Yeah, right, Dag. The government doesn’t listen without a court order. I’m glad you believe that. Wanna buy a bridge?
I was just reading an article yesterday that the feds can even take people’s assets without ever charging them with a crime if they suspect that their monetary transfers MIGHT imply that the person MIGHT be evading taxes by making repeated monetary transfers of less than $10,000. They’ve been doing it without a court order, without charges, without even notifying the parties. The article cited the case of a career Army sergeant who was saving some of his cash every paycheck at his home, and depositing it when it accumulated to over $8K. He didn’t trust banks all that much. The feds took over $44,000 of his savings and he hasn’t been able to get it back. In another case, a lady who owns and runs a diner was making transfers of $8,000 to $10,000 regularly, and they took over $400,000 from her. She too has been unable to get it back. No charges were ever filed against either party.
I think semi-precious/industrial metals make for better wealth-hoarding than cash. And yes, if you have cash, the government can and will snatch it up if there’s even the slightest chance it has drug or tax-evasion ties. “Seize first and ask questions later.”
I thought this article on license plate reading was interesting. At the Mall of America in Minneapolis, over 2 million scans in 90 days and 12,000 hits of people wanted for one reason or another. I guess I’m kinda on the fence. Its a good tool, but I don’t think the information should be stored, unless maybe for a day or a week when it could be identified as part of an investigation. So if you’re a wanted man, stay out of the Mall of America. And they called him Governor Goofy for coming up with the idea. I liked him.
If it wasn’t for those gun loving friends you might be speaking German or Japanese or Russian right now. Letter to the editor today said there were 700,000 deer hunters in Wisconsin, 600,000 in Minnesota, same in Penn., etc. Would anyone dare to try and invade with all those guns pointed at them? Mexico wanted Japan to invade from the south through Mexico during WW II. Japan said no because in Texas there was a gun behind every blade of grass. One of the first things the Soviets did when they took over the eastern bloc was to confiscate all of the weapons. Sad so many drank the Kool Aide and forget the lessons of history.
Same…Huh ? Why are you are talking about the IRS. If you didn’t give the IRS expanded powers, our buddies in the top bracket would never pay any taxes and when caught, could easily do what corporations and rich people do in other activities, spend legal fees forever in court debating the issue. The IRS has been given expanded powers to literally confiscate your monies if outstanding taxes are owed or even thought to be owed…and it has been supported by every other branch of both parties. There has been no legislation to take it away. You are conflating what the IRS does with all govt. Enforcement activities.
The taking of monies owed out of a bank account by the IRS and the requirement for a court order for a specific monitoring of an individual conversation and communication have little in common.
Cars are sold with connectivity in mind and some how, car buyers think that what they do in the privacy of their own auto online or when connected in anyway, is somehow protected. It is not and nether should it be in this day and age. What is also a fact is that the more car buyers insist on this connectivity, the more they put themselves out their for for general services which some customers want but general monitoring of their activities which many don’t. There are some who “want” a corporation to know where they are all the time for security reasons but somehow think it’s an intrusion for those places you frequent in your automobile should not be scrutinized for criminal activity. You can’t have it both ways.
If you buy a new car, you are connected to many even before you turn the key. Now, that is a good issue to debate…not what all of “the Feds” are not doing.
I accompanied a friend (60ish) to pick up a new Toyota and the salesman got the blue-tooth all set up and the Sirius set on 60s music and rode around the block to give her a chance to become familiar with the new car.
I got a full walk through on my new Subaru from the salesman, he would have set up my blue-tooth phone (if I had one at the time, i do now) with an invitation that If I had any other questions to stop by. When my uncle bought his new Lexus a couple years ago coming from a Volvo he still had to spend some quality time with the owners manual figuring out things. He did need to drive the new car from Arizona back to their home here in Washington soon after buying the car. Quick start guides do help, but you still need to dive into the manual for some things. One of the warnings in the Subaru’s manual involves not using mind altering drugs while driving. Probably a few better ones in there.
wolyrobb I’m guessing the warning concerning mind altering drugs is due to all of the ageing hippies that buy Subarus. I always check to see what the hieroglyphic idiot lights mean and the scheduled maintenance.