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Tag:

IRS

From the Desk of Bob Barr

21st Century Technology And Government Power Put Orwell’s “Thought Police” To Shame

by Liberty Guard Author November 19, 2014
written by Liberty Guard Author

“Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever,” George Orwell wrote in 1984, describing the “Newspeak” term for any crime that was evidence of disloyalty. “You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you.” Though written more than six decades ago in 1949, Orwell’s dystopian fiction has been hauntingly prophetic in its accuracy describing the nature of totalitarian societies, particularly the frightening methods for exacting control over the population.

Orwell’s omnipresent “Thought Police,” who penetrated every facet of civilian life, were replicated for decades until the fall of the Berlin Wall by the feared East German “Stasi”; and until the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, by the KGB. Russian citizens today, under Vladimir Putin, himself a former KGB official, reportedly suffer similar “Big Brother-ism.”

Even in the United States, we see eerie similarities developing within and among the myriad federal agencies that are either directly or indirectly involved in gathering, processing, disseminating, and data-basing information on and about the citizenry. This is no longer a concern that should be directed only at those agencies historically tasked with such activities – the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA primarily. Virtually every federal agency has now become part of the problem.

The Transportation Safety Administration employs “behavior detection officers” to scan facial expressions in order to identify would-be terrorists. DNA is harvested at roadblocks on public highways. The US Postal Service conducts hundreds of thousands of “mail covers” each year, “come rain, shine or dead of night.”

But it is the arena of electronic communications data gathering that has provided the most abundant – and scary – harvest of personal information a la George Orwell.

Owing largely to the actions of Edward Snowden and reporter Glenn Greenwald, we know that any digital communication in which a person participates can be, and likely is, recorded, stored and analyzed by the NSA. The Department of Justice even uses fake cell phone towers on Cessna airplanesto surreptitiously collect cell phone data from American citizens.

Last weekend, however, America moved yet another step closer to fulfilling Orwell’s vision for the future under a totalitarian state as the New York Times revealed that a disturbing number of federal agencies are now using costly, and largely unsupervised, “undercover” investigations to conduct surveillance. These “Secret Police” pose as “business people, welfare recipients, political protesters and even doctors or ministers” in order to catch suspects, or whomever else may fall within the ever-expanding registry of federal criminal offenses (now approaching 5,000 in number).

For years privacy advocates have warned about the steady expansion of virtually unchecked powers both granted to, and assumed by, federal law enforcement and clandestine services agencies. The situation is made far worse by virtue of the fact that many of these activities now are undertaken “in the shadows,” with minimal or no real oversight by the President, agency heads or even congressional overseers. The agencies thus are left largely free to carry on as nearly autonomous entities, guided only by the vague, if not meaningless principle, that they are “protecting us” — whatever the financial or legal costs.

Since the 9/11 attacks, the notion of “Saving America” is now more of a rote mantra used to justify whatever actions government agencies or individual employees decide to undertake so long as such actions can be shoe-horned into the box labeled “homeland security.” The mammoth mechanism of the federal government has transmogrified from an entity designed to protect liberty, into an opaque and self-justifying Praetorian Guard made almost impenetrable to the citizenry through the double-edged sword of modern technology.

This now-galloping mission creep once was relegated primarily to the major federal law enforcement and spy agencies. No longer is this the case. Last weekend’s New York Times revelations illustrates clearly how this toxic mentality has infected virtually every facet of the federal government. Like financial institutions that believed themselves “too big to fail,” the federal government now considers itself “too important to restrain.” Each department, agency, or office has a mission it considers absolutely essential to protecting America from crime, corruption and terrorism — where even discussion about limits to their extra-legal exploits is taboo.

The tangible threats posed by this paradigm are fundamental and widespread. If someone with the I.R.S. can pose as an attorney to catch criminals, how are citizens supposed to trust in the integrity of the right to defend themselves against government charges? If a special agent with the FBI can pretend to be an AP reporter, is any media product free from suspicion? And, if an employee of the DEA can steal content and photos from citizens to use in sting operations, how are we to trust that even our friends’ and family’s online communications are not the product of government snoops?

“There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment,” Orwell wrote 65 years ago.“You had to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.” Sadly, the ubiquity of home computers, smart phones, iPads, and other information-sharing devices – all susceptible to government GPS tracking – have make Orwell’s society, in which at least the dark of night provided some relief from government’s prying eyes and ears, a quaint relic of a bygone day.

