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Computers Outlawed in Florida
Stoic Joker:
I think a lot of the motivation behind laws like this is to ultimately eliminate the ability to anonymously access the web. Small surprise really since you need an account or a license to use almost any other communication technology. Even public speech is starting to require a permit in many places.
So in Florida's case, I think one unspoken goal is to get the Internet equivalent of a public pay phone off the streets...-40hz (July 16, 2013, 07:48 AM)
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You're giving the Florida legislature way too much credit here man...those folks a just flat out not that bright. Florida has always had a bug up their ass about the "EviLs" of gambling. It's nothing but sun, sand, snow heads, and family fun, and they're dead set on keeping it that way. Hell the Indians can even get a casino going around here...and they've had sovereignty for quite a few years now.
...Because it's just one more way to get a handle on the illegal migrant worker community. -40hz (July 16, 2013, 07:48 AM)
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We don't really have one that I know of/have ever seen. Now MilesAhead is considerably farther south than I so perhaps he could comment ... Buy I haven't seen a 9 people floated over from Cuba in a bathtub news report in years.
40hz:
Buy I haven't seen a 9 people floated over from Cuba in a bathtub news report in years.
-Stoic Joker (July 16, 2013, 11:35 AM)
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Why bother going to that extreme when there are so many countries you could enter from besides Cuba and not have to risk drowning for?
:)
Stoic Joker:
Buy I haven't seen a 9 people floated over from Cuba in a bathtub news report in years.
-Stoic Joker (July 16, 2013, 11:35 AM)
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Why bother going to that extreme when there are so many countries you could enter from besides Cuba and not have to risk drowning for?-40hz (July 16, 2013, 12:19 PM)
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Hell, I don't know ... I'm here already. But it wasn't that many years ago we'd all sit around and marvel at the insane number of things that they'd manage to make float with ~50+ people in/on it. They even have a "Wet foot dry foot" rule/law here that basically states if you can make it to shore without getting spotted...you win.
Tinman57:
One of the politicians probably saw something on one of the computers that looked like a hanging chad and freaked.....-Tinman57 (July 15, 2013, 08:45 PM)
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Oh FFS Seriously?? I can't stop laughing long enough to get mad ... But can we let that go?
-Stoic Joker (July 15, 2013, 10:32 PM)
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I know, everybody has a long memory when it comes to stuff like that. lol
Vurbal:
The points above mostly all make sense, given that:
* The police/SS seem obliged to deem cash business to be implicitly/potentially illegal, because you cannot trace the source of the money being used in the transaction to establish:
(a) proof/certainty as to whether it was used for bona fide legal/legitimate purposes (e.g., it might be operating an unlicensed casino), or
(b) whether the cash came from a "legitimate" or criminal source (e.g., as in money laundering).
* There seems to be a necessary drive by police/SS to exercise State control over all financial transactions so as to be able to "prove" them at the POS (Point Of Sale), as the police/SS are otherwise unable to effectively police various areas of crime engaged in money exchange/laundering.
Fans of the Breaking Bad series will recall the problems with having all that illegally-obtained cash (millions) stashed away in the wall linings of your garage or wherever...
@sword may well be right though:
See, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", by Lewis Carroll
-sword (July 13, 2013, 11:09 PM)
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(Which I thought was a very droll comment.) ;)
But there is at least one other important aspect to this that I can think of - banking transaction "tollgate" fees - which are a huge real/potential source of revenue.
We have witnessed that payments intermediaries/agents (e.g., PayPal, Visa, Mastercard) can pick and choose at their whim which of their commercial accounts can use their services - e.g., withdrawing access to their payments service and freezing accounts for "pirating" organisations frowned on by the **AA or by the State (e.g., Wikileaks).
There will undoubtedly be a financial benefit for this "self policing", probably in terms of some kind of a fee from the **AA or the State, and/or from the use-of money interest by effectively sequestering the funds (assets) in any frozen or "unclaimed" or "unclaimable" accounts.
The precedent for this form of highly lucrative and legitimised piracy bonanza was set in the case of the thousands of secretive anonymous Swiss Bank accounts of wealthy Jews killed in the Holocaust, and of the hundreds (or more) of Nazi/SS generals who had squirrelled away their humungus stolen assets - the spoils of war. Sitting on that sea of "gifted wealth" after WW2 was what made the corrupt (QED) Swiss banks even more secretive (lest they be discovered and were asked to pay the legitimate account monies to the descendants/heirs of the "untraceable" account-holders) and is apparently the main reason for Switzerland's strong economy today and their pride of place in the respectable (ho, ho) banking community.
So that represents a view of the population providing lucrative revenue from the accounts that you have as a banking/financial intermediary. But what about the accounts that you do not have? They could be potentially very lucrative.
Well, every cash transaction is a missed tollgate fee, and there are likely to be billions of them, and once you have established your bank as the tollgate financial intermediary for those accounts, you can collect a fee on every transaction. It's a tax levied by nominated financial barons, for an ephemeral service, and which is authorised by governments and their Agencies (which collectively are otherwise the authorised thieves tax-gatherers). The government cannot function without a well-subsidised banking system creating the magical "trust" money (debt) that government necessarily feeds upon for its projects. For example, to conduct its philanthropic "peace-making" wars on a global scale, or to conduct philanthropic global mass surveillance...
Some people (not me, you understand) might say that this issue (fees and commissions to feed the banks) - and not crime - might be the main reason that cash transactions must be discouraged in favour of EFT-POS (Electronic Funds Transfer at Point-Of-Sale), or similar - all operated by/through the banking system - but I couldn't possibly comment.-IainB (July 15, 2013, 12:36 AM)
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I had actually been trying to work out the regulatory gatekeeper angle on this because it smells exactly like the kind of crap that everybody from online rideshare services to more upscale operations like Uber have had to deal with from the crony capitalists who regulate taxis. I suspect you've hit the nail on the head.
MasterCard and Visa have an extremely disproportionate amount of influence on the electronic payment infrastructure in this country. Their insane fee structures are the reason most businesses prefer smaller transactions to be in cash. Not by coincidence one of the more embarrassing revelations from the State Department that sent the US government on their Wikileaks witch hunt was about their "lobbying" on behalf of those 2 companies WRT Russia's development of their own electronic payment system.
(By the way, this may indicate that Bitcoin or similar must be verboten.)
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According to the DHS goon squad it certainly is. You know somebody has friends in high places when they get to rent out the copyright police for their party.
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