Justice, Policing, and E-Gold
Michael S. Rozeff at LewRockwell.com - a good outline of the police-state "laws" against "conspiracy to engage in money laundering" and "operating an unlicensed money transmitting business". Nothing like these "laws" could exist in a free country. I hope that Trubanc will become one way around this travesty for millions of people enslaved by these police states. Of course, I know well that I don't dare operate a Trubanc server myself, nor can it be served by a computer on US soil. Or I'd suffer the same fate, at the hands of these tyrants, as e-gold. Fuck you, government goons. Up the ass. With a chain saw. [lew]
All of this can be re-stated in terms of rights. A free person has the right to choose the medium of exchange (money or currency) that he prefers. He has the right to choose any form of currency or money he prefers. His rights are being invaded when the State compels him to use a national currency, like the dollar, or not to use a currency like gold. His rights are being invaded when he is forced to accept a particular kind of money in transactions. A free person has the right to send any amount of money in any form whatever to wherever he wants to. He has the right to send it in secrecy and privacy if he can find an obliging carrier or transmitter. Conversely, his rights and those of financial institutions are being invaded if those businesses are forced by the authorities or anyone else into inspecting and reporting upon his financial dealings. Businesses that cannot operate or get licenses unless they agree to become spies for the authorities are having their rights invaded. They are being subject to extortion by the State.
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Everyone has a right to his life, liberty, and property. To be forced into using one's time, money, and property in order to detect possible criminal behavior is clearly an invasion of one's basic rights. It is one thing to ask people to be on the lookout for a suspected criminal. It is one thing to ask people if they will post wanted posters, or to ask a business to donate some space to alert people to a suspected criminal. The voluntary cooperation of common people in finding and apprehending criminals is one thing, but compelling them to police one another is entirely a different matter. This is the difference between a free country and police state. The U.S. has crossed the line, and so have many other countries.
...Dr. Jackson has pleaded guilty to the crime of not verifying who his customers were, not making sure that they were not criminals, not creating a comprehensive program to detect money laundering, not detecting and reporting suspicious activity, and not operating under the supervision of the Bank Secrecy Act Division of the IRS. In other words, he didn't become part of the State's spying apparatus, and that makes him and his operation a criminal conspiracy. The crime here is not the commission of a crime. Instead the State is demanding that you do what it tells you, and if you don't, then that is a crime. If you stand up for your rights and do not obey the State's demands, you are a criminal!
Choice in Currency
Well said, Bill.
Freedom of choice in currency is a freedom that matters a lot to me.
It's also a freedom I've taken for granted here in Britain since the early 'Eighties. The government of Margaret Thatcher, impressed with Hayek's arguments, abolished all currency use and exchange controls. I can open an account with my own or any bank, for any currency I like. I can write checks for dollars on a dollar account. I could use my e-gold account, with the $250.00 prize Dr. Jackson kindly gave me soon after he started e-gold.com I guess, Thanks to the US Government (yet again), I lose that freedom too.
I guess that we are part of the US Empire, and certainly our government is a US sock-puppet. Every loss of liberty, every US oppression, finds its way here real fast. There are two-way pipelines between our so-called "Justice" Deparments, and ACPO, the Association of Chief Police Officers. These unelected 'public servants' actually tell our elected politicians what to do, quite openly!
And quite recently, our Serious Fraud Office was forced to close an investigation into Prince Bandar of Saudia Arabia, on grounds of (guess!) "National Security." Our highest Court has just ratified this.
Prince Bandar was and is a close personal friend of your President.
Regards,
Tony Hollick
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