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

Flawed climate policy causes a flood disaster

I'm cynically unsurprised at the revelation that the recent devastating floods in England were deliberately caused by the policies of the previous government, driven by concerns over climate change.  The Telegraph reports:

Devastating evidence has now come to light not just that the floods ... could have been prevented, but that they were deliberately engineered by Labour ministers in 2009, regardless of the property and human rights of the thousands of people whose homes and livelihoods would be affected. Furthermore, that wildly misleading Met Office forecast in November led the Environment Agency to take a step that has made the flooding infinitely more disastrous than it need have been.

The “smoking guns” begin with a policy decision announced in 2005 by Labour’s “floods minister” Elliot Morley ... Under the heading “Saving wetland habitats: more money for key sites”, Morley directed that, to comply with the EU’s habitats directive and a part-EU-funded study involving the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the WWF and the Environment Agency, flooding in Somerset should be artificially promoted, because “wildlife will benefit from increased water levels”. The 13 local drainage boards, responsible for keeping the Levels properly managed, were all to be co-opted into implementing this policy.

The Environment Agency had already stopped proper dredging of the River Parrett, which provides the main channel draining floodwater on the Levels to the sea, because of the exorbitant cost of disposing of silt under EU waste regulations. And Morley had vetoed a proposal to build a new pumping station at Dunball, at the end of the massive Kings Sedgemoor Drain, which would have allowed much more effective, 24-hour pumping of flood water into the mouth of the Parrett estuary,

In 2008, an Environment Agency policy document on the “Parrett Catchment Area” admitted that it was “still not completely clear” how much the deliberate increase in flooding would breach “the property rights and Human Rights” of those whose homes and businesses would be damaged. Yet in 2009, the government gave £8 million to “restore” – ie, increase flooding on – 10 Somerset “floodplains”, including the purchase of a large area of farmland at Southlake Moor next to Burrowbridge on the Parrett, which had been drained since the 13th century. It was to be handed over to Natural England to “store” water as habitat for birds when, as the Met Office was already predicting, climate change would bring drier winters.

This was where November’s forecast came in, because it led the Environment Agency deliberately to flood Southlake Moor in the expectation of a dry winter. When those December and January rains poured down, this large expanse of water-sodden ground blocked the draining to the already horribly silted-up Parrett of a very much larger area of farmland to the east. This was made even worse by the lack of that Dunball pumping station, vetoed by Morley, at the sea end of the Kings Sedgemoor Drain.

Thus came about the disaster that has filled our television screens for weeks. The hydrology of this vast area had been sabotaged by the Labour government’s deliberate, EU-compliant policy, directed by the Environment Agency.

There's more at the link.

The fact that this happened in England should be cold comfort to those of us in the USA.  We're seeing exactly the same sort of ideologically driven decisions affecting our own environment just as negatively - witness the current water crisis in California as just one example.

I'm more and more of the opinion that there can be no compromise with the environmentalist idiots who raise such a hue and cry about 'climate change' and 'environmental preservation' and the like.  Their mantras have proven scientifically flawed and practically disastrous so often that no right-thinking person can take them seriously any more.  That's a great pity, because there's a lot to be said for the right sort of conservation and environmental consciousness . . . but when one sees so little of it among the activists, I'm afraid the environment baby tends to get thrown out along with the propagandist bath-water.  The truth is so seldom in them.





Peter

Guess where all the QE money is going?

If you haven't yet read Matthew Taibbi's latest exposé for Rolling Stone magazine, 'The Vampire Squid Strikes Again: The Mega Banks' Most Devious Scam Yet', you really need to make time to do so.  It shows more clearly than anything else I've read just where all the excess liquidity that the Fed keeps pumping into the markets under the label 'Quantitative Easing' is ending up.  Here's an excerpt.

Most observers on the Hill thought the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 – also known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act – was just the latest and boldest in a long line of deregulatory handouts to Wall Street that had begun in the Reagan years.

. . .

A tiny provision in the bill also permitted commercial banks to delve into any activity that is "complementary to a financial activity and does not pose a substantial risk to the safety or soundness of depository institutions or the financial system generally."

Complementary to a financial activity. What the hell did that mean?

"From the perspective of the banks," says Saule Omarova, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, "pretty much everything is considered complementary to a financial activity."

. . .

