Fox Business

The Biden administration is aiming to bolster the Internal Revenue Service by adding bank account reporting requirements to Democrats' massive tax and spending bill, prompting a swift backlash from Republicans who have warned it infringes on customers' privacy.

Under the proposal, banks and other financial institutions would be required to annually report customers' account inflows and outflows of $600 or more to the IRS. The White House has estimated the policy, which would apply to bank, loan and investment accounts, could generate about $463 billion in additional revenue over the next decade.

But a draft of proposed tax increased released by House Democrats on Monday allocates an extra $78 billion in funding for enforcement measures over the next decade, but notably does not include any new bank reporting requirements that the White House argues is necessary to crack down on tax evasion by high-earners and corporations.

This would destroy any remaining vestige of financial privacy in America.

Just The News

The FBI on Tuesday announced a "massive worldwide takedown" of criminals around the globe with a sting operation in which the agency marketed and sold smartphones purported to encrypt messages, leading to roughly 500 arrests.

The sting operation, called Operation Trojan Shield, was led the agency's San Diego bureau.

FBI officials said in a press conference that the agency and other law enforcement groups worldwide, in an effort to nab criminals, created a fake company called ANØM to marketed the sleek black smartphones that were encrypted

However, when users sent messages, the phone would attach a master key that allowed law enforcement officials to decrypt and view the messages.

I find this extremely troubling. The FBI here created an explicit expectation of privacy under false pretenses and then spied on their "customers", presumably without warrants. I do not care that their actions appear to have resulted in catching real criminals; this action by the FBI appears entirely inappropriate and unconstitutional.

Reason

Dagny discovered that the FBI had seized the contents of her safe deposit box—about $100,000 in gold and silver coins, some family heirlooms like a diamond necklace inherited from her late grandmother, and an engagement ring she'd promised to pass down to her daughter—almost by accident.

After a brief moment of panic, some phone calls, and several days, Dagny and her husband Howard (pseudonyms used at their request to maintain privacy during ongoing legal proceedings) figured out what happened. On March 22, the FBI had raided U.S. Private Vaults. The federal agents were armed with a warrant allowing them to seize property belonging to the company as part of a criminal investigation—and even though the warrant explicitly exempted the safe deposit boxes in the company's vaults, they were taken too. More than 800 were seized.

Howard tells Reason there was no attempt made by the FBI to contact him, his wife, or their heirs—despite the fact that contact information was taped to the top of their box. Six weeks later, the couple is still waiting for their property to be returned.

This is exactly the sort of thing the Constitution was supposed to prevent.

Of Arms and the Law

A 9-0, four-page reversal of the First Circuit, which had held that the "community care taking exception" allowed warrantless search of a home and seizure of a firearm.

Upholding both the 2nd and 4th Amendments. Even the liberals joined. That's rare.

This also means Red Flag Laws are unconstitutional, as they would only be viable under something like the community care exception.

Forbes

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear oral argument in Caniglia v. Strom, a case that could have sweeping consequences for policing, due process, and mental health, with the Biden Administration and attorneys general from nine states urging the High Court to uphold warrantless gun confiscation. But what would ultimately become a major Fourth Amendment case began with an elderly couple’s spat over a coffee mug.

This case would eviscerate the 4th Amendment, should the court rule incorrectly. The police could enter anyone's home for any reason, without a warrant or probable cause of any crime.

Ars Technica

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspector general is investigating the government's use of cell phone location data obtained without search warrants.

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a division of DHS, "has paid a government contractor named Venntel nearly half a million dollars for access to a commercial database containing location data mined from applications on millions of Americans' mobile phones," five Democratic US senators said in October.

"CBP is not above the law and it should not be able to buy its way around the Fourth Amendment," the senators told Inspector General Joseph Cuffari while requesting an investigation into "CBP's warrantless use of commercial databases containing Americans' information, including but not limited to Venntel's location database."

This seems improper. That said, I think I've seen reports of this sort of thing before. It wouldn't surprise me if it was common practice.

... and they did it because of red flag laws. They are also refusing to share their bodycam footage, because of course they are. After all, that footage would expose them as liars who shot and killed a man while he slept peacefully in bed next to his pregnant girlfriend, who they also shot.

The police are keeping the survivors under surveillance and threatening them with arrest if they attend protests.

Everyone involved here needs to go on trial for murder and violation of civil rights. But they won't. Because they are police.

A blogger recounts his long-ago encounter with William Barr, Trump's nominee for attorney general. He thinks it's a positive story, but it's not.

The Latest

He did not hide his identity. When I heard he was the former Attorney General, I couldn't resist asking him what he thought about Janet Reno's raid on the Waco Compound in Texas, which had been in the news.

Surprisingly, he didn't flinch, but answered calmly, analytically and at length. He said he himself had overseen a similar operation, where hostages had been rescued. He had paid very close attention, had insisted that bloodshed be avoided. And it was.

I remember Barr saying his operation succeeded because everyone had been very patient, waiting until the hostage-takers had fallen asleep in the middle of the night. Then, using "flash-bang" grenades at 3 am, SWAT teams overwhelmed the sleeping gang, freeing hostages while capturing perpetrators - without the loss of a single life.

Barr persuaded me that had the will been there in the Clinton Administration to do the same, Waco need not have ended in a massacre.

If Barr actually said that, he's incredibly stupid and incompetent. Why? That's how the BATFE caused the problem in the first place. Sure, they didn't go in at 3am. But they used smoke, flash-bangs, "dynamic entry", even snipers in helicopters. The whole thing was meant to put on an exciting and violent show for the media they invited, and to overpower the unsuspecting people within through their use of immediate deadly force and overwhelming numbers.

He may give the impression of being calm and considerate and competent in his manner. But his actual expressed ideas demonstrate a complete failure to understand the problem he was discussing and how it arose in the first place.

By some strange coincidence, the missing months of text message records are some of the most important months for understanding the Trump-Russia investigation.

So remember: those 10,000+ text messages between Strzok and Page that included the "insurance policy" against a Trump win and god only knows what else? Those are the ones they thought we should be allowed to have. The missing messages -- between Dec 14th 2016 and May 17th 2017 -- must be much, much worse.

Funny how government agencies have their records go missing whenever this sort of investigation pops up. I remember when Lois Lerner destroyed her hard drives, laptops, and cell phones. And of course there's Hillary, who wiped her server with a cloth soaked in Bleachbit.

UPDATE: Sessions announces DOJ will probe missing messages. Isn't this exactly the sort of thing that needs a special counsel to investigate independently? Remember, DOJ is just as corrupt as the FBI...