The IRS scandal: it's even worse than we feared

Last week the Heritage Foundation held a lunchtime conference to discuss the latest developments in what it calls 'Taxing the First Amendment: Using the IRS to Censor Speech?'.  I'm going to post the entire hour-plus video of the conference below, but I wanted to first highlight five very short excerpts from a post-conference interview provided to the Powerline blog by one of the speakers, Cleta Mitchell.  She's an attorney who's represented several clients facing IRS abuse over the past few years.  In these short excerpts, she highlights an agency that appears to be completely out of control, and blames both the Democratic and Republican parties for their blind refusal to apply the law to the bureaucrats concerned.  The five clips together total less than twelve minutes in length, and are well worth your viewing time.

Here's the full 1 hour 10 minute video of the lunchtime conference presentation.  I recommend that if you take constitutional government seriously, you make the time to watch it - because if these practices aren't stopped now, we won't have even the semblance of constitutional government that we have now.

This is perhaps the clearest possible evidence that 'going Galt' is no longer an adequate option.  When the organs of government can be suborned to prevent you doing as you please according to your constitutional rights, and to exert illegal and unconstitutional pressure on you to conform, it's too late to found a Galt's Gulch.  It'd just get a tax lien placed on it.

My solution is simple - and some would doubtless describe it as simplistic.  It's in three parts, all of which would be necessary.  It goes like this:

1. Institute a flat tax rate of 10% on all income - corporate, private, whatever - with no deductions or exemptions whatsoever.  Earn a dollar?  Pay 10c to Uncle Sam.  Simple, direct, efficient.
2. Institute a flat consumption tax of 5% on all purchases - corporate, private, whatever - with no deductions or exemptions whatsoever.  For every dollar you spend, you pay 5c tax to the Feds.  (You may pay more for local sales taxes, of course.)
3. You now no longer need massive, complex calculations about what any person or company owes the government.  It's a simple calculation that anyone with a few functioning brain cells can do in their heads (or use a calculator or spreadsheet if they must).  Therefore, abolish the entire IRS and the entire tax preparation industry.  You'd save the country billions in unnecessary and useless overhead at the stroke of a pen - and taxes would be lower, besides.

Not that complicated when you think about it, is it?  Unfortunately, the politicians and the bureaucrats will never agree.  They'd argue that you have to provide for 'income redistribution' or 'welfare assistance' or all the rest of that sort of crap that's never mentioned in the constitution at all.  To that, my answer is simple.  If someone is in need of welfare or other assistance, that's not an IRS issue - so why keep the agency around to address it?  Why make it a federal issue at all?  It can be dealt with by state welfare agencies.

To statists, the issue isn't about taxation efficiency at all.  It's about control.  When that control gets out of control . . . you have the present IRS catastrophe.





Peter

I need a legal citation, please

I need some help from the lawyers and legal-minded readers out there.

I understand the Supreme Court has ruled on more than one occasion that to exercise a constitutional right is not, in itself, grounds for suspicion.  For example, if someone wants to buy a gun, and they're asked all sorts of intrusive questions by local law enforcement (probably acting on instructions from NICS) about why they want it, that's out of line.  They're legally entitled to buy it, so why the questions?

Unfortunately, law enforcement is often notoriously heavy-handed in cases like this.  I want to help the person concerned (one of my students) by being able to cite that Supreme Court ruling.  (If there are other rulings along the same lines, either from lower levels of federal courts or from state courts, those would be useful, too.)

If you can help, please leave a comment with that information.  Thanks!

Peter

Looks like Big Brother's at it again . . .

Here's a news report about a school in Wisconsin where the authorities seem to have an inflated idea of their own importance, and the amount of control they have over the children entrusted to their educational care.

I can fully understand the concerns of the parents.  Consider:

• What business does the school system have in asking kids such intensely personal questions?  It's none of their business!
• Young children are very impressionable.  They can be coerced or pressured into saying things about their families that are simply untrue.
• What guarantee is there that what the kids say in class won't be reported to Child Protective Services or some other organ of the state, that might decide to remove the kids from their parents' custody while they investigate what may be a spurious charge or complaint?  (Just do an internet search on 'CPS abuses' to see what I mean.)

Sounds like these particular incarnations of Big Brother need to be slapped down hard . . .





Peter

Big Brother wants to shut down your vehicle on command

Earlier this month I wrote about so-called V2V technology, which would allow (mandate?) your car to broadcast a complete record of your driving habits, routes, destinations, etc.  In due course it's likely to make possible completely automated journeys from start to finish, where your car is controlled by a traffic system and you're merely a passenger along for the ride.

Now it looks like the European Union has ideas of its own.

The European Union is secretly developing a "remote stopping" device to be fitted to all cars that would allow the police to disable vehicles at the flick of a switch from a control room.

Confidential documents from a committee of senior EU police officers, who hold their meetings in secret, have set out a plan entitled "remote stopping vehicles" as part of wider law enforcement surveillance and tracking measures.

"The project will work on a technological solution that can be a 'build in standard' for all cars that enter the European market," said a restricted document.

The devices, which could be in all new cars by the end of the decade, would be activated by a police officer working from a computer screen in a central headquarters.

Once enabled the engine of a car used by a fugitive or other suspect would stop, the supply of fuel would be cut and the ignition switched off.

The technology, scheduled for a six-year development timetable, is aimed at bringing dangerous high-speed car chases to an end and to make redundant current stopping techniques such as spiking a vehicle's tyres.

The proposal was outlined as part of the "key objectives" for the "European Network of Law Enforcement Technologies", or Enlets, a secretive off-shoot of a European "working party" aimed at enhancing police cooperation across the EU.