Today, banks like Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs own oil tankers, run airports and control huge quantities of coal, natural gas, heating oil, electric power and precious metals. They likewise can now be found exerting direct control over the supply of a whole galaxy of raw materials crucial to world industry and to society in general, including everything from food products to metals like zinc, copper, tin, nickel and, most infamously thanks to a recent high-profile scandal, aluminum.

. . .

... banks aren't just buying stuff, they're buying whole industrial processes. They're buying oil that's still in the ground, the tankers that move it across the sea, the refineries that turn it into fuel, and the pipelines that bring it to your home. Then, just for kicks, they're also betting on the timing and efficiency of these same industrial processes in the financial markets – buying and selling oil stocks on the stock exchange, oil futures on the futures market, swaps on the swaps market, etc.

Allowing one company to control the supply of crucial physical commodities, and also trade in the financial products that might be related to those markets, is an open invitation to commit mass manipulation. It's something akin to letting casino owners who take book on NFL games during the week also coach all the teams on Sundays.

The situation has opened a Pandora's box of horrifying new corruption possibilities, but it's been hard for the public to notice, since regulators have struggled to put even the slightest dent in Wall Street's older, more familiar scams. In just the past few years we've seen an explosion of scandals – from the multitrillion-dollar Libor saga (major international banks gaming world interest rates), to the more recent foreign-currency-exchange fiasco (many of the same banks suspected of rigging prices in the $5.3-trillion-a-day currency markets), to lesser scandals involving manipulation of interest-rate swaps, and gold and silver prices.

But those are purely financial schemes. In these new, even scarier kinds of manipulations, banks that own whole chains of physical business interests have been caught rigging prices in those industries. For instance, in just the past two years, fines in excess of $400 million have been levied against both JPMorgan Chase and Barclays for allegedly manipulating the delivery of electricity in several states, including California. In the case of Barclays, which is contesting the fine, regulators claim prices were manipulated to help the bank win financial bets it had made on those same energy markets.

And last summer, The New York Times described how Goldman Sachs was caught systematically delaying the delivery of metals out of a network of warehouses it owned in order to jack up rents and artificially boost prices.

There's much more at the link.  Go read it.  It'll make it clear why the Fed and the banks will do anything they can - anything they have to - to keep kicking the fiscal and budgetary can down the road, rather than address the enormous systemic problems currently affecting our economy.  If they did address them, their opportunity for such windfall profits and control over so much of the world's economy would slip away.  They'll fight that tooth and nail.

When the economy finally crumbles, this sort of greedy manipulation will be a big part of the reason.  We'll just have to make sure that those responsible for it are held accountable in any way possible.  It's almost a foregone conclusion that they'll never be charged with any wrongdoing - after all, they control the national purse strings - so we'll have to find other ways to do so.  Tar and feathers are the least of the remedies that come to mind . . .

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

Good riddance!

So Ray Nagin finally got what was coming to him.  It's long overdue.  He was one of the most egotistical blowhards ever inflicted upon New Orleans by its voters, and proved utterly incompetent during the Hurricane Katrina crisis.  Like Edwin Edwards and other corrupt Louisiana officials, his dishonesty was legendary.  Everyone knew what he was up to, but no-one in the State of Louisiana criminal justice system would do anything about it.  It took Federal prosecutors to nail him down.

I hope he spends the rest of his life behind bars . . . in a prison in a high-risk area for hurricanes . . . with no prospect of evacuation if one comes ashore.





Peter

The disconnect between liberal/progressive academics and reality

I'm still shaking my head at the sheer, utter stupidity on display in a US News discussion about the impact of Obamacare on jobs.  Here's an excerpt.

What the truth might be, and what few politicians would dare say, is there might simply be some value in lower economic growth.

. . .

Initially, says one expert, there will be benefits in the fact that there is plenty of slack in the labor market. The combination of many unemployed Americans and many people finding jobs just to get insurance means that if a few people cut back their hours, there will be more hours for the people who want them. In and of itself, that theoretically means people will be much happier, says Ken Jacobs, chair of the Labor Center at the University of California-Berkeley, though that effect would dissipate as the job market improves.

“GDP growth isn't a good in and of itself,” he says. “The question here is what's going to create the most happiness for the greatest numbers of people. Being in a situation where people have to work full time or 40 hours a week at a job that may not be the best match for them because that is the only way to get health insurance is not the way you create the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.”

. . .

The ultimate question is a question of philosophy of government: especially at a time of economic weakness, can any more hits to growth be tolerated, or is the populace’s welfare the ultimate good?

