In the movie Enemy of the State, Will Smith’s character Robert Dean uncovers a conspiracy that goes right to the top of the Federal Government. In addition to tracking his whereabouts, his adversaries start disrupting every aspect of his life. In one memorable scene, Dean tries to use his credit card to book a hotel room while he’s on the run. He is shocked when his card is denied because the feds have frozen his accounts.
Such a scenario might seem like the far-fetched imagining of Hollywood scriptwriters, but in reality, what befalls Dean could happen to you or me. Your bank could decide for any number of reasons that you are suddenly persona non grata, and as a result, lock down your accounts. The IRS also has the power to go into people’s private accounts and deduct money if they haven’t paid their taxes. Wages can be garnished for spousal or child support.
This doesn’t just apply to banks, credit unions, and other brick-and-mortar institutions but also to apps and online payment services. For example, the non-profit National Vaccine Information Center — whose freedom-supporting mission is “Your Health. Your Family. Your Choice.” — posted this website update to its supporters in late 2021:
On December 21st past the close of business hours, NVIC was notified that PayPal would no longer process donations made by our supporters effective immediately. In essence, PayPal wants to control your choices and tell you which non-profit charities you may and may not support. PayPal’s sudden and unexplained action against our donors comes in the middle of our annual end-of-year fund raising campaign.
As a result of this fiscal censorship, NVIC was forced to spend time, effort, and money setting up new payment options that allowed its financial supporters to contribute to its fundraising, much like it was forced to find alternative ways to connect with people after being deplatformed by Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram earlier in 2021.
This shows how political and corporate motivations can drive a third party to put up roadblocks in the centralized financial and technology systems that not only divide buyers and sellers and creators and fans but also charities and donors. The result? More control for large corporations and less freedom for both parties whose transactions they prevented.
If NVIC had been using Bitcoin instead of PayPal, the problem wouldn’t have merely been less likely to occur — it would’ve been impossible. Let’s say I wanted to make a donation to this organization. Once I clicked “donate,” NVIC would’ve issued an invoice. Then I’d pay this in satoshis via the Lightning Network. These funds would be deposited within seconds as the SATs flowed through the Lightning Network like a river running high.
There would be no intermediary in this case, so the transaction couldn’t have been slowed, delayed, or intercepted, and nor would a platform like PayPal (or another similar service like Venmo) have been able to prevent NVIC from receiving the funds.
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