Statewatch, a watchdog monitoring police powers, state surveillance and civil liberties in the EU, have leaked the documents amid concerns the technology poses a serious threat to civil liberties.

"We all know about the problems surrounding police stop and searches, so why will be these cars stopped in the first place," said Tony Bunyan, director of Statewatch.

"We also need to know if there is any evidence that this is a widespread problem. Let's have some evidence that this is a problem, and then let's have some guidelines on how this would be used."

. . .

The introduction of stopping devices has raised questions of road safety. David Davis, the Conservative MP for Haltemprice and Howden, warned that the technology could pose a danger to all road users.

"I would be fascinated to know what the state's liability will be if they put these devices in all vehicles and one went off by accident whilst a car was doing 70mph on a motorway with a truck behind it resulting in loss of life," he said.

"It is time legislators stopped believing technology is a form of magic and realised that is fallible, and those failures do real harm."

There's more at the link.

The Nanny State will stop at nothing to exercise greater and greater control over its citizens subjects.  Expect this project to be enthusiastically welcomed by our bureaucratic wannabe overlords on this side of the Atlantic, too.

I predict a roaring trade in rebuilt older-model engines fitted with carburetors, and no computer control whatsoever.  In response, look for the authorities to tighten emission control standards, so that no car not fitted with a 'black box' can pass them . . .

Peter

Big Brother is getting more intrusive than ever

Two articles this week highlighted how ridiculously intrusive Big Brother is getting.

First, readers probably are aware of the incident where a Florida man, who holds a concealed carry permit in that state but was not armed while traveling, was stopped and subjected to oppressive, possibly illegal search of his person and vehicle in Maryland.  The question was, how did the Maryland officer know about his Florida CCW permit?  Now we know.

Obviously for the driver, John Filippidis, and his family, this was alarming.   What would prompt the Maryland Transportation Authority Police (MTAP) to randomly select their vehicle?

Because the first question to Mr. Filippidis was about his gun ownership, and the police search for the gun was based on his gun ownership, the Florida CCW permit that Filippidis holds was identified as the most likely impetus for the stop, questioning and search.

. . .

Maryland State has invested heavily in Homeland Security technical capabilities, and they have structured their law enforcement community to engage in very specific activity surrounding their investment.

Maryland State has a network of technical security databases which access the databases of all other states who comply and coordinate with them.   For states who do not willfully comply, or those who are not set up to align technically, Maryland mines data from various LEO systems.

Maryland has a rather innocuous sounding name for the intelligence hub which contains this data, it’s called Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center. 

The intelligence analysis hub has access to, and contains, Florida’s CCW list (among other identification systems) and mines the state’s database systems for vehicle plate numbers of the holders.    These license plate numbers are then stored in a cross referencing database within the Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center.

The database is directly connected to another Maryland technological system – Their ALPR (Automatic License Plate Reader) system is synergized with the MCAC Hub.

Every time one of the flagged license plates are detected by the ALPR an alert is generated.

Mr.  Filippidis license plate was picked up at the Fort McHenry Tunnel on I-95 as he noted within the article.    The Maryland Authority Police pursuit car was probably positioned a couple miles from the ALPR camera.

. . .

Once the pursuit car was alerted by the ALPR system the simple chase was on.  As the Tampa Tribune indicated in the article, the patrol car came abreast of Filippidi;  this was to allow the MTAP officer to visually confirm the driver ID from the high resolution photo from  Filippidis driver’s license which was automatically on the officers on board computer screen.

Mr. Filippidis was identified by the database, his license plate cross referenced to his Florida CCW permit, an alert transmitted to the patrolling Maryland officer, and the rest is outlined in the article.

There's more at the link.

Note that Mr. Filippidis was stopped without any probable cause whatsoever.  The fact that he holds a Florida CCW permit does not mean that he may or may not be carrying a gun at any particular time.  It's illegal in terms of the Fourth Amendment for an officer to assume that someone's acting illegally in the absence of any evidence to suggest that he is - but that's what the Maryland officer did.

Maryland has subsequently apologized for the incident, but to my mind that's not enough.  I can only suggest that legal, law-abiding firearms owners should consider Maryland 'enemy territory' from now on.  We can't assume our constitutional rights will be observed there - in fact, this incident demonstrates that they're more likely than not to be violated.  I've enjoyed previous visits to that state:  but from now on, Maryland can do without my tourist dollars, and I won't be buying from Maryland-based businesses if I have any choice in the matter.

The second article discusses the TSA's behavior monitoring program at US airports.

The Transportation Security Administration has about 3,000 officers trained to detect behavioral clues of "mal-intent." They eye travelers at checkpoints and throughout the airport for signs of above-normal stress, fear and deception, and sometimes engage in casual conversation to measure reactions. After the fatal shooting of a TSA officer in Los Angeles in November, the Behavior Detection Officers, or BDOs, have increased roaming in public areas of airports.

The Government Accountability Office, the auditing arm of Congress, concluded in a recent report there is no credible evidence that TSA's behavior-detection program, which costs about $200 million a year, is effective.

. . .

TSA Administrator John Pistole, a former FBI official, likens the BDOs in 176 U.S. airports to cops on a beat ... "A lot of it is common sense," Mr. Pistole said in an interview last month in Houston. Effectiveness can be seen in arrests, he said. "We've found hundreds of people who had false IDs, who had drugs or cash or warrants or were in this country illegally. They demonstrated suspicious behavior and any one of them could have been a terrorist."

. . .