There's (unfortunately) more at the link.  Bold underlined text is my emphasis.

The obvious, screaming, in-your-face problem with this perspective is simple.  Who decides what constitutes "happiness"?  Who decides what constitutes "the populace's welfare"?  Who determines what is (or what should be) "the ultimate good" of the populace, or a society, or a nation?  Clearly, the 'enlightened' (doubtless including Mr. Jacobs) would opine that we can leave those decisions in their hands.  Personally, I'd rather fire every one of these academics in their left-leaning ivory towers, and trust those who've actually worked for a living.

Meanwhile, in the real world:

• For the true impact of Obamacare on the job market, free of socialist and/or progressive and/or left-wing and/or Marxist rhetoric, see here.
• Guess what all those newly jobless or those with reduced hours of work are going to do?  They're going to demand government handouts to subsidize them.
• Guess who's going to be asked to pay for those handouts?  The taxpayers of America - you and I.
• Finally, care to guess the reaction of more and more of those taxpayers?

Word.





Peter

Do we really want Detroit everywhere?

I note with extreme displeasure that the United Auto Workers trade union is trying with might and main to unionize the workforce at Volkswagen's plant in Chattanooga, TN.  The process is not without controversy.

I have no objection to trades unions that exist for the legitimate support and protection of their members.  I've been a member of a union myself, and it was of great assistance to me during a very difficult episode at work.  However, the UAW is one of the most corrupt, self-seeking and egregiously grasping unions in the history of such organizations.  You don't have to take my word for it - just do an Internet search on the subject 'UAW corruption' and read the resulting linked resources for yourself.

Many individuals and organizations share the blame for Detroit's current economic woes and infrastructural collapse . . . but the UAW is right up there with all the rest of them, and probably bears more responsibility than most for that mess.  I confidently predict that any city allowing the UAW to unionize its industrial plants has already set its joint and several feet on the same slippery slope.  I can only hope that the organization's current efforts fail, for the sake of the city of Chattanooga and my home state of Tennessee.





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

Facebook gets even more intrusive

Thanks to a link at Karl Denninger's place, we learn that Facebook is trying to not only invade your privacy, but exercise control over it!

That's right.  The latest version of Facebook's Android app now wants to:

• Read your text messages;
• Control your smartphone's other apps;
• Control your smartphone's audio and video settings, including recording (which would enable it to take snapshots of your surroundings, for example, and upload them for analysis);
• Send e-mail (in other words, spam) to those using your calendar and other shared facilities.

I've said before that Facebook is a clear and present danger to the privacy and online security of its users.  This latest development merely makes that more obvious than ever.  As Karl Denninger puts it, as far as Facebook is concerned, you are the product.

Anyone voluntarily allowing Facebook this sort of control over their smartphones and personal information deserves all they get, IMHO . . .





Peter

"Bling" bullets - don't believe the hype!!!

Yet another crop of supposedly high-tech, über-deadly bullets is appearing on the market, claiming to offer revolutionary results (usually at extraordinarily high prices).  They include:

• The 'Multiple Impact Bullet', claiming to open out into a multi-projectile buzz-saw after firing, to ensure a hit (stupidly, ridiculously over-the-top marketing video here);
• The 'G2 Research R.I.P.' round, with a technically baffling description that appears to be all smoke and mirrors and very little intelligible science (marketing video here);
• Yet another ultra-light-weight, ultra-high-velocity round, 'Liberty Civil Defense' ammunition, that produces visually spectacular effects in target material.  (See their YouTube channel for lots of videos, if you want to.)

As far as I'm concerned, Shakespeare's famous quotation about being "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" describes them all perfectly.  I don't need to test them or see anyone else's tests of them.  We've been here before in oh, so many different incarnations . . .  Remember the hype about the so-called 'blended metal technology' used by RBCD Performance Plus ammunition?  That was a charade from beginning to end, and was ruthlessly (and brilliantly) exposed some time ago.  AR15.com has an excellent primer exposing most of the exotic ammo brands that have popped up, making extravagant claims, and then subsided into obscurity after being debunked.  Go read it for yourself.  I'm willing to bet that the products named above will prove no more substantial in their assertions.

