Save the Internet!

It's American Censorship Day.  In honor of this holiday, I intended to [DELETED] a [DELETED] with a [FNORD] on my [DELETED].


PROTECT IP Act Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.


Today, the government decides on whether or not there will even be an internet in the future. I strongly encourage all Americans to take a few moments today to email or call their Senators and Representatives and complain about SOPA and the Protect IP Act, two pieces of legislation that, if passed, will cripple the internet. Say goodbye to your social networks, your fan forums, and blogs even remotely like this one. If these laws pass, the RIAA will shut this site down because someone once posted the lyrics to "Freebird" in our comments. There won't even be space left on the net for hyperbole, over-reactions, or blatant misrepresentations of fact like my last sentence, because the technology industry will be too busy closing portals as it retreats from the lawsuits brought against them by the so-called entertainment industry. Seriously, Hollywood and big music are trying to take your internet away. The laws they are trying to pass will chill and censor online creativity and expression, while mostly failing to actually stop piracy.  They are pushing for restrictive internet laws in the US that would mirror those that exist in regimes like China and Iran. Today is the day. Please take a few minutes to call or write your law-makers while it's still morning. Thank you.

The Lawsuit Locker

Copyright is a complicated issue, and I often find myself conflicted about it.

On the one hand, as a former movie theatre manager, I totally get the conservative argument that films cost a lot of money to produce, and that piracy threatens to reduce the incentive for studios and theaters.   Since I like to watch movies (and listen to music, and play games, and read books, and etc), I spend money on them.

On the other hand, as a fan of sci-fi, I dream of a utopian golden era where civilization is enriched by the free sharing of ideas. And I look at the technology we have, and realize that optimistic dream could be true today if not for stodgy rich people desperately clutching at all the money they can grab.

In general, this results in me supporting independent productions and alternative distribution channels as much as I can. Put the money in the hands of the artists, and not in the hands of some corporate suit. I buy direct from the artists, jump on the Humble Indy Bundle bandwagon, etc.

When I read articles like this one at CNN, I find whatever little sympathy I might have had for the rich bastards and their incentive system just boils away:

Voltage Pictures, the studio behind 2009's The Hurt Locker, is suing almost 25,000 BitTorrent users who allegedly illegally downloaded the flick. That came just weeks after 23,000 were sued for downloading The Expendables, produced by Nu Image.
 ...
"The lawyers are just doing their jobs," he said. "Somebody stole our property and we are trying to get it back." The representative declined further comment. 

That statement from a Voltage representative is just a little bit misleading, methinks. What exactly is the stolen property that they are trying to get back? It's certainly not the physical copies of the films in question. No one is deprived of watching, enjoying, or collecting these films legally because they've been "stolen" by someone else. There's no empty vault or warehouse at Voltage, no one who came home to find that his shelves were ransacked by a burglar (at least not in this court case). What's been "stolen"? What does this executive at Voltage think he owns, that has been wrongly taken from him?

Sadly, what he thinks he owns is the money in other people's wallets. Money he himself has never held, but which he has convinced himself somehow belongs to him. You not buying from him = you stealing from him (in his mind). He's somehow certain that you would have spent that money with his company, and since he believes that to be true, he's decided to take you to court over it. That seems pretty fucking presumptive to me.

He's assuming that instead of passing on his movie, if you couldn't download it for free you automatically would have bought it. That instead of buying it at the thrift store, or borrowing it from a friend, or paying 99 cents to rent it somewhere, you would have, in his mind, spent $25 for the Blue-Ray version at some store. The store takes a cut, the supply network takes a cut, and maybe if he's really lucky, his company pockets $12 on the sale. Of course realistically those 25,000 "thieves" would have included at least 15,000 (and probably a lot more) who passed, borrowed, rented, bought it on deep discount, etc, so at the very most one could maybe argue that each of those downloaders "owes" him $5. And honestly, that figure seems wildly generous and optimistic to me.

So how much is his company asking for? Tens of thousands of dollars per person. Talk about punitive damages! But he'll settle for a quick two grand if you want to roll over out of court. What a dick. It seems to me that this is not about protecting their property, or their rights, it's about making a quick buck.

As TorrentFreak, the first blog to report on the Locker case, points out: If only 10,000 of the alleged infringers pay a $2,000 settlement, it would net $20 million for Voltage and USCG. In comparison, The Hurt Locker grossed $17 million at the U.S. box office.

Here's a section of a disturbing little article I just read...

