I picked up this story at
http://www.antiwar.com/ I have heard people say that when the left hand meets the right hand at the other end something might be wrong. I am not a money grubing fool, but do know it's about as necessary as air and water into todays world.
I do post this noting where what the websites motto is, of course.
http://www.sianews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1414The IRS Claims New Patriot Act Type Powers to Punish Political Dissenters
by Robert R. Raymond
November 28,2003
In a precendent-setting case, the IRS wielded new power to punish the political speech of those who "espouse views" the government considers "inconsistent" with government-held beliefs. In a hearing originally closed to the public in a secret tribunal on a military island, but moved to a public location after protests from the press and the public, the IRS wants to wield this power against a former IRS whistleblower, who was forced to resign upon his discovery of fraud in the agency.
After monitoring and taping the whisteblower's appearances on Sixty Minutes, talk radio shows, and political publications where he rebroadcast his findings of IRS fraud, the IRS initiated this inquisition against their former whistelblower. This new power may find new political targets soon enough.
The IRS, through the small office of "Director of Practice," claims the authority to wield carte blanche authority over all the other powers of government -- the authority to monitor, surveil, and eavesdrop on political dissenters, the authority to pry into the private financial records of banks, businesses, and taxpayers, the authority to conduct secret investigations under a criminal grand jury, and the authority to censure political dissenters by branding on them a badge of infamy and stripping them of governmentally- protected licenses. In short, under the guise of a "practice" investigation, the IRS claims the right to wield all intrusive and invasive powers of government available...
A "license" to practice before the IRS -- even for people who have never requested such a license or actually practiced before the IRS, but are given one as a matter of law if they are accountants -- "licenses" the IRS to conduct private audits without notice to the taxpayer, confer with criminal prosecutors without disclosure, and bring special "disbarment" proceedings against disfavored dissenters, even if the alleged "disreputable" conduct has nothing to do with any "practice" before the IRS.
The IRS now claims it can use these so-called "practice" investigations of anyone who Congress licenses to practice before the IRS -- regardless of whether they actually practice before the IRS -- to surveil the public appearances of dissenters, eavesdrop on the political conversations of dissenters, benefit from secret grand jury investigations, hold secret conferences with the criminal investigators, surreptiously tap the private database of taxpayer information, including taxpayers who merely have some financial "connection" to the accused, audit the political dissenter's personal financial records, and use all this information against the dissenter in the "practice" proceeding
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