The reason is very simple.  All the major ammunition firms - Federal, Hornady, Speer, Winchester and the like - and, for that matter, the best smaller firms - Barnes, Black Hills, Buffalo Bore, Corbon, etc. - spend millions of dollars every year between them on ammunition research, development and testing.  Their products are used by professionals such as law enforcement personnel, game rangers, etc., as well as private citizens who hunt, defend themselves and train with it.  They sell literally billions of rounds every year.  With that sort of market dominance, and that kind of revenue at stake, do you really think they aren't constantly looking for any technological edge they can get?  If any one of them comes up with a world-beating product, it'll have a clear run at the market while everyone else races to catch up.  Any one of the top companies in the field would give their left . . . well, you know what I mean . . . to be able to do that.  The reason they can't is that all their competitors are trying to do the same.  They're all improving their offerings incrementally, all the time, and 'keeping up with the Joneses' in the process.

These small, come-out-of-nowhere companies arrive with a big splash, putting out videos with dramatic footage and (usually) hard rock or heavy metal soundtracks portraying their allegedly 'world-beating' products . . . yet every one of them fades away after a while, leaving nothing behind.  Why?  Because it's nothing but hype from beginning to end.  They're trying to sell snake oil.  The fundamentals of good ammo performance are well-known - there's nothing secret or esoteric about them.  All the major manufacturers adhere to those fundamentals in order to produce good ammunition.  It's used by all major law enforcement agencies and top military outfits.  What makes you think some upstart company that's come out of nowhere can suddenly overturn all that established science, technology and engineering, and do substantially better?

If products like these were so great, you can bet your boots that police forces, Special Forces units and others who bet their lives on their bullets every day would be beating a path to their manufacturers' doors.  Indeed, many of these over-hyped products are alleged (by their makers) to be in service with such forces . . . but when it comes to actually identifying them and verifying their claims, they tend to clam up.  They plead the excuse of 'non-disclosure agreements' or 'confidentiality clauses'.  Uh-huh.  If you believe that, there's a bridge in Brooklyn, NYC I'd like to sell you.  Cash only, please, and in small bills.

Don't believe the hype.  Find out what the major law enforcement agencies are betting their lives on every day, and use that ammunition to defend your own life.  You won't find anything much better than that.  Believe it.

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

Political Ideology versus objectivity

A classic example of political ideology versus objective analysis is playing out over a book about California.  'Taxifornia' is described as follows on its Amazon.com page:

In Taxifornia, James V. Lacy identifies and examines the true causes of California’s decline.

Californians are victims of the heaviest taxation in all of America, and those high taxes are now steadily destroying the state’s economy.  Tax-and-spend liberals who are in control have created a state that taxes and regulates more than any other state in the country, and have engineered a rotting economy with among the highest unemployment of any state in the nation.  Its high taxes hurt all Californians by making the state too expensive for business to turn profitable.  Business flight has become endemic.  California’s over-regulation of businesses depresses employment in the state.  A widely accepted tenet among liberal politicians, political science academics, and the media in California is that no development at all is a good thing.

It is a state that educates the worst but pays the best to its teachers, a place that is widely considered by most CEOs to be one of the worst locations in the nation to run a business, where local governments are going bankrupt, and where an out-of-control public employee pay and pension system threatens to gobble up and divert almost all available taxpayer resources to a point where cities and counties simply cannot afford to pay for police, fire, or road maintenance anymore.

California has an outdated environmental policy and an energy policy that makes the state almost totally dependent on one source of power:  imported natural gas.  It is a place where the public employee union worker who controls traffic in the Bay Area Rapid Transit District maintenance yard in poverty-stricken and near bankrupt Oakland is paid more annually than the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.

There's more at the link.

The first thing I noticed is that the author blames California's woes on 'tax-and-spend liberals'.  This is true prima facie, but it's not the entire truth.  Both major political parties in California have advanced a tax-and-spend agenda.  Sure, the present party in power there (Democratic) must carry the can for present policies;  but don't forget that the previous governor (a Republican) was equally guilty of spendthrift behavior, and Republican elected representatives have voted for similar policies on numerous occasions.  Even if in recent years they appear to have repented of such behavior, I've no doubt that if they ever find themselves in power again, the temptation to spend other people's money to shore up their political fortunes will prove as irresistible to them as it has to the Democrats.

