[PokeReader]

Actually stopping all the ACH firms set up that derive a substancial percentage of there income from gaming transactions is a piece of cake. There is a computer in Holland that the U.S. has linked into since the 9/11 attacks which records every financial transaction world-wide. The point of doing this was to track terrorist funding, but they are using it to track other financial crimes. What Neteller was doing, setting up multiple intermediary companies, and the ACH, moving players money through their own coporate account, and not labelling it as gaming, although they knew it was, using the other companies to shield the origins of the money from other financial institutions, is actually money laundering. Those are the more serious charges they are threathening the founders of Neteller with, and it would be impossible for anyone to get away with similar actions for long.

For those of you who believe that every thing would be fine if a private company would just stand up to the U.S., wrong. First, they would have to be in a country that did not have a extradtion treaty with the U.S., because in the Enron case DOJ established a new international precedent in which they extradited British citizens for crimes committed against U.S. law while in Britain. Second, that would be a short protection because if nothing else they would surely move to have them put on the U.S. Banking sanction list, in effect cutting the financial tranaction firm off from the world banking system, as they did in the case of the Maacoa bank holding the 25 million in funds from North Korea. Such a sanction would mean U.S. bank could do business with them, and that U.S. citizens and companies would be legally enjoined against doing so as well. What normally happens in these cases is that the institution sanctioned becomes an international outcast, as other financial institutions do not wish to anger the U.S. government. No matter what, there would be no way to repatriate money into the U.S.

However, the check issue is a very different issue. There is no system for tracking check. The computers know there used to be X in your account and now there is Y, but unlike electronic transfers, they cannot know in that case that it went from A to B, or A to B to C to D. Just is not part of the system.

Two other issue though that people should be aware of, all the sites, (to my knowledge), have been violating federal law by not sending players and the government tax forms when they win over a certain amount. I will guarntee this will become one of the weapons to attack online poker at some point. I would not be surprise if Neteller's forensic accounting might not be not be part of a prosection against the gaming sites for tax evasion, that way they wouldn't have to worry about some bothersome judge throwing most of their case out. I suggest if anyone has been neglectful in this area you might want to reconsider, especially if you have a cash out of over the limit moving through your Neteller account during the period that was seized by the government.

Anyone playing is known to the government if they want look. If you think the NSA email observation is just limited to terrorism cases, take a look at the case of the idiot that peddled that male enhancement b.s. The government, after going after him for years, finally got an indictment, how? Using his personal emails. Not with a warrent, just through the NSA program, stated people have no expectation of privacy with email because their service provider might see them??! So be smart and plan. Any ACH isn't going to be for long. Checks are the big weakness in the system, we will just have to figure out a way to work with that for the next year and a half, and hope a Dem adminstration won't pursue this.