The program, which started at airports in 2007, has been criticized for snaring people who pose no threat to aviation. Most arrests are for fake IDs and drug possession.

TSA has also faced complaints of racial profiling, or simply being too subjective with its referrals. Anecdotal evidence in the GAO report seemed to back this up. The GAO said 21 of the 25 BDOs it interviewed said some behavioral indicators are subjective. Five of the 25 said they believed some profiling was occurring.

Again, more at the link.

The obvious problem with Mr. Pistole's perspective is very simple.  The TSA is not a law enforcement agency.  Therefore, if its agents are not law enforcement officers, why are they behaving like them?  Why are they using police tactics and techniques which are not legitimate to their proper role and function?

That goes double for the arrests of which Mr. Pistole is so proud.  The TSA's statutory function is transportation security.  Why, therefore, is it referring people to law enforcement agencies for arrest over matters that are not threats to transportation security?

I'm beginning to think that, since our legislators have failed so miserably to rein in the apparatus of the Security State, the only recourse open to us as citizens will be to ostracize all those involved in its operation and administration.  We'll have to shun those who perpetrate such abuses, and all who support them.  Shut them out of everyday discourse.  Refuse to have any contact with them, except that which can't be helped, such as when traveling.  Treat them with the icy disdain they deserve - not to mention contempt, scorn and derision.

These bureaucratic goons aren't keeping us safe at all.  They're merely playing bit parts in security theater - and very badly, at that.  We should treat them as precisely that - bad actors, unworthy of respect.





Peter

Technology and the militarization of America

After providing a link in last night's Around The Blogs segment to Vox Day, who pointed out that the USA is effectively already a police state, I wanted to research the subject a little more, out of personal interest.  I came across this article at TechCrunch that seems ominously appropriate.  Here are a few excerpts.

Over the last decade, pretty much every arm of American authority invoked “homeland security” as an excuse to acquire boatloads of new technology, and used it to help expand their power and authority to unprecedented levels. There is nothing at all exceptional about the NSA’s massive overreach. It was only keeping up with the Joneses — FBI, DEA, Border Patrol, police forces everywhere — who have all been busy doing exactly the same thing.

. . .

And it’s not just equipment. It’s ethos and attitude. Police across America have increasingly begun to apply the military doctrine of using overwhelming force whenever possible. So SWAT raids rose over two decades from 3,000 a year to 50,000, including SWAT raids on illegal gambling, underage drinking, and Tibetan monks who overstayed their visas. Seven-year-olds are handcuffed and interrogated for hours over a missing five dollars (which they did not steal).

. . .

This collective power grab — I really don’t think that’s too strong a phrase — isn’t actually about security; it’s about organizations like the NSA concluding that since they can use new technology and novel legal interpretations to increase their power (and their budgets), therefore it’s imperative that they do.

. . .

The anthropic law of bureaucracies dictates that the ones which thrive are the ones which make self-perpetuation their first priority. And so now the police, and just about every American agency you care to name, and the contractors who supply them — call them the “security-industrial complex” — are implicitly colluding in the business of fear. The more shadowy enemies we have, and the more dangerous they seem, the more money the security-industrial complex gets, the bigger and more powerful it becomes, and the more secrecy it can justify.

There's more at the link.  Worthwhile reading, albeit disturbing.

Peter

Bureaucrats! GRRRR!

Utah Senator Mike Lee posted this picture on Facebook today, with the following caption:

Behold my display of the 2013 Federal Register. It contains over 80,000 pages of new rules, regulations, and notices all written and passed by unelected bureaucrats. The small stack of papers on top of the display are the laws passed by elected members of Congress and signed into law by the president.

Uh-huh.  Regulations enacted by often faceless and nameless bureaucrats, accountable in practice to nobody, binding on all of us.  Is it any wonder this country sinks deeper into the mire under such burdens with every passing day?





Peter

More about questionable charities

On December 15th, in one of my regular 'Around The Blogs' segments, I linked to Nicki's post about the Wounded Warrior Project being at best a suspect charity.  I've been following up on that, and have found more information that leaves me deeply disturbed.

First, Veterans Today claims:  'Wounded Warriors Project A Legal Scam'.

If you were thinking about donating to the Wounded Warrior Project, think twice. It would behoove you to get in your car and drive cross-country to deliver the funds to the charity you hope to help. More money would end up in their hands than entrusting it to the WWP for disbursement.

. . .

Sad to say, the Wounded Warrior Project is bled dry by a top heavy, greedy executive structure and the remaining funds are disbursed to multi-tier distribution organizations with similar management structures. By the time the money actually goes to direct benefits for veterans, there is probably less than 10% that reaches them. Below are results of an investigation by a retired USMC Colonel.

. . .

Total 2011 revenues were $154.9 MM with total fundraising expenses of $20.5MM and total administrative expenses, including outsourced services, of $95.5MM. Note that the total administrative expense includes fund raising. Therefore, as a percentage of total revenue, administrative expenses amount to 61.63%, including fundraising expenses of 13.2%. This equates to 38.36% of revenues available to benefit wounded warriors.

As far as I can determine, WWP outsources all major functions, including fundraising, legal, donation processing, donation distribution, etc.

Compensation for the top ten WWP employees runs from $150K to $333K per officer annually.

As far as I can determine, WWP does little, if any, direct support of wounded warriors and wounded warrior programs. Rather, WWP makes grants and contributions to other 501.c.3 organizations which operate wounded warrior programs and/or serve veterans directly ... While many of these organizations provide valuable services to wounded warriors, many more are suspect. As an example, I question an expenditure of $300K for a parade ... I also question the use of funds for lobbying activities.

