> Surveillance accounts are already the case.

Not quite. I can spend cash and nobody knows when or where I did so.

> If they send you a check, that's not helping you much. It goes through the bank and there is 100% traceability of the $$$ from the Fed to your bank account

Many, many Americans receive checks as payment which they then take to a service which will exchange the check for cash in hand, no bank account required. The check issuer has no idea where or how the money gets spent.

Let me illustrate:

FED -> JOE's bank account -> ATM cash withdrawal -> Buys private stuff $$$ cash

FED -> JOE cashes the check -> Buys private stuff with $$$ cash

The FED still knows that it went to JOE. Whether they use the bank as the intermediary or a check-cashing service as an intermediary, its all traceable.

May be my logic is flawed here? To me, it doesn't make any difference. In both cases, what JOE bought with hard $$$ cash is indistinguishable. I think we're making a big deal out of this - I haven't read the bill but I am presuming that its just a modernization of physical mailing of checks to some wire transfer.

I don't think they intend to make any convenient routes for these digital dollars back to untraceable cash.

After all, they'll be debit-card accessible to buy food or supplies; why would you need cash unless you're going to buy drugs or something?

They're talking about using these digital dollars instead of checks, for the unbanked and those without addresses at which they could receive a check, et c.

In California EBT recipients can cash their Cash aid at certain ATMs.

Which makes a log of when and where the card was used to receive cash, as well as provides digital imagery of who used it.

Checks don’t do this.

> Many, many Americans receive checks as payment which they then take to a service which will exchange the check for cash in hand, no bank account required. The check issuer has no idea where or how the money gets spent.

And they pay dearly for the privilege. I imagine the number of Americans who use check cashing for privacy is extremely small compared to the number who use it because they're in poverty and unbanked.

You're talking about payday loans versus cashing paychecks. It's usually a token fee to cash a check at a grocery store or free if you go to the bank that issued the check. Some people live by cash. Some businesses still operate on cash only basis.

Some, not most. And each continues to dwindle over time. Privacy is a human right, physical currency is not.

All you have to do is look at prisons as a good example, standard currency is tightly controlled, typically not very available to inmates and somewhat pointless to inmates anyway. So alternative currencies are used. Drugs, cigarettes, food, weapons, personal hygiene stuff, people, the list goes on.

Currency is only as meaningful as its usefulness to people. If a large number of people can't or won't use a currrency, they'll just find another. It wouldn't be the first time in history a majority currency became too inconvenient for a large number of people and alternatives were found.

It’s very likely the majority use the currency their government pays them in and requires citizens to pay taxes with. Alternate currencies will always exist, governed by the needs of market participants.

See this attitude is why I'm long on cryptocurrency.

When I get a check or ACH direct deposit, I can go to the ATM and get cash out of it and spend that cash, so while there is a record of "I got paid" and "I withdrew $200" (and "I paid my credit card bill, and here's what I bought with it"), for the things I buy with cash, there's no more record than that.

Can I do the same with digital dollars, or must it be spent directly out of the account?

I guess that's actually a practical question in general, independent of the privacy concern. Can you go to any member bank and withdraw cash?