IPFS
To Shut Down the Surveillance State, We Must End the IRS By Mark Adams
Written by Donna Hancock Subject: Government WasteEdward
Snowden was not the first to warn us.
Thomas Drake is a former senior executive NSA and, like Snowden, a whistleblower. He, along with other NSA top-level employees, went public to warn Americans that the NSA is dangerously out of control.
In
swift retaliation the government set out to destroy him.
Here’s
the time-honored blueprint of tyrants:
First, demonize the
targeted victim. Mr. Drake was fired from the NSA. Left with no source of
income, he was blackballed from finding gainful employment.
Second, assign a team of
government - paid lawyers to rack up a list of felonies that cumulatively add
up to a long prison sentence. The
government charged Mr. Drake with violation of the Espionage Act, among other
felonies including: 5 counts of willful retention of national defense
information, 1 count of obstructing justice, and 4 counts of making a false
statement.
Third, throw the victim
behind bars. Mr. Drake was arrested at his home. While taking a shower he was
startled to have the shower curtain pulled back only to find a loaded pistol
pointed at his head by a gun - slinging FBI agent.
In early June 2012, a few days
after broadcast of a 60
Minutes episode regarding the
Drake case, the government dropped all of the charges against Thomas Drake
except one - a misdemeanor of misusing the agency’s computer system. By this
time Mr. Drake was financially devastated and agreed to plead guilty to the
misdemeanor charge.
At the July sentencing hearing the presiding judge, Richard D. Bennett of the Federal District Court, bitterly denounced that it was “unconscionable" for the government to charge a defendant with a list of serious crimes that could have resulted in 35 years in prison only to drop all of the major charges on the eve of trial.
Snowden was aware of the treatment inflicted on Drake. This is why he fled the country he had loved, and a life he enjoyed, into exile abroad. And over the past several months, current and former intelligence officials have called for Snowden to be executed – following a Soviet-style show trial, if possible, but extra-judicially, if necessary. One intelligence agent actually suggested that Snowden could be murdered by the CIA employing the same poisoning method the KGB had used to kill Bulgarian dissident Georgia Markov in the late 1970s.
The story of Thomas Drake was a warning to Snowden – but also to the rest of us, because it reveals the deeply laid connections between the NSA and other elements of the Regime that threaten the public at large.
Included
in the wolf-pack of government entities that sought to destroy Mr. Drake is the
“Public Integrity” Section of the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Two
years ago, it was revealed that the “Public Integrity Section” of DOJ framed
the late Senator Ted Stevens. As reported by Jerry Seper in the March 2012
issue of the Washington Times, DOJ prosecutor
William M. Welch II, who had previously been charged with contempt and removed from the Senator Ted Stevens case, was assigned to be the government's
Senior Litigation Counsel when they were gunning for Thomas Drake – a case that
was so badly flawed it totally collapsed on the eve of trial.
This isn’t the first time that the “Public
Integrity Section” of the DOJ targeted a Congressman for destruction. Nor is
the NSA the only secretive three-letter federal agency conducting widespread
spying operations that target the American public.
On
April 26, 1982, Idaho Republican Congressman George Hansen presented what he
called “litigation-proof” evidence to the House Ways & Means Committee that
IRS spying was so massive in scope and so pervasive, that their electronic
spying racket had to be carried out “with the aid and cooperation of the
National Security Agency.”
What
could be more ominous than the NSA collaborating with the IRS to conduct surveillance
of the American population? One answer to that question is: The “Justice”
Department acting as an enforcer to punish conscientious public officials who
reveal those unconstitutional initiatives.
Shortly
after Rep. Hansen presented that evidence to Congress, he was charged with
multiple felonies by -- that’s right: the “Public Integrity Section” of the
DOJ.
Justice
Department attorneys Reid Weingarten and James Cole concocted a criminal
prosecution of Congressman Hansen and sent him to prison with a whooping
$40,000 fine.
Ten long years later Congressman Hansen’s conviction was overturned and the government had to reimburse the $40,000. But by then it was too late: he lost his congressional seat and his home – it was sold in order to pay the $40,000 fine. Like dissidents in the Soviet Union, George Hansen was a political prisoner – and his health deteriorated dramatically during his unjust and vindictive incarceration.
While
the IRS has been a blight on our country for roughly a century, it was radicalized
into stark brutality under the reign of Lyndon Johnson. Over the decades there
have been no fewer than 25 congressional investigations that probed nation-wide,
rampant abuse that the public has now come to expect from this lawless agency.
Republican
Congressmen Dave Camp at the Ways & Means Committee and Darrell Issa at
Oversight have been trying to investigate the IRS but have been stonewalled at
almost every turn. Ironically – or perhaps predictably – the effort to expose
wrongdoing within the agency, and to hold the responsible parties accountable,
have been stymied by “respectable” elements within the Republican Party
leadership, who are facing a long-overdue challenge from younger and
libertarian-oriented activists.
The
Old Guard on both sides of the aisle want to protect the IRS precisely because
it is invaluable as a way of punishing those who threaten their position – and
intimidating others who might be tempted to do likewise.
Think
of the spectacle of Lois Lerner invoke the Fifth Amendment when summoned to
testify before Congress regarding the agency’s illegal targeting of
conservative activists.
Now
consider this: Everything the IRS does requires that Americans incriminate
themselves. The IRS maintains its own “tax court” system in which the accused
are presumed guilty, and deprived of indispensable due process protections.
This
is the agency that will provide the punitive muscle behind the corporatist
power-grab called “ObamaCare.”
The problem isn’t that the IRS has become corrupt. The problem is its very existence. Given that the agency is acquiring the power to inflict literal life-and-death decisions on Americans, it’s clear that if we don’t end the IRS, the IRS will soon be the end of us.
1 Comments in Response to To Shut Down the Surveillance State, We Must End the IRS By Mark Adams
The IRS is the sister organization to the so-called "Federal" "Reserve" Banks. Both organizations are UNCONSTITUTIONAL.