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IRS to Spy on Our Shopping Records, Travel, Social Interactions, Health Records and Files from Other Government Investigators
We noted in March that all U.S. intelligence agencies – including the CIA and NSA – are going to spy on Americans’ finances.
The IRS is joining the fun.
U.S. News and World Report noted yesterday:
[The IRS] will use in robo-audits and data mining [and] it has told government and industry groups that its computers are capable of scanning multiple networks at the same time to collect “matching” comprehensive profiles for every taxpayer in America. Such profiles will likely include shopping records, travel, social interactions and information not available to the public, such as health records and files from other government investigators, according to IRS documents.
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The IRS is following the philosophy of former Obama regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein [remember him?], who advocates using technology tools and behavioral science policies to “nudge” people to do the right thing. In the case of the IRS, that policy so far has fallen most heavily on lower-income taxpayers and has done little to collect substantially more tax revenue.
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Harry Surden, a University of Colorado—Boulder Law School associate professor and former fellow at Stanford’s Center for Computers and Law, who has done in-depth studies on the use of technology by government … has found that data mining and new technology make possible a level of government intrusion into personal lives that few realize is possible.
We’ve long been the most spied upon people in history. There are more and more people staring into our fishbowl.
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best that you limit your porn viewing to 'conventional' material .....
you DO realize that everything you do, everything you view, everything you 'Google' goes into the NSA's file on you, right?
Just hoping my "social interactions" at CougarLife .com are safe from their prying eyes... :(
But if you're paying for any 'extracurricular activities' you're at risk...... Look at how Spitzer got nailed. I guess paying top dollar for high end 'escorts' is far 'riskier' in some ways than picking up hookers at Hunt's Point.
I suspect 'they' actually prefer it when people have skeletons in thier closets.... makes it easier to control people. I recall one network anchor making exactly that point when the NSA warrantless wiretapping was exposed. 'If you know all there is about someone, you can control them... and the newss they report' ()or the way they vote - which may explain a lot of last minute changes in Congress under Bush)
Ever read Kazinsky's manifesto? This is what he was talking about.
Damned straight!
Crazy doesn't mean stupid.
Here's one from down here...
Florida Gets $1MILLION For Program To Turn In Your Anti-Gov’t Neighbor
“We want people to call us if the guy down the street says he hates the government, hates the mayor and he’s gonna shoot him,” Bradshaw said. “What does it hurt to have somebody knock on a door and ask, ‘Hey, is everything OK?’ ”
(Will they be carrying a clipboard or a taser?)
That’s enough for Senate budget chief Joe Negron, R-Stuart, who helped push through the funding last weekend.
He said he met with Bradshaw about the program and “got assurances from the sheriff that this is going to be done in a way that respects people’s autonomy and privacy, and that he makes sure to protect against people making false claims.”
Mental health advocates, however, worry about a potential new source of stigma, and the potential for erosion of the civil rights of people with mental illnesses.
“How are they possibly going to watch everybody who makes a comment like that? It’s subjective,” said Liz Downey, executive director of the Palm Beach County branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “We don’t want to take away people’s civil liberties just because people aren’t behaving the way we think they should be.”
(Note to the audience, as soon as you say no, everything is not alright but yeah sure, I'll speak to a "mental health professional" about my issue, you may be voluntarilly commiting yourself...forfeiture of rights was in the just defeated gun bill)
Bradshaw acknowledged the risk that anyone in a messy divorce or in a dispute with a neighbor could abuse the hotline. But, he said, he’s confident that his trained professionals will know how to sort out fact from fiction.
“We know how to sift through frivolous complaints,” he said.
(Oh thats very reassuring)
The proposal still needs the blessing of Gov. Rick Scott, who has line-item veto authority."
http://beforeitsnews.com/global-unrest/2013/05/florida-gets-1million-for-program-to-turn-in-your-anti-govt-neighbor-2454896.html
yep, smaller government alright, small enough to fit in uterii, bladders (drug testing the unemployed), bedrooms and now neighbor's windows. Brown shirts will think it's their "patriotic duty" to tattle on their neighbors.
That is so enormously fked up it's incomprehensible. Between that and what I was reading today about two different high school kids getting charged with felonies http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=220349 for something totally innocent (at least to someone of my generation) I am becoming more and more frightened by the day. Something wicked this way comes. Or should I say, something evil is upon us.
Heard about that. The girl was expelled & charged with a felony.
Zero tolerance equals zero intelligence.
That is what is so frightening, the zero intelligence of such a large percentage of people.
edit: and the kid that forgot and left his hunting gun locked in his car was ratted out by another kid when he called his mom to come get the gun. he was trying to do what he thought was right. sheesh. anyway, i would just tossed a jacket over it or stuck it in my trunk, he was too "open and honest." and he got nailed.
Many are now starting to believe we live in a time where open & honest should only be applied among us...the People...not authority and the ever changing, malleable laws seeking to govern us.
Which is a good thing for the future, but some of us have been that way for most of our lives ;-)
Yes, sir ... very important.
“See
Something Say Something” Campaign Could Allow People to Label ANY
AMERICAN a Suspected “Terrorist” … Just Like in Nazi Germany or Stasi
East Germany
Certainly has shades of that. The problem for Libertarians will always be simple with this kind of nonsense.
