This summer, several judges at the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netenyahu, after he was charged with crimes against humanity in the court.

In August, the US issued sanctions against the judges, including one who is named Nicolas Guillou.

Several days ago, Le Monde published an interview with Guillou describing how these sanctions have essentially cut him off from the interacting with the modern world.

Guillou's daily existence has been transformed into a Kafkaesque nightmare. He cannot:

open or maintain accounts with Google, Amazon, Apple, or any US company;

make hotel reservations (Expedia canceled his booking in France hours after he made it);

conduct online commerce, since he can't know if the packaging is American;

use any major credit card (Visa, Mastercard, Amex are all American);

access normal banking services, even with non-American banks, as banks worldwide close sanctioned accounts;

conduct virtually any financial transaction.

The US Treasury justifies this decision by the fact that Mr. Guillou has "authorized the issuance by the ICC of arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant".

Whether you agree with the idea of the ICC or not, this is an excellent example of why we need Bitcoin.

It is laughable to me that people who support the kind of laws that allow our financial systems to be so controlled and monitored don't realize that these tools will be used against them if the person in charge turns out to oppose them.

If we give governments the tools to control people, they will misuse them. The only solution is to have a financial system that cannot be controlled in this manner.