The US Treasury Is Buying Private App Data to Target and Investigate People (theintercept.com) 44
The Treasury Department has in recent months expanded its digital surveillance powers, contracts provided to The Intercept reveal, turning to the controversial firm Babel Street, whose critics say it helps federal investigators buy their way around the Fourth Amendment. From a report: Two contracts obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request and shared with The Intercept by Tech Inquiry, a research and advocacy group, show that over the past four months, the Treasury acquired two powerful new data feeds from Babel Street: one for its sanctions enforcement branch, and one for the Internal Revenue Service. Both feeds enable government use of sensitive data collected by private corporations not subject to due process restrictions. Critics were particularly alarmed that the Treasury acquired access to location and other data harvested from smartphone apps; users are often unaware of how widely apps share such information.
The first contract, dated July 15 at a cost of $154,982, is with Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, a quasi-intelligence wing responsible for enforcing economic sanctions against foreign regimes like Iran, Cuba, and Russia. A June report from New York University Law School's Brennan Center for Justice found that OFAC's vast enforcement powers require greater oversight from Congress. The report criticized the lack of legal limits on who OFAC can sanction, pointing out that this group includes American citizens within U.S. borders and foreigners without any government ties, and flagged the fact that OFAC is free to add people to sanctions lists even after sanctions are authorized -- people now potentially subject to surveillance by Locate X.
The first contract, dated July 15 at a cost of $154,982, is with Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, a quasi-intelligence wing responsible for enforcing economic sanctions against foreign regimes like Iran, Cuba, and Russia. A June report from New York University Law School's Brennan Center for Justice found that OFAC's vast enforcement powers require greater oversight from Congress. The report criticized the lack of legal limits on who OFAC can sanction, pointing out that this group includes American citizens within U.S. borders and foreigners without any government ties, and flagged the fact that OFAC is free to add people to sanctions lists even after sanctions are authorized -- people now potentially subject to surveillance by Locate X.
Good! The rich cheat bigly (Score:1, Insightful)
USA inequality is excessively excessive. Time to at least crack down on tax cheats.
Re:Good! The rich cheat bigly (Score:5, Insightful)
They are legal loop holes, these investigations won't touch Google, Amazon, Microsoft or anything that matters. If the US was concerned about companies paying their fair share they would shore up the laws. Except those would apply equally to everyone. By turning a blind eye to your allies and "only receiving tips" about your political enemies you can use the IRS for legal tyranny.
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won't touch Google, Amazon, Microsoft or anything that matters.
Higher taxes on these companies would be paid by the shareholders.
These are all publicly traded companies, and most of the shares are owned by middle-class pensions and mutual funds.
If we raise taxes on the middle class, it would make more sense to tax consumption rather than investing.
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"I have nothing against Amazon, but no company pulling in billions of dollars of profits should pay a lower tax rate than firefighters and teachers. We need to reward work, not just wealth." - https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/s... [twitter.com]
ShanghaiShill is still living up to his name.
"We’ve paid $2.6B in corporate taxes since 2016. We pay every penny we owe. Congress designed tax laws to encourage companies to reinvest in the American economy. We have. $200B in investments since 2011 & 300K US jobs. **Assume VP
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Shareholders don't pay the taxes for the companies they invest in. The rest of your argument kind of falls apart, too.
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Shareholders don't pay the taxes for the companies they invest in.
The taxes are not passed through to their personal returns (unless it is an S-corp), but the taxes are coming out of the shareholders' pockets as lower dividends and lower capital gains.
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This is the kind of nonsense that late-stage capitalism brainwashes people into believing
If there is a fee for registering a car, "the car" doesn't pay the fee. The owner does.
This is true for any inanimate entity. Fees and taxes on the entity are taxes on the owners of that entity.
Corporations are owned by shareholders.
Understanding that doesn't require brainwashing, just a functioning brain.
Re: Good! The rich cheat bigly (Score:2)
Assinine as your comment is, it still doesn't explain why you would be against taxing corporations? So it trickles down to share holders in your mind. I thought you cummies also hated fat cat share holders too.
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Assinine as your comment is ...
It is spelled "asinine". Only one "s". If you are going to insult me, please do it properly.
it still doesn't explain why you would be against taxing corporations?
Taxing profits at the corporate level means all shareholders pay the same rate. So Grandma, with some Amazon stock in her tax-deferred pension fund, gets hit just as hard as Jeff Bezos.
Instead, if the taxes are passed through to the shareholders and paid on their individual returns, they can be paid progressively.
Many people naively see corporate taxes as a way to "soak the rich". But the tax mainly falls on the
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Meanwhile, personal income taxes get withheld before we even see it.
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Mainly the government is going after dentists and surgeons sort of wealthy. Like own a boat wealthy, not own a superyacht and several skyscrapers wealthy. The net cast will be for the medium-sized fish, not billionaires or soon-to-be trillionaires.
