Moralists may dance in the streets at the fall of New York Governor Elliot Spitzer, while the Wall Street financiers whom he once prosecuted are popping corks on bottles of champagne. The latter may want to celebrate a bit less – if Gordon Gekko was right, they've probably hired the same ladies from the same agency or agencies the Governor has enjoyed. If the FBI finds any of them to be Clients 8 or 10, they will cheer the downfall of Client 9 much less heartily.

But think for a moment – how did Elliot Spitzer wind up being revealed as the client of a high-priced call girl agency? Was it because NYPD's finest detectives or a crusading Attorney General were bringing down illicit sexual activities? Was it because accusations of the Governor's secret behaviors, like Bill Clinton's or Larry Craig's, were circulating among the halls of power in Washington or Albany?

No. Thank the Patriot Act and the Bush administration for going through your personal records. The same Patriot Act that authorized the government to demand lists of your library check-outs and that permit the FBI to visit your house without a warrant and without ever notifying you also requests banks to report "suspicious" cash transactions. Governor Spitzer's bank deposits were reported by a corporate bank (traded on Wall Steeet, that bulwark of pro-administration support) to the government as suspicious, and the IRS and FBI swooped in to investigate his possible deposits of bribe money. At least they didn't suggest he was a terrorist, too.

If there's one thing no one would ever use in the same breath as Elliot Spitzer, it's the word "bribe." If you could, this thorn in the side of the Bush administration and of corporate welfare would be long gone. But now there was a chance of claiming the need to investigate possible bribery on the part of America's most notoriously clean politician.

It's not bribery for a politician to pay for a call girl himself – it's bribery when somebody else pays for her to visit. Other than that, outside of Nevada, it's one of those crimes that's "illegal if you get caught." Spitzer certainly didn't get a gift; the transcripts of the wiretapped calls show his payment arrangements to the agency, which were really quite boring. No, everyplace does not take your American Express card. Most businesses still use cash. Most of them are even legitimate. And many if not most of us still take those paychecks to the bank and the grocery store to cash them. But move enough cash in or out of the bank and the federal government wants to know. How much is enough to trigger suspicion? Spitzer only moved a few thousand dollars. Casinos don't even notify the IRS about player winnings for the amounts Spitzer moved

It's a sad day in America when handling cash is suspect. In a day of rising bankruptcy, a weakening housing market, and a possible recession, cash (and, for the determined, stashes of gold and silver coins) becomes safer and cheaper than credit for many people of all income levels. But handle enough cash at the bank, and you're now triggering a federal investigation of why you have cash. Is the government hoping to help out banks and corporations, and keep the bankruptcy industry going, by demanding that interest-and-fee-laden electronic and credit transactions be the only safe and unsuspicious forms of money?

In America, first they came for Elliot Spitzer. Whose bank accounts and cash are next?