of public scrutiny, win the case, and then take it to Washington to point out the need for reform. Even smearable people are innocent until proven guilty and have rights to be treated with compassion and minimum necessary force. Even more, they have the right to not have their doors kicked in and assets frozen unless proven guilty after due process. This is American Civil Liberties 101.
That's why SEC v. Arise is such a pivotal case. It could backfire on the SEC in unexpected ways and bring in long needed reform to an unelected Deep State government that has grown far too powerful and uncountable to its people. The complaints against King George III enshrined in the American Declaration of Independence pale beside the abuses Americans must endure from their government today:
Mitigating Forces
"In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too..."
-- Thomas Hardy, Convergence of the Twain
The reason I believe that SEC v HOWIE is a total game changer is that off in the distance another iceberg is forming, intent on keeping the SEC from harming the digital currency industry by getting congress to bar them from jurisdiction. Twelve State Senators and Representatives from Wyoming, backed by the state’s Speaker of the House, have introduced a bill, H.B.0070, designed to counter the current problems we’re seeing in the regulatory handling of cryptocurrencies. You can read about it here: Wyoming Senators Introduce Bill Exempting Tokens from Securities Laws.
On top of that, President Trump is taking the SEC to the Supreme Court over its practice of using its own in-house judges to handle cases instead of a neutral court venue. You heard that right. I'm not making this up: Reuters - SEC In-house Judges
If the SEC should wind up exposed as another example of deep-state corruption and abuse of power - following on the heels of IRS v. Tea Party and FBI v. Trump and Trump v SEC, we may finally achieve the critical mass motivation to clean house among the unelected bureaucrats that covet power at all costs. It would appear that the wheels are already in motion in Wyoming and Washington. It could gather huge momentum with a shocking David v. Goliath win by AriseBank. Of course, it might backfire even more should the SEC win using its venomous array of dirty tricks.
On top of that, major law firms with winning track records against the SEC are lining up to be a part of this historic case. They smell blood in the water, horrific government overreach and an opportunity to strike a blow for freedom before it is too late. Social justice champions from around the world are rallying to the cause. Arise appears to be assembling a dream team to help David take on Goliath. (I suspect it has nothing to do with Arise. It was not David that won that battle.)
1 Samuel 17:45 David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. 47 All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”
Yeah, that's kind of how Jared talks smack too. Giants don't like that.
"And nine, nine three-letter agencies were gifted to the race of men,
who above all else desire power." -- Lady Galadriel, Lord of the Rings
Badly Needed Reforms
I'll finish up with some of the reforms that might come out of a Trial of The Century where the Deep State is caught once again abusing its power to gain more power to abuse.
The government has nearly infinite time and legal resources. Individuals are quite limited. This is not what I would call a level playing field. I think there needs to be some sort of reform that puts limits on prosecutorial resources that bring that closer to “fair and balanced”.
Use of governmental power to hobble an individual’s ability to defend himself is reprehensible. If unlimited FED resources isn't bad enough, the FEDs then turn around and seize all the target individual's assets and block others from helping with his defense any way they can. Jared currently cannot buy or sell without the Mark of the Beast. This is naked abuse of power.
A self-regulating body for one industry cannot be allowed to regulate a competing industry. There's a clear conflict of interest. The SEC is staffed by members of the existing financial industry who apparently don't want to see more efficient and transparent competition gain traction. Recent SEC actions have had a chilling effect as many companies are rethinking their entry into the industry. The Arise case is clearly meant to send that message, since it has no other merit.
Compassionate and Fair Referees are needed. Getting thrown out of the game for flinching before the snap has got to stop. There is no sense of proportionality. Martha Stewart gets a jail sentence for a misstatement in an FBI interview and lethal gang members are caught and released in sanctuary cities.
Abuse of power needs to be punished. Harsh actions harm the investor. There needs to be an automatic appeal process whenever an accused person is subject to devious and draconian pre-trial actions. If the FEDs are found to be harassing a defendant and preventing him from defending himself - the FEDs should go to jail.
Abolish In-house Judges It is patently unfair to be denied one's constitutional right to a trial by a jury of your peers and instead be taken to a kangaroo court that just rubber stamps your conviction.
Social media discussions had already highlighted every possible issue and Arise was freely offering explanations and refunds. There was no reason to intervene. This question could have been handled in a conference room or coffee shop, not at the point of a gun.
SEC v ARISE could provide the impetus to put Babylon the Great back in its cage.
Then again, it might not.
but against principalities, against powers,
against the rulers of the darkness of this world,
against spiritual wickedness in high places."
Here's a video interview I did with Crypto Connie Willis just before posting this:
@bluerocktalk/breaking-news-arisebak-petition-to-sign-and-stan-larimer
Here's how you can help: MoveOn.org Petition
