CISPA Returns Because the Terrorists Hate Your Freedoms

Staff Writer, R. Patrick Chapman

Government / Surveillance 
__________________________________

That is right, the men and women of the United States Congress hate that you are free. Besides the fact that all the surveillance you and the rest of the world are under has not stopped a terrorist attack, Congress wants to make sure that they can spy on you more anyway.

CISPA Bill Sneak Peak

Even though CISPA 2015 was introduced last Thursday, for some reason, the text of the bill has not appeared on Congress.gov. Earlier today, I called Representative Ruppersberger’s office to get a copy of the bill.

Under CISPA 2015 (HR 234), the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Secretary of Defense would create the cyber threat information sharing program and also provide oversight for the program’s civil liberties protections. This is akin to allowing the foxes to guard the hen house. CISPA 2015 also mandates privacy and civil liberties reports, but allows government agencies to classify the annexes to the reports. In other words, CISPA 2015 does not intend to have any real oversight for civil liberties and privacy. Cyber threat information shared with the government would also be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act and would be a serious blow to transparency in government. Perhaps the worst thing about the CISPA 2015 bill is that it would give immunity from criminal prosecution and lawsuits to anyone sharing cyber threat information with the government. CISPA 2015 would provide for an even cozier relationship between Silicon Valley and the US government at the detriment of civil liberties and privacy for everyone else.

CISPA 2015 has now been referred to the House Committees on the Judiciary, Armed Services, Homeland Security, and Intelligence.

Why do the American people have to give up their rights to serve the paranoia of government officials? 

Who are the terrorists anyway? Ordinary citizens? The "rebels" the U.S. government funds and supplies with weapons? Or Congress itself?

Source: Pirate Times

Tax Evasion is a Global Problem and Requires a Global Solution, Then Let's Start with the Elite

Staff Writer, DL Mullan

Privacy / Taxes 

_______________________________

In the VDP Gazette's effort to combat terrorism and support Homeland Security's: "see something; say something campaign," we have seen something and now we're saying something about it.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) will enact a plan so that governments and dictatorships around the world can share all private financial data on their citizens with each other to extract as much wealth as possible from everyone. Well, almost everyone.

It will be the public that is stomped on. Corporations appear to be free to evade every tax they can get legislators to rubber stamp. Even though in the United States the reality is that no person has to pay income taxes, people are subjugated to harsh and ridiculous penalties for a system that is supposed to be voluntary. (see Aaron Russo's Freedom to Fascism.)

If that does not reek of tribute paid to the global elite, then what else could it be?

Maybe every citizen in the United States should set up a shell corporation in Cheyenne, Wyoming where 200,000 companies are registered at one address to do their business. Or how about the state of Delaware? There companies running in the 285,000 echelon have their corporations incorporated to evade taxes in other places. 

Apple, Bank of America, Google and JPMorgan Chase all have the same legal address in the state of Delaware.

Thirty of America’s most profitable companies paid no income taxes over the past three years, according to a report released last year by the Citizens for Tax Justice. In addition, nearly 300 companies paid an average tax rate of 18.5 percent between 2008 and 2010 -- way less than the official corporate tax rate of 35 percent.

I spy with my little eye something financial and it's bigger than our GDP. Can you guess what it is?

Corporations also evade taxes by putting holdings and earning overseas. 

Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said in a call with analysts in March that the company has no plans to repatriate its overseas earnings because it would result in “significant tax consequences.” At the time, Apple paid an international tax rate of less than 3 percent on its overseas money, which accounts for about two-thirds of its profits, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time.

Now the OCED wants to end corporate evasion. That's a joke right there. End evasion for whom?

“Globalization of the world's financial system has made it increasingly simple for people to make, hold and manage investments outside their country of residence,” noted OECD boss Angel Gurria in a statement, calling the new tax-information plot “a real game changer.” 

“This new standard on automatic exchange of information will ramp up international tax co-operation, putting governments back on a more even footing as they seek to protect the integrity of their tax systems and fight tax evasion.”

Angel Curria said "people," not corporations. Why tax yourselves when you can tax the whole world instead? 

As multiple analysts have already pointed out, there will, of course, be more than enough loopholes in the new world taxation regime for the truly mega-wealthy members of the global establishment to protect their own ill-gotten wealth from outright confiscation. The rest of humanity, however, will suffer the consequences if the brakes are not slammed on the scheme very soon.

It's all about redistributing the wealth of the bottom 99% to the top 1%. If governments wanted to decrease tax evasion, then loopholes in laws for corporations, elite trusts and tax free foundations should be first to hit the chopping block. Until the top stops acting like royalty, why should anyone pay what is not their responsibility to offer?

The Department of Homeland Security should do it's job. I see something and am saying something: stop the corporations, elite trusts and tax free foundations from evading taxes. As well stop the OCED and the American government from invading our privacy and ignoring the Fourth Amendment.

Here it is if you can't remember off hand:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

In reality, it's not the responsibility of the American people to pick up the tab for taxes they don't owe and corporations that won't pay up to ingratiate a tyrannical global elite.

Source: The New American, Huffington Post, FindLaw,