There's more at the link.

The Veterans Today piece links to another article headlined 'How Low Is Low?'

Several years ago I set out to find out the truth about the collusion or funding quirks that were mentioned. It was obvious that every one of the Big Six (DAV, PVA, VFW. AMLeg, MOPH and VVA) were getting free room and board at VAROs and VAMCs throughout America.

. . .

I also always knew that the government reimbursed all the VSOs for each Power of Attorney they turned in. Many a service officer denied this but I finally squeezed it out of the Office of Veteran Affairs here in Washington. We are one of the few states with no independent State Veterans Representative outfit so they see no reason to hide it. You have to use one of the big six or search for one of the 44 other off-brand VSOs such as the Air Force Sergeants Association or the Red Cross. The lady informed me in no uncertain terms that yes, contrary to what was said, it was an unheralded fact that Veterans Service Organizations pulled in a pretty good income off this.

When combined with the dues and donations they generate, the numbers become staggering. This is where it gets disgusting.

The article goes on to reveal that in 2011, the top 9 office holders of Disabled American Veterans were paid a combined total of $2,403,236, with the top three officers making a combined total of over $1 million.  The top 9 office holders of the Veterans of Foreign Wars made a combined total of $1,656,426, and those of the American Legion, $1,242,828.

Some will argue that charities must pay market-related salaries to attract and retain talented managers and administrators.  I'm not so sure.  I note that some charities performing stellar work pay their managers very little (e.g. The Salvation Army), and sometimes nothing at all (e.g. the Missionaries of Charity, the order founded and made famous by Blessed Teresa of Calcutta).  They demand personal commitment to their cause from their leaders, and it seems to work for them.  On the other hand, if market-related income is necessary, I'd rather see charities pay a relatively low basic salary or wage, and tie additional income to their leaders' effectiveness in furthering their mission.  This should be measured in terms of operational efficiency and effectiveness, particularly in reducing the proportion of funds raised spent on administration and overhead, and maximising the proportion spent on the charity's actual mission.  If leaders manage to do that, let them be paid a bonus (if necessary, a substantial one) based on how much they've been able to apply to the charity's stated purpose.  If they haven't been very good at this, their much smaller bonus (or the absence thereof) should reflect that failure.

It appears to me that a large proportion of veteran service organizations have fallen victim to Jerry Pournelle's "Iron Law of Bureaucracy".  Those running many of them appear to be doing so as a self-perpetuating, personally enriching exercise more than as a service to veterans.  Of course, this is hardly limited to veterans charities.  Last year we examined the monumental abuse perpetrated by many charities across the spectrum;  and only a few days ago we saw yet another example of such abuse.

Again, that problem isn't restricted to veteran service organizations.  Here's a report of how Goodwill Industries appears to have fallen victim to it as well.

All I can say is, check out charities very carefully indeed before deciding to trust them with your money.  My earlier recommendations stand.  In addition, if a charity is spending less than 75% of its income on helping those whose cause it espouses, I automatically put it in the 'suspect' pile, and refuse to donate to it.  (US readers can check the numbers for most charities at Charity Navigator.)

Peter

The failure of the 'War On Poverty'

In an article in the Wall Street Journal, Robert Rector illustrates how the government can screw up almost any program, no matter how well-intentioned.  In this case, it's the half-century-old 'War On Poverty'.  Here's an excerpt.

On Jan. 8, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson used his State of the Union address to announce an ambitious government undertaking. "This administration today, here and now," he thundered, "declares unconditional war on poverty in America."

. . .

The federal government currently runs more than 80 means-tested welfare programs that provide cash, food, housing, medical care and targeted social services to poor and low-income Americans. Government spent $916 billion on these programs in 2012 alone, and roughly 100 million Americans received aid from at least one of them, at an average cost of $9,000 per recipient. (That figure doesn't include Social Security or Medicare benefits.) Federal and state welfare spending, adjusted for inflation, is 16 times greater than it was in 1964. If converted to cash, current means-tested spending is five times the amount needed to eliminate all official poverty in the U.S.

LBJ promised that the war on poverty would be an "investment" that would "return its cost manifold to the entire economy." But the country has invested $20.7 trillion in 2011 dollars over the past 50 years. What does America have to show for its investment? Apparently, almost nothing: The official poverty rate persists with little improvement.

. . .

To judge the effort, consider LBJ's original aim. He sought to give poor Americans "opportunity not doles," planning to shrink welfare dependence not expand it. In his vision, the war on poverty would strengthen poor Americans' capacity to support themselves, transforming "taxeaters" into "taxpayers." It would attack not just the symptoms of poverty but, more important, remove the causes.

By that standard, the war on poverty has been a catastrophe. The root "causes" of poverty have not shrunk but expanded as family structure disintegrated and labor-force participation among men dropped. A large segment of the population is now less capable of self-sufficiency than when the war on poverty began.

There's more at the link (the article may be behind a paywall, in which case, see here).  You can also read more at the Heritage Foundation.

This is a repellent yet fascinating illustration of how bureaucratic inertia and organizational rigidity have condemned generations of Americans to misery and hopelessness.  If we want to win the 'War On Poverty', my immediate suggestion is to remove it from government control.  That'll be a good start!

Peter

A devastating critique of the National Security Agency

A few days ago, former NSA officials associated with the organization Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) produced a scathing review of the NSA and its misdeeds before and since 9/11.  They addressed it to President Obama, in the hope that it might make its way through the official 'filters' and reach his desk in time for consideration before reforms are made to the US intelligence system.  Here are a few extracts.

