On Sun, 30 Mar 2008, Martin Klingensmith wrote: > Then there's the real (as in gold/silver) currency that was confiscated > by the US FBI and secret service: > > Interesting, what law says I can't own a certificate saying it's worth > some amount of silver? The whole Liberty Dollar mess is caused by some hard headdedness on the Liberty Dollar folks and the US government. Legally you can own them. You can sell them, trade them, barter them. What you can NOT do is use them as legal tender for all debts, public and private. Which means if you go into a store and try and pay with one, they have the right to refuse it. The issue is those dollars sure LOOK like real currency, and if a shopkeeper takes one by mistake and then gets told by his bank they won't accept it, he might call the FBI and say he was given a counterfit coin. That is what happens with the Liberty Dollars. Anyone using them has to be REAL carefull they explain exactly what they are when handing them out. The FBI and SS guys clearly are just trying to hastle these people, but on the other side, the LD folks are trying to do the same to the government so it's not suprising they are butting heads in these cases. As for Linden Dollars (the online thing) it's not that scary. It's just paying in dollars for some service or product. It's the same as buying a downloadable computer game. You don't get a physical item there either. -- Ian Smith -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist