From:
Susan Kniep, President
The Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations, Inc.
Website: ctact.org
860-528-0323
February 12, 2004
WELCOME TO THE 22nd EDITION OF
TAX TALK
Your update on what others are thinking, doing, and planning
Send your comments or questions to me, and
I will include in next week's publication.
Please note that TAX TALK is now on our Website
Thank you to all who contributed to TAX TALK this week. Several
interesting articles follow to include the
*Is the FBI Bugging Your Car?
*Citizens Against Government Waste Provides
Insight on the Federal Deficit
*A FCTO Member Would Like Information on
Local Economic Development Commissions
*Excerpt from Tactics
Often Used to Form and Sell Budgets
DO YOU HAVE
SOMETHING YOU WOULD LIKE TO
INCLUDE IN NEXT WEEK'S PUBLICATION?
*************************************************************
Phil Gosselin, imgoose7@yahoo.com
East Hartford Taxpayers Association
Subject: Big Brother on Board
February 9, 2004
Big Brother on Board Charles R. Smith
Thursday, Dec. 11, 2003 OnStar
Bugging Your Car
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/12/10/213653.shtml
Thursday, Dec. 11, 2003 OnStar Bugging Your Car
Would it surprise you to find out that the FBI might be able to monitor private
conversations in your car? A recent court case revealed that the FBI used the
popular OnStar system to do just that. GM cars
equipped with OnStar are supposed to be the leading
edge of safety and technology. OnStar has run a
recent blitz of commercials citing helpless motorists calling in with every
type of emergency, from a heart attack to locking the keys inside the car. In
the advertising world, OnStar reacts quickly by
sending help or even unlocking the car. However, buried deep inside the OnStar system is a feature few suspected - the ability to
eavesdrop on unsuspecting motorists. The FBI found out about this passive
listening feature and promptly served OnStar with a
court order forcing the company to give it access. The court order the FBI gave
OnStar was not something out of the Patriot Act
involving international terrorism or national security but a simple criminal
case. According to court records, OnStar complied
with the order but filed a protest lawsuit against the FBI. Yet the FBI was
able to enforce the original legal order and completed its surveillance because
OnStar's lawsuit took nearly two years to pass
through the court system. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled in OnStar's favor. The ruling was not based on
invasion-of-privacy grounds or some other legitimate constitutional basis. The
FBI lost because the OnStar passive listening feature
disables the emergency signal, the very life-saving call for help that the
advertisements tout as the main reason to purchase the system. "The
precedent has been set," stated former Georgia Rep. Bob Barr. "The
grounds on which the 9th Circuit reached the decision were not on the privacy
aspects of the case. Under the CALEA [Communications Assistance to Law
Enforcement Act] laws, the FBI blocking of the emergency signal constituted a
breach of the consumers' contract." The technical problem of blocking the
emergency signal is clearly one that the FBI tech teams can overcome. Thus,
under the current ruling, the FBI can resume using OnStar
to monitor subject vehicles once it has solved the emergency issue.
Open for Abuse
Further analysis of the OnStar design reveals that
the FBI may not be the only one listening in. According to my own electronics
experts, foreign intelligence services or even technically savvy organized
crime groups could invoke the passive OnStar feature.
The system used by the FBI for law enforcement purposes is open for abuse. That
abuse could span the spectrum of illegal operations from criminal activity to
commercial espionage to military espionage. It is not hard to envision a
foreign intelligence service using the covert OnStar
feature to monitor the conversations of unknowing government employees,
contractors or officials. It would seem certain that the FBI should be
concerned that its one-way listening feature might be twisted into a tool for
evil if it fell into the hands of hostile nations or ruthless criminals. One
would hope that law enforcement would design these very expensive surveillance
systems so they cannot be abused. "The abuse by others does not enter into
question unless it is for counter-espionage purposes," stated former Rep.
Barr. "As for the general public themselves, it is clear from the past
history that law enforcement is not concerned if these systems are
abused."
Digital Pearl
Harbor
There is historical precedent to back up Barr's claim. The Clinton administration
wanted to erect a multibillion-dollar monitoring system called Clipper.
