-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In <199705072216.SAA25634@yakko.cs.wmich.edu>, on 05/07/97 at 04:16 PM, Damaged Justice <frogfarm@yakko.cs.wmich.edu> said:
From Post Office Credit Union' _Credit Union Post_, Spring 1997:
Congress recently passed a law making it mandatory to receive government payments by direct deposit to a financial institution. It's called "Electronic Funds Transfer Expansion Act," and it requires all federal payments, except an IRS refund check to be issued by electronic funds transfer (Direct Deposit).
This is nothing new. They did this to the Military Payroll back in the mid 1980's. Most if not all civilian Fed workers are already receiving DD payments. Their has been a long time desire by the Feds to move us to a cashless society. No checks, No cash, no coins all electronic transfers. This is just one more step in that direction. While from an economic standpoint there are many reason to do this as it is much cheaper to move bits than to move pieces of wood pulp. From a security/privacy standpoint there are just as many reasons *not* to do this. Smart Cards, Debit Cards, Credit Cards, ... et al. will not support anonymous transactions. The current power brokers will not give up control of the money regardless of what form it takes. - -- - ----------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. Finger whgiii@amaranth.com for PGP Key and other info - ----------------------------------------------------------- Tag-O-Matic: I went window shopping...and bought OS/2! -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Registered User E-Secure v1.1 ES000000 iQCVAwUBM3FR6I9Co1n+aLhhAQFARgP/cdt033GTXr0TKlXrL6uk0tG8COPdPP+m SPpmdw7q9vGTWpitkCx3Tz5311GkpYUSUhrPYWQ+itDGRAdZZ//wzQjuRNazNoEe eAYxE7qVg58rEzLVIoNbKbOVhTE0Ovfjs6ANi/t5WBmMvRY7CliDpgWEt7RetPkf P6/OwioE7kc= =NyZv -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----