US Police Increasingly Peeping at E-mail, Instant Messages

Soghoian found through his research that law enforcement agencies requested more than 30,000 wiretaps between 1987 and 2009. But the scale of requests for stored communications appears to be much greater. Citing a New York Times story from 2006, Soghoian wrote that AOL was receiving 1,000 requests per month.
In 2009, Facebook told the news magazine Newsweek that it received 10 to 20 requests from police per day. Sprint received so many requests from law enforcement for mobile-phone location information that it overwhelmed its 110-person electronic surveillance team. It then set up a Web interface to give police direct access to users' location data, which was used more than 8 million times in one year [emphasis mine], Soghoian wrote, citing a U.S. Court of Appeals judge.
Those sample figures indicate the real total number of requests is likely much, much higher, since U.S. law does not require reporting and companies are reluctant to voluntarily release the data.
"The reason for this widespread secrecy appears to be a fear that such information may scare users and give them reason to fear that their private information is not safe," Soghoian wrote.

Newsflash for you: Your private information is not safe. It's not really even private anymore.

Goodbye Cruel Internets

The FCC's new "net neutrality" rules are pretty much giving corporations the right to piss away, chop up, compartmentalize, and overcharge for the internet we all know and love.

FCC approves controversial ‘Net Neutrality’ regulations

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/fcc-controversial-net-neutrality-rules/
...
Supporters of "Net Neutrality" have been disappointed by the proposed rules, saying they heavily favor the industry they are supposed to regulate.

I'd be all angry about it, except pretty much every company I do business with on the net has engaged in the big corporatist war against wikileaks. Amazon, Comcast and Paypal I expected to do the devil's dirty work, but Apple? Man, that sucks. I don't want to have to return my Mac and iPod in protest.

Apple attacks WikiLeaks, yanks iPhone app from app store

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/apple-attacks-wikileaks-yanks-iphone-app-app-store/

Only a few days after its release, the unofficial WikiLeaks iPhone application has been removed from Apple's App Store.

At this rate, I'll have personally boycotted every business and site on the net long before my ISP can take advantage of the new net non-neutrality rules to hose my internet access.

Prison Comparisons

Because, lately,  movies and TV seem more plausible than the events of the real world...

Prisons in Sweden, according to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo trilogy: You're kept in a small room, but otherwise it's a cake walk. You get reading material, and can access your laptop. You get to wear whatever you like, even if that involves about 18 different piercings and your hair up in a 'hawk. You don't have a cell-mate.

Prisons in London, according to The Tutors: What's that moving under the pile of straw I've got for a bed? Big freakin' rats. This place will drive you insane.

Prisons in the US, according to... just about every prison-based movie or TV show ever made: The guards and crooked sheriff or warden beat you up, and the prisoners rape you. You're sprayed down with a hose, and they routinely search you for anything contraband, except for cigarettes. Your nazi cellmate tattoos a swastika on your ass. Then one day you get shivved, and die.

Given the alternatives, I can only assume that Julian Assange really doesn't like Pickled Herring.

Stupid For Senate

This debate video is bizarre. There's this total fucking idiot who's running for Senate in Delaware on the Republican / Tea Party ticket, and she's completely hung up on her imaginary world where there is no Separation of Church & State. The Democrat she's debating against correctly points out that the First Amendment says the government "shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" and she spends the next several minutes repeatedly asking him "does it say that in the First Amendment?" as though she doesn't believe him. I'm just plain shocked that someone that unfamiliar with the First Amendment could possibly be considered politically competent enough for a major party to endorse her. There are two different parts in the video (2m55s and 7m30s) where the audience laughs at her ridiculous claims.

If you want to get shivers running down your spine at just how fucked our future is if the Tea Baggers win big this election, watch this video. Christine O'Donnell is terrifyingly ignorant.

Acting against ACTA

ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, is ostensibly supposed to cut down on illegal pirating of copyrighted materials. It's full of ridiculous baggage and demands, but the most alarming provision is the "three strikes and you're out" rule, where if someone is accused (not convicted) of three or more acts of copyright infringement, the international body can have that person banned from the internet for life.

That's pretty sick. I don't think I could live without the internet. Admittedly, it'd make me slightly more productive, but a lot more isolated and miserable in the process.

Read more at www.anti-acta.com. The most level-headed report I've read on it was here. He makes it sound a little less dire, but is still rightly concerned about it.

