From: wcs@anchor.ho.att.com (bill.stewart@pleasantonca.ncr.com +1-510-484-6204)
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 94 15:11:48 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: money...
Message-ID: <9403112310.AA05626@anchor.ho.att.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Sandy writes:
> On Wed, 9 Mar 1994, David L Womack wrote:
> >                         . . . The rumor is
> > that it is possible to detect, at a modest
> > distance, the existance of and the amount
> > of currancy being carried.  Thus, if a person

Seems nonsensical.  Detectors of money containing
trace amounts of magnetized metals would have
real trouble with other magnetized metal going by,
and they're not going to stop people at airports to
check whether they're carrying lots of currency
or a book snuck out of the library without getting
*lots* of abuse from business travellers.
Once we've had our National Health ID Smart Cards
upgraded to non-privte digicash, maybe they'll think
about adding transponders...

> *IF* this is true, you will probably still have
> the "Taco Bell" solution available to you for the
> foreseeable future ("Run for the Border").  
> When that gets shut down, there will still be 
> private aircraft and private yachts.

About 5 years ago, the government put a "luxury tax" on boats;
you had to get a registration sticker for any size  boat that
a rational individual might use to get in/out of the country.
My immediate reaction was that it was for identifying
who might be escaping or smuggling drugs or illegal immigrants.

The tax was small, maybe $25, but they could ding you
for not having the sticker on your boat.  There was some
effort by boaters to get rid of it, but I think it's
still there.  ("Rational individual", above, doesn't count
people immigrating from Cuba on windsurfers :-)

		Bill