Money That Tracks You

[R. A. Hettinga]

http://www.newsmax.com/cgi-bin/printer_friendly.pl


Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Latest Privacy Nightmare: Money That Tracks You
Wes Vernon
Saturday, July 28, 2001
WASHINGTON - It isnít every day that you learn how to promote the
Constitution and trash it in one easy congressional hearing. But thatís
exactly what happened this week.

A House Subcommittee on Financial Services divided its session Tuesday
between praising an idea by young students to print parts of the
Constitution on U.S. currency and an anti-privacy proposal to rig that same
currency with a device that would allow others to keep track of who has had
it and for how long.

Whatís more, the irony seemed to go over the heads of everyone who
participated.

"In just one hearing, they showed us how to educate on the Constitution and
how to ignore it,î a startled J. Bradley Jansen, deputy director of the
Center for Technology Policy at the Free Congress Foundation, told
NewsMax.com.

Every politician knows the public relations value of the "dog and pony
showî that puts future voters on display so as to figuratively pat them on
their heads for being good citizens.

Chairman Michael G. Oxley, R-Ohio, gaveled the House committee session to
order by proclaiming that counterfeiting is done often by organized crime
or violent drug gangs.

After greeting the students who were to testify, he welcomed Director
Thomas A. Ferguson of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. He would soon
discuss the ongoing testing of "innovative security features, outside the
current traditions of U.S. currency design, for possible application to
future generations of currency.î

Outrageous Federal Intrusiveness

Jansen fears that the ideas circulating among crime fighters will venture
"outside the current traditionsî of the protections of the Fourth Amendment
to the Constitution. You donít go following peopleís money habits to find
where they get the currency, where they spend it and how long they keep it.
That is the equivalent of burning the house down just to kill a few bugs.

It would have been interesting to learn if the young students from Liberty
Middle School and Patrick Henry High School in Ashland, Va., attending that
hearing had been taught the Bill of Rights and the meaning of the Fourth
Amendment. One assumes that if they want parts of the Constitution printed
on our currency, they probably have. If they sat through the entire hearing
and witnessed the contradictions, they must have been confused.

Article Four reads: "The right of people to be secure in their persons,
houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures,
shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable
cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the
place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.î

As the Center for Technology Policy sees it, the so-called "Mewî chip
inserted in currency to trace the habits of citizens is a high-tech
violation of that amendment. Pure and simple.

"It is important that the adoption of new technologies to thwart
counterfeiting and to increase security are not used as government
surveillance programs,î Jansen said.

The Mew chip is small enough that it could easily be implanted in money for
security purposes. Bureaucrats at home and abroad "have expressed interest
in expanding their power in ways that could easily trample over our
liberties,î he added.

Marvin Goodfriend, a senior Federal Reserve official in Richmond, Va.,
proposed one such plan several years ago.

Stealing Your Money With 'Hoarding Tax'

This proposal would have imposed a tracking device on currency that would
automatically reduce its value through a "carry taxî on hoarding.

It would hit you at your bankís cashier window. If you go there to make a
cash deposit, the Mew chip would determine whether you had held on to the
cash for period that someone else determined is "too long.î Thus, you could
walk up to the window, make a $120 deposit and get back a receipt for only
$105.

Goodfriendís idea sparked such backlash that it was dropped.

Keynesian economists at one time flirted with the idea. Supposedly, their
purpose was to boost the economy with greater cash circulation in the event
lower interest rates failed to boost the economy.

Does that ring a bell? What is Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan doing right now?
Driving interest rates down, down, down, and the economy remains sluggish.

"Thatís scary,î said Jansen.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
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-- 
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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at 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'



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