Media and Blog Articles – part 2 of 11 (Year 2015)

1,837 thoughts on “Media and Blog Articles – part 2 of 11 (Year 2015)”

1. It is truly frightening how nationalistic ( NOT patriotic ) America has become. It all smacks of the third Reich and Naomi Wolf ( see youtube) talks about it a lot.

2. A look back to The New Yorker, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/12/09/too-much-information

   The phrase “total information awareness” is creepy enough to merit a place alongside “USA Patriot Act” and “Department of Homeland Security,” but it is not the Information Awareness Office’s only gift to the language. The “example technologies” which the Office intends to develop include “entity extraction from natural language text,” “biologically inspired algorithms for agent control,” and “truth maintenance.” One of the Office’s thirteen subdivisions, the Human Identification at a Distance (HumanID) program, is letting contracts not only for “Face Recognition” and “Iris Recognition” but also for “Gait Recognition.” (Tony Blair has pledged the full coöperation of the Ministry of Silly Walks.) Another of the thirteen, FutureMap, “will concentrate on market-based techniques for avoiding surprise and predicting future events”—a sounder approach, ideologically, than regulation-based liberal soothsaying.

   The Information Awareness Office is working on some really cool stuff that will eventually turn up at Brookstone and the Sharper Image, like a Palm Pilot-size PDA that does instantaneous English-Arabic and English-Chinese translations. But the Office’s main assignment is, basically, to turn everything in cyberspace about everybody—tax records, driver’s-license applications, travel records, bank records, raw F.B.I. files, telephone records, credit-card records, shopping-mall security-camera videotapes, medical records, every e-mail anybody ever sent—into a single, humongous, multi-googolplexibyte database that electronic robots will mine for patterns of information suggestive of terrorist activity. Dr. Strangelove’s vision—”a chikentic gomplex of gumbyuders”—is at last coming into its own.

3. ABC News’s Nightline would like to interview an American overseas who is IN THE PROCESS of renouncing his/her US Citizenship. Geoff Martz who is the show’s producer and with whom I am working on this story about our plight is especially interested in those who are renouncing because of the consequences of FATCA (Foreign Account Compliance Agreement). If necessary, Nightline would be willing to wait to broadcast until after the renunciation is complete (i.e. until the individual obtains his/her Certificate of Loss of Nationality (CLN)). If you are interested in letting Nightline chronicle the days leading up to your renunciation, please contact Geoff Martz at geoff.martz@abc.com or private message Keith to discuss further.

   https://www.facebook.com/groups/AmericanExpatriates/523975671101843/?notif_t=group_activity

4. The democrats want our votes for the election in 2016. I think we need to let them know, as a couple of comments already have done, how we feel and what we think about the issues and the democratic party. Let’s get the comments going over there!!!! http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/us-democrats-bring-expat-conference-to-edinburgh-1-3920145#axzz3oxUXfzIm

5. Calgary: loved that gem. To think that it actually is coming to that. Next step: abolish cash…
   http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c47c87ae-e284-11e3-a829-00144feabdc0.html

6. Allison Christians publishes more on the IGAs.
   http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2674435

7. Since the new Moderator of the United Church of Canada is a dual Canadian-US citizen, she might be approachable about the plight of “US persons” in Canada. Perhaps she knows the history of UCC support for American war resistors and draft dodgers in the late 1960s, along with their other social activism. Perhaps she is aware that these people, and their families, are now among the millions of Canadian citizens whose privacy and financial security have been removed by the Canada-US FATCA IGA. She might consider that this is a betrayal of Canadian citizens whose welcome into Canada was supported by the UCC. I hope so. Even if she were not a “US person” herself, she might be concerned about the loss of civil rights by any person or people. Even if she is US tax-compliant herself, she should understand the situation of Canadians who came to Canada because they did not want to remain Americans, when the church which she now leads supported their decision and welcomed them.

   I hope that someone at IBS who is a member of the UCC

8. I hope that someone at IBS will remind the new Moderator of the United Church of Canada that her church welcomed American war resistors and draft dodgers in the 1960s and later, many of whom became Canadian citizens because they did not want to be Americans any longer. She might be aware that these people are among the many, even millions, of Canadian citizens now designated as US persons by the American government, and who have lost their privacy rights and financial security by the Canada-US FATCA IGA. The United Church, as one of the strongest advocates for welcoming these people into Canada, could now continue their social action by standing up for these Canadian citizens who have been betrayed by the Canadian government.

9. Mr Wood is busy today trying to terrify all of you criminals out there:

   http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/10/19/irs-warns-offshore-account-holders-disclose-before-its-too-late/?utm_source=followingimmediate&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20151019

   http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/10/19/irs-offshore-account-penalties-go-up-more-banks-sign-u-s-disclosure-deal/?utm_source=followingimmediate&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20151019

10. @Charl
    Well, there are some bad actors out there. I was visiting a friend in the U.S. over the summer and she said that in the Bahamas the banks had been approaching wealthy American tourists and offering offshore services. She looked rather alarmed when I said the NSA had collected all of the Bahamas telephone traffic, so I am hoping she hasn’t done anything stupid.
    The problem with these articles is that they are great at alerting the guilty, but a generally law-abiding person who was born in the U.S. but who moved away at a young age would never figure out in a million years that this crackdown had anything to do with them.

