From the December 2002 Idaho Observer:

How to boycott the Federal Reserve with Liberty Currency

Most IO readers understand how the passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913, which authorized a cabal of private bankers to monopolize our economy through the issuance of faith-based paper money, has been systematically bankrupting the American people. However, while most of us will boycott this product or that company in protest of its negative impact on our way of life, we still use exclusively the medium of exchange most responsible for the devolution of our national economic viability -- the Federal Reserve Auditing Unit Dollar (FRAUD). We won't see a restoration of our constitutional republic until we are rid of the Fed's fraud-based fiat currency. The following articles illustrate how you can begin boycotting the Federal Reserve. It should also be noted that, while most aspects of contemporary activism are a lot like swimming upstream dodging rocks and bears, trading in Liberty Currency is a lot of fun.

How to use Liberty Currency:

Just use it

By Bernard von Nothaus

A couple of years after The Liberty Dollar was launched in 1998, Tom Curtis, a Redemption Center in California, told me the most amazing thing about using the currency. Tom told me that he was most successful using the Liberty Dollar when he didn't say anything.

I thought that was amazing. I know KISS is a proven sales axiom, but NOTHING seemed too simple. Well that was a few years ago. Now it seems almost impossible not to believe this simple advice, as we all know it works. Of course, while traveling around the country as I do, I hear a lot of new success stories about using the currency. I love the stories and always pay close attention for new ideas about using the currency. Here are a couple new tips that I recently picked up.

I think it was Wayne Hicks RC/AR who told me that when someone asks him about the currency, he simply replies, “This is NOT government money. This is real $10 silver!”

You may want to try that explanation as it leaves no doubt about what they are getting and no possibility of fraud on the part of using it.

Another good idea when dealing with a merchant, is to explain that each merchant sets his own guidelines for accepting the currency and he may simply post a standard policy of, “one Silver Liberty per purchase” if the merchant is concerned about getting “flooded” with too much silver. What a terrible problem to have.

How can merchants justify using Liberty Currency?

QUESTION: What does a merchant do with the Liberty Dollars he has left at the end of the day, especially if he has a lot of them?

ANSWER: Most of the time, the merchant simply retains the Liberty Dollars for his opening cash register balance for the following day. If the merchant has more silver than he needs for his opening balance, he can simply enter the Liberty Silver as an inventory item and go home a happy fellow. Remember, with a value backed currency that actually has an intrinsic value, it is just like all the other inventory items except it also acts as a medium of exchange.

Judge Judy discovers The Liberty Dollar

Bowie V. Ibarra, a Liberty Currency Redemption Center (RC), is one of the most outspoken and active RCs in Texas. Following is a brief update of his “arrest” while using a Silver Liberty as he often does, but usually without such bizarre consequences. Bowie's case could end up on national television in the court of Judge Judy.

Bowie Ibarra's report:

Some people might be aware of my recent (January) “arrest” for “passing counterfeit currency” at a local pool hall here in Austin. Long story short, a sheriff's deputy arrested me under accusations that I had been passing counterfeit currency. The case was open and shut, absolutely no wrong doing. I recently filed a small claims court action against the deputy for his part in this unfortunate misunderstanding.

Apparently, the producers of Judge Judy have discovered the case and want to settle it in their courtroom. Though I have agreed to appear on the show, it is ultimately up to the deputy and his legal department whether or not they will have the “testicular fortitude” to go on national TV over Liberty Currency.

I haven't heard back from Judge Judy. Regardless, their lawyer and I have a date here in Austin to settle this case and present NORFED as the legitimate currency that it is.

World's first value-backed currency available in digital, physical, and certificate forms

October 31, 2002, EVANSVILLE, Indiana -- Capitalizing on the steady growth of The Liberty Dollar currency, NORFED announced that “America's second most popular currency” is now available in digital form. The Liberty Dollar Online allows individuals and merchants to conduct business on the Internet, via email, or through electronic funds transfer (EFT) using The Liberty Dollar (ALD) for their exchanges. Simply put, users can now email Liberty Dollars in any amount to each other and buy over the Internet from merchants who accept Liberty Dollars.

“The digital Liberty Dollar is the latest -- and most useful -- in a growing market of electronic value backed currencies,” said Louis James, President of The Henry Hazlitt Foundation. “Henry Hazlitt believed that sound money is vital to ensuring long-term peace and prosperity. As president of a foundation committed to advancing Hazlitt's work, it gives me great hope to see the proliferation and successful usage of sound digital currencies, like The Liberty Dollar, that offer an alternative to our inflationary Federal Reserve Notes.”

As a newcomer, NORFED has moved strategically to increase competition by taking a different path from the other digital currencies, which are bought at a premium and do not pay the account holder to use them. Instead, The Liberty Dollar puts people first in the monetary line where their dollars are worth the most, and rewards them for using the new currency with a profit. As NORFED asks, Why pay a premium when you can use The Liberty Dollar at a 10 percent discount off the face value, and earn 10 percent on all your sponsoree's exchanges!

To launch the Free Money Movement, there are no fees for using the Liberty Dollars Online for transactions under $10. Any payment over $10 is charged a flat fee of 37 cents, paid by the payee. Just think, for the cost of a postage stamp, users can send silver backed Liberty Dollars anywhere in the world instantly, at a fraction of the cost of typical banking fees.

Plus NORFED, a non-profit, educational, national organization shares the transaction fees with its Redemption Centers, to encourage them to take an active role in returning America to the new value backed currency. Ten cents of the 37 cent transaction fee goes to the Redemption Center who sponsored the individual making the payment.

This means that in addition to the $100 for sponsoring a Redemption Center, if you sponsor just one RC who uses the same amount of Liberty Dollars Online monthly as you do, you will effectively get 20 percent on your money. If you sponsor just nine friends, who use the same amount of ALD monthly as you do, you will get your money for free. If you sponsor 100 friends, get $10,000 and you can live for free on the ALD.

“We created the digital Liberty Dollar to marry the strength of silver backed currency with the speed and convenience of the Internet,” said Bernard von NotHaus, Monetary Architect at NORFED. “This e-currency is absolutely unique -- no other money provider offers 100 percent silver backing, physical redemption, digital convenience, and paper certificates, all tied to a single, economic, model currency that lets users profit from using the money. Liberty Dollar users have been asking about digital currency since we launched The Liberty Dollar in 1998, and we're proud to say that after extensive research and development, we built a system that works -- technically and economically.”

A free Liberty Dollar account can be opened within a couple of minutes and funded via the “Products” button at www.norfed.org, or by contacting NORFED via email at Dollars@NORFED.org or calling (888) 421-6181. And although anyone can open a free account, only Redemption Centers get the silver backed Liberty Dollars at a discount and use them at a profit plus earn two residual referral fees.

Planned future developments for the digital Liberty Dollar include a smart card system that allows for the anonymous transaction of digital Liberty Dollars using card-to-card technology, debit and ATM card availability, and other ties with electronic currency systems already in use in the U.S. and worldwide.