Posted on 05/15/2013 4:59:34 PM PDT by austinaero
Obamacare Funded big IRS Data - By October 2010, the Internal Revenue Service had the capability to sift through emailing patterns associated with millions of individual internet addresses and have already established 32,000 categories of metadata and 1 million unique “attributes.” The IRS continues to collect tax data, but they also are now acquiring huge volumes of personal information on taxpayers’ digital activities, from eBay auctions to Facebook posts and, for the first time ever, credit card and e-payment transaction records. Dean Silverman, who led the IBM zEnterprise™ 196 systems upgrade bragged: “Private industry would be envious if they knew what our models are.”
Privacy watchdogs and tax lawyers have voiced alarm that the Obama Administration empowering the IRS with the predictive power of “Big Data” was implemented without public hearings or publishing any privacy safeguards. They have warned that the Service is now engaging in “social audits,” signaling out horse-racing enthusiasts or sailboaters for special audits based solely on their lifestyles. By screening existing data for one million unique attributes, the IRS can develop profiles and target certain types of individuals by their behaviors.
IRS officials estimate that 80% of the 254 million tax returns it processes this year will be filed electronically. U.S. Tax Court records reveal that information gathered from e-filers’ Facebook and eBay postings has already been used by the IRS to defend tax challenges. Under a Freedom of Information Act, privacy advocates at the Electronic Frontier Foundation obtained and published a copy of the IRS’s 38-page manual used for training auditors to snoop in social media postings for enforcement opportunities.
(Excerpt) Read more at chrissstreetandcompany.com ...
isn’t going to happen.
Technology, like any tool, is generally neutral. It’s the human mind behind how it’s used that can be virtuous or malevolent.
BATFE is doing the same thing.
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