> By the way, another other dark side of making paying ransoms legal is that transferring money to a terrorist group (just because they support it) now has a plausible deniability: "Don't blame me! It was just a ransom!"
Only if you assume that federal law enforcement agencies are a bunch of rule-following robots incapable of rational deduction.
No, that's not what I said. I'm saying that the feds are not going to go "Shit, this guy with ties to violent Islamic groups just sent $50,000 to Al Qaida, but he said it was to ransom the files on his PC! Our hands are tied!" That's not how the law works.
Only if you assume that federal law enforcement agencies are a bunch of rule-following robots incapable of rational deduction.