--- begin forwarded text Date: Sat, 05 May 2007 19:05:21 -0400 To: Digital Gold and Silver Discussion List <dgcchat@dgcchat.com> From: James Turk <jamesturk@goldmoney.com> Subject: Re: [Dgcchat] I was talking about a different James Reply-To: Digital Gold and Silver Discussion List <dgcchat@dgcchat.com> Sender: dgcchat-bounces@dgcchat.com Raven Thanks for your thoughtful reply. On the chance that my views may be helpful, here's how I see it.

So if you operate an account-based currency, it seems you would be expected to follow the law, doesn't it?

-- Stop! This is where you lose a lot of the guys here. I'll try to make this brief:

1. You're accepting Big Brother. (Some here think you are welcoming and inviting BB to "bring law and order" to the digital economy.) I fully understand that BB exists, and that it must be considered as a practical matter. But also understand that a lot of the folks here DO NOT accept it as a given, and do not wish to bow down to it. They'd rather run around it and try to build freedom. I'm sure some of us don't divide these two different modes very well, but this is a major issue.

First, the principle that seems to be evolving in the still nascent Internet is that each country sets the "law and order" for those people who access the Internet from that country. Thus if you access the Internet from within France, you subject yourself to French law. Similarly, if you are in the US, you are subject to US law. The corollary is that you are subject to the law of the country in which you operate your Internet business. Thus if your company's staff, servers and customer data are within the US, it seems pretty clear that your business is subject to US law, regardless if your company is incorporated in some other country. Second, and more importantly, I'm not accepting BB. In fact, I'm doing exactly what you say about avoiding BB. That's why we have chosen to build our business in the British Channel Islands, which is a sovereign country that is very protective of property rights, and property rights are very important to me as the builder of a financial services business. Some people on this list have a totally unrealistic view of the world, possibly because they have never travelled out of their home country. Government is a fact of life. We decided to deal with that reality by locating in the British Channel Islands. We comply with the law there, and as a consequence need to know who are customers are. The quid pro quo is that our customers are protected by the law there, which is Anglo-Saxon common law -- the principles of which are based on property rights. GoldMoney is built upon sound business principles with a solid business plan. The outcome will be as I said in my other post to "create a DGC that I believe will withstand the test of time. Consequently, GoldMoney will change things regarding money and banking -- which many people on this list would no doubt like to see. We want to reduce the role of government in money. GoldMoney is doing this by providing people with a viable and well-run non-national currency, i.e., a currency not run by government." So GoldMoney is not accepting BB. It's the exact opposite. We're dealing with BB in a pragmatic way. Thus while we cope with BB in our own way, we are building our business which will in time I expect change how people around the world view money and also change what they will use for currency.

2. Other account-based systems (like banks) are NOT shut down if their customers do nasty things. This happens ONLY if the operators were involved. Is my bank required to verify the intent of every check I send through it? No? Then why is e-gold? I have seen no evidence that e-gold knowingly colluded with kiddie-porn dealers.

Banks don't verify the intent of every check. All banks do is go through the process of knowing who their customers are. E-Gold didn't do that. E-Gold to my knowledge wasn't shut down. Only the accounts in the indictments were shut down. Other accounts are still operating, aren't they? That's the same thing that happens in banks if banks don't follow the regulations governing them. If E-Gold's own accounts were frozen, that happens in the banks too if they don't comply with regulations.

3. Of course criminals are a problem here - they're a problem everywhere! And, yes, there are real questions about business ethics in dealing with ponzis, etc. - but those are EXACTLY the things we should argue about on a list like this! AND DO ALL THE TIME!

Yes, we do talk about that a lot, don't we? But talk is one thing, and action is another, and we all know that E-Gold allows ponzis and that ilk to operate accounts within E-Gold. Read the indictment the feds put together. It's an eye opener.

Finally, you seem to exhibit no empathy or concern for e-gold or any of their users.

Obviously I have no empathy for the crooks. With regard to E-Gold's legitimate customers, I don't have any views one way or the other. It was their choice to deal with E-Gold. Nobody forced them to open an account there, right? Sometimes we make good decisions, sometimes bad -- in both cases we have to accept the consequences of our actions. But in any case empathy is not needed here, because unless I missed something here, E-Gold's legitimate customers are not effected by the indictment against E-Gold's principals. Regards James _______________________________________________ Dgcchat mailing list Dgcchat@dgcchat.com http://mail.dgcchat.com/mailman/listinfo/dgcchat_dgcchat.com --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'