It comes to us as no surprise that there is strong resistance on the part of the Establishment when it comes to giving us a hearing – a shunning of the very people who know what happened and how to take steps to prevent it from happening again.

. . .

Now, once again the voices of seasoned intelligence professionals are being muted, in favor of a closed group of officials with huge incentive to cover up their failure to keep America safe and their playing fast and loose with the Fourth Amendment.

. . .

“Hiding the worst: In December 2001, Senator Saxby Chambliss, chair of a House Subcommittee on Homeland Security announced a preliminary investigation into 9/11. At a SIGINT Leadership Team meeting in February 2002, SIGINT chief Maureen Baginski directed me to lead a NSA Statement-for-the-Record effort for a closed-door hearing scheduled by Sen. Chambliss for early March to discuss what NSA knew about the 9/11 hijackers and their plotting before 9/11.

“As indicated above, the highly embarrassing answer was that NSA knew a great deal, but had not shared what it knew outside of NSA.

“After a couple of weeks Baginski rejected my draft team Statement for the Record report and removed me from the task. When I asked her why, she said there was a ‘data integrity problem’ (not further explained) with my draft Statement for the Record. I had come upon additional damaging revelations. For example, NSA had the content of telephone calls between AA-77 hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar in San Diego, CA, and the known al-Qaeda safe house switchboard in Yemen well before 9/11, and had not disseminated that information beyond NSA.

“In short, when confronted with the prospect of fessing up, NSA chose instead to obstruct the 9/11 congressional investigation, play dumb, and keep the truth buried, including the fact that it knew about all inbound and outbound calls to the safe house switchboard in Yemen. NSA’s senior leaders took me off the task because they realized – belatedly, for some reason – that I would not take part in covering up the truth about how much NSA knew but did not share.

“When the 9/11 Commission hearings began, Director Hayden chortled at executive staff meetings over the fact that the FBI and CIA were feeling the heat for not having prevented 9/11. This was particularly difficult for me to sit through, for I was aware that NSA had been able to cover up its own culpability by keeping investigators, committees, and commissions away from the truth.”

. . .

It should now be clear, for those who can handle the truth, that the problems at NSA run deep – in terms of effectiveness, integrity and respect for the Constitution. By withholding information and exploiting secrecy, NSA’s leaders past and present have pulled off an unparalleled coup in concealing the sad reality that NSA could have prevented 9/11 and didn’t. And Schadenfreude chortling by leaders at the top regarding the demonstrated bureaucratic advantages and success of such dishonesty has a tendency to be heard down through the ranks, corrupting even dedicated workers.

There's more at the link.

I urge you to read the full document.  It's profoundly important.  I'm aware that VIPS is a controversial organization, regarded by some as being more of a political pressure group than what its title would suggest:  but that's besides the point right now.  If the allegations contained in this open letter to the President are correct, the entire nation - including our entire legislative branch - has been hornswoggled by the bureaucrats of the NSA.  That needs to be investigated, the truth uncovered, and action taken to ensure that the guilty are punished and their misdeeds undone.

A few weeks ago I said of the NSA:

The fox wants to not only guard the henhouse, but draw up its plans and supervise its construction as well, in order to make stealing the chickens that much easier ... It's the hallmark of an agency that considers its mission more important than the constitution and laws of the United States.  I can think of only one adequate remedy - complete and total dismantling of the agency.  Its important work must be continued, but under new leadership in a radically overhauled structure.  All those who've not merely acquiesced in, but engineered this utter disregard for the privacy of citizens and their constitutional rights must be dismissed from government service of any kind, and never again permitted to exercise authority over others in any administrative or executive capacity.  They've fouled their own nest so irretrievably with their catastrophic indifference to law and rights that they're no longer a national asset, but a liability - an albatross around America's neck.

I've seen nothing since then to make me change my mind - indeed, quite the contrary.  Consider these articles, which are well worth reading:

How the NSA threatens national security

How the NSA almost killed the Internet

Neither article is unduly alarmist, IMHO.  Their assessments are sober and realistic.

Right now, on the basis of its reported behavior, arrogance, and wanton disregard for the constitution and laws of the United States, I'd go so far as to say that the NSA is as much of a danger to our national security as is Al Qaeda - in a different way, to be sure, but no less threatening.





Peter

Let's do the airplane shuffle!

It looks like the long, convoluted saga of the US armed forces' C-27J Spartan airlifters has finally been resolved.

It began in 2005 when the US Army, dissatisfied with the tactical airlift service it was getting from the US Air Force in Iraq and Afghanistan, decided to replace its worn-out C-23 Sherpa transports with more modern, more capable aircraft.  If it couldn't get the USAF to fly its people and cargoes when and where it needed them, it would do so itself.

US Army C-23 Sherpa (image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Needless to say, the USAF was not happy about this.  The latter service fiercely guards its prerogative of operating fixed-wing aircraft, and only allows exceptions when it can't stop them.  Nevertheless, after a long-drawn-out political fight between the services, the US Army announced it would buy several dozen C-27J's to replace its C-23's and, in due course, other smaller transports.

C-27J Spartan (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

The USAF also agreed to buy the aircraft for its Special Operations Command and Air National Guard squadrons.  However, the USAF was still intriguing to force the Army to hand over its C-27J's - and its fixed-wing tactical transport mission - to the former service.  It eventually succeeded, through bureaucratic and political machinations that are so convoluted we'll probably never know everything that went on behind the scenes.  In 2009 it was decreed that the Army would hand over all its C-27J's to the USAF, and that the initial order would be reduced to 38 aircraft.

