Why isn't the NSA after these assclowns?

[Kelvin Mace]

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/report-irs-phone-scam-sweeping-nation-104876.html#.UywX_waQIVI.twitter

Report: IRS phone scam sweeping nation

Halah Touryalai, a Forbes staff writer, got a call and a threat from what she thought was an Internal Revenue Service agent: You owe $5,000. Pay up now, or we’ll arrest you.

She froze.

“For the next five or so minutes, I listened in absolute panic,” Touryalai wrote in an op-ed describing the incident.

The largest-ever IRS tax scam is pulsing through the nation in the middle of tax season, an IRS watchdog investigating the matter said on Thursday. IRS impersonators are calling taxpayers, demanding hundreds and thousands of dollars in alleged unpaid taxes.

“This is the largest scam of its kind that we have ever seen,” said J. Russell George, the Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration. “Do not become a victim.”

Touryalai’s caller knew the last four digits of her Social Security number and where she worked. Accusing her of tax dodging, he warned that the government was about to seize her property, freeze her bank accounts, and suspend her driver’s license and passport until she paid up.

He even threatened jail time and to “blacklist” her name.

Eventually she caught on — the man was a phony, one of many who have cheated thousands of Americans in just about every state in recent weeks.

I get these calls occasionally and I string them along to waste their time. I try to work them up into a lather by giving them fake CC numbers.

The sad part is that this is the kind of shit the NSA SHOULD be spying on. They could run these bastards down in sixty seconds and actually DO something useful.

[Cali_Democrat]

1. The NSA is not law enforcement

This is a job for the FBI.

[Kelvin Mace]

3. So, the NSA calls the FBI and fingers them

You know, like they are doing now, but with actual criminals.

[Warren DeMontague]

6. No, those are only "actual criminals" like grannies using thc to ease their chemo nausea, silly!

That's the only sort of dangerous actual crime that justifies that sort of extra-constitutional awesomeness.

[Kelvin Mace]

7. You are correct,

sad to say.

[Cali_Democrat]

9. So you want the NSA to closely coordinate with law enforcement agencies like the FBI?

You want them to share all their information with them?

Hmmm.....

[seveneyes]

11. Yes

And no to sharing all their information...just the phone scammer information. Then arrest and jail them for life or penalize the country that is letting them operate their scams.

[Kelvin Mace]

13. Well, they are doing that now.

I just want them to target real criminals. It is not like we are going to stop them spying on us, so they might as well do something USEFUL.

[Cali_Democrat]

16. If you see Warren's link below...

what they're doing may not even be constitutional so I'm not sure if expanding this kind of cooperation is appropriate.

I'm curious if there are constitutional challenges right now to this sharing of data between agencies.

I do think there should be barriers between the NSA/CIA and other agencies like the FBI.

[Kelvin Mace]

24. You are aware my tongue is firmly in cheek?

Right?

I do NOT approve. It isn't even VAGUELY legal/Constitutional.

However, they are NOT going to stop. They WILL declare it legal. Even if ten courts say they can't, they WILL. They will only stop if they are all fired and their agency is entirely defunded, i.e. NEVER.

So, if they are going to do this, they should do us a solid on occasion and bust some scammers.

[Pholus]

15. They already do. When it suits them of course.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/05/the-nsa-is-giving-your-phone-records-to-the-dea-and-the-dea-is-covering-it-up/

Justice breaks down when the prosecutions are selective.

More arguments that the people who went there with surveillance did so to destroy democracy.

[Warren DeMontague]

5. You mean except when they feed the DEA information about people who are smoking pot

right?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/05/the-nsa-is-giving-your-phone-records-to-the-dea-and-the-dea-is-covering-it-up/

[Cali_Democrat]

8. They shouldn't be doing that.

Frankly, I'm a little baffled by the OP and your post. You guys appear support the NSA sharing information closely with the FBI and DEA?

I certainly don't, but the OP appears to be arguing for that in order to catch these criminals. See the OP's first reply to me.

That just appears to be further expansion of the surveillance state.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

12. Believe it or not, there are people who think using the NSA for law enforcement purposes isn't bad

Neither is it unconstitutional when the scammers are foreigners from Indian or Nigerian call centers.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[Cali_Democrat]

14. What if the scammers originate in the US?

Would that be constitutional?

[Pholus]

18. The line has been (inconsistently) crossed.

Dragnet surveillance is immoral.

But SELECTIVE sense of who should be prosecuted using this crap is not only immoral, it is anti-democracy.

[Cali_Democrat]

21. So we agree.

The NSA and FBI shouldn't be coordinating to catch the alleged criminals mentioned in the OP.

[Pholus]

28. They already collaborate with the DEA and the IRS.

We agree on the principles but I'm sick of playing semantics games about the practice.