However, the project had a major flaw that could have led to a digital Pearl
Harbor. Attorney General Janet Reno wanted to monitor
all American domestic computer communications such as e-mail, using the Clipper
"exploitable" feature to secretly intercept and decode any messages.
Prime targets for monitoring would be foreign governments, banks, corporations
and individuals the Clinton administration felt were a threat. The Clipper keys
were to be held by Ron Brown's Commerce Department under a project run by
Assistant Attorney General Webster Hubbell. In fact, it was the
"exploitable" feature of Clipper that worried U.S.
government officials. FBI Director William Sessions wrote two major papers to
then-Clinton National Security Advisor George Tenet early in February of 1993.
The FBI documents reveal that the Clipper system had flaws that could
compromise all the computers so equipped. The FBI director wrote: "This
design means that the list of chip keys associated with the chip ID number
provides access to all Clipper secured devices, and thus the list must be
carefully generated and protected. Loss of the list would preclude legitimate
access to the encrypted information and compromise of the list could allow
unauthorized access." The Clipper flaw also worried other U.S.
government officials. In fact, NASA decided to decline to use any Clipper
device. In 1993, NASA Associate Administrator for Management Systems and
Facilities Benita A. Cooper wrote: "There is no way to prevent the NSA
from routinely monitoring all encrypted traffic. Moreover, compromise of the
NSA keys, such as in the Walker case,
could compromise the entire system." For those of you who do not remember,
former Navy officer Jonathan Walker is currently serving a life sentence for
espionage because he gave the Soviet Union the secret code keys to U.S.
military communications. In short, NASA pointed out that a single security
breach by one agent would have given total access to every computer in the United
States to a foreign power. The
desire to monitor all communications at any cost is well documented. Despite
the warnings in 1993 that the draconian Clipper system had an Achilles' heel,
Ms. Reno and VP Al Gore continued to pursue mandatory Clipper designs for
America right up to the end of the Clinton administration.
For Whom the Booth Tolls
The Big Brother-like desire to monitor you does not stop with computers, phones
and OnStar. The state of Virginia recently
revealed that it has used electronic tollbooth systems for law enforcement
surveillance. The Virginia Smart Tag system is designed to electronically pay
tolls, allowing customers to speed through specially equipped booths. The Smart
Tag is a small electronic box about the size of a deck of cards that is
attached to a customer's windshield. Angry lawyers and privacy advocates argued
that the Smart Tag system could be used against customers by law enforcement.
The Virginia Department of
Transportation promised in several public statements that the system would be
used only for toll collection purposes. That promise turned out to be a lie.
Recent court actions forced the state to reveal that the Smart Tag system had
been used by law enforcement for surveillance. The systematic use of a toll
collection process for surveillance brings into question the move to
nationalize the toll process with a single electronic tag to pay any toll.
No Check - No Balance
Clearly, any surveillance system can be used and abused at the expense of the
general public unless there are checks that balance law enforcement's need to
know with the public's right to privacy. At the moment, those checks and
balances don't appear to be in place. "The government's efforts to thus
enhance its ability to listen in to our conversations have moved into high gear
in the aftermath of 9/11," stated former Rep. Bob Barr. "The Patriot
Act granted law enforcement certain powers, including administrative warrants
that inhibit our ability to check to see that these powers are used
correctly," concluded Barr.
