Where's Our Anonymous Electronic Money?

[♦ nivek ♦]

Where's our anonymous electronic money?

Disloyal Opposition

by JD Tuccille

 

"First, Congress banned the use of credit cards 'and other payment

forms' to settle Internet wagers. Now the San Francisco Chronicle

wants to impose a similar ban on the use of credit cards to make

purchases from online pharmacies. ... Credit cards and other payment

systems, once seen as a potential route to financial flexibility, have

become tools of political control. There are alternative means of

payment, but these have proven vulnerable to government pressure.

PayPal, which began with an explicitly antigovernment agenda, folded

rather early, and now bans a variety of politically incorrect

transactions. NETeller, even though it's based outside the country,

followed suit after two of its executives were essentially kidnapped

and held hostage while in the U.S. Some other payment systems remain

available, but nothing has established itself as invulnerable, or even

highly resistant, to government arm-twisting. Where is this brave new

world of anonymous and untraceable transactions we were

promised?" (04/01/08)

 

http://tinyurl.com/22wz63