Category: Fourth Amendment rights

Not Inadvertent

political donations, IRS, government surveillance, privacy

Maybe we can put a stop to the assault on the privacy of donors to political causes.

By “we” I mean The Buckeye Institute and the Institute for Free Speech, who have teamed up to challenge “a decades-old law that forces the IRS to demand that nonprofit charities hand over the private information of their largest donors every year.”

The IRS itself admits that collecting this personal data “poses a risk of inadvertent disclosure.”

Also a risk of fully advertent disclosure.

The IRS has often been used to harass the political enemies of federal officials in a position to tell the agency what to do.

Buckeye Institute President Robert Alt reports the Institute’s own experience as Exhibit A. In 2013, soon after it had urged Ohio to reject Obamacare-inspired efforts to expand Medicaid, the Institute was subjected to an IRS harassment-audit.

The specter of this investigation was a scary one for the Institute’s major donors, who reasonably assumed that the audit was retaliatory. They worried that if their own names came up during the audit, they too would be subject to IRS attention. Many donors drastically scaled back their giving so they’d be less of a target; others stopped donating altogether.

Prospects for the Institutes’ litigation are good. The U.S. Supreme Court determined in a 2021 ruling that the government must at least consider “the potential for First Amendment harms before requiring that organizations reveal sensitive information about their members and supporters.”

Anonymity in political activism has a long American history — from the start, actually.

It’s what democracy looks like.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with DALL-E2

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Tags IRS, privacy, surveillance

Fifth Amendment rights Fourth Amendment rights international affairs

The Chinazis Next Door

China, spies, police, Canada, USA, America

The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!

This 1966 comedy about the accidental grounding of a Soviet submarine off the coast of New England was nominated for four Academy Awards and captured the Golden Globe Award for best motion picture.

But a remake exclaiming “The Chinese Are Coming!” would be old hat: They’re already here.

“The People’s Republic of China has opened at least three police stations on Canadian soil as part of an alleged attempt by the country’s security state to keep an eye on the Chinese-Canadian diaspora,” The National Post informed last month.

“Canada-based dissidents of the Beijing government have long warned Canadian authorities that they face organized harassment from Chinese authorities,” The Post added.

A new report by Safeguard Defenders, a Spain-based foundation working for human rights in Asia, reveals there are now 54 of these Chinese “service stations” in 30 countries . . . including one in New York City.

The organization warns of “China’s growing global transnational repression,” explaining that in the last year 230,000 expats were “persuaded to return” to China but “these returns are often obtained by visiting extreme sanctions on the families of those targeted, such as asset seizures and prohibition from seeking government health care or education.”

In another recent report noted by The Globe and Mail, “the United Nations human-rights office said it found ‘patterns of intimidations, threats and reprisals’ against Uyghurs and other Chinese nationals living overseas who had spoken out against Beijing.”

Just last week, “El Correo published direct corroboration from Chinese authorities” of “illegal policing operations” with an anonymous Chinese official telling the Spanish paper, “The bilateral treaties are very cumbersome, and Europe is reluctant to extradite to China. I don’t see what is wrong with pressuring criminals to face justice. . . .”

The message to Chinese dissidents is clear: “You’re not safe anywhere.”

Are we?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with DALL-E

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Tags China, human rights, police

crime and punishment Fourth Amendment rights general freedom

Fourth Amendment Dead?

Unconstitutional actions are constitutional.

A federal judge doesn’t say so explicitly, but that’s what his ruling amounts to.

The case, which we discussed previously, involves U.S. Private Vaults, a Beverly Hills company that the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided last year. The company has been fined $1.1 million for money laundering because it let dealers anonymously keep cash in its safe deposit boxes.

Judge Gary Klausner concedes that the FBI lied to obtain a warrant, planning to seize the property of all boxholders whether or not there was any evidence of a crime against a given boxholder. And to this day, “specific criminal conduct has not been alleged against customers.” Nevertheless, Klausner ruled that despite the lie, it was constitutional for the FBI to grab the boxes’ contents.

Of course, if the warrant authorizing the FBI to ignore Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures had been honestly solicited, that still would not have transmuted unconstitutional actions into constitutional ones.

“The court does not deny that the government had an improper motive when it applied for its warrant,” observes Rob Johnson, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, which is representing the boxholders.

“But it says that fact is irrelevant unless the improper investigatory motive was the only reason that the Government opened the safety deposit boxes. . . . If today’s shocking decision stands, it will set a dangerous precedent that will allow the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to bypass the Fourth Amendment.”

Thankfully, the Institute for Justice doesn’t regard the case as closed. It will appeal.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with DALL-E

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Tags 4th Amendment, freedom, law, police

First Amendment rights Fourth Amendment rights

The Bidening

It does seem — because of the raids and surveillance and things targeting critics of the regime — that the Biden administration (“the Biden”) is out to get its political opponents.

John Hinderaker of Powerline notes a few recent tip-of-the-iceberg actions by the Biden or its political allies.

The Dilbert comic strip by Scott Adams was suddenly dropped from 80 newspapers after the strip began mocking certain modish pieties about diversity. We’ve learned that ostensibly private censorship is often done at the behest of government or politicians eager to muzzle somebody.

The Biden issued a slew of subpoenas to persons associated with the Trump administration for documents about efforts to challenge the 2020 election results. Nearly all these pertain “to activities that are plainly lawful,” observes Hinderaker.

The Biden seized the cell phone of Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow and infamous skeptic of the 2020 election results. He’s accused of identity theft and damaging a computer related to an alleged breach of Colorado voting machines, accusations that Hinderaker regards as implausible on their face. “This all has to do with his opposition to the regime.”

Although the Biden may provide rationales for the targeting, these tend to be paper-thin. Why? Probably because the Biden wants you to know exactly why all this banana-republic stuff is happening. You are expected to take the micro-thin excuses as a hint — so that you will adopt a paranoid stance.

And to avoid saying or doing anything that may get you, too, targeted by the Biden.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with DALL-E

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Tags authoritarianism, Joe Biden, totalitarian

Accountability Fourth Amendment rights

Unjust “Investigation”

Can we trust the FBI to stick to the rule of law and defend our rights?

Yesterday I more than suggested that the answer is “No.”

Adding more fuel to this negative judgment, last week Eric Boehm at Reason told the tale of a Federal Bureau of Investigation raid upon safe deposits.

“The FBI told a federal magistrate judge that it intended to open hundreds of safe deposit boxes seized during a March 2021 raid in order to inventory the items inside,” Boehm writes, “but new evidence shows that federal agents were plotting all along to use the operation as an opportunity to forfeit cash and other valuables.”

When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton’s response, reportedly, was “that’s where the money is!” He actually didn’t say it, but FBI personnel understand the operative principle all too well . . . regarding safety deposit boxes.

Convictions? Hah!

They seize property on an expected-revenue-based rationale.

Since “details regarding the planning and execution of the FBI’s raid of U.S. Private Vaults arenow out in the open,” Boehm goes on to explain, it looks like the FBI has to say bye-bye to “more than $86 million in cash as well as gold, jewelry, and other valuables from property owners who were suspected of no crimes.”

The plot’s been foiled, it appears, but will the culprits within the FBI be prosecuted?

Seems unlikely.

Truth is, the culture at the FBI has never been good. Barring defunding (which would be politically difficult) perhaps FBI agents should be restricted to just investigation, stripped of their weaponry, forced to rely on state and local lawmen — and perhaps the U.S. Marshals — to make any searches and arrests at all.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Illustration assist from DALL-E