A Classic On E-gold From Claire’s Archive – “e-gold spreads its legs for the feds”
If you have a taste for the classics on government, big brother and an ‘anti’ lifestyle, you should check out the Wolf (Claire Wolf) over at wolfesblog.
From her archives in December of last year I bring you her post regarding e-gold’s recent “change of heart” concerning interaction with the government.
Keep in mind, when reading this post that e-gold’s leaders for nearly a ten year period said they would ONLY cooperate with the authorities when presented with a valid court order.
That was preached for almost a decade with NO exceptions.
Then in December ‘06, one year after a visit by the federal authorities where they held control over the e-gold server for 36 hours (how long does it take to copy a decades worth of data?) the e-gold team has changed their ideals. This is a quote from their attorney, Andrew Ittleman from a Wired magazine article.
“You have a very strong documented relationship with these agents asking about particular people with the promise that they are going to be subpoenaing,” says Jackson attorney Andrew Ittleman. “Just because they never ultimately gave him a subpoena doesn’t put the fault on Jackson — it’s on the agents. He was acting in good faith.”
His lawyers also say that once the company discovered evidence of possible wrongdoing, it had no choice but to hand over information to the government. Jackson could even have been charged with aiding and abetting money launderers under federal statutes if he didn’t report the suspicious activity.
“E-gold, because of the way in which it operates, creates the potential for a misuse,” says lead attorney Mitchell Fuerst. “And to the extent that that can happen, I think the company has an ethical and a legal obligation to prevent those crimes from being committed.”
….and here is Claire’s post, a classic:
12/12/2006 Archived Entry: “e-gold spreads its legs for the feds”
E-GOLD, UNDER PRESSURE, lies down and spreads its legs for the feds. Heck, it even goes out trolling for fed “customers,” which it services for free (no warrant or subpoena required for the fed big boys).
So much for e-gold’s “libertarian image.” If you deal with e-gold in the future, be sure to have yourself checked for STDs afterwards — that is Statist Transmitted Despotisms.
No big surprise — and no big deal, I suppose. Just one more corporate sellout, one more act of datamining snoopery by a private business on behalf of its federal partner. One more unsurprising revelation of who the real customer is. Ho hum, what’s on the other channel?
Though Wolfesblog has an e-gold link for donations and the annual book sale, I believe it’s been used just once in the last three years. Getting money into and out of e-gold was always such a bitch it seems few people ever got around to it. I’d close my e-gold account, except it’s hardly worth bothering for the hundred bucks or so worth of metals that have been sitting idly in it all these years. Still, you hadda kinda hope that a business, started by alleged freedom lovers, and dealing internationally in metal money, would be prepared to hold out, and wouldn’t cave so spectacularly and so cravenly.
