-- On 5 Jan 2004 at 15:33, Declan McCullagh wrote:
But I'm not overly optimistic (I tend not to be, in the short run). I do not know how resistant the e-gold corporate and technical infrastructure is to U.S. federal government targeting. If the Feds decided e-gold needed to be shut down and took very aggressive steps, what would happen?
The USG has taken escalating measures against e-gold, and these have certainly had a substantial effect, but e-gold could lose all its US infrastructure without very bad effect. It is also somewhat protected by muslim-jewish tensions. Some Muslim governments might well see aggressive US measures against e-gold operations in their territories as a part of a Jewish plot to trap the world in the coils of compount interest. E-gold transactions are traceable. E-gold does cooperate with the US government, and lots of other governments, but the trace is apt to come to a dead end in gold or cash. It is hard to get a bank account or credit card with an alternate ID, it is easy to get an e-gold account with no ID, like the old style Swiss Bank accounts. E-gold requests true names, but has no enforcement of them or checking of them. This lack of enforcement is arguably illegal, but it continues. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG W7gsWUY+/5KwrRw98KCYNs/xKsHYjnfvmtucfBoT 4o3QAhOGqRq67ZPaLVE64oWF8uS5hEW6quvjPtm6k