Part 4 "Fighting the Next War" [4/4] [4/4] Next, cyberlaundering? If there is one thing that money launderers hate it is cash; physical cash, that is [No, we hate criminal governments who refuse to issue larger denomination notes]. Shipping huge wads of banknotes is a logistical nightmare [which would be less onerous if, by way of example, the US guVermin recirculated $500, $1000, $5000 and $10,000 FRNs. The printing plates for such "money-laundering friendly" notes having been de-activated since the reign of dictator Roosevelt; refusal to issue higher denomination FRNs to keep pace with Accumulated Wealth Tax extractions (commonly referred to as "inflation") since the 1930s is nothing less than slow-motion, backdoor currency recall]. It also raises the risk that couriers will be intercepted [they mean robbed] and the ["]loot["] traced back to its source. Transferring money electronically is both quicker and easier [but not necessarily safer in certain nations]. [*]Hence concerns in law-enforcement circles that new forms of electronic money could render obsolete traditional methods of tracking ["]tainted["] money, which rely heavily on the poLicing of bank transactions[*]. ["Hence concerns in law-evasion circles that new forms of vooter sanity threatening to outlaw drug Prohibition could render obsolete traditional streams of tax-free income."] ["Hence concerns in law-enforcement circles that new forms of vooter sanity threatening to outlaw drug Prohibition could render obsolete traditional pretexts for increased budgets, privacy deprivation and sheeple tracking."] Electronic-money systems come in three different forms. There are stored-value cards, which allow customers to load money onto a microchip-bearing piece of plastic. This can then be carried around like a credit card. There are computer-based systems, for example, those involving payments over the Internet. and there is talk of hybrid systems, which allow smart cards and network-based payments to work together. Although these new gizmos are still under development, financial regulators and policemen have been studying them intently. And they have raised several questions to which they want answers. One is whether limits will be placed on value that can be held on chip-bearing cards. A card without a limit "could break my back", [then there would be no need for a tree] worries Stanley Morris, [the anti-christ, ] who heads FINCEN, the American government's financial-intelligence unit [FiU]. He thinks launderers could use it to shift millions of dollars on a piece of plastic. The anti-laundering brigade [brigands?!] also wants reassurance that crooks will not be able to set themselves up as e-money issuers. [I guess as opposed to the crooks who set themselves up as fiat banknote issuers] And they want to know whether all transactions in whatever system will be logged at a central point, so that investigators can reconstruct an [unencrypted??] electronic audit trail ["]if necessary["]. [B.S., they don't "want reassurance" or "want to know" squat, this is their non-negotiable DEMAND; they will try to rob, kidnap, jail, and murder anyone who thinks different] At least one card-based system currently being developed by Mondex, a company owned by Master-Card, [MassaCard] is designed to allow money to be transferred directly between cards, without leaving such a trail. DigiCash, which is developing a computer-based payment system, is using what it calls a "one-way privacy" method, which allows payers to check who received money from them, but does not allow the recipients to find out where it came from. [as in a postal money order (but sans the silly $700 per m.o. limit and the ridiculous $2999.99 daily limit) sent to a payee anonymously] While these and other issues, such as who will have jurisdiction over laundering on the Internet, [I smell a brand new Global Bureaucracy in the air] suggest the new systems could cause the authorities a few headaches, some experts beg to differ. A report published last year by the Bank for International Settlements, [another report cited, another worthle$$ bureaucracy, amazing isn't it?] the central bankers' central bank, [in other words, a den of iniquity] noted that in most cases, measures designed to protect the new systems against fraud--such as attaching unique electronic serial numbers to transactions--would make them less attractive for criminal activities than many existing payment systems. At the moment, all financial regulators can do is watch and wait.
E-Communist 25 St James's Street London SW1A 1HG www.economist.com
[Remember if you do your banking in a socialist country, there are three parties involved in any transaction: 1) you, the presumed criminal. 2) the (non-)bank employee, snitch/narc/mind-reader. 3) the guVermin employee, looter/thief/spy.] Fly Low S'n'S Pro: Money Laundering, Self-Medication, Militia-Grade Arms, Realism Pro: Indirect Taxation, Adults, Individual Irrevocable Rights } Smurf N Sniff Non-Member, Gunfiscators of Canberra | } P.O. Bunker 6669 "We don't want to be like those paranoid | } Hohoe, Ghana Americans, this is a social DemoBracy." | } fn-fal@edict.gov.un +233 55 1234 boycott GovernMedia NLC | Anti: feral guVermin, Vooters, rapacious tyrants, nihilists Anti: biometric herd management, "(The)" children, state granted privileges