The second thing I noticed is the comments from readers (either real or purported) of the book.  Of the ten reviews posted at the time of writing, six are five-star;  four are one-star.  There are no two-, three- or four-star reviews at all.  A clearer indication of partisan perspective couldn't be desired.  Those damning the book with one-star reviews clearly approve of the current California government and administration.  They're not assessing the book on its merits at all - only on the basis of their preconceived value judgments.  Those praising it don't appear (on the basis of their comments) to be as dogmatically prejudiced, but there's doubtless an element of that at work too.

I've no doubt that the author's thesis about California being a 'failed state' in many ways is accurate.  We've discussed the subject in these pages on more than one occasion.  However, I wish he weren't so quick to blame liberalism alone.  Let's not forget that the real boom in US government deficit spending began during the presidency of (Republican) Ronald Reagan, and subsequent administrations, both federal and state, have taken their cue from him:

California's merely the best illustration (for now) of what happens when the philosophies and politics of 'big government', the 'welfare state' and statism become dominant.  It's a warning sign, and a prediction of how this entire country will look unless we change course now.  Liberalism is merely one symptom of those larger problems, which are not exclusive to left-wing or progressive views.  Just witness the actions of the Republican-controlled Congress in passing the latest omnibus spending bill, with its still-outrageous spending levels, to see what I mean.

Neither Republicans nor Democrats have the answer to our present situation.  Both parties are in it for what they can get out of it - not for us, and not to look after our interests.  The sooner more Americans wake up and realize that fact, and do something about it, the better.

Peter

Has the FBI terminally discredited itself?

Investor's Business Daily thinks it has.

The FBI says it won't prosecute anyone at the IRS for its admitted targeting of the president's political foes. This just as the agency claims the law is no longer its main mission. So it's a political goon squad now.

. . .

The reality is, the acts reeked of political targeting, the most illegal of acts, a corrupt use of government power, and a worthy target of checks and balances provided by the FBI in the name of law and order.

But for some reason, the FBI has neither interviewed the Tea Party activists targeted for intrusive scrutiny, nor has it noticed anything amiss in light of the White House's rabid attacks on Tea Party activists ... And it hasn't picked up the clue from the Center for Responsive Politics showing that IRS employees donated to Obama's campaign by more than 2 to 1 over Tea Party-tied Republicans — let alone that the prosecutor chosen by the president to look into this case is a fat-cat donor to Obama.

If New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie can be criticized for a traffic jam, then the White House's attacks on political opponents are in a league with what goes on in Venezuela. That the FBI won't get involved in this and is willing to wreck its reputation for apolitical probity suggests this investigation is leading to a place the bureau would rather not go — namely, the White House.

There's more at the link.

I think that perhaps the most damaging achievement of the Obama administration has been to discredit so many agencies of the federal government by suborning them for partisan political ends.  Apart from the FBI's unconscionable conduct, consider:

• The ATF and its manifestly criminal smuggling of guns to drug cartels in Mexico, leading to the murders of at least two officers from other federal agencies;
• The use of the IRS to target political opponents of the Administration;
• The NSA scandal, which admittedly began under earlier Administrations but has been defended and continued by the present one;
• The cover-up of the Benghazi affair and other foreign 'adventures', to the very public discredit of the State Department;
• And a host of other issues.

Personally, I think that all these scandals add up to what the constitution refers to as 'high crimes and misdemeanors' . . . but I doubt whether anyone will do anything about that.  Our politicians just don't care - or, if they do, they care that it was the other party that got away with it.  They won't make too many waves, because they can hardly wait for the opportunity to get away with the same things themselves in due course.





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

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

"The Year of the Washington Power Grab"

That's how the Wall Street Journal describes 2013.  Here's an excerpt.

This past year will be remembered for many things, but let 2013 be hailed mainly for this: It was the year that the genius of George Orwell's "Animal Farm" became clear in America. Efforts to centralize control in the name of "fairness" have led to a society that is ever more at the mercy of a federal power—one that decides who does and does not succeed. The winners are favored special interests, political cronies and wealthy lobbyists. The losers are everyone else.

Consider: Maryland authorities last week launched an investigation into the shootings of two bald eagles in Montgomery County. It isn't clear if the federally protected birds were shot on purpose, or if some poor soul mistook them for vultures. No matter. The Maryland Natural Resources Police (there is such a thing) has gone full vice squad—publicizing a hotline number, dangling a reward, and reminding folks that the federal penalty is a fine of $5,000 per eagle and up to a year in prison.