*************************************************************
Roland Fisher, rolandfisher@comcast.net
East
Hartford
Taxpayers Association
Subject: Taxpayers Seeing Red, CBO Estimates Record
Deficits
February 1, 2004
A special thank you to Roland Fisher for forwarding to
us the following article from the website: Citizens Against Government Waste. Travel to this website for more
interesting information. http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer
(Washington, D.C.) Citizens Against
Government Waste (CAGW) once again today blasted Congress for its fiscal
irresponsibility. In its annual economic outlook, the Congressional Budget
Office (CBO) projected the fiscal 2004 deficit at $477 billion and $362 billion
for 2005. Long-term figures project a $2.4 trillion deficit over the next
ten years, an increase of $1 trillion from the CBO’s
August report. “Despite the ongoing war on terrorism and events in Iraq, members of Congress have been more
concerned about filling the coffers of special interests during election year
politics than the fiscal well-being of the country,” CAGW President Tom Schatz
said. “The money members of Congress spend today to get reelected will be
devastating to our children and grandchildren for decades to come.” The CBO
report in August estimated a $480 billion deficit in fiscal 2004 and a $341
deficit in fiscal 2005. While the improving economy brought in more
federal revenue, it was offset in new spending by items such as the recently
passed Medicare bill. The CBO today warned that if federal spending is
not curbed, the deficit is likely to increase. “With big-ticket items like the
energy and transportation reauthorization bills coming down the pipeline,
taxpayers can expect the deficit to skyrocket even further,” Schatz
continued. “Yet knowing what was ahead, members of Congress showed no
concern for the deficit when they included thousands of pork-barrel projects in
the recently passed fiscal 2004 Omnibus spending bill, including: $50 million
for an indoor tropical rainforest; $2 million for the Appalachian Fruit
Laboratory; $1 million for the Alaska SeaLife Center;
and $300,000 for the National Wild Turkey Federation.” President Bush will
submit his fiscal 2005 budget to Congress on Monday. It is expected that
he will propose a less than one percent increase in non-defense discretionary
spending in an effort to cut the deficit in half over the next five
years. Over the first three years of the Bush Administration, such
spending increased 27 percent, leading to a record deficit of $375 billion in
fiscal 2003. The fiscal 2004 projections surpass that figure by $202
billion, or 54 percent. “This year, members of Congress need to at least stick
to the tight parameters of the non-defense budget set by the President,” Schatz
concluded. “Taxpayers are more concerned about the deficit and the state
of spending than official Washington believes. CAGW will continue to
work with other fiscal conservative organizations to hold the administration
and Congress accountable for the record red ink.” Citizens Against
Government Waste is the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization
dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.
*************************************************************
Maury Johnson, Mauryj1923@aol.com
Taxpayers Group: QUEST Stratford (Quality Education for Stratford Taxpayers)
Subject: How are Economic
Development Commissions/Committees activities conducted by some of our CT
towns?
Date: January 21, 2004
Hi Susan, Good job on the Twentieth edition of Tax TAlk.
Have a question which some of your readers may be able to help with. How are Economic Development Commissions/Committees activities
conducted by some of our CT towns? Do they create an Economic Development
Authority? Do they fund some group/persons to carry out aggressive
activity in economic development? What has worked well as a
process? Would
appreciate comments.
************************************************************
Peter Arcidiacono,
PJArcidiacono@aol.com
Common Sense, East Hampton
Subject: Tactics Often Used to
Form and Sell Budgets
A special thank you to Peter for providing us with a wonderful "resource
that can be used to become aware of (and be armed to counter) tactics sometimes
used by officials as they form and try to sell their proposed
budgets." This
document can be found on FCTO's website, ctact.org,
under Budgets-Local. I
will be offering excerpts within each Tax Talk Publication understanding the
significance of this document as we head into the local budget season...
Tactics Often Used to Form and Sell Budgets
The following is a
resource that can be used to become aware of (and be armed to counter) tactics
sometimes used by officials as they form and try to sell their proposed
budgets.
1. Salaries: Salaries
account for most of the budget. In selling the budget, officials often say the
salaries are fixed by contract. What they don’t say is salaries are fixed only
if no turnover in staff is assumed. But turnover does occur. When it does, any
staff member who leaves is usually replaced by a more junior hire that is paid
less money. For example, replacing a teacher at the top of the salary scale
with one at the bottom of the scale can save up to $35,000 a year. Typical
staff turnover is 10%. For a system with 150 teachers, that means a turnover of
15 teachers. If only $10,000 were saved per departing teacher, the salary
account would be over budgeted by $150,000. This might be acceptable IF the
resulting surplus funds were returned at the end of the year. But the surplus
is invariably spent on other items. Officials should be asked if the salary
account includes any savings resulting from expected staff turnover. And,
equally important, how does the budgeted saving compare with past turnover
savings experience.
2. The salary line item in the education budget is often
presented as one massive number. When pressed for details, one finds that it
includes expenditures for substitutes, stipends, and overtime
all items that are not necessarily fixed. Go to ctact.org under Local-Budgets to learn more....