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In my limited experience, small business owners are, per capita, the people most inclined and able to cheat on taxes. Big companies have to mind the GAAP. Retail owners use products themselves and don't pay sales tax--then the missing merchandise is (probably) written off as "shrinkage/stolen." Personal vehicles are owned by the business and depreciated, gas is written off. Anything that can conceivably by used by an executive or janitor to do their job is deducted with the understanding that almost none
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Yup, all those dentists and surgeons who have 600 dollars in their bank accounts. Wait, something's not right there. These moves were made at the same time that the 600 dollar bank account tracking limit was originally proposed. It has jack fucking all to do with the wealthy.
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Test such in a diff country first. It's too big of a change to make us beta testers. A lot of ideas that looked wonderful on paper don't fly well in practice.
I'm not saying it won't work, only that testing is important. I'm in the software dev biz, after all. ALL complex systems need good testing, and that includes tax codes.
I volunteer New Zealand to test it. Thanks, you brave blokes, we appreciate it!
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It's already tested. Seven US states don't have an income tax.
A federal consumption tax that replaces the income tax would fix a ton of problems.
It won't happen because H&R Block, tax accountants and tax lawyers would be out of a job.
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> It's already tested. Seven US states don't have an income tax.
But citizens of such states still have a Federal tax, which is probably bigger than the state income tax. Thus, it's not near a full test at all. You should know that; that's Captain Obvious science.
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What you are suggesting is a fantasy.
For example, I have a couple of rental properties. Should I be able to deduct the management and repair fees that I pay? What about the interest on the mortgages? What if a company owns the houses instead of me and I own the companies?
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People offering simple "solutions" to complex problems clearly haven't thought things through.
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> with no loopholes
Politicians will always fiddle with the rules to create tons of conditions/loopholes. Even if we start over with a clean slate, politicians will eventually muck up it. You can't legislate up front "no future modifications". If we make it a Constitutional Amendment, it may be harder to fiddle with, but that's unlikely to happen.
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New Zealand is already running a highly simplified tax code. Some features of interest: (for comparison: not tax advice and not precise)
* Company tax rate essentially the same as individual tax rate. Company tax then ‘imputed’ against the dividend payments, so the tax can be reclaimed against your individual tax bill (ie: it’s paid once only)
* almost no deductions against personal income tax. (Not to be confused with rules on calculating the profit of a business - as in someone’s
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Yup, this is about all those billionaire tax cheats moving money around in accounts with 600 dollars. Oh... wait.... If you think this will be significantly weaponized against the millionaires or billionaires you're flipping nuts. It will primarily be used against individuals making less than the median income in the US. These moves were made at the same fucking time that 600 dollar account limit was originally proposed.
The issue with this (Score:5, Insightful)
But that ship sailed when we let the Patriot Act stand and good 'ole Warrentless Wiretapping because T..T...T.. Tarafyin' Tarrorists! Amazing how much we gave up because of 1 successful attack that had zero strategic impact over 20 years ago. Once again, those terrorists won. We did exactly what the wanted us to do.
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The Judicial Branch long ago gave up on as acting as a counterweight to the Executive and Legislative branches. The justice system now exists to enforce the depredations of the Leviathan, not as a custodian of our rights.
They didn't give it up (Score:2)
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This is not an end-run around getting a warrant nor the Fourth Amendment. People / users are stupid enough to give away their information. (Remember, if you are not paying for the service then you are the product.)
Per Vice:
Babel X has access to over 25 social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram, and to Twitter's firehose (with special data restrictions due to Twitter's own strict regulations). Babel X can also surveil millions of URL's including the deep web.
It literally doesn't matter how it's collected (Score:2)
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As far as I know, the Third-Party doctrine is still the law per Smith v. Maryland and United States v. Miller [United States v. Miller, 425 U.S. 435 (1976); Smith, 442 U.S. 735.]. Which cases overrule them?
This has nothing to do with crime or taxes. (Score:5, Interesting)
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In late September 2017, an exhaustive report by the Treasury Department's inspector general found that from 2004 to 2013, the IRS used both conservative and liberal keywords to choose targets for further scrutiny, blunting claims that the issue had been an Obama-era partisan scandal.[1][2] The 115 page report confirmed the findings of the prior 2013 report that some conservative organizations had been unfairly targeted, but also found that the pattern of misconduct had been ongoing since 2004 and was non-partisan in nature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Or did the former guy do something I never heard about?
$160,000? (Score:2)
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And this is surprising to whom? (Score:2)
Anyone?
Hypocricy at Its Best! (Score:2)
Due Process (Score:2)
IRS isn’t required to provide any due process relief, nor is international “crime” protected by the fourth amendment.
There are only a few things that concern me about this— mainly about harvesting information on expenditures rather than income for the IRS, and less so harvesting location data. For location data to be useful to the IRS (without detailed expenditure information), it would need to essentially corroborate location for certain tax exemptions. It would seem like the accu
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You know that there is professional help for your condition, yes?
P.J. O'Rourke (Score:2)
"Once you have built the big machinery of political power, remember you won't always be the one to run it."
privacy protection ? (Score:2)