To be clear: The NSA is on the public record as using dragnet surveillance data in collaboration with the DEA and the IRS and yet somehow NOT the FBI? Unlikely. Just haven't had the evidence released yet.

The cute little game that is being played is that with the right "colder/warmer" talk the NSA can guide the TLA of choice on the bad guy, and the TLA must then reciprocate by making up some story about how their diligent agents just "noticed" something out of whack to keep NSA's hands "clean."

Just like everything about dragnet domestic surveillance, it is a travesty of the rule of law because it is not held up to public scrutiny. Obviously 1%'ers have to be caught in the same dragnet, yet it is also obvious that their crimes are being JUDGED as not worth prosecuting. The same with scammers but NOT with tax cheats or druggies.

Selective enforcement of the law will only reduce trust IN government. It also opens the floodgates to the sorts of corruption we like to sneer down at in certain other countries.

So if they want to use it, they OWE it to the rest of us to be honest so that WE THE PEOPLE can decide we want this done in our names.

[Warren DeMontague]

20. I don't support the NSA spying on pot smokers then feeding data to the DEA so they can

send swat teams in to bust them, after which they construct bogus "parallel narratives" to explain how they figured out some Dave Matthews fan was smoking a doobie in his rec room, no.

[badtoworse]

2. That's a great question.

[jsr]

4. That would be useful AND appreciated.

[seveneyes]

10. The NSA should work with the FTC/FBI against "Card Services" and other prolific scammers

These criminals are running roughshod over aging Americans and other vulnerable innocents.

[randome]

17. What do you not understand about the NSA being tasked to monitor FOREIGN communications?

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[Kelvin Mace]

23. What do you not understand about the NSA

currently spying on us domestically anyway? You know, whether it is legal or not?

Do I approve of the NSA spying on us?

No.

Do I want them spying on us?

No.

Is what they are doing legal?

No, but that hardly matters to them. Torture was illegal, but "ain't no thang..."

Would I like them to stop?

Yes!

Will they?

No.

So, if they are going to do something illegal then at least they should do something useful every now and again.

[randome]

27. You're talking about the metadata, of course.

Most people don't consider that 'spying', you know. Data that is locked away unless needed. Carl Bernstein thinks it's safe. So do I.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[Pholus]

29. Metadata equals surveillance.

It is a complete record of who you talked to, when and for how long. More than enough to uncover a particular political affiliation, a medical condition, gun ownership, psychological issues sexual fetishes or lawbreaking.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/03/volunteers-in-metadata-study-called-gun-stores-strip-clubs-and-more/

Your emotive feelings of security come from a guess that YOUR information is not necessarily important to other people because you say your prayers and brush your teeth and "have nothing to hide."

Might be a good bet I guess. They'll only go after the slowest members of the herd...

[Kelvin Mace]

30. Metadata is data

and should be accessible only with a warrant. WAY too much that violates the 4th Amendment can be gleaned from "metadata".

[La Lioness Priyanka]

19. no, the NSA should not be coordinating with law enforcement and bypassing the constitution

[Kelvin Mace]

22. No, they should not

but they are, and they will keep on, so why not have them do something useful?

[KeepItReal]

26. NSA is already doing it...

NSA, DEA, IRS Lie About Fact That Americans Are Routinely Spied On By Our Government: Time For A Special Prosecutor

It seems that every day brings a new revelation about the scope of the NSA’s heretofore secret warrantless mass surveillance programs. And as we learn more, the picture becomes increasingly alarming. Last week we discovered that the NSA shares information with a division of the Drug Enforcement Administration called the Special Operations Division (SOD). The DEA uses the information in drug investigations. But it also gives NSA data out to other agencies – in particular, the Internal Revenue Service, which, as you might imagine, is always looking for information on tax cheats.

We now know that the agency regularly intercepts and inspects Americans’ phone calls, emails, and other communications, and it shares this information with other federal agencies that use it to investigate drug trafficking and tax evasion. Worse, DEA and IRS agents are told to lie to judges and defense attorneys about their use of NSA data, and about the very existence of the SOD, and to make up stories about how these investigations started so that no one will know information is coming from the NSA’s top secret surveillance programs.

[GeorgeGist]

25. Perhaps because NSA is run by ...

ASSCLOWNS of the highest magnitude.

[2pooped2pop]

31. gotta be pretty stupid to fall for that shit

IRS don't take cash

[baldguy]

32. Why don't they go after the Republicans trying to take away people's right to vote?

Ignorant anti-NSA hysteria fueled by RW libertarian stupidity ignores the purpose of NSA, and ignores the fact that the GOP is far more of a threat to freedom, liberty, democracy & justice that the NSA ever has been, is now, or ever will be.