In 2012 the USAF announced it wanted to withdraw the C-27J from service altogether.  The Department of Defense rationalized the decision thus:

The  C-27J  was developed and procured to provide a niche capability to directly support Army urgent needs in difficult environments such as Afghanistan where we thought the C-130 might not be able to operate effectively. However, in practice, we did not experience the anticipated airfield constraints for C-130 operations in Afghanistan and expect these constraints to be marginal in future scenarios. Since we have ample inventory of C-130s and the current cost to own and operate them is lower, we no longer need – nor can we afford – a niche capability like the C-27J aircraft.

There's more at the link.

The Army was anything but convinced, and protested vigorously, as did a number of politicians;  but in an era of shrinking budgets and hard choices, the USAF was able to make its wishes stick.  The initial contract was reduced to 21 aircraft.  Brand-new C-27J's were put straight into storage as they were delivered, and those already in service were scheduled to join them there.  Applications were invited from other US government agencies that might wish to use them.  Three agencies or departments in particular wanted them.

• The US Special Operations Command asked for eight C-27J's to replace older CASA C-212's at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, where they would be used to train US special forces troops.  It was eventually allocated seven C-27J's, which are in the process of being delivered.
• The US Forest Service asked for the remaining 14 aircraft, to convert them into aerial fire-fighting planes.
• The US Coast Guard asked for the remaining aircraft as well, for conversion into medium-range patrol and search-and-rescue planes.  This would allow it to cancel the purchase of additional HC-144's and save up to a billion dollars that could be better used to cover operational expenses.

It was announced today that the Coast Guard will get the remaining 14 C-27J's, on condition that it hands over seven C-130 Hercules transports to the US Air Force.  The latter service will recondition and reconfigure them into aerial fire-fighting tanker planes for the US Forest Service.

This makes a lot of sense.  The C-27J uses the same engines and avionics as the C-130J Super Hercules, of which the Coast Guard already operates a few, and is expected to buy more over time.  The use of common engines and avionics will save on operating expenses.  The new planes can be reconfigured for search and rescue much more cost-effectively than buying new aircraft for the purpose (including fitting a large fuel tank in the cargo bay for extended range).  On the other hand, the Forest Service will find the bigger payload capacity of the C-130 of greater value in a tanker aircraft than the smaller C-27J.  I presume the Coast Guard will deliver older-model Hercules transports for that purpose, keeping the newer C-130J's due to their commonality with the C-27J's.

By the end of the year, the transfer of these aircraft between three different services should be complete.  It's been a long and winding road . . . all at taxpayer expense, of course;  but then, fiscal responsibility is something at which our armed forces have never excelled.

Peter

Quote of the day

In the light of my article about government spending yesterday, and all those I've done about the Fed and the economy in recent months, investor Marc Faber summed things up nicely this morning for CNBC.

"The Federal Reserve—all of them—could be sitting on a barrel of dynamite, and then pouring gasoline on top of it, and then light a cigar with matches, throw the match into the gasoline, and then not notice that there is any danger ... That is the state of mind of the professors at the Fed, who never worked a single [day] in business."

Word.





Peter

Are today's new surgeons unprepared?

That's the title of a very interesting article in the New York Times' Well blog.  Here's a brief excerpt.

For the past decade, in response to increasing pressure from politicians, unions and sleep experts, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, the organization responsible for accrediting American medical and surgical training programs, has been working to cap the hours that residents work.

. . .

For nearly a century, surgical residency had been a period of both intensive experience and increasing responsibility under the guidance of more experienced surgeons. More recent research has affirmed that approach, demonstrating the strong link between a surgeon’s operative skill, the number of operations performed and patient outcomes. With limits set on their time at the hospital, young surgeons-in-training had fewer opportunities to care for patients or scrub in on operations. While previous generations of trainees had the luxury of participating in at least one operation a day, new trainees had only enough time to be involved in two or maybe three operations each week.

Calculating the number of hours “lost” by cutting back on in-hospital time, surgical leaders estimated that young surgeons-to-be were now missing out on as much as a year’s worth of experience.

. . .

Surgical training programs scrambled to make up for less time and cover the ever-expanding body of knowledge by creating online educational tools and offering trainees experiences in simulated operating rooms and trauma resuscitations using electronic mannequins and foam rubber models.

But as The Annals of Surgery study reveals, even the best-equipped simulation labs cannot replace a year’s worth of lost experience.

There's more at the link.  Very worthwhile reading, particularly in these days of disruptions to medical insurance and uncertainty about the future of health care.  It's not very comforting to people like me, who are growing older, have had multiple surgeries in the past, and know we're likely to need repeat surgeries in the not too distant future.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #744

Today's award goes to the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) for its mission logo for the launch of mission NROL-39, carrying a classified reconnaissance payload.  In the light of the current brouhaha over the NSA's unconstitutional and (arguably) illegal spying on Americans, couldn't it have picked something a little more sensitive (not to mention politically correct) than this image?

What's next?  Changing the toll-free telephone number of the NRO's public relations office to 1-800-CHTULHU?

On the other hand, this isn't the first creepy mission logo we've seen from the NRO.  Consider this one from the previous mission, NROL-38:

A triple-headed dragon licking the earth?  Verily, the mind doth boggle . . .  Perhaps the NRO is becoming insufferably Sm(a)ug over its success rate?





Peter

The Department of Homeland Security lies in court

I was extremely angry to read of the shenanigans of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in a court case in San Francisco.  TechDirt reports:

... there's a trial going on here in San Francisco about the legality of the complete lack of any sort of due process concerning the US's "no fly" list.

. . .