This behavior contrasts with a very different headline, from a month ago. "U.S. to Allow Eagle Deaths—to Aid Wind Power," read a Dec. 6 Associated Press story about a new federal rule that allows wind companies favored by the Obama administration to avoid the law. These select companies can kill bald and golden eagles, free of prosecution, for 30 years.

There's more at the link (it may be behind a subscription paywall, in which case, try here).

Last month saw the courts slapping down another attempt at executive branch cronyism.

The ... NLRB in 2012 attempted to unilaterally rewrite a provision in the 1935 National Labor Relations Act known as "protected concerted activity."

. . .

... the Fifth Circuit panel ruled 2-1 that the NLRB had no legal authority for its decision. ... Translation from legalese: The labor board broke the law to justify a political power grab in the service of the plaintiffs bar.

Again, more at the link (or, if behind a paywall, try here).

I suspect that the Obama administration will continue to use all the organs of executive government to favor its allies and penalize those who oppose it, or those it regards as threats to its agenda.  As Thomas Jefferson famously warned, "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance".  That's more than usually the case in these troubled times, when those against whom we must be vigilant are our elected leaders and their appointed bureaucrats and administrators!

Peter

Beware the child charity scam

I note that the Telegraph in Australia has once again highlighted the ongoing scam whereby certain charities invite you to 'adopt' a child in a Third World country for a certain sum of money per month.  You're promised regular letters from 'your' child, reports on his or her progress, that sort of thing.  Unfortunately, many such charities are lying to you.

World Vision sends us a drawing from the boy every Christmas. Sadly, there is never any sign of improvement. In fact, lately he seems to be regressing.

He’s now 17 years old. The above image is his most recent illustration.

There's more at the link.  The article also links to another report from 2008, where a correspondent met the child he'd been sponsoring, only to find that most of the progress reported by the charity had not occurred at all.

Friends, if you want to donate to people and needs in the Third World, that's admirable, and as one who's lived there for many years, I thank you for your generosity.  However, please be very, very careful where you send your money.  The number of scam and rip-off charities out there is incalculable.

Two that I recommend unreservedly and without hesitation (because I've seen their work in the field, and worked with and alongside their people for many years) are Médecins Sans Frontières (a.k.a. Doctors Without Borders) and The Salvation Army.  With both organizations, you can be sure your money will be well used, and won't be wasted on excessive administrative overhead or inflated salaries for senior officials (the latter being one reason why I won't support the Red Cross at all).  Some object to the faith-based approach of The Salvation Army.  I don't think that takes anything away from their very good work, but YMMV - in which case, MSF (a secular, non-partisan organization) is an excellent alternative.

Peter

Thanks for nothing, NSA!

Revelations over the weekend of the extent to which the NSA has penetrated the security and nominal independence of the Internet, computer systems in general, and the privacy of every single user of either, have been breathtaking in their scope - not to mention the arrogance they display.  I'm not going to go into all the details here, because it would be impossible to cover them adequately in the space of a simple blog article.  If you're interested (and I strongly suggest you should be!) you'll find more details in these articles:

• Der Spiegel:  Inside TAO - Part 1: Documents Reveal Top NSA Hacking Unit
• Der Spiegel:  Inside TAO - Part 2: Targeting Mexico
• Der Spiegel:  Inside TAO - Part 3: The NSA's Shadow Network
• Der Spiegel:  Shopping for Spy Gear: Catalog Advertises NSA Toolbox
• Zero Hedge:  How The NSA Hacks Your iPhone
• Engadget:  NSA can hack WiFi devices from eight miles away

The invasive nature of these devices and systems is truly appalling.  It seems that our constitutional right to privacy is being not so much ignored as deliberately and willfully trampled underfoot by the NSA and its stooges.  They have no scruples, no morals, no ethics, and (seemingly) no effective supervision or control of their actions.

Worse, the NSA and similar entities have spawned a host of commercial interests competing to work with them and sell similar capabilities to those who don't already have them.  As one example, consider this advertising blurb from Selex Galileo, an Italian company.  You'll find it at about 24 minutes and 35 seconds into the video below, from last weekend's 30th Chaos Communications Conference.  I very strongly recommend that you take a minute or two to watch it for yourself.  The company is actually proud of its ability to hack into every aspect of your digital life, no matter who or where you are, what you're doing, or whether or not there's any justification whatsoever for doing so.

Consider that this is only one company, in one country, that's so open about the abilities of the software it provides.  There are dozens - probably hundreds - more like it.  In a follow-up presentation to the one above, corporate intrusion on the Internet is described in great detail.

