February 24, 1991

EVER SINCE the credit card was introduced, people have had serious doubts about using plastic imbued with computerized personal information in place of money. The issue of electronic cash vs. paper money has raised a ruckus again, this time in the high-tech community.

An opinion piece called “Abolish Cash” in the December 29, 1990, New York Times started a weeks-long traffic jam in an electronic conference called the RISKS Forum on Internet, a computer network that connects a vast number of the world’s high-tech companies and research centers.

RISKS is an ongoing debate on the hazards of computers in society, from missile systems to post office vending machines. “Abolish Cash” generated so much traffic that moderator Peter Neumann of SRI couldn’t publish them all.

A great many people who know computers, it seems, have strong negative feelings about the prospect of a cashless society that forces us to rely on the security, privacy and plain old reliability of a computer network. This should tell us something.

“Abolish Cash” author Harvey F. Wachsman says a cashless society would have two great benefits: It would raise $100 billion a year for the national treasury without raising taxes, collecting unpaid income tax and forcing cash businesses to report their actual incomes. And police could crack down on “drug deals, muggings, corruption, businesses concealing their income,” all of which he says require cash and secrecy.

First the U.S. government changes the color of the currency and requires all old money to be exchanged at the Treasury. Then we’d all take our cash to the bank and exchange it for our “Americard . . . each bio-mechanically impregnated with the owner’s hand and retina prints to insure virtually foolproof identification,” that connects to computers storing all the information on our money.

If you happen to be a member of the National Rifle Association or a similar group who would rather die than turn over your guns to the government, think of what you’d be giving up the day you gave it all your cash.

The first thing I thought of was Margaret Atwood’s terrifying glimpse into the future, a novel called “The Handmaid’s Tale.” In it, everyone used a similar “Electrobank” system, so when fundamentalists took over the U.S. government, they “turned off” all women’s cash cards, transferring the money to husbands, fathers or the Big Patriarch, the government itself.

But comments from RISKS contributors were even more practical. Two of my favorites are about the hand- and retina-prints: “Many science fiction writers have published schemes for doing all these things in a cashless society. Example: your hand- and eye-print scanners had better check for temperature and pulse. . .”

Said another, “What about those who don’t have hands? Or retinas? Or neither? If I buy a pair of socks, I have to be fingerprinted, and put my eye to a machine? (By the way, great way to spread conjunctivitis.)”
Then there’s the idea, already proven today, that “electronic cash would only breed electronic thieves. A better breed, perhaps, but thieves nonetheless.”

On saving the government printing and mining costs, one contributor suggested: “Hmmm. . . a combination magnetic strip card reader, full hand fingerprint analyzer, retina scanner, computer and modem, supplied to every individual that wants one. This is supposed to save money over green ink on white paper?”

Obviously the Americard is not just around the corner. But the fact that the Times gave space to a proposal with such insidious ramifications is something to keep in mind. When Margaret Atwood spoke in San Francisco a year or so ago, one of the first things she said was, “Don’t ever let them make you pay for groceries with a card.”

I can’t even begin to discuss the horrors of a society where every single thing you did ˆ and think about how many of the things you do require a money transaction ˆ could be tracked and traced by a government computer. The problem is not a cashless society, or computers controlling it but, as usual, who controls the computers. Keep it in mind before you trade away your personal freedom for convenience.

Denise Caruso can be reached by writing to her at P.O.Box 5199, Belmont, CA 94002. She can also be reached electronically via America Online (DCaruso), The WELL (dcaruso@well.sf.ca.us) or MCI Mail (Denise Caruso).