... a Stanford University Ph.D. student named Rahinah Ibrahim was prevented from boarding a flight at San Francisco International Airport in 2005, and was handcuffed and detained by the police. Ultimately, she was allowed to fly to Malaysia, her home country, but she has been unable to return to the United States because the State Department revoked her student visa.

. . .

Apparently, one of the people set to testify in the case, Ibrahim's oldest daughter, Raihan Mustafa Kamal (an American citizen, born in the US), was blocked from boarding her flight to the US to appear at the trial, and told that she was on the no fly list as well. Kamal, a lawyer, was an eye witness to her mother being blocked from boarding her flight. The US knew that Kamal was set to testify and from all indications, in a move that appears extremely petty, appears to have purposely blocked her from flying to the US. Kamal was directly told by the airline that DHS had ordered them not to let Kamal to board. The airline even gave her a phone number for a Customs and Border Patrol office in Miami, telling her to call that concerning her not being able to board.

There's more at the link.  Infuriating, but recommended reading.  Fortunately, the judge appears to be standing up to DHS's bully-boy tactics and insisting that their obstructionism cease.

So, how can we arrange for all those DHS agents and bureaucrats who conspired to obstruct justice in this matter to be put behind bars?





Peter

Doofus Of The Day #743

Today's award goes to the National Security Agency (NSA) for this lame-brained bit of doofidity.

Thanksgiving can be a touchy time for families with divergent politics. If not Obamacare, it's a good bet that somebody, somewhere was facing off with an aunt or uncle about the NSA.

Defenders of the spy agency might have found this set of talking points helpful. Distributed internally by the NSA the week before Thanksgiving ... the two-pager — a literal set of bullet points — armed employees with verbal ammunition that they were encouraged to share "with family and close friends."

As with previous sets of talking points prepared for top intelligence officials, this latest document isn't afraid to invoke 9/11. It also cites a common statistic about the effectiveness of NSA surveillance, claiming that it contributed to the disruption of 54 terrorist plots since 2001. Critics challenge this figure, saying that less than a handful of those cases can be realistically connected to the snooping.

There's more at the link.

So the NSA expected its employees, instead of giving thanks, to propagandize their families about an overreaching, out-of-control bureaucracy that's ridden roughshod over the provisions of the US constitution and all ethical and moral norms derived from it.

Uh-huh.

Thanksgiving is often referred to in the USA as 'Turkey Day'.  It's therefore perhaps appropriate that it should be misused in this way by what's become a 'Turkey Agency', according to the alternative meaning of the word 'Turkey' . . .  Remember, the NSA has consistently and persistently lied to the US Congress, its oversight authority;  so how can we know that they're not lying to us?  Answer - we can't.  As far as I'm concerned, if the NSA claims or states anything as fact, distrust it, and where possible verify it against multiple (more trustworthy) sources before accepting it.  If the NSA says that Monday is the day after Sunday, no matter how sure you may be that the agency is right, cross-check that against a calendar;  and if the calendar agrees with the NSA, cross-check the calendar!

Peter

The NSA is an out-of-control rogue agency

The latest revelations about the National Security Agency (NSA) and its total disregard for the interests and privacy of US citizens are breathtaking in their arrogance.  Three articles in particular sum up what they've been doing.

1. NSA infected 50,000 computer networks with malicious software
2. Meet the Spies Doing the NSA's Dirty Work:  This obscure FBI unit does the domestic surveillance that no other intelligence agency can touch
3. N.S.A. Report Outlined Goals for More Power

The last-mentioned report is particularly chilling, as these short excerpts demonstrate.

In a February 2012 paper laying out the four-year strategy for the N.S.A.’s signals intelligence operations, which include the agency’s eavesdropping and communications data collection around the world, agency officials set an objective to “aggressively pursue legal authorities and a policy framework mapped more fully to the information age.”

Written as an agency mission statement with broad goals, the five-page document said that existing American laws were not adequate to meet the needs of the N.S.A. to conduct broad surveillance in what it cited as “the golden age of Sigint,” or signals intelligence.

. . .

The agency also intends to improve its access to encrypted communications used by individuals, businesses and foreign governments, the strategy document said. The N.S.A. has already had some success in defeating encryption, The New York Times has reported, but the document makes it clear that countering “ubiquitous, strong, commercial network encryption” is a top priority.

There's more at the link.

In other words, the NSA wants to proactively shape and frame the laws that tell it how it may operate.  The fox wants to not only guard the henhouse, but draw up its plans and supervise its construction as well, in order to make stealing the chickens that much easier.  It also wants to get around our perfectly legal and legitimate use of encryption to ensure our privacy, in order to render the latter null and void, electronically speaking.

This is sickening.  It's the hallmark of an agency that considers its mission more important than the constitution and laws of the United States.  I can think of only one adequate remedy - complete and total dismantling of the agency.  Its important work must be continued, but under new leadership in a radically overhauled structure.  All those who've not merely acquiesced in, but engineered this utter disregard for the privacy of citizens and their constitutional rights must be dismissed from government service of any kind, and never again permitted to exercise authority over others in any administrative or executive capacity.  They've fouled their own nest so irretrievably with their catastrophic indifference to law and rights that they're no longer a national asset, but a liability - an albatross around America's neck.

I no longer consider Edward Snowden to be a traitor, for all that his actions were technically treasonous.  He's revealed so much about the 'shadow dictators' who do as they please in the name of national security that I must now regard him as a patriot, deserving of our grateful acknowledgment for the service he's rendered us.

