Pass the Payment Choice Act
eff.org
eff.org
The point here is that doesn't really require much money to be a target.
How about this?
1. Only require certain businesses to accept cash. Make sure this includes some classes of business that most people have fairly reasonable access to. Grocery stores and convenience stores, for example.
2. Require those business to sell prepaid debit cards for cash. The debit cards must have no extra fees for purchase. A $20 debit card for example would cost $20 cash. No ID is required to buy these cards.
3. The debit cards would be subject to the normal processing fees upon use.
4. Other business can choose to not accept cash, but they must access the prepaid debit cards, and cannot charge any fees for them that they do not charge for other non-cash payment methods.
As I understand it the identity rules around gift Visa/MasterCard are because of money laundering.
What are these business sectors exactly? I assume we are talking about brick-and-mortar businesses only, because cash being problematic in online commerce is a no-brainer, so that consequently isn't what this EFF demand is about. In which brick-and-mortar style businesses is cash handling more expensive than card handling, assuming the same total amount of money is handled in both cases?
When it comes to transaction costs of cash versus credit cards in the US, the first thing that comes to my mind are these gas stations offering two prices for the same type of gas: a lower one for cash payment and a higher one for credit card payment. I guess gas stations can be ruled out of being in that ominous list of business sectors?
What authority does Congress have to regulate whether a retailer in Wisconsin has to accept cash rather than only checks from local banks?
[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/2650...
First you would have to successfully argue that there is a debt. The store might argue that you stole the item you consumed.
It all depends on how you fit what happens in a store to the offer/acceptable view of contracts.
Is it:
1. by putting the item on the shelf with a price tag, the store is making an offer to sell it at that price, and
2. by picking it up you have accepted the offer, forming a contract and now you owe the store for the item?
Or is it:
1. when you bring the item to the cashier you are making an offer to buy the item at the marked price, and
2. when the cashier rings you up the store accepts your offer?
Even if putting an item on a shelf with a price tag is an offer, rather than an invitation to treat, I believe I've seen at least one case that said that picking up the item isn't enough to accept--the offer is accepted and the contract formed when you actually pay. So even then consuming the item before paying would be theft.
> Even if putting an item on a shelf with a price tag is an offer, rather than an invitation to treat, I believe I've seen at least one case that said that picking up the item isn't enough to accept--the offer is accepted and the contract formed when you actually pay. So even then consuming the item before paying would be theft.
Picking up the item clearly isn't enough to accept an offer, otherwise the store could insist that you pay instead of being able to put it back! That's actually why I said to consume the item, as it's an action indicating explicit acceptance. If the intent is to eventually complete your end of the contract, then it's not theft.
Congress can regulate any type of economic activity now under this 1942 precedent
> But even if appellee's activity be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce and this irrespective of whether such effect is what might at some earlier time have been defined as 'direct' or 'indirect.'
There are real issues in the credit card system, including: 1) huge cost of credit card transactions (they are about 2) lack of privacy options 3) disproportionate burden of credit card fees on the poor (the rich get great rewards, which is a kickback from credit card companies).
The number one thing that could be done to make things better is to force credit card fees to be borne visibly and directly by customers at all times. This would force people to generally seek lower cost options.
The number two thing would be to ensure there is a standard for any competing card network to come along and plug in.
With these two things, you would ensure low cost processing options and the ability to compete on privacy features.
According to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing , US “paper” currency is made up of 75% cotton and 25% linen.
There's even been a model for that for over five years in the European regulation regarding this topic.
On top of your plug in standard, promote reasonable and nondiscriminatory access as a requirement for payment processors. That way, controversial (but otherwise lawful) individuals would also be able to compete without interference.
edit: Thinking about it, a fixed ratio wouldn't work well, otherwise you'd need to spend $17 to guarantee paying with a $20. Good thresholds might be $80/$35/$10 to reflect the increased incentive to pass larger counterfeit bills.
None of the fast food establishments near me will accept anything larger than a $20 and I'm positive there are folks going in there and ordering $40+ worth of food.
That should be fixed by changing the bills' design to be more resistant to counterfeiting, not by effectively making them useless because nobody accepts them anymore due to rampant fraud. Most currencies in developed countries don't have this weird counterfeiting problem that the US dollar apparently has when it comes to higher-valued denominations (with "higher" apparently starting at 50$), so that's some evidence that there must be a lot of room for improvement.
