On Sunday, February 3, 2002, at 06:41 PM, Tim May wrote:
> On Sunday, February 3, 2002, at 01:22 PM, Morlock Elloi wrote:
>>> "Theoretically, the system could be calibrated to watch for people with
>>> links to restaurants or other places thought to be favored by terrorist
>>> cells. It might also note phone calls and match individuals against
>> First they will just have to talk the terrorist out of using cash for
>> non-ticket purchases or into using cash for ticket purchases.
>> Otherwise, some really devious terrorist may use traceable payment
>> instruments
>> only for benign purposes (see "Creating a profile" chapter) and for that
>> final
>> ticket purchase, while paying with cash everything else.
>> Could it just be that this current War on something will be used, as all
>> previous Wars on something, to eradicate cash ?
>
> And how will they get the records from restaurants? (Ditto for the other
> "data mining" inputs, most of which are from private persons, companies,
> or organizations.) Subpoena of specific person records will not generate
> the data mining raw data they want.
Simply make it a requirement of the business license, after all every
business in the US is involved in interstate trade, which means the Feds
have the responsibility to regulate them.
> Even in our headlong rush to a surveillance state, I don't see
> restaurants and bookstores turning over information on this kind of scale.
Bookstores, maybe. Restaurants? They'll fight this tooth and nail as
many of them take, well let's just say in a business that generates a lot
of untraceable paper money, not all of it get reported.
> (Which leaves us with the credit card companies. Maybe FINCEN and DOJ can
> get specific records, but, again, the kind of terabytes per day of raw
> data to feed the data harvesters will not be easy to get. Unless the
> several credit reporting agencies elect to help Big Brother on a massive
> scale. We should be on the watch for this.)
All BB has to do is modify the "Credit Fair Use Reporting Act" (or
some such nonsense) and offer the CC Companies money for the data.
Afterall, the CC Companies own the data, and they can sell it to
whomever they want, modulo restrictions put in place by Men With Guns.
--
"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his
hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."
- Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)