ACTA has been worked on, largely in secret (but with several big leaks), for the past two or three years, and unless people speak up against it on a large scale, it's likely to be completed and signed in the remaining months of 2010.

Here's an amusing video on the subject, by someone who's very good at angry ranting:



This one's less amusing, and a bit calmer:


International protests are planned for Sept 18 and Nov 5.  There's a online petition to Stop ACTA. Annoying letters to various government personages  and media editors probably wouldn't hurt either, if you've got a few minutes to spare to help ensure the internet doesn't go away any time soon.

Suing Arizona

Just a quick update on everyone's favorite wacky racist Arizona sheriff. He's getting sued by the Federal Government:

The lawsuit calls Arpaio and his office's defiance "unprecedented," and said the federal government has been trying since March 2009 to get officials to comply with its probe of alleged discrimination, unconstitutional searches and seizures, and having English-only policies in his jails that discriminate against people with limited English skills.
...
In a separate investigation, a federal grand jury in Phoenix is examining allegations that Arpaio has abused his powers with actions such as intimidating county workers by showing up at their homes at nights and on weekends.

Kinda warms the heart, don't you think?

Read more about the lawsuits here.

Tax Cuts

CNN shed little diamond-encrusted platinum tears today on behalf of those supposedly unfairly disadvantaged, the US citizens who make about $250,000 a year. Boo-hoo, it's so hard to be them, especially now that the Bush tax cut package is expiring.

These are individuals whose household income might bring them into the top tax bracket of $250,000 a year but who, with two parents working, might still find themselves struggling to stay in the stability of the upper-middle class in the expensive urban areas where they often work.
Much of the anger about the scheduled sunset of the Bush tax cuts for the increase in top-bracket taxes comes from this productive group of Americans.

Sounds awful, doesn't it? I almost felt sympathy, because not only is it expensive to live in suburbia, it's also just generally boring and tacky there.

Then I popped over to the Washington Post, and looked at this chart comparing the expiring tax cuts and the ones Obama is trying to replace them with:

The Bush tax plan vs. the Obama tax plan in one chart

In case that's too small to read, the $200,000 to $500,000 yearly income line sees a change in tax burden of $409 a year. Those "poor" "disadvantaged" working Americans making 250,000 a year are going to be paying extra taxes of about one tenth of a percentage point of their yearly wages. The equivalent, if you were making say $50,000 a year, would be having to pay an extra $81 in taxes. Don't get me wrong, I too would prefer to have an extra $80, but even if were going to be out by $400 at my families current income level, it wouldn't be enough of a hardship on me or mine to justify column inches at CNN. Whatever little sympathy I might have had for those who make several hundred thousand a year melted away when I saw that chart. As it melted and flowed, it took my respect for CNN with it.

That Washington Post chart is awesome by the way. It makes it very clear who the Bush tax plan helped, with it's clear delineation that once you hit millionaire, your tax cut jumps to 6 times it's previous size. "Thanks for joining the Club, here's your $85,000 door prize..."

Of/By/4 (the People) in 18 minutes

The latest iteration of Lawrence Lessig's latest speech clocks in at just 18 minutes, which means everyone can find time to watch this one, and it moves at a pretty rapid pace.

As a long time a champion of copyright reform, Lawrence Lessig fought against Disney at the Supreme Court. He's the originator of the Creative Commons license. Now he's hard at work trying to tear down the special interests that have corrupted Congress. This man kicks ass.




Hey Obama, your next Supreme Court appointee should be Lawrence Lessig!

Surely this could never be abused..?

This is just naturally a great idea, and clearly meant only to shield us all from the next 9/11. The government only wants the ability to suspend the internet, or specific sites, in the case of a legitimate emergency. There's no way that could be abused...

U.S. Government Proposes "Internet Kill Switch"

The proposed legislation ... would compel any internet providers, search engines or software companies, at the discretion of the U.S. government, to "immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed" by the Department of Homeland Security.
...
The bill would give a newly-formed National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications the authority to monitor the "security status" of private websites, ISPs and other net-related business within the U.S. as well as critical internet components in other countries. Companies would be required to take part in "information sharing" with the government and certify to the NCCC that they have implemented approved security measures. Furthermore, any company that "relies on" the internet, telephone system or any other part of the U.S. "information infrastructure" would also be "subject to command" by the NCCC under the proposed new law.