By keeping out people with no accounts, you’re excluding a large part of the population: children and poor people.
I don’t understand this part. The vendor sets prices and knowingly forgoes cashless transactions. Surely they can be trusted to make an informed financial decision without this regulation (the arguments regarding cash-only customers and privacy are separate issues).
What's Apple Pay's privacy and security story?
I know that I should know this. Apologies.
I had understood that Apple Pay does some kind of token exchange, instead of sending PII and account details over the wire. So this stops all the "edge" attacks, like card skimmers.
Are there any solutions (currently) that keeps Home Depot, for instance, from leaking or reselling my PII when I pay digitally?
AFAIK, three parties that are aware of a purchase history of tokenized cards are: Token Service Provider who provides the token, Token Requester who offer the tokenized service (Apple/Google in this case) and a card issuer. Apple Pay for example, uses First Data as its Token Service Provider. (I'm pretty sure Google Pay does as well)
You know what disproportionately affects people of lower incomes? Other people imposing extra costs for doing businesses with them.
I bet that the business refusing cash know a lot of a heck more about the added expenses of dealing with cash in their own business than me.
This type of action could easily backfire making products more expensive for people who need it the most.
Privacy zealots act like perfect anonymity at all times is a human right and we should always work towards it at any cost, when really I think most people agree it's more of a privilege that should only be available under certain circumstances (in your own home, for example).
Right now, the payment industry is very consolidated and Visa/Mastercard have a monopoly on transaction processing. It's expensive, and a privacy nightmare. Maybe when there is a government sponsored option that doesn't sell your information to anyone who wants it it'll be fine, but until then- No.
There's also the big reason that there is large parts of our population that don't have access to the regular banking system for one reason or another. Once you get black marks on your banking record and get kicked out, it will be very hard to get back in.
Getting the unbanked and underbanked is a similar policy issue: support the post office operating as a bank with reasonable fees, as is done in other countries. What’s it cost to maintain deposit accounts at scale for Americans unbanked? Roughly $5MM-$10MM a year in administration expenses. This is a rounding error in the federal budget.
Why have an original take when you can argue against a ridiculous straw man?
And if you are about to say "as long as they have a warrant..." keep in mind that the warrant is likely to access privacy-violating information that should not have been collected in the first place (according to privacy advocates).
> If you disagree, please share how you believe detective work is compatible with strong privacy.
Detective work seemed to happen just fine before digital money when there was only cash. Blanket surveillance didn't happen because it was impossible or too costly to do. I'm not saying anything about this theoretical "strong privacy".
> Cash has its own problems though - it's much easier to use it to avoid taxes, launder money, etc. when using cash.
Why should law abiding citizens have their rights taken away because some people abuse it? We have the second amendment protecting rights that are arguably much more dangerous, despite how they're abused by criminals. In my opinion, privacy advocates are asking for something much less, and with much less potential for violence -- the ability to make a purchase when they're perfectly law abiding, without some rando recording that, and having it leaked on the Internet for god knows what to happen with it.
Cops wanting access to people's private data is just lazy. They already have access to my cell location records, financial records, surveillance cameras, the testimony of any business that I've visited, and all my public social media. If they want to arrest me for something, they have all the info they need from public channels, they don't also need to intercept my boyfriend's butt pics.
What really makes an investigator's job impossible is when two people meet in the same place and have a private conversation. Are we saying that the digital equivalent of that shouldn't be allowed?
Without third parties who exchange money for something, money itself cannot exist. So the concept of money "strictly without any third party at all" doesn't make much sense.
Water is worth more when you’re thirsty.
As long as the cash is available, the two of you are able to have an exchange.
If another payment processor is involved, that freedom changes dramatically.
1. You must have another means of transacting, bank card, etc
2. Seller must have a way to process your transaction and hopefully his way accepts what you have to offer (Visa, etc).
3. The way to process the transaction must have some type of connection available to report success.
4. If for any reason the payment methods involved don’t think one of you should be allowed to proceed...it denies the transaction.
Ultimately, this adds a lot more friction to the process and requires someone else give permission before the transaction is allowed to proceed.
Cash itself is just streamlined bartering. No 3rd parties means no 3rd parties involved in allowing the transaction to move forward aside from the 2 involved.
And you can turn around and use that cash in another cash transaction, and so on and so on, forever...without another a bank or anything else ever being involved.