Bush Administration Wants To Track All Your Electronic Transactions!
And there are still any of you in favor of the compromised FISA??? Good Grief… you’ve lost grip, seriously.
H/T to Ina Steiner once again. As you read, notice that this was snuck into and hidden within, legislation without any of “us” knowing it! Thanks to Adam Brandon at Freedomworks.
Washington, DC - Hidden deep in Senator Christopher Dodd’s 630-page Senate housing legislation is a sweeping provision that affects the privacy and operation of nearly all of America’s small businesses. The provision, which was added by the bill’s managers without debate this week, would require the nation’s payment systems to track, aggregate, and report information on nearly every electronic transaction to the federal government.
Call Congress and Tell Them to Oppose The eBay Reporting Provision in the Housing Bill: 1-866-928-3035
FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey commented: “This is a provision with astonishing reach, and it was slipped into the bill just this week. Not only does it affect nearly every credit card transaction in America, such as Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express, but the bill specifically targets payment systems like eBay’s PayPal, Amazon, and Google Checkout that are used by many small online businesses. The privacy implications for America’s small businesses are breathtaking.”
“Privacy groups like the Center for Democracy and Technology and small business organizations like the NFIB sharply criticized this idea when it first appeared earlier this year. What is the federal government’s purpose with this kind of detailed data? How will this database be secured, and who will have access? Many small proprietors use their Social Security number as their tax ID. How will their privacy be protected? What compliance costs will this impose on businesses? Why is Sen. Chris Dodd putting this provision in a housing bailout bill? The bill also includes the creation of a new national fingerprint registry for mortgage brokers.
“At a time when concerns about both identity theft and government spying are paramount, Congress wants to create a new honey pot of private data that includes Social Security numbers. This bill reduces privacy across America’s payment processing systems and treats every American small business or eBay power seller like a criminal on parole by requiring an unprecedented level of reporting to the federal government. This outrageous idea is another reason to delay the housing bailout legislation so that Senators and the public at large have time to examine its full implications.”
Outrageous doesn’t quite cut it - Big Brother sounds and feels more appropriate. When the hell are we going to come to our senses??? When it’s too late???
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Congress Cheating On Budget Rules?
Jun 26, 2008 at 6:49 pm
[…] to Andrew Brown from FreedomWorks, who emailed me after I expressed an interest with this post. Andrew and Adam, I hope you don’t mind - this is a short post so I’m going to re-post […]
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