Good advice, and for guns, ammo, and any other "unapproved", non-PC items you buy. Credit cards and checking accounts are routinely snooped on by the feds.
1) Well, everyone has security cameras now. And, from recent threads, it seems that face recognition software is advanced enough to identify people. All that remains is to get all security cameras linked to some Fed net, and then they won't care if you use cash or not.
2) I saw something odd at my local gas station. It's some kind of pre-paid card -- I gather that it's something like a phone card -- but it's designed to work as cash at porn sites. Does anyone know about these things? If someone could market a general purpose "cash card" like that -- something like a pre-paid phone card but a thing that works at credit card outlets -- that would give us all the benefits of cards, with all the anonymity of cash...
Mark W.
Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if they do but of course retailers aren't writing them down or scanning them yet.
Use cash for all routine purchases. Never give your name, address, or other contact information. If asked for any form of identification, walk out.
I teach computer security, and have a simple rule: Do not collect information you cannot keep secure. Including - no, especially - from government. Remember, more people were killed in the twentieth century by government that by all the private sector criminals and terrorists put together. More, by orders of magnitude.