There are many reason I don’t like Obamacare, including its punitive impact on taxpayers and the way it takes our healthcare system even further from a market-based approach.
But now I’m increasingly worried Obamacare also is creating a playground for hackers and identity thieves – and the rest of us will be the victims.
Simply stated, the results probably won’t be very pretty when you mix together these two items.
1) Typical government incompetence.
2) Massive data collection by government.
I pontificate on these issues in an interview with Neil Cavuto.
To elaborate, the internal revenue code is filled with double taxation of income that is saved and invested. As such the IRS insists on knowing extensive details on our income-producing assets, as well as any capital gains we earn.
And, if you’re subject to the death tax, they’ll want to know about everything you own. None of that would be necessary if we had a flat tax or a national sales tax.
Heck, they wouldn’t even need to know about your bank account since there’s no double taxation of interest with real tax reform.
But we’re on the other side of the pendulum, with the government wanting to know just about everything about our financial affairs. That’s good news for statists who want more redistribution…and it’s good news for other thieves who also want to take our money (but without using government as a middleman).
If you think I’m needlessly worried, check out this CNBC report. Here are some key excerpts.
Serious security weaknesses in the Internal Revenue Service’s data system have left millions of taxpayers’ sensitive financial information vulnerable to hackers. The agency claims it has fixed the problem, but its auditors beg to differ. A new report released by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) found that although the IRS claimed it had implemented 19 fixes to secure the system recommended by the auditor in previous years, at least eight (or 42 percent) of them “had not been fully implemented,” and should not have been checked off as completed. The auditors said the IRS never tracked its progress on the repairs, and in many cases, it closed cases without submitting documentation to prove the fix was complete. …The report also found that the agency didn’t properly scan servers—which contain taxpayer information—for “major vulnerabilities,” or properly lock user accounts, and it did not update software on databases. “When the right degree of security diligence is not applied to systems, disgruntled insiders or malicious outsiders can exploit security weaknesses and may gain unauthorized access,” Treasury Inspector General J. Russell George said.
That’s not exactly reassuring.
But it gets worse. Obamacare exchanges are a disaster waiting to happen, as explained in a USA Today column by the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Every day, personal information is the subject of hundreds of thousands of hacking attempts from all over the world. …On October 1, a major component of Obamacare made you even more vulnerable to devastating attacks on your personal information and the administration is doing too little about it. The Federal Data Services Hub (Hub), a component of the health insurance exchanges created by Obamacare, connects seven different government agencies and establish new access points to the sensitive personal information of the American public. Social Security numbers, employment information, birth dates, health records and tax returns are among the personal data that will be transmitted to this hub, consolidating an unprecedented amount of information. Every shred of data one would need to steal your identity or access your confidential credit information would be available at the fingertips of a skilled hacker, producing a staggering security threat. …These potential vulnerabilities are a dream of faceless international hackers and hostile foreign intelligence services.
Heck, you may as well put all your credit card info on your Facebook page.
More seriously, any sensible person will stay far away from Obamacare. Though if you don’t sign up on an Obamacare exchange, the White House wants you to get fined. So you lose no matter what.
Gee, isn’t big government wonderful?
P.S. I should have mentioned the huge privacy risks that will be created if politicians succeed in imposing an Internet sales tax cartel. Such a system will require a database of every online purchase and it will be accessible by bureaucrats from state and local governments.
P.P.S. I also failed to mention how high-tax governments such as France and Germany (with assistance from the Obama Administration) are pushing to create a global network of tax police that would collect and share information among governments – regardless of their level of corruption or pattern of human rights abuses!
P.P.P.S. Last but not least, we can’t have a discussion of privacy without mentioning our inquisitive friends at the NSA. Some of you may think it’s a non-story that the NSA is spying on just about all communications. The government, we are told, is merely trying to fight terrorism. Sounds okay in theory, but I’m not that sanguine for the simple reason that I don’t trust government. Indeed, all of us should worry that the NSA was just busted for spying on the web-surfing habits of its critics. Moreover, it doesn’t take much imagination to think the Obama White House would misuse that power to spy on political enemies. If you think I’m being paranoid, just consider how the IRS has been used as a partisan political tool in recent years.
P.P.P.P.S. I’ve been asked whether I’m worried that the NSA will snoop through my web history. As a matter of principle, I would object, but I’m not overly concerned because I’m a relatively boring person. That’s true even when I search for “libertarian porn” and “libertarian sex fantasies.”
[…] only thing I’ll add is that neither Krauthammer nor Singer contemplated the possible risks of amassing all the information contained in EHRs given the growing problem of hacking and identity […]
Hi Dan, I finally signed up for Obama Care, I was approved part one… Then after everything the girl told me I bad to send in my SS card, DL, Birth Cert,and Tax papers… Really …. To prove I am a citizen…. I was born in the USA. I am very relucent to send my life off in a white envelope to KY… I would think there would be a local office you can go to ..