Between them, those two videos are over an hour and three-quarters in length:  but if you're seriously interested in or concerned about your online security, I urge you to watch them in full - or at least listen to their audio tracks.  The amount they reveal, pulling it together from all sorts of sources, is mind-blowing.  After watching them, you'll realize that even if the NSA were shut down tomorrow (a consummation devoutly to be wished, but unfortunately unlikely), the risks to our privacy and security would be only slightly diminished by its passing.

Of course, the NSA and organizations like it are largely responsible for that reality.  They were the pioneers in developing such systems;  their former staff all too often resigned to join other companies as 'consultants' to help them develop commercial products inspired by the NSA's needs;  and a whole range of corporations now make their living out of developing ever-better tools for the NSA.  It's become a hive of governmental, bureaucratic and corporate mutual back-scratching, and to hell with ethical, legal and constitutional concerns.

In particular, the installation of 'back doors' into US-made computer hardware and software, to give the NSA easier access to them, is mind-bogglingly short-sighted (see the fourth article of the six linked above).  As Karl Denninger trenchantly points out:

The stupidity of such a program knows no boundaries.

The ultimate premise -- that nobody other than the NSA will ever obtain the keys necessary to access these defective locks they install -- is the height of arrogance.

How much of what the Chinese and others have stolen over the years were taken using our very own back doors?

Nobody knows, of course, and if the NSA knows they sure as hell won't be telling anyone.  But we do know that the Chinese, for example, have stolen not just commercial secrets but military ones as well -- including nuclear warhead designs.

We didn't, through our own arrogance, make that possible -- did we?

I'm sure we'll never find out with certainty, but this much I am certain of -- we're not the only nation with bright people in it, and if we put intentionally-pickable locks in things we sell we cannot maintain 100% control over the distribution of the back-door keys for said locks.

There's more at the link.  We've already discussed how this practice has caused billions of dollars in losses to US high-technology companies.  Those losses are likely to get much worse over the next few years as a result of these revelations.

Given government intrusion, commercial complicity in that intrusion, and hacker attacks on our hardware and software, is it any wonder that many computer security people are almost paranoid in their concerns?  I would be too, if I were in their shoes!  For example, an Australian journalist is quite candid about the lengths to which he goes.

I started covering up the cameras of my two laptops, desktop and smartphone in April. This was in addition to already making use of anti-virus and other security software on my devices. A New York Times security writer also recently divulged that they did this too.

I, like many others, close the blinds at night, so I figured I should probably put some sort of blind on my devices if I cared about my privacy. When I needed to use them for video conferencing or the occasional "selfie", I could just take the tape off. It made perfect sense, even though it wasn't as practical as I had hoped.

Friends and work colleagues who saw the tape over my mobile's front- and back-facing camera laughed at me and called me "paranoid" and "crazy". This was about two months before revelations concerning mass surveillance conducted by the world's Western spy agencies came out.

. . .

... evidence already exists on hacker forums about people who have successfully been able to disable the warning light of web cameras on a number of vendors' device without much difficulty. Even a former FBI agent admitted recently that the agency has been capable of doing it for several years.

. . .

Now I just need to find a practical way of taping up the microphones... glue anyone?

Again, more at the link.  I note that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (an organization worthy of our support, IMHO) is even selling stickers with its logo to cover the lenses of the cameras on your devices!

I fear we're in a situation today where we have to assume that we have no privacy or secrets whatsoever in, on or around our electronic systems, whether online or offline.  I'm seriously considering instructing my bank to disable all electronic access to my accounts, for fear that today's hacking tools might be used to rob me blind before I can do anything about it.  If the bank can't or won't do that, perhaps it'll be time to consider another bank . . . or take my money out as fast as it comes in, and store it in a secure location at home, where it'll be better protected!

Peter

'Your money in pictures'

That's the Heritage Foundation's title for its top five financial charts/diagrams of 2013.  They're very informative, illustrating key facts about our economy and budget in concise, easy-to-understand formats;  and they're also very authoritative, using official figures and sources rather than guesswork or politically biased conjecture.

As one example, here's their chart headed 'Obamacare's Barrage of Tax Hikes'.  Looking to the future, it seems we ain't seen nothin' yet . . .

Bet you didn't know health care was going to cost all of us that much, over and above our individual premiums, did you?

There are more graphics at the link.  Recommended reading.

Peter