Yep, nothing to worry about there. There's no chance it'll ever be used to censor free speech, restrict the actions and organization of an opposing political movement, or shut down communication across the nation or globe while a coup d'état takes place and the new masters entrench and secure their power. Big Brother tells me not to worry, and Big Brother's never lied to me before - or at least, if he did, and I posted accusations or proof of it here, he might eventually get the proposed NCCC to shut down this website. So, it's just better for all of us if I say he's never lied to me. Because he hasn't ever lied to me. I promise.

What Kind Of Planet Are We On?

It's sort of Pa-u Zotoh Zhaan vs The New Number Two.


With a message.

Ctrl+Alt+Del Democracy

Awesome Lawrence Lessig speech from the Rebooting Democracy conference in Bend, Oregon:

Starts off a little slow, admittedly, because he covers a lot of ground he's done before. But the last half is pretty astounding. Radical, even, and not in the skaterpunk / valley girl way. If you lack patience and are familiar with Prof. Lessig, you can probably skip first 25 minutes or so.

Burning Passion

The good news is, the evidence wasn't destroyed, so there'll be no mistrial.

Alleged John Edwards sex tape survives courthouse fire
(CNN) -- A sex tape allegedly showing former Sen. John Edwards survived a fire that torched a North Carolina courthouse on Thursday.

Actually, the tape that was the subject of a February court hearing at the historic Chatham County Courthouse was not at the courthouse during the blaze, city officials said.

The bad news is, when they say "not at the courthouse", they mean the office staff have been taking your sex tape home for personal use. ;)

Holding him accountable

Good news for those (like myself) who wish to see the war crimes of the recent administrations punished:

Judge allows lawsuit against Rumsfeld over torture of US citizens

US District Judge Wayne R. Andersen said the plaintiffs had provided enough concrete evidence of torture to allow the suit to go forward. The judge dismissed Rumsfeld's arguments that his position near the top of the executive branch immunized him from lawsuits involving the authorization of torture

Too bad our courts only seem to care if it's US citizens that we torture, but at least this is better than condoning every act of butchery.

Perhaps this will open some doors for Bugliosi's campaign to put Bush on trial for murder.

The Constitution Doesn't Just Apply to Citizens

Via USA Today:

"I don't have a clear understanding about why it has to be in New York," Peter Regan, 28, whose father, New York City firefighter Donald Regan, 57, was killed in the attacks, said before the hearing. "There is no reason it has to be in New York. It gives them the biggest stage to do what they want to do.

"They are being given the rights of American citizens. They aren't American citizens. They never will be American citizens."

Alice Hoagland, whose son, Mark Bingham, was killed on Flight 93, said she was "sorry our attorney general was not brave enough" to try the Sept. 11 planners in military court. "The logical place is a military venue," Hoagland says.

I'm really sorry to say this, but these people's opinions make no more sense than the ones Jay Leno gets when he asks trivia of random people on the street in those Tonight Show clips. In other words, though it's really sad and awful to say this to people who lost family during 9/11, I think they need to hear this: "Quit being idiots", and "read the Constitution".

Whether you're a U.S. citizen, or a foreigner on our soil, you still have rights given you by the U.S. Constitution. From article three of the Constitution: "The Trial of all Crimes...shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed." Therefore, mass murder committed in New York must be tried in New York.

The various protections of the Constitution apply to anyone in the U.S., or arrested by the U.S Government, and they pretty much have to. If they didn't, we'd all be subject to unlawful searches at any time for no reason beyond the police claiming they "kinda thought there might have been an illegal alien in your house, and if so, that alien didn't have any rights, so we didn't do anything wrong". It would be the ultimate abuse-able loophole.

And on a related note

Since I was just bitchin' up a storm about rigged elections and people who violate the Constitution, I thought I'd share with you this trailer for an upcoming documentary.

Something Is Rotten In The State Of Afghanistan

I read these news articles, and I can't help but be suspicious. I don't know if the CIA is involved, or if the Afghani's are just fucking up their own politics, but I guarantee you there's more going on than meets the eye. My instincts are that something sinister either just went down, or is about to go down. Mind you, this is all based on a handful of news and wikipedia articles, and the conclusions it draws are just idle speculation, but here's the situation as it appears to me...

Hamid Karzai was chosen by "prominent Afghan political figures" to lead the provisional government there in 2001, a 6-month term. This was followed by a 2-year appointment to the Presidency by the Loya Jirga, the council of tribal chiefs. In 2004 he was elected President in an actual election. Then, in 2008 he got elected again... but this time the U.N. inspectors discovered that nearly a third of his votes were fraudulent, and he didn't actually have a majority.

