This was in the Wall Street Journal a while back:
NSA also obtains access to data from Internet service providers on Internet use such as data about email or website visits, several former officials said. NSA has established similar relationships with credit-card companies, three former officials said.
And this from Businessweek:
The German magazineSpiegel, citing new details from the Edward Snowden files, reports today that an NSA program called Follow the Money tracks records of international payments, banking, and credit-card transactions.
And that is just what we have been told. TV shows and movies regularly show the authorities tracking people via their credit card usage, and it makes sense that this occurs.
So, a prudent cloaker would presume any and every credit card transaction is being watched, and wouldn’t use it for anything vaguely suspicious.
That is precisely why we need to keep cash as an option. And the governments will be looking to shut cash down…