 

November 19, 2014 0 comment
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From the Desk of Bob Barr

Federal Court Ruling Cracks IRS Stonewall

by Liberty Guard Author July 23, 2014
written by Liberty Guard Author

Judge Susan Dlott may not be a household name among conservatives; but the federal judge’s decision last week allowing a lawsuit against the IRS to move forward might make her one. By rejecting the demand from federal government attorneys that the case be dismissed, thereby allowing some of the charges to continue to trial, Dlott has struck a meaningful blow in support of those of us in America still committed to the pursuit of the truth and the rule of law. Her ruling is by no means a slam-dunk for the Tea Party groups involved in the lawsuit; but it is a vital step in holding politically-motivated IRS officials accountable for violating the constitutional rights of conservatives.

Being able to have a day in court seemed an unlikely prospect at the outset of this scandal. One need only consider the IRS’ systematic stonewalling of Congress to understand just how strong is the out-of-control agency’s commitment to protecting itself against being held accountable for misdeeds. If the agency’s top brass was so brazen as to defy seasoned and relentless investigators like House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, then attempting to torpedo a mere lawsuit in federal District Court must have seemed like child’s play for the Establishment. Fortunately for justice — and the Constitution — Judge Dlott is not buying into the IRS’ arguments that it is immune from having to defend its actions in a court of law.

The judge did caution that much of what the Tea Party has alleged will be difficult to prove; after all, evidence at the IRS seems mysteriously to disappear daily.

In fact, Thomas Kane, the IRS Deputy Associate Chief Counsel, who oversees document production for congressional investigations, testified last Thursday to a congressional panel about “computer problems” affecting other members of the IRS, including some directly involved in the investigation, which might prevent the IRS from fully complying with Issa’s subpoenas. His testimony contained other bombshells. IRS officials originally claimed that “problems” destroyed disgraced former Service official Lois Lerner’s email communications, erasing likely incriminating evidence linking her (and probably other Obama Administration officials) to criminal conduct. Kane’s testimony now indicates this too may have been more obstruction from top IRS officials. “I don’t know if there is a backup tape with information on it or there isn’t,” Kane told investigators; concluding in a classic understatement, “I know that there’s an issue out there about it.”

“Finding out that IRS Commissioner [John] Koskinen jumped the gun in reporting to Congress that the IRS ‘confirmed’ all back-up tapes had been destroyed makes me even more suspicious of why he waited months to inform Congress about lost Lois Lerner e-mails,” Issa said in a statement following Kane’s testimony. The apparent flip-flop on such a crucial component of the investigation raises the prospect that the IRS was floating the lie about the tapes in order to see if it could escape prosecution; and when it became clear Issa had no intention of relenting in his pursuit, they are now backtracking to avoid additional charges. For instance, aU.S. Archivist recently told a congressional committee the IRS “did not follow the law” by failing to report the loss of Lerner’s emails.

The only thing we know for sure is the IRS is doing everything it can to bury the evidence and the truth. This presents an interesting moral quandary for Democrats, who for years watched in silence as the Obama Administration ran roughshod over every conceivable safeguard against government corruption. “If the government is right in [the Tea Party] case, it means that from now on, no matter who the president is, the IRS can pick out a group of people that disagrees with the president and pull those people out, delay them, harass them, target them, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it,” says Edward Greim, the attorney representing the Tea Party groups suing the IRS.

The refusal to so much as even impliedly question Obama’s lawlessness reflects how Democrats have painted themselves into a corner. By remaining silent in the face of repeated Administration scandals over the last six years, Democrats became complicit in likely criminal behavior of the Administration. Furthermore, as Greim highlighted, their silence sets a dangerous precedent of a virtually unchecked Executive Branch; one that eventually will fall back into the hands Republicans sooner than Democrats care to admit — ironically because of this refusal to speak out against misconduct.

The manner in which Democrats in the House and the Senate have served to defend and enable the Administration’s brazen lawlessness should – hopefully will – hurt them at the polls this fall. In the meantime, Judge Dlott’s interim ruling permitting the Tea Party lawsuit against IRS abuses to move forward, is an important reminder the rule of law still burns in America, if dimly and sporadically.

 

July 23, 2014 0 comment
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