
How cash secretly rules surveillance policy - antoko
http://www.salon.com/2013/06/18/how_cash_secretly_rules_surveillance_policy/
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dfc
From the title I was really hoping this was going to be a story about the
differences between cash and checks/credit cards/ACH.

In case you were equally disappointed I do have a pointer to an interesting
article from PET 2004 about the anonymity of banknotes but sadly I only have
my hard copy. The slides are here:

[http://petworkshop.org/2004/talks/kuegler.pdf](http://petworkshop.org/2004/talks/kuegler.pdf)

If you have a springer account or (great google-fu and patience) you can get
the full article:

[http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/11423409_8](http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/11423409_8)

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rdl
I really don't understand why banknotes aren't imaged (or just serial numbers
recorded) at more points of distribution. Making it an ABA or merchant-
security requirement and integrating it into PoS, then requiring that those
records be turned over for AML purposes (under existing laws, just as
regulations), and then those records (secretly?) turned over to FinCEN and
NSA, would seem productive.

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toyg
Er, do you mean having every single POS scan each and every banknote? I can
see it working with fully-automated POS, but it's a no-go for regular tills --
can you imagine mom&pop having to scan each note?

Or was this a _modest proposal_ that just went woosh by me?

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rdl
It doesn't have to be _every_ POS. Just do scanning first at the federal
reserve banks, then at merchant banks and cash in transit companies, then at
certain big chain stores (and in loading ARMs). Use insurance discounts to
incent adding it.

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abecedarius
You know, medical journals make authors prominently disclose any interests
that might matter, and biomedical research has a reputation of being less than
squeaky-clean. Expecting the same norm in political journalism doesn't seem
inherently ridiculous, even if it's the last thing anyone would expect today.
It may be somewhat automatable with natural language processing and databases
of contributions.

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e3pi
Damn! I read this as "How to cash in secrecy rules surveillance policy"

Please herewith be guided thereto accordingly:

"Big Money has helped create that disconnect, even though Big Money is somehow
written out of the story"

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gboone42
C.R.E.A.M. Get the money, dolla dolla bills y'all.

