Where's our anonymous electronic money?

“First, Congress banned the use of credit cards ‘and other payment forms’ to settle Internet wagers. Now the San Francisco Chronicle wants to impose a similar ban on the use of credit cards to make purchases from online pharmacies. … Credit cards and other payment systems, once seen as a potential route to financial flexibility, have become tools of political control. There are alternative means of payment, but these have proven vulnerable to government pressure. PayPal, which began with an explicitly antigovernment agenda, folded rather early, and now bans a variety of politically incorrect transactions. NETeller, even though it’s based outside the country, followed suit after two of its executives were essentially kidnapped and held hostage while in the U.S. Some other payment systems remain available, but nothing has established itself as invulnerable, or even highly resistant, to government arm-twisting. Where is this brave new world of anonymous and untraceable transactions we were promised?”

from J.D. Tuccille: Where's our anonymous electronic money?

[Hattip Rational Review News Daily. --MJ]