We desire to live in an open & free society. By doing so, we open ourselves up as targets and realize some nutcase will always take advantage of that openess...the "target rich" enviroment, for lack ofa better term.
The opposite of that is some idiot, dressed in black, carrying a rifle, who can not function in society without orders & direction from above, asking for everyone elses papers "below him" as they try to walk down the sidewalk to the store.
They would be safe (given the order givers are "benevolent authoritarians"...lol) but at what cost to their freedom & liberty?
I'll take the odds of the random nutcase killing me to one on every street corner, always ;-)
Can't work all that well or perhaps can't work at all since the gov't is running it...
Comrades, If you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear! And remember, report all suspicious persons.
They had that before, it was called Able Danger
I notice all the Pakis who own convenience stores (and get lots of cash) always pay in cash...never credit cards or checks. They are ahead of the curve looks like form reading the above.
Will watch it on the evening news tonight. Conspicuous by its absense it will be. I can see it now, "You purchased quite a bit of gold whose value has increased, according to our means testing you now owe us" ----
Of course, when everyone starts paying cash, they'll force you to use your loyalty cards by giving big discounts and valuable points.
God, I wish I could be so blatantly cynical. I could be one of the 1%
I think yu have to be born into it, marry in (not very common but it has occurred) or be viciously cut throat.
Used to be you could work hard and earn your way in but that concept seems so 'last century' and 'quaint' now. If you did manage to make it this way, it seems like the resto f those there do their best to take what you've earned and push you back down the ladder.
omg
organize or die
disorganize completely works too
Sunstein, that says it all right there!
"In the case of the IRS, that policy so far has fallen most heavily on lower-income taxpayers and has done little to collect substantially more tax revenue."
Assholes! Investigate the goddamn REMIC fraud you fuckers.
Your credit card history has been for sale to anyone willing to pay since the 90s. This is just the STASI underpants gnomes coming out of the closet and admitting they collect your soiled panties. They like to watch...
Interesting, I did not realize that. I wonder if it would be prudent, to avoid this intrusion, to take cash and buy prepaid visa's etc. if you are dealing with online purchases? I hate when my info is sold. You get a ton of scam emails, and phone calls, etc...
http://archive.org/stream/RulesOfTheInternet/RulesOfTheInternet..txt
google "personal information for sale"
Doesn't matter how you pay online if it all ships to the same address. Secure anonymous mail reception is a much more difficult problem for most of is to solve. And with heuristics and Bayesian analysis all it takes is one piece of personal info that gets associated with your delicate anon system and it's all laid bare.
Use cash, buy local. Now good luck explaining what all those max ATM withdrawals were used for when they switch us to some sort of VAT-like consumption tax. No receipts for all those withdrawals? Well now, we have much to discuss, Mr. Anderson.
Or a re-ship company? Sucks that everything is for sale these days. Hell, they probably know more about me than I do...
Glad i pay cash when shopping.
well, jeez, they need to know what we're doing in order to help us, don't they?
The gov now holds you as guilty until you prove your innocence, especially the IRS. So this "intelligence" gathering is just to create enough "evidence" of wrong doing so as to steal everything you own right out from under you and with the complicity of some sheeple on a jury, if they even allow you to make it in front of one.
Time to check and clean the arsenal. hujel
Too late! I already sold it and spent it.
Yup...looks like 29% are doing that now...
http://cnsnews.com/blog/gregory-gwyn-williams-jr/poll-29-registered-vote...
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Of those who believe that armed revolution may be necessary, about one-half are members of OWS, and the rest are probably very conservative, even by TEA party standards. When the time comes, these factions will likely be aligned and become allies, at least insofar as they seek revolution. Politics makes for strange bedfellows.
-- Paul D. Bain
PaulBain@PObox.com
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I don't know about bitcoins, but the market is defintely going to be hot for something.
d'oh
So they should very quickly be able to smoke out every drug dealer in the US as well as every law enforcement officer who is on the take and every politician that is being bribed, correct?
Except congressmen and women and our senators. They can insider trade, it's okay. Christ, they sacrifice so much and lose valuable years of 'salaried employment' in the duty they do for our country.
/sarc?
yessir
Privacy monetized bitch!
What other rights can be monetized by USA Gov Inc?
Lock and load.
Further proof of the rising Kommunist state of ex-America.
Satan seeking omniscience
Speaking of being 'nudged into doing the right thing', I'm thinking a lot of elected officials need to be nudged out of office and most if not all of the benefits they've 'earned'...
All of it! Sacrificing for the country shoud be a sacrifice. Like the kids dying in these shit hole countries.
I find it disgusting that these monsters (most of em anyway) in DC call what they do, sacrifice.
Shop smart. Shop www.ontheissues.org
Whoever the heroes of the next saeclulum are, they should have a profound understanding of Socratic justice and the concept of “clawback”.
I just hope they don't tell my wife. Yikes!
The right thing according to Cass, that is. And that paragon of virtue and handicap, B-Rock Insane Obomba. But they gotta get those guns to make the victory complete.
FORWARD SOVIET!