Now that the election is over, I’m back to talking about politics. I wasn’t going to have a mud-wrestling fight on behalf of a bunch of candidates I couldn’t even stand to mention. So I waited until the dust settled so I could see which of the many wrong-headed dudes I’d be arguing with in my mind for the next decade. Congratulations, Obama! You’re my new president. And yes, you are MY president. Like it or not, you won and we’re stuck with each other like a bad evening at TGIFriday’s on Love Connection.
So I’m re-reading your various plans for putting America “back together” and most of them sound like what you would argue with if you were conservative and bold. I myself am not going to argue against tax breaks for the poor because then I’ll sound like some cartoonish pig. As I merrily skimmed through most of what I already knew (“working Americans” is code for “we’re not going to tell you whether or not you’re in the planned bracket for the taxcut until after we get your vote”) I came across this and about pooped myself.
Simplify Tax Filings for Middle Class Americans: Obama and Biden will dramatically simplify tax filings so that millions of Americans will be able to do their taxes in less than five minutes. Obama and Biden will ensure that the IRS uses the information it already gets from banks and employers to give taxpayers the option of pre-filled tax forms to verify, sign and return. Experts estimate that the Obama-Biden proposal will save Americans up to 200 million total hours of work and aggravation and up to $2 billion in tax preparer fees.
Cute, isn’t it? How they make the consolidation of private information a plus. Look at how simple it is for us to look your information up for you!
Go right ahead and get accustomed to it, so when we take the next steps and pre-fill in all your healthcare information from a national database you won’t mind. You won’t even question why there is a central database storing all of the information about your doctor visits, medical treatments and prescriptions.
If knowledge is power and libraries are the repositories of knowledge, then databases are for the easy access and retrieval of knowledge. Any time your information enters a database you are granting that database holder knowledge of you and power over you. I say that as a person who has spent years building databases. I know exactly what they’re for and what they can do. Yes, they can make your taxes easier. But they can make the rest of your life–and your children’s lives–hell.
Wait till you hear my idea for thumbprint voter registration…
Socialists & fascists always enter telling folks it’s in their best interests, it’s for the children & widows, it’s really just simpler this way . . . Then BAM! “Constitution? C’mon–this is the 21st century!!”
Sorry kat, when it comes to privacy I’m probably damn near as libertarian as you, but this isn’t something I can get upset over. As I understand it, this is information that is already collected by the IRS directly anyways. The plan isn’t a consolidation of information because there’s no sharing going on between agencies. Nobody (and I mean nobody) gets hold of our personal information who doesn’t already have it. Your information isn’t being put IN a database. It’s already there.
Ever order anything from Amazon? They already know tons more about you than the Govt ever will. I use an online tax service, it takes me 20 minutes to file, and they make it very easy to collect info from my banks and employer.
This is not something to fear.
As I understand it, this is information that is already collected by the IRS directly anyways
Sure. This first part lulls you into complacency because they’re supposedly just porting over bank interest, mortgage interest and withholding information from the various reporting documents on file. I know this first step is nothing. Well, it’s not nothing because it does lay the ground floor for a cross-discipline database (something libertarians are wholeheartedly against from the getgo). I tend to resist first steps because they are exactly that. FIRST steps.
They already know tons more about you than the Govt ever will.
No. Nice try, but Amazon doesn’t have access to my health records, my tax records or my social security records. All they have is some algorithm that tells them I like tawdry detective novels, Warren Zevon and might buy the first season of Pushing Daisies on DVD.
By my calculations, the frog is currently enjoying his nice, warm bath, and has adjusted nicely to the 130 degree Fahrenheit temperature.
By this time next year, 140 degrees will be feeling mighty cozy, but a bit of light-headedness may begin to set in.
It’s nothing to worry about. Trust us.
This first part lulls you into complacency
The trick is not getting complacent. I know the difference between them using information they already have and them collecting information they don’t or sharing that information with others (including other agencies within the government). To use Chaotic Hammer’s boiling frog example, there’s nothing wrong with a warm bath if you’re smart enough to watch the thermometer.
Of course I’m also a big proponent of choice. Perhaps they could allow individuals to decide whether they want the information in the IRS computer to be pre-printed or just left on the harddrive. All we’re literally talking about is whether a form is printed by a computer or by an ink pen. NOTHING ELSE changes. It’s not a privacy issue at all. The only libertarian complaint I can see here is the costs of the computer ink that will of course be paid for with tax dollars.
I do disagree with Mack’s Amazon comparison though. For a different reason than you though. It’s not a matter of WHAT information Amazon has on me, but rather that I agreed to give it to them. I keep a much tighter stranglehold on my info when I don’t have a choice in the matter. In this case however, I just don’t see where the government is collecting, sharing, or using my information at all.
Dolphin, I agree with what you said. The Amazon thing is more than just algorythms, though. The minute you turn loose of your CC info, your purchases can be tracked wherever you go.
The Govt already has access to your tax records, Kat. Its who you report them to.
Part of the problem with that whole “it’s your choice” thing is that most of the lemmings of the country will gladly give up their privacy for a little convenience. Suddenly, those who aren’t playing ball cause a big red flag to go up.
Sure, you have the 4th amendment right to refuse to allow the cop to search your vehicle, unfortunately all the other morons wave it so your refusal makes you suspect. Poof! Gone.
“We need your social security number for our database.
Why?
That’s just how we do it for everyone.”
Part of the problem with that whole “it’s your choice” thing is that most of the lemmings of the country will gladly give up their privacy for a little convenience. Suddenly, those who aren’t playing ball cause a big red flag to go up.
It’s like that poor libertarian guy in Ohio who got in all that trouble for refusing to show his ID to a rent-a-cop at Circuit City. He was well within his legal rights but ended up cited and all sorts of stuff.
The last laugh is on Circuit City.
Part of the problem with that whole “it’s your choice” thing is that most of the lemmings of the country will gladly give up their privacy for a little convenience.
Well taking away the choice of willing giving up privacy for convenience doesn’t sound particularly libertarian to me.
I dare you to make less sense.
Well Sar, if you’re not intelligent enough to comprehend how forcing somebody to maintain their privacy against their will isn’t a libertarian position, then they’re not much I can do for you.
Let the record show, your honor, where the first insult came from.
Where exactly in the comments above is someone being forced to maintain their privacy against their will? Where does giving up liberty give one any standing as a libertarian?
Let the record show, your honor, where the first insult came from.
Yes, let it. If you’re referring to this particular thread, it came at 4:20pm on Nov 7th, 2008. If you referring to our entire time conversing you first insulted me long before that. I get it, you don’t like me, though you’ve never met me. I couldn’t possibly care less, I just wish you’d do me the favor of ignoring me so I could engage with people who can have conversation with out being a prick.
Sorry bout taking up the space on your blog for that little back and forth Kat. Won’t happen again, I just wrote a GreaseMonkey script to automatically block all individual comment divs containing an img tag with sarcastro’s avatar’s class so now I don’t even have to waste my bandwidth on his blather.
Victory is mine!
i don’t see it either. my employer reports my income and tax paid, so does my bank for interest or dividend income. It’s only the deductions that aren’t fed into the IRS database and I do that part myself in an attempt to legally take every penny I can back.