Category Archives: Privacy

The Irrationality of the Gun-Control NLMSM Press

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Here are some rather palpable examples, via The Daily Caller:

LaPierre [National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne] as delusional as any dictator. His speech against music videos, hurricanes has the feel of a Castro rant or Mugabe tirade.
— The Huffington Post’s Jason Cherkis

In Wayne LaPierre’s defense, tone-deafness is a serious condition that afflicts hundreds of thousands of Americans.
— New York Daily News’ Josh Greenman

Wayne LaPierre should have just given this speech to an empty chair on a stage
— The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill

No two ways about: This is gross, awful, dishonest.
— Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall

What is this NRA guy talking about? Blame hurricanes. Blame media. It’s so strange.
— Politico’s Ben White

This is nuts.
— Talking Points Memo’s Ryan J. Reilly

Switzerland Giving up Its Tax Haven Status?

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Spiegel International Online has an article that discusses the possibility of Switzerland giving up a major portion of its banking secrecy laws under political pressure from the US and Germany.  Although the purpose of the article is to discuss the degree of importance (or lack) of the Swiss’ status as a tax haven to the Swiss economy, the discussion raises another question, immediately germane to our own economic condition, about tax havens generally.

Should we care if Switzerland remains a tax haven or gives that up?  If our own tax code weren’t so Byzantine, with such high rates, and with so many excused from taxes altogether (whether from the aggregate of subsidies, credits, exemptions, pick-a-loophole, or just from belonging to a protected class), Americans would have no need of tax havens.

If privacy is our concern, still we should be looking here at home, and reining in an overreaching government.  Sort of the kind of thing elections are for.

Our Judiciary’s Selective Enforcement

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The Ninth Circuit strikes again.  The Ninth agreed with a Federal district court that an Idaho law that lets state authorities bring criminal charges against pregnant women who seek abortions by using medications purchased online would likely be found unconstitutional (the Ninth Circuit ruling can be found here).  The Ninth, however, overruled the lower court’s enforcement injunction, saying it was too broad.  Instead, the Ninth substituted its own injunction: state authorities are enjoined only from enforcing the Idaho law against the particular woman who brought the case, not from enforcing the law everywhere else.

The WSJ‘s Law Blog provides a summary of the case:

In May 2011, Mark Hiedeman, the prosecuting attorney in Bannock County, Idaho, brought criminal charges against Jennie Linn McCormack, an unmarried mother of three, after she purchased medications over the Internet in 2010 to terminate her pregnancy.  There are no licensed healthcare providers who offer abortions in southeastern Idaho and Ms McCormack, who didn’t want to have additional children, claimed the medications were prescribed by a physician outside of Bannock County.

The lower court set aside the case against McCormack and enjoined the prosecutor from enforcing the law against anyone on the grounds that it was unconstitutional.

Set aside your views of abortion for a moment, and consider what this appellate court has done vis-à-vis the injunction.

The law under which Hiedeman attempted to prosecute McCormack was found by the district court to be unconstitutional, and the Ninth agreed: it is likely be found unconstitutional.  Yet the Ninth then overruled the district court’s injunction against enforcing that law at all.

Their logic centers on the premise that the law has not yet, in fact, been found unconstitutional, and so the original broad injunction went too far.  Yet injunctions, by their nature, are temporary—even permanent ones, which can be withdrawn for any number of reasons at any later date when they’re found no longer to be useful.

So where is the harm done by the lower court’s broader injunction?  The state is harmed by not being able to enforce a law that is, nominally, legitimate.  Women are harmed by being threatened with prosecution—and potentially prosecuted and convicted—for acting as McCormack did and who is protected from prosecution for those same actions by the injunction as modified by the Ninth.  The women who are under the gun here, also are in a time-sensitive situation: their pregnancy must be terminated promptly, or not at all.  We the People are harmed by this court’s announcement that selective enforcement of a law, as a matter of state policy, is entirely legitimate.

This is a rule of law question, regardless of what we might think of the legitimacy of abortion itself.

Obamacare, the IRS, Privacy, and Whose Money Is It, Anyway?

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Here is a partial list, courtesy of Elizabeth MacDonald of Fox Business, of the additional privacy invasions in which Obamacare requires the IRS to engage, in order to ensure that you, “private” citizen, are complying with the Progressive Government’s determination of what is appropriate for you.  Understand, you’ve lost the right to determine what level or type of health insurance coverage is appropriate—the Progressive Government will determine that for you.  You’ve also lost the right to determine what level of coverage is affordable according to your own—or your small (or large) business’ estimate—expense pattern and what you’ve decided you’re willing to pay—the Progressive Government will determine that for you.