At this point, John Kerry flies to Afghanistan, and convinces Hamid Karzai to allow a new run-off election. It would be just Karzai and the next highest vote-getter, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. Now, that seems a reasonable thing to do if your problem is that no single candidate got the majority of votes. But that's not the problem. The problem is that Karzai, as sitting President with power over the election process, engaged in voter fraud.

A second election would have one of two results, obviously, depending on whether or not Karzai had control of the election process again.

• If he did, then he'd likely fudge the numbers again and declare himself the winner.
• If he didn't have control, or chose not to cheat, then he would lose. Because the majority of people didn't vote for him in the first place, and those people now yet have another reason to vote for his opposition - because Karzai is now, according to the U.N. inspectors, a known liar and cheater.

Either Karzai would win, and everyone would know it's because he cheated and lied again, or else he'd lose by a huge overwhelming majority. If you're a powerful foreign government that has found Karzai to be easy to work with, this could be quite the dilemma. Either your man will lose, or he'll win and you'll have to acknowledge you're working with a criminal who subverts the democratic process.

So, instead, 6 days before the run-off election, his opposition suddenly drops out of the race. Instead of transferring his slot to the next candidate down on the list, Karzai's election board decides the only way to proceed is to not proceed at all. The run-off is canceled, and Karzai is declared the winner.

Conveniently, this saves face for his international allies, who now have plausible deniability about Karzai's direct involvement in election-rigging. "Oh, that was just zealous supporters rigging things. He'd told them not to do it, that there'd be stiff punishments for subverting the will of the people. That second election was going to be legit. It's not his fault that the only opposition conceded. I mean if Gore can concede to Bush, then why can't Abdullah concede to Karzai?" Etc. And thus is a major scandal poo-poo-ed and hand-waved away.

The question that bothers me regards the secret backstory of all this. Did Abdullah concede because:

• of a bribe? This would be the happiest scenario. It's also unlikely, since Abdullah still made parting shot comments at Karzai, calling attention to his corruption and election-rigging.
• of threats or danger? Fearing for his life if he continued to resist the President who was desperate to retain power? Again, that he called out Karzai's corruption in his concession speech makes this unlikely, but doesn't completely rule it out.
• of plans to rebel? I don't know much about Abdullah. He's a medical doctor, but he was also a military adviser to one of the leaders of the revolution against the soviets, and then fought against the Taliban. He's comfortable in a western suit, and has visited the Pentagon. That paints a complicated portrait, but at least suggests he's unlikely to go help the Taliban.

A few of the wikipedia articles did point me to some interesting breadcrumbs. Abdullah had been military advisor to Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was the leader of the anti-Taliban resistance prior to 9/11. On September 9th, 2001, Massoud was assassinated. The assassins had stolen Belgian passports, claimed to have been born in Morocco, but were really citizens of Tunisia. As part of their cover as photojournalists, they carried a fancy camera that had been stolen in France. Regardless of what country actually financed, trained, and employed them, the assassins entered Afghanistan from the Pakistan border, and were helped in the getting through Northern Alliance security by one Ustad Abdul Rabi Rasul Sayyaf. Sayyaf was part of the Northern Alliance, but also has connections to Pakistan and has political views that are very Taliban-esque. He struck a deal with Karzai, so Wikipedia tells me, to get one of his pawns declared Chief Justice of the Afghani Supreme Court. The details of the appointment violated the Afghani Constitution. The Justice then reinstituted the Taliban practice of organizing squads whose job it is to discourage and punish "un-Islamic behavior" in women.

In case that's all too dense, I'll pluck out the relevant threads:

• This election-rigging is not the first time Karzai has violated the Constitution of Afghanistan, and at least one such violation has lead to human rights abuses.
  
• Karzai has political ties with a extremist who's suspected of killing Abdullah's good friend.
• Had that friend not been assassinated two days before 9/11, the post-Taliban government in Afghanistan would have been very different.
  

It ain't pretty. From where I'm sitting, it also kinda looks like our government is propping Karzai up, just like it did with the Shah of Iran. You'll recall how well that went over.

But, you know, perhaps it's no worse than what happened here in 2004.

Vote Jake.

Scientology Lawsuit

I'll start by saying, I'm all for Religious freedom. But, if some aspect of a religious practice is deemed by larger society to be criminal, then I feel the law should be enforced. An example most people can Grok would be human sacrifice - we wouldn't let someone cut out the hearts of their neighbors, and say it was okay because it was part of an Aztec ceremony.

