US Department of Justice: Tornado Cash indictment has nothing to do with "free speech"

On May 11th, the US Department of Justice explained why the motion to dismiss the criminal case against Tornado Cash founder Roman Storm was invalid. The Department of Justice reiterated that their indictment was not related to whether the Tornado Cash computer code had freedom of speech or was protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. The defendant was not charged for publishing computer code, but for using it to facilitate profitable illegal activities.

Similarly, the Department of Justice explained that banks use computer code to process financial transactions. If the code performs the function of a legal definition of a money transmitter, then the code is not just freedom of speech, but a computer code that humans must ensure is implemented in a way that does not violate money transmission laws. Tornado Cash is both part of the code, part of speech, and part of business. As a whole, it is a creation of humanity. Storm not only published the code, but also operated a business and made operational decisions over the years.

The Department of Justice stated that the Tornado Cash protocol is not equivalent to the Tornado Cash business. Just because Tornado Cash has some open source code does not mean that all of Roman Storm's actions related to the code, as the owner of the Tornado Cash business, are protected by the Constitution. The Department of Justice focuses on Storm's purposeful actions. Specifically, the prosecutor focuses on his willful operation of a money laundering business that generated over $1 billion in illegal profits and was used to launder over $1 billion in suspected criminal funds.