Nexus - 0213 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

TOWARD A CASHLESS SOCIETY: THE WAY ON CASH AND PRIVACY stored in the personal data systems of 97 federal agencies. The | TOWARD A CASHLESS SOCIETY: THE WAY ON CASH Department of Health, Education and Welfare had 693 separate AND PRIVACY data systems with 130 million personal records including marital, Present US government attitudes toward cash and people who financial, health, etc. data stored. The Treasury Department had use it are reminiscent of Nazi Germany. Police agencies nation- 910 data systems with 853 million records; the Justice Department = —_ wide consider anyone carrying a large quantity of cash to be 175 data systems with 181 million records; the Defense _jnyolved in criminal activity unless they can prove otherwise. For Department 2,219 data systems with 312 million records stored, example, an Iowa man stopped for a traffic ticket pulled his driver's atc, licence out of his wallet, which also contained $7,000 in cash. He These numbers (from US News and World Report) are 20 years was on his way to a sale that required cash - much like the govern- old. The computer files on Americans today are probably ten times —_ment's own auctions of seized property. The policeman confiscat- larger and are linked together between most government agencies. —_ed the cash because he didn't think that a man dressed in overalls Like it or not, your life is now an open book. Using your Social should be carrying that much cash. Security number, any government agency, or agent (local, state, or A subscriber from New Jersey recently described the following federal) can now tap into dozens (or hundreds) of computer data incident in a letter to your editor. He was recently driving down bases on every American. A total and comprehensive computer —_ the New Jersey Turnpike in an 18-foot Hertz rental truck. He profile exists on virtually every adult American. stopped at the last toll booth at the end of the Turnpike near Now the government has developed a DNA (genetic) data base — Wilmington, Delaware, and paid the toll with a $50 bill - the only on 1.5 million US military servicemen cash he had on him. The attendant told him and is experimenting with same on fed- to wait a minute and then went to the front eral prisoners. Most Americans are not of the truck and wrote down the licence aware that their phone calls, telexes, plate number, a description of the sub- faxes and certain US mail are regularly scriber (who was driving) and his son (a monitored by federal agencies. passenger in the truck). While the driver Phones can now be made ‘hot on the (1M Other words, 1001 ways Of reed Spout this, the attendant stapled the hook' (i.e., turned into microphones i ckin the arth's $50 bill to the government form and told even when hung up and not in use). tra 8 . him that this was the procedure for anyone According to a 1992 report by the inhabitants are emerging via paying with a $50 or $100 bill. General Accounting Office entitled if - In Florida, The Orlando Sentinel recently “FBI Advanced Communication new high technology. carried a series entitled: "Highway Robbery Technologies Pose Wiretapping on I-95", which described how police seize Challenges", it is the intention of the your cash for even minor traffic violations FBI to tap all phones in America. on the basis that the cash is "probable pro- Every square inch of the earth's sur- ceeds of drug transactions”. At airports, face can now be monitored by satellite ticket agents and security personnel are so that all persons and activities can now be watched. The govem- _ alert to anyone carrying large quantities of cash. Why? Because if ment, in conjunction with AT&T, has developed computerised their tipoff leads to a seizure, they get a finder's fee of 10-25%. In voice recognition on phones and also picks up and records (through _a seizure recently described on 60 Minutes, a DEA agent testified the National Security Agency) key words from conversations, in court that the person he seized cash from was carrying $100s, which trigger the NSA tape recorders. $50s, $20s, and $10s, “which were all widely used in the drug Several years ago, US passports were made computer-readable. _ trade." Of course, this only leaves $1s and $5s for everyone else. Now, US, Canadian, Australian, German and other European Drug residue on your cash provides ‘probable cause’ for its authorities are installing computers in airports which will not only _ seizure. Tens of thousands of cash seizures are made each year read passports, but also hand prints via infrared security readers. because dogs allegedly identified the cash as containing drug This means data banks of computerised hand prints will be devel- _ residue. And yet, according to the DEA's own lab studies, it is the oped over the next few years and linked to other governmental data —_ government itself (i.e., the Federal Reserve) that contaminates most bases, so that an instant computer record of an individual will be cash in its currency sorting operations. Rollers on the Fed's cash flashed on a screen simply by waving a person's hand over a gro- _sorting machines are contaminated with cocaine residue (20 to 100 cery store-type infrared scanner. Does this sound farfetched? This _ times higher than those found on the average bill). Various studies system is being set up at the Kennedy and Newark airports and air- _ dating back to 1985 show that anywhere between 80% and 97% of ports in the aforementioned countries at this writing. cash circulating has drug residue on it. Biometric identification systems are now exploding onto the What happens to the seized cash? It's deposited into a govern- scene with computerised fingerprint comparisons, identification ment bank account to be recirculated. No effort is made to take it cards, debit and smart cards, driver's licences, proposals for a bio- _out of circulation, according to affidavits from 21 agencies that metric national ID card, a biometric card to replace welfare participate in cash seizures. If you want your cash back, you must cheques and food stamps, biometric passports, and biometric book- _go to court to prove that the funds were earned legitimately. If you ing of prisoners by law enforcement officers. Biometric technolo- win, the government always appeals under the strategy that they gies include fingerprint comparison, retina scanning, DNA analy- _ will litigate until you run out of money. So, does this make carry- sis, voice recognition, hand geometry, body odour, body heat pat- ing cash illegal? In effect it does! tems and brain wave analysis. In other words, 1001 ways of track- Illustrative of the government attitude toward cash was the ing the earth's inhabitants are emerging via new high technology. November '92 article by David Warwick in The Futurist magazine, Cars can be tracked via small implanted computerised receiving _ entitled “The Cash Free Society". The article claims that "cash has devices linked with government satellites. The US government has _ een the root of much of the social and economic evil. actually spent $3 billion over the past 15 years to develop this peo- Ridding society of its cash could make most criminal activity ple/vehicle tracking system. Now the exact location of trucks, —_ disappear, from purse-snatching to drug trafficking. Electronic police cars, and other vehicles is beginning to be tracked in the US money systems promise to lead the way to a cash-free, crime-free via this method. society." Vol 2, No 13 - 1993 18eNEXUS