Applying a similar common-sense logic, France recently convicted (of Fraud) several high members of the Church of Scientology, fining them almost $600,000 each, and giving them suspended 2-year sentences. Source.

"It's an empty case," Roux said. "It's run like an Inquisition, (as) if some people did not wake up from the Inquisition time."

Apparently this Roux person isn't terribly keen on history. You see, during the Inquisition, they didn't just take your ill-gotten-gains and tell you that if you did it again they'd lock you up. No, in addition to taking your money and property, the inquisitors would actually torture you, and they didn't stop till you'd renounced your religion. If you had children, the Inquisitors would baptize them, and then take them away to be raised by "a proper Christian family". All that was done without due process, or bail, or a reliable appeals process, or any chance of Amnesty International trying to intervene. Point being, the French courts may be stiff, but they're nothing like the Inquisition.*

Of course, anyone who feels persecuted about their religion is going to feel, well, persecuted. So perhaps a little hyperbole can be understood and tolerated. I know I go way overboard with my metaphors all the time, so why can't they?

Thankfully, the article goes on to explain what the court ruled to be Fraud:

The plaintiffs focused their complaints on the use of a device that Scientologists say measures spiritual well-being. Members used the electropsychometer, or E-Meter, to "locate areas of spiritual duress or travail so they can be addressed and handled," according to Scientology's Web site.

The plaintiffs said that, after using the device, they were encouraged to pay for vitamins and books. They said that amounted to fraud.

That has some real potential for fitting a legal definition of Fraud. If the device doesn't actually measure well-being, and the prosecutor can show the defendant knows it, then anything they "prescribe" based on it would be fraudulent. That seems to be what the courts decided, if I'm parsing articles correctly, and that seems pretty legit to me. You can't lie to someone and tell them they've got cancer just so that you can sell them the cancer remedy - even if you're doing it "for God". There's some grey area between faith healing and medical advice, and I can see where someone might have a hard time figuring out where they are in that spectrum.*

The solution for Scientology is simple - it's what all the other religions do. Quit charging for the "Communion Wafers". If you just pass a plate around, people will still give you more money than you could ever deserve, and you're probably not breaking a law.* The faithful will still shame each other into donating more than they can really afford. The truth is, you're not being persecuted for your beliefs, you're being prosecuted for trying to get rich off of gullibility*. I know it doesn't feel fair to you, 'cause I mean, look at the Vatican. But those dudes have been grandfathered in to the system. Openly attempting to be more ruthless businessmen than them won't win you any converts, especially not in today's economy and political climate.

Just sayin'.




*: I'm not a lawyer, so what do I know?

Targeting the actual criminals for once.

For many years, the admitted focus of IRS audits was on people who made less than a certain amount of income. According to some news program I saw a couple years ago, a larger percentage of "random" audits was on people who reported income below the poverty line. The idea being that if you were reporting less than a certain amount of money, you must be lying.

Since we all "know" that the rich lie, cheat and steal their way to riches, it felt like a misallocation of IRS resources to be searching for criminals and tax evaders amongst the poor. (Forgive me if I'm confusing tropes for reality, it's not like I actually know any rich people. All I know about the rich I learned from TV and movies.)

You can imagine how happy it made me to read the following bit of news, concerning a new special unit within the IRS:

"We will take a unified look at the entire web of business entities controlled by a high-wealth individual," Shulman said. "At least initially, we will be looking at individuals with tens of millions of dollars of assets or income."

"The high-wealth unit will focus on trusts, real estate investments, privately held companies and other business entities controlled by rich individuals. While use of sophisticated legal structures are at times legal, there are other instances where they 'mask aggressive tax strategies,' he said."

"You cannot assess compliance among the nation's wealthiest individuals by looking only at their 1040s [tax returns]," Shulman added. "Our goal is to better understand the entire economic picture of the enterprise controlled by the wealthy individual and to assess the tax compliance of that overall enterprise."

It's about damn time. Anecdotal common sense suggests the rich cheat the government at a higher percentage than the poor. Even if that widely-held belief doesn't prove true, the amount of income the government stands to gain by making one rich man pay his fair share is a lot more than the amount some poor sod might be hiding. So if you can only afford to perform N audits this year, why not put the majority of them on the rich? From the money that shakes loose, you'll be able to perform N + X audits next year. Seems like a no-brainer to me.