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My own personal story, although not an IRS story, is pertinent here. Roughly four months agpo I received a supposedly randon questionaire from Medicare that was ostensibly a customer satisfaction survey about my doctor and his practice. Not liking such surveys anyway, I simply tossed it and thought nothing more abot it. Then I received a follow up about two months ago that apparently included the original questionaire. My curiosity being piqued, I sat down and read the whole questionaire. To begin with there was no apparent individual identifying information on the document and there was no space for my name, address, etc. However, there was digital coding similar to that on an airline boarding pass.

Then I read both parts of the document. The first was a customer satisfction survey regarding my doctor. The second was the real zinger: it was a detailed, probing, highly persoanl questionarie about my entire medical history. IOW, HHS tried to defraud me into answering a highly personal, intrusive medical questionaire by making it look like a customer satisfaction survey and appear to be anonymous when it was the very opposite. Forgetful me, it ended up in the trash.

Not on the same subject but I’ve consistently thrown away the USDA farm census. I eventually got a call from some staffer asking if I got the forms. I said no. She said that they sent them to the same address as my tax return. I said I thought that was confidential information even between agencies and asked for her name so I could contact my congresscreep. She could not get off the phone fast enough.

This is a government worth of fearing.