--- Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 22:46:37 -0400 From: J Plummer <jplummerat_private> Subject: Re: NCP: Privacy Villain of the Week: The IRS To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> http://www.nccprivacy.org/handv/020411villain.htm Privacy Villain of the Week: The IRS It's that time of year -- midnight rush hour at post offices, the bouncing joy of the "refund idiots," <http://www.jewishworldreview.com/strips/mallard/2000/mallard041102.jpg> snarky press releases <http://www.lp.org/press/archive.php?function=view&record=195> from the Libertarian Party. Yes, it's tax time, when Americans are required to turn over a wealth of personal data, not to mention a chunk of their wealth, to the Internal Revenue Service under penalty of law. What better time to examine how well the IRS guards your private data? After all, you're required to tell them how much you make, who paid you, your Social Security number, your address, what bank accounts or stocks yielded you interest, dividends or capital gains. Should you wish to forfeit a bit less of your money, they also will know the nature of your charitable giving, where you go to school, and medical expenses from abortions to drug rehab to the new obesity deduction <http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,49402,00.html> and any "approved" expense in between. Here are just a few recent examples of the IRS' lax vigilance over, and aggressive pursuit of, sensitive taxpayer information: The IRS is launching a new push to dig through credit card records in foreign banks <http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_comment/comment-mitchell040902.asp>looking for American accounts. Last year, the General Accounting Office of the Congress found IRS computer systems to be ludicrously insecure and vulnerable <http://www.computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV47_STO59540,00.html> to hackers. In 2000, Privacy Journal caught the IRS signing taxpayers up for junk mail. <http://www.politechbot.com/p-01563.html> You may still be in danger of a "lifestyle audit" <http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/1999/0699/features/f46699.html> if a bureaucrat or anonymous tipster decides you seem to be living beyond your means; though this practice was somewhat curtailed by legislation passed in 1998. Another GAO study <http://freedom.house.gov/library/technology/gaoirs.pdf> found the IRS did not live up to the privacy criteria for government websites set by the Federal Trade Commission, bombarding users with third-party cookies. Congress closed a loophole in 1997 that let thousands of IRS employees "legally" "browse" <http://www.privacilla.org/government/irsbrowsing.html> through taxpayer records at will, subject to the occasional administrative slap on the wrist, <http://www.epic.org/privacy/databases/irs/disposition.html> but no criminal sanction. If you believe the practice stopped in 1997, we have swampland in Florida for sale you might be interested in. For all this and, no doubt, much more, the Internal Revenue Service and its income tax are collectively the Privacy Villain of the Week. The Privacy Villain of the Week and Privacy Hero of the Month are projects of the National Consumer Coalition's Privacy Group. For more information on the NCC Privacy Group, see www.nccprivacy.org or contact James Plummer at 202-467-5809 or jplummerat_private . This release can be accessed directly at http://www.nccprivacy.org/handv/020411villain.htm ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sign this pro-therapeutic cloning petition: http://www.franklinsociety.org -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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