(Why is this discussion limited to just the four of us? Surely Declan and his Cato buddies are worthy to hear our arguments? I dislike the "taking things private" mindset, when the lists are already so cluttered with Toto rants and other consumers of vast amounts of bandwidth.)

If my header lines implied this, it was inadvertent. I agree more 'relevent' content on CP is desireable.

I haven't quite said that all forms of communication/spending money will be speech and therefore protected. (Besides, we all know of many forms of speech that are unprotected.)

What I (and Michael Froomkin, in his own CFP talk) have argued is that digital money will be _undetectable_ in many cases unless government demands that the contents of a private communication be revealed. A kind of prior restraint on speech.

[snip]

If the government determines, somehow, that Alice was involved in an illegal transaction, tax evasion, money laundering, etc., they can try to get her on that. But they can't insist that words be submitted to a government agent for approval."

Isn't uttering a check protected speech? What about if a check is stego-coded in some political rant? Can the Feds insist I not utter that speech? --Steve PGP mail preferred, see http://www.pgp.com and http://web.mit.edu/network/pgp.html RSA fingerprint: FE90 1A95 9DEA 8D61 812E CCA9 A44A FBA9 RSA key: http://keys.pgp.com:11371/pks/lookup?op=index&search=0x55C78B0D --------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Schear | tel: (702) 658-2654 CEO | fax: (702) 658-2673 First ECache Corporation | 7075 West Gowan Road | Suite 2148 | Las Vegas, NV 89129 | Internet: schear@lvdi.net --------------------------------------------------------------------- I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me ECache or give me debt! "It's your Cache"