11. @Shovel,
    Thanks for bringing attention to this outstanding article by Allison Christians. Her analysis articulates so well the disconnect between a treaty and an IGA, and the unequal status of IGA-signing partners. If only other countries had understood this before signing. Now, how do we make certain that the non-US partners’ governments more fully recognize the twisted (and for them “one down”) deal that they have signed on to?

12. But for most people and depending on their facts, it seems better to adopt a compliance strategy and stop worrying about it. It might be merely filing FBARs, or streamlined. AND STAYING FOREVER IN THE US CLUTCHES.

    I agree that if someone isn’t in the US tax system at all, such as an accidental American who has never filed, the conversation is a different one. NOW WE’RE TALKING.

    Robert Wood also talks about a knowledge gap. HE’S CORRECT THERE — my US schooling never taught me an iota about US citizenship-based taxation and its consequences. My knowledge has been gained at this site and any media articles discussing those consequences with the anomaly of US CBT compared to RBT in the countries of most of the rest of the world.

13. Thanks for bringing this up again, Queenston.

    Shovel reported it here: http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/media-and-blog-articles-open-for-comments-part-2-of-2/comment-page-45/#comment-6703098 and placed the sole comment at the article here: http://ucobserver.org/faith/2015/10/prairie_populist/

    I agreed:

    Thanks, Shovel, for this link and your comment on the article. It would be a fine cause for The United Church of Canada to get behind.

    Is where anyone here at Brock who could pursue this?

    Why would or should our churches not get behind the social / human rights aspects of what is happening with FATCA’s discrimination of *US Persons in Canada?

14. @calgary411

    I thought that US taxation was the same as Canada… I have lived in countries who could care less what u have outside as long as u report what u made in their country… I am not the only person who thought this… I know elders who retired who are not residents anywhere, live a few months here & there all over the place… we were too poor over the yrs to worry about taxes since we were more worried about food on the table & roof over our heads… we got to the stage of being comfortable… we are hit with this crap… then to have our eyes open that our own country of Canada would toss us 2nd class citizens under the bus… guess we ain’t canadian enough to Canada to count

15. Here’s another reference (I think)to the Financial Times article link that I could’t access – http://www.globalresearch.ca/financial-times-calls-for-abolishing-cash-to-give-more-power-to-central-banks/5472522

16. @Charl
    What does Woods mean by the IRS might be “more lenient” in the future????

17. @Poly There are only two thing I know for certain, you can never decode where Mr. Wood nor the IRS are coming from.

18. Charl: Thanks for holding Mr. Wood’s feet to the fire. Great conversation you had with him! I hope he follows up on your idea. He is *not* reporting the whole story and he admits it when he says, “I agree that if someone isn’t in the US tax system at all, such as an accidental American who has never filed, the conversation is a different one.” I, for one, *really* want to hear what he has to say about such a person’s situation.

19. The claim here is that money is flowing in larger than normal amounts to escape FATCA in India:

    http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/forex-and-remittance/surge-in-outbound-payments-hint-at-expats-bid-to-escape-american-tax-authorities/articleshow/49459571.cms

20. Sent to me, a sad commentary on an American tax protestor…

    October 19, 2015, AntiMedia “Political Prisoner Dies in US Jail for Protesting Taxation”

    Last week, political prisoner Irwin Schiff died behind bars at the age of 87. He was serving multiple sentences related to his work protesting and challenging tax laws. Throughout his life, Schiff authored many books and ran for political office on several occasions. His final book, The Federal Mafia: How the Government IllegallyImposes and Unlawfully Collects Income Taxes, became the only non-fiction book to be banned in America.

    At the age of 87, Schiff was sentenced to 14 years in prison, and sadly, he just died just before his planned release.

    In a recent statement, son Peter Schiff explained how his father’s condition worsened while he was in custody.

21. @calgary411,
    Schiff put out ideas with legal backing that sounded reasonable but were not to experts. So he led a whole bunch of people to get into a lot of trouble following his refuted ideas.
    While I don’t think books should be banned I can see why they try and ban this one.
    No reasonable person can expect that there is a way to not pay income tax. The whole government apparatus would move to fill in any hole in the system. Taking stuff from people is their major function. Of course my objection to them is how much they take.

22. Thanks, Neill.

    …and if they take it extra-territorially from those resident in another country.

    I wasn’t familiar with this case, but posted for interest as passed on by an email. Interesting to say the least. I think we have had some past Peter Schiff (the son referenced) on this site.

23. A picture is worth a thousand words

    http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/anti-fatca-publicity-illustrations-clip-art-etc/

24. Banned a book? So much for freedom of speech.

25. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn is launching his own super PAC
    http://uk.businessinsider.com/billionaire-investor-carl-icahn-is-launching-his-own-super-pac-2015-10?r=US&IR=T

    “The first thing the PAC will do is focus on the pernicious effects that are occurring and will continue to occur as a result of Congress’s failure to immediately stop so many of our great companies from leaving our country,” Icahn wrote.

    would work with both Democrats and Republicans to push his policy goals.

    A lower “double tax” would solve this problem. Most of these companies would be willing to pay a 5% to 10% incremental tax on this money upon bringing it back to the United States where much of it would be invested in new capital and used to create new jobs.

    http://carlicahn.com/needed-legislation-letter/

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