The Liberty Lamp: Libertarian News & Editorials

The on-line payment system eGold has been brought to court by a federal Grand Jury and the Secret Service. The company has posted a press release defending itself:

"Dr. Douglas Jackson, Chairman and Founder of e-gold, speaking on behalf of his fellow Directors and both companies vigorously denies the charges, taking particular exception to the allegations that either company ever turned a blind eye to payments for child pornography or for the sale of stolen identity and credit card information.

Dr. Jackson states, "With regard to child pornography, the government knows full well that their allegations are false, yet they highlight these irresponsible and purposely damaging statements in order to demonize e-gold in the eyes of the public. During the Inquisition, accusations of witchcraft and heresy were used to sanctify torture and seizures of property. In post 9-11 America, child porn and terrorism serve as the denunciations of choice. e-gold, however, as a matter of incontrovertible fact, is the most effective of all online payment systems in detecting and interdicting abuse of its system for child pornography related payments. e-gold Ltd. is a founding member of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's (NCMEC) Financial Coalition to Eliminate Child Pornography. e-gold is the only member institution to demonstrate with hard, auditable data a dramatic reduction of such payments to virtually zero, while billions of child porn dollars continue to flow through other (heavily regulated) payment systems. [Most members, that is, all the banks and credit card associations are utterly unable to even provide an estimate of the volume of such payments processed by their systems. eBay's PayPal subsidiary, who may have the ability to make such a determination, has refused to do so and has indicated they destroy payment records after two years.] What is worse, until August 2005 when NCMEC courageously broke ranks with US law enforcement agencies and began directly notifying e-gold of criminal sites via the CyberTipline, component agencies of the US Department of Justice purposely concealed their knowledge of child pornography abuses from e-gold's investigators, subordinating actual crime fighting to a policy agenda designed to dirty up e-gold."

Labels: federal government, liberty dollar, online currency, precious metals

Counter-terrorism, or the practice of investigating and capturing or killing suspected terrorists has been a big issue among foreign policy and national security experts for many years prior to September 11th, 2001. The response to international terrorism has been largely a military one, based on obsolete Cold War strategies and tactics. It is true that Al Qaeda has been largely disrupted as a centralized, effective organization. Decentralized splinter groups are far less capable, but they are still a problem to be dealt with.

In this new essay, the author gives a good overview of the current national security situation, what the federal government is currently doing, and what should be improved. The argument focuses around three major suggestions:

1. The US military must be restructured to deal with a terrorist threat. Special Operations forces should be relied on, supported by improved intelligence gathering technology and pinpointed, targeted killings if live capture is not feasible. Doing this would improve the military's success, and reduce spending by as much as 50%!

2. The War on Drugs must end. Lacking state sponsorship after the end of the Cold War, terrorists have begun to finance many of their operations, including the Madrid train bombings in 2005 via funding from the illegal opium trade. Legalizing these drugs would cause prices to drop exponentially, thus robbing terror groups of their lucrative funding strategy.

3. Restore Americans' individual right to bear arms. Police can't be everywhere, and an armed, population would be more capable in deterring terrorist and generic criminal activity.

Click the title link to view this article, in PDF format.

Labels: federal government, military, war on drugs, war on terror

Bob Barr, who as a Georgia congressman authored a successful amendment that blocked D.C. from implementing a medical marijuana initiative, has switched sides and become a lobbyist for the Marijuana Policy Project.

But that doesn't mean he has become a bong-ripping hippie. He isn’t pro-drug, he said, just against government intrusion.

"I, over the years, have taken a very strong stand on drug issues, but in light of the tremendous growth of government power since 9/11, it has forced me and other conservatives to go back and take a renewed look at how big and powerful we want the government to be in people’s lives," Barr said.

Good to see that the Libertarian Party is changing Bob Barr and not the other way around.


This is good news for the prospect of ending the so-called "War on Drugs". Now the movement has some "main stream" credibility, and detractors will no longer be able to attack free drug advocates as "crazy nutjob potheads".

Labels: drug war, federal government, politics

On Tuesday, March 20, the Liberty Dollar filed suit against the U.S. Mint in U.S. District Court in Evansville Indiana. The organization asked the court to declare that the use of the Liberty