L. Neil Smith's
THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE
Number 249, November 30, 2003

From a practical standpoint


[Letters to the editor are welcome on any and all subjects. To ensure their acceptance, please try to keep them under 500 words. Sign your letter in the text body with your name and e-mail address as you wish them to appear.]


Letter from Pat Taylor

Letter from James J Odle

Another Letter from James J Odle

Letter from Letter from Robert R. Raymond via Kent Van Cleave


I'm confused. I thought the FSP voted Montana to be the most wanted (Western) state behind — or even ahead of — New Hampshire. Suddenly Montana is not mentioned any more, and Wyoming seems to be the only state of any interest in the West. Can anyone explain what's happening here?

Pat Taylor
[email protected]


Hey Robert A. Heinlein fans;

In case you weren't aware of it a previously unpublished R. A. Heinlein novel: For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs, is scheduled to be released in January.

Just thought you would like to know.

Take care,

James J Odle
[email protected]


Re: The Murder of a President; and the death of a constitution, by Patrick K Martin
www.webleyweb.com/tle/tle248-20031123-02.html

Pat:

You could very well be right in your suspicion that it was LBJ that had Kennedy wacked. What was his motive?

He needed the power of the Presidency cover-up his involvement in a previous Texas murder. LBJ is famous in Texas for his corruption.

Anyway that's the theme of a book that was released last month by an LBJ insider: Blood, Money and Power by Barr McClellan,

James J Odle
[email protected]


I'm not sure how I got on the distribution list for this, but it's a bit more information on a case I've been following in a discussion list or two. Hope it's of interest.

Kent
[email protected]

----- Original Message -----

The 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 whistleblower. 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.

Under the guise of a "practice" investigation, the IRS can ignore all the normal procedural protections against an illicit audit while it conducts such an audit. Simultaneously, the IRS can ignore all the legal protections afforded a person accused of a crime while conferencing with the people conducting a criminal investigation. Indeed, the IRS can even ignore the sunshine laws, as the records of such "practice investigation" are exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, as are grand jury proceedings.

The IRS claims it can exercise this authority in a secret proceeding without allowing a person the opportunity to cure any alleged mistakes, the opportunity to prepare a defense by knowing the exact facts they are accused of, without any opportunity for discovery, without any opportunity to call witnesses necessary for their defense, without any opportunity to cross examine their accusers, without any opportunity to testify at their own hearing about the merits of their position, without being forced to testify against themselves without such an assertion being held against them, and without even an opportunity for a hearing on the evidence.

This power of this little office with a Napoleonic vision goes even beyond the Patriot Act type authority and stories of FBI monitoring of war protestors.

Too Hoover-ish to be true in modern America? Just read the case of the IRS against Joe Banister scheduled for a "hearing" — a hearing where the IRS prohibited Banister from introducing any witnesses or presenting any evidence as to his defenses, and even discussing the sincerity, the truth or the "reasonableness" of his positions — on December 1 in the city by the bay, in the Tax Court chambers of the federal courthouse in San Francisco. History is being made.

For more information contact:

Law Offices of Robert G. Bernhoft S. C
207 East Buffalo Street
Suite 600
Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53202
ph. 414-276-3333
fx. 414-276-2822
[email protected]
[email protected]


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