Abe Burmeister confirms Andy’s report of Paypal freezing BitPass’s account… Doesn’t surprise me at all considering Paypal’s past history.

10/14: received in email update from Patrick Breitenbach, Paypal employee (posted up b/c he left the same statement as a comment on Andy’s original post):

I’m a PayPal employee and wanted to update readers on the status of the PayPal/BitPass relationship. Over the weekend BitPass’ PayPal account was suspended pending assurances that BitPass and PayPal were in compliance with the US Patriot Act given the nature of the respective companies’ services. PayPal did not intend to disrupt payment processing and we are reviewing our procedures to ensure that this situation doesn’t happen in the future. PayPal has been in direct contact with BitPass on the matter and BitPass’ account was fully restored this morning. Contrary to speculation, this incident had nothing at all to do with competitive issues and in fact PayPal supports companies such as BitPass, Cybersource and Xoom that are building complementary services.

Turned Away at Border

The love story of Trevor Hughes and his fiancee began in an elementary school in the Himalayan foothills.

They were “global nomads.” He was a diplomat’s son. She the daughter of missionaries. They lived in Asia, attended school together, fell in
love and want to get married in June.

But when Hughes’ fiancee, a German national, tried to visit him on a six-month tourist visa Monday, she was detained in Atlanta, handcuffed, jailed–even stripped of her diamond engagement ring.

Then, after 20 hours without food, she was put on a plane and shipped back to Stuttgart.

“This
isn’t the America I fought for,” said Hughes, who served in the Navy
and U.S. diplomatic corps. “You don’t expect that from a great country
like ours.”

What happened in Beate’s own words:

All my belongings were taken, including all my jewelry and I was handcuffed and marched out with the other “detainees” to the van. It was reiterated on several accounts that “these were just proceedings, I was not a criminal…” Somehow they seemed to think this would make it more acceptable to me.

More at Land of the Free?

Growing increasingly disturbed

Am I out of line in saying that America has been betrayed by her stewards, or does that make me a terrorist?

(yeah, I’m feeling much safer now)