To hell with every NSA technician, manager, administrator and executive who had any share in making this organization into the ethical and moral cesspit that it's become.  Fire them all, and prosecute those guilty of the most grievous overreaches - then make sure none of them ever again occupy any position of importance, anywhere.  They deserve only our contempt, scorn and derision.





Peter

More on Big Brother's intrusiveness

I'm going to follow up last night's post about Big Brother's paranoia and intrusiveness with a series of talks delivered at various TED conferences over the past couple of years.  They highlight and illustrate different aspects of the problem, and put forward some possible solutions.  I hope you'll find them interesting.

We'll start tonight with an address by Mikko Hyppönen, a Finnish computer security expert.  He says that the NSA's shenanigans with computer security have "betrayed the world", and calls for alternatives to be developed to US systems and solutions.

He pointed out earlier this year that the problem was no longer confined to the NSA or its equivalents in other countries, because government security agencies are now outsourcing much of their cyber security work to private companies.  You can read all about it at the link.

(Of course, that works both ways.  Edward Snowden was working for a private contractor when he gained access to the NSA's records.  It begins to look more and more as if he did the entire world a great service by publishing what he discovered.)

Watch for the next video talk tomorrow.

Peter

Big Brother is becoming paranoid and insanely intrusive

I've been following the subject of personal privacy and official monitoring for some time, as regular readers will know.  I thought it was long past time to point out that the situation has become so severe, so intrusive, that it's reached a tipping point.  If we don't rein in the all-seeing eye of Big Brother within the next year or two, it may be so established in public life and policy that it can no longer be remedied at all.

Consider the following news reports over the past year.

• In downtown Seattle, the authorities have installed a system that can allegedly monitor the movements of any personal electronic device (and, therefore, its user) and keep track of their location.  After public outrage at the disclosure, it's since been deactivated . . . but it hasn't been removed.  It can be reactivated at any time.  I'm willing to bet that as soon as the authorities think that the public has forgotten about it, and the system's antennae have become just another part of the urban skyline, they'll do just that.
• Public buses across the USA are installing microphones to record passenger conversations.
• Las Vegas is installing streetlights that can monitor conversations, record sound and video, and generally monitor everything (and everyone) in their vicinity.  The system is called Intellistreets.  The manufacturer says of it that "RFID equipped staff can be identified and tracked".  If it can track a 'staff member' carrying an RFID chip, it can do the same with almost any RFID chip attached to almost anything, including your cellphone, computer - even your chip-implanted pet or the goods you've just bought at the supermarket.  The supplier also claims that the system "provides a platform and many developed applications to assist DHS in protecting its citizens and natural resources".  Given DHS's aggressive invasion of our privacy (see next story) this does not give me warm fuzzies.  Here's a video presentation on Intellistreets.

• DHS is seeking vendors to provide DNA testing of "samples collected from various individuals".  It appears that these samples will not necessarily have been obtained through normal criminal investigations or by court order, because the report goes on to speak of identifying individuals "when fingerprints are not available".  Given DHS's cavalier disregard for our privacy, I can't regard this development with anything but suspicion.
• IARPA is seeking to "improve face recognition performance using representations developed from real-world video and images instead of from calibrated and constrained collections. During daily activities, people laugh, smile, frown, yawn and morph their faces into a broad variety of expressions. For each face, these expressions are formed from unique skeletal and musculature features that are similar through one's lifetime. Janus representations will exploit the full morphological dynamics of the face to enable better matching and faster retrieval."  In other words, this software will use any available video camera footage to identify individuals, whether or not they are aware of being under surveillance.  Again, given the intelligence community's deliberate and ongoing violation of our privacy, I can't feel comfortable about this.
• Motor vehicle computers (so-called 'black boxes) are being programmed to record more and more information about their activities, and how their drivers manage them.  There are efforts to expand the amount of data recorded, but there are no legal restrictions on how such data may be used.
• Late last year the Electronic Frontier Foundation analyzed information on unmanned aerial vehicle activity over the USA, and found a lot of evidence about the growing scale of such operations.  It observed that "law enforcement agencies want to use drones to support a whole host of police work", and gave details of several agencies' activities in that regard.
• It's just been revealed that the personal information of thousands of American citizens was compromised by a Federal agency without their knowledge or permission, by sharing it with other Federal agencies who could then use it in ways never intended or authorized by those concerned.

The real problem is that although these reports make the headlines, nothing appears to be done about them.  If the offenders get away with it, if they believe that the public will make a lot of noise but never demand (or get) action, then there's nothing to stop them doing it again, and again, and again - and more and more egregiously.

We have to agitate for legislative and regulatory reform, to outlaw this 'bureaucratic mission creep' on the part of the security establishment.  If we don't, the day may come when they can literally get away with murder.  Some would say that day arrived some time ago.





Peter

Obamacare in a nutshell

An e-mail sent to a Fox News program sums up the Obamacare Web site debacle in a nutshell.  Bold, underlined text is my emphasis.

"Putting things in perspective: March 21st 2010 to October 1 2013 is 3 years, 6 months, 10 days.  December 7, 1941 to May 8, 1945 is 3 years, 5 months, 1 day.  What this means is that in the time we were attacked at Pearl Harbor to the day Germany surrendered is not enough time for this progressive federal government to build a working webpage.  Mobilization of millions, building tens of thousands of tanks,  planes, jeeps, subs, cruisers, destroyers, torpedoes, millions upon millions of guns, bombs, ammo, etc. Turning the tide in North Africa,  Invading Italy, D-Day,  Battle of the Bulge, Race to Berlin - all while we were also fighting the Japanese in the Pacific!!  And in that amount of time - this administration can't build a working webpage."

Word.





Peter