According to the Taxpayer Advocate Office, we erstwhile private citizens must tell the government’s man, under Obamacare,

  • our insurance plan information, including who is covered under the plan and the dates of coverage;
  • costs of [our] family’s health insurance plans;
  • whether [any of us] had an offer of employer-sponsored health insurance;
  • cost of employer-sponsored insurance;
  • whether [any of us] received a premium tax credit;
  • whether [any of us] has an exemption from the individual responsibility requirement.

Moreover, the IRS under Obamacare is requiredauthorized to talk with folks about us with whom they never before had routine contact—all to ensure that we’re “paying our fair share.”  This list includes

  • new state-run insurance exchanges;
  • employers;
  • insurance companies;
  • government insurance programs.

Your W-2 no longer is enough; now the IRS will be quizzing your employer in great detail.  The fact that you do, or don’t, have health insurance coverage no longer is a private matter; the Progressive Government will be quizzing your insurer.

On top of this, if we must pay a penaltytax because we don’t have the Progressive Government’s definition of “adequate” coverage, that tax is designed to be the maximum collectable, not the minimum.  The tax is either a fixed dollar amount, or a percentage of our income above the filing threshold, whichever is greater.  Even common criminals, on conviction, don’t automatically get the maximum sentence in every case.  But then, your money really isn’t yours, anyway—it’s the property of the Progressive Government; it’s just ensuring it gets every bit of its property.  And the criteria for determining the size of our tax?  They include more destruction of our privacy:

  • the IRS determines our “household income,” the sum of the incomes of everyone living under our roof
  • the IRS will demand to know the insurance coverage of each person living under our roof.

If anyone is lacking proper insurance, you get the tax.

It’s just as bad for the small businesses that we “private” citizens run, now for the benefit of government rather than for our own purposes.  Here’s an example of the penaltytax “your” small business must pay.

Businesses with more than 50 employees are required under Obamacare to provide “adequate” health insurance coverage for all of their employees.

The tax is $2,000 per employee, but the business must first knock out from the math the first 30 workers—part-timers don’t count.

Example: If you have 51 full-time employees and 15 part-time employees throughout the year, and one full-time employee is receiving a tax credit to help them buy health insurance [because you’re not providing “adequate,” “affordable” insurance for that employee], your business will have to pay:

51 (the number of full time employees) – 30 (the first 30 employees are excluded)

21 x $2,000 = $42,000

Notice that: one employee is getting short-changed (according to the Progressive Government), so we pay the penalty on a multiplicity of employees.

Think about the effect this will have on hiring.

Read Ms MacDonald’s entire article to see a fuller the list of abuses Obamacare heaps on what used to be “our” businesses.

Remember all of this in November.

Some Thoughts on Government Surveillance

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Here’s the nose of the camel, courtesy of (here’s a surprise) the EPA, as reported by Fox News.  The EPA is flying drones over private property in order to “inspect” that property for government averred purposes.  Apparently, the EPA has been doing this for nearly 10 years over, among other regions, an area the EPA calls Section 7 (an area containing Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri).

A large concern has to do with jurisdiction.  Nebraska, for instance, has the responsibility for environment questions in its part of Section 7 through its Department of Environmental Quality; the EPA has only an oversight role.  Nevertheless, the EPA insists on conducting this surveillance with its own airborne resources—ostensibly as a cost-efficient way for it and state governments to reduce the number of on-site inspections and focus on “areas of the greatest concerns.”  Hmm….

Nebraska Congressmen Adrian Smith, Jeff Fortenberry, and Lee Terry (all Republicans) and Nebraska Senators Ben Nelson (D) and Mike Johanns (R) sent a letter expressing concerns about this hidden searchsurveillance to the EPA by that said, in part

Farmers and ranchers in Nebraska pride themselves in the stewardship of our state’s natural resources.  As you might imagine, this practice has resulted in privacy concerns among our constituents and raises several questions[.]

There’s another concern, also, though.  It’s better for us to have the on-site inspectors.  At least then the property owners/lessors know when the government’s surveillance is occurring and can accompany the government’s men.  And they can make sure, at least on the particular trip, that the government’s inspection is limited to the claimed purpose.

The convenience of the government can never be an excuse for abridging our individual liberties.