> Tornado devs blocked all OFAC addresses from accessing the frontend, which is the only power they had, since the contracts themselves are immutable
Which does nothing in practice. Any AML lawyer would have advised them so. The fact that the service was designed to be incompatible with the law isn’t a get-out-of-jail card.
I read the lawsuit in question. None of the plaintiffs were arrested. Their issue is that OFAC overstepped the bounds of their statutory authority, which none of your arguments address.
I'm also not aware of what US law would have been violated by either
1. Coding and publishing the tornado source code
2. Deploying several instances to the blockchain in 2019.
There's no US prosecutions based on creating or operating tornado. The Dutch one has not charged the person they arrested yet, according to https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/08/24/alleged-tornado-d..., so I don't know what unlawful actions they think he's responsible for.
> issue is that OFAC overstepped the bounds of their statutory authority, which none of your arguments address
Plaintiffs' argument relies on Tornado Cash not being "a person, entity, or organization" [1]. The complaint declares OFAC exceeded its statutory authority, but provides no specifics. (The code cited in ¶ 9 [2] gives courts the authority to tell agencies not to do bad things. That isn't an argument for or against OFAC's specific actions in this case.)
In summary, it's a hope-and-a-prayer complaint. Maybe someone at OFAC fucked up the paperwork, thereby giving rise to some modicum of relief.
> What would you say about Signal, designed to be incompatible with the law around lawful subpoenas?
It’s not. Subpoenas require handing over what you have. If you don’t have it there is no obligation to disclose. Signal may run afoul of data-retention laws. But there are no such requirements in America.
