Author Topic: IRS claims need to track taxpayer license plates  (Read 286 times)

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rangerrebew

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IRS claims need to track taxpayer license plates
« on: April 26, 2014, 09:04:35 am »
IRS Claims Need to Track Taxpayer License Plates

25FridayApr 2014
 

Posted  by Mary W. in DHS, Forest Service, IRS, Law Enforcement, NSA, Police State, Surveillance State, Technology, TSA, Tyrannical Government, US Constitution, USDA   


Tired of the National Security Agency (NSA) listening to and recording your phone calls? Tired of them monitoring your social media posts? Tired of the Department of Homeland Security paying local police to install surveillance cameras capable of making citizens into suspects? Sadly, there’s no time to rest, as several other federal agencies are jumping on the surveillance bandwagon.

Bloomberg reports that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Forest Service (among others) have awarded nearly half a million dollars to Vigilant Solutions, a California-based company that provides tools for tracking license plates and for accessing license plate databases.

Why would the IRS and the Forest Service need the technology to track the license plates of Americans? Bloomberg explains:

“The IRS uses a variety of investigative tools similar to other law-enforcement agencies to assist with criminal cases,” Eric Smith, an agency spokesman, said in an e-mail. He declined to say how the IRS used the records in its investigations.

The Forest Service, part of the Department of Agriculture, awarded Vigilant a contract valued at as much as $47,019 for its “CarDetector” system in August 2009, records show. The product scans and captures license plate numbers, compares the data to law enforcement lists of wanted vehicles and sends alerts when such vehicles are detected, according to the company’s website.

“License plate readers are helpful to our law enforcement officers with illegal activities on national forest system lands in California,” Tiffany Holloway, a spokeswoman for the agency, said in an e-mail. She declined to comment about what types of crimes the tools are used to investigate or provide examples of how the technology has helped law enforcement.

Of course, there is a quid pro quo in the IRS’s purchase of license plate tracking technology.

Owe money to the IRS? Having trouble making your mortgage payments? Ever been sued or been arrested?

Soon, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will know the answers to these questions before you pass through security, and they might affect whether you are cleared for travel.

In an article from October 2013, the New York Times reported, “The Transportation Security Administration is expanding its screening of passengers before they arrive at the airport by searching a wide array of government and private databases that can include records like car registrations and employment information.”

The complete list of sources of personal data reviewed by the TSA also includes:

▪ private employment information

▪ vehicle registrations

▪ travel history

▪ property ownership records

▪ physical characteristics

▪ tax identification numbers

▪ past travel itineraries

▪ law enforcement information

▪ “intelligence” information

▪ passport numbers

▪ frequent flier information

▪ other “identifiers” linked to DHS databases

What does all of this have to do with “national security?” The New York Times writes that “the agency says that the goal is to streamline the security procedures for millions of passengers who pose no risk.”

The TSA released the documents detailing the depth of this screening, but has refused to comment publicly.

Speaking under condition of anonymity, a TSA official told the New York Times that “the main goal of the program was to identify low-risk travelers for lighter screening at airport security checkpoints, adapting methods similar to those used to flag suspicious people entering the United States.”

If the traveler is a member of an airline’s frequent flier program, the airline will be required to share the person’s travel history with the TSA.

Benjamin Newell, a spokesman for the Air Combat Command — another federal agency that has contracted with Vigilant to provide license plate tracking tools — told Bloomberg that all the secret surveillance will make America safer. “The more aware we are of who is entering a military facility, the better we are able to protect the lives and equipment on that base,” Newell said in a phone interview, as reported by Bloomberg.

Read more at The New American
http://theresistanceunited.com/2014/04/25/irs-claims-need-to-track-taxpayer-license-plates/
« Last Edit: April 26, 2014, 09:05:15 am by rangerrebew »