[…] the IRS. If you’re concerned about the IRS’s authority, then you also should fret about the Obamacare exchanges. And if you think the Obamacare exchanges give the government too much knowledge and power, then […]
[…] The specific blog post that caught my eye is titled: “Thanks to Obamacare and the IRS, You’re at Risk of Having Your Identity Stolen and Your Bank Accou….” […]
[…] counting humor-oriented pieces such as this and this, it’s been nearly a month since I’ve written about […]
[…] counting humor-oriented pieces such as this and this, it’s been nearly a month since I’ve written about […]
“Worldwide identity thieves steal millions in tax refunds”
“WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service sent 655 tax refunds to a single address in Kaunas, Lithuania — failing to recognize that the refunds were likely part of an identity theft scheme. Another 343 tax refunds went to a single address in Shanghai, China.
Thousands more potentially fraudulent refunds — totaling millions of dollars — went to places in Bulgaria, Ireland and Canada in 2011.
In all, a report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration today found 1.5 million potentially fraudulent tax returns that went undetected by the IRS, costing taxpayers $3.6 billion.”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/11/07/identity-theft-tax-fraud-lithuania/3466663/
[…] Thanks to Obamacare and the IRS, You’re at Risk of Having Your Identity Stolen and Your Bank Accou… […]
Looks like Americans are starting to experience a bit of European living conditions.
But you ain’t seen anything yet….
The ultimate destination is actually Argentina, a destination Europe is well on its way to. The situation America has now entered is not reversible. The point of no return has passed, so problems brought on by government will be “fixed” with more government. As decline takes hold, desperate voter lemmings will hang on to anything they can grab onto. Letting go of government for the promise of some future libertarian prosperity is the last thing they will do. There’s a very very long path to decline and annihilation before the unprecedented American selfish prosperity miracle disintegrates. But even the eventual Argentinization does not mean rebirth. The people of Argentina, Greece, Italy, Spain, demoralized as they are are desperately waiting to sucker up to the next coercive collectivism narrative. And it never works. People just refuse to leave their families every morning to go work in an office more than half their day for the benefit of distant others, AND do so with enough residual enthusiasm to outcompete four billion emerging world souls. But voter-lemmings keep hoping. Yes, they can! Just vote for it and it’ll happen.
To return to an annoying detail, perhaps coincidence, perhaps not,
It was Osama Bin Laden who, whether intentionally or serendipitously, pushed the dormant forces of American coercive collectivism past the tipping point, into majoritarian status. He may be dead, but seems to have successfully set in motion his wildest dream: Destroying what was most exceptional about America. It’s individualism and the unique in the world prosperity it created. Now the decline is on autopilot and useful idiots will predictably finish OBL’s job.
I’m a big fan of yours Dan, please check out my fun UK libertarian blog http://smallgovernmentnow.wordpress.com/ cheers
If you don’t trust government, then why in the world would you want “a flat tax or a national sales tax”?? A flat tax leaves most or all of the existing tax collection apparatus in place, and the latter is unlikely to be implemented without it, too, being a hazard to civility. Further, what happens if the movement to establish a national sales tax fails to accomplish the goal of eliminating the income tax? Then the USA will have both the income tax and a national sales tax.
A much safer, and much less statist, alternative would have the central government funded by the governments of provinces that Americans ludicrously refer to as states. A nice side effect of this approach is that it would be much more difficult to corrupt the state governments and their subsidiary units with payments from the central government, if only because the central government would be at greater risk of payment being withheld by disgusted taxpayers. The existing system atomizes taxpayers with respect to the central government, but under the revised system factions in each state could be formed with sufficient leverage to withhold payment and without having to build a nationwide movement, too.
Of course, there is the small matter of building a nationwide movement to abolish the 16th amendment. But you have no interesting in doing that, either, but, instead, in pleasing and appeasing the most lucrative sources of Cato’s revenue.
Everyone now has the power to control their financial destiny. Bank accounts should only be used to host whatever funds are needed to pay upcoming bills. All other assets should now be held in a basket of digital currencies, or on the Forex-style trading sites for digital currencies. These accounts offer users full control of their assets, a high degree of anonymity, and security measures which are appropriate for the risks imposed by hackers.
That said, one should not be tempted to cheat on their taxes while using these type of accounts. They are simply an alternative to what is currently a very corrupt financial system. Google “cryptsy” “btc-e” “bitcoin” “litecoin” “mycelium” “bitpay” “bitstamp” and “btcchina” for more information … stop complaining, stop letting governments and corporations leach off of you … inform and empower yourselves folks! Taxes are merely about 1/3 of what governments steal from you; the rest they take under the table via manipulations of the value of your money. Add to that all the robbery built into banking and investment services, and it is no wonder why most of us are poor. That situation is easily changed, and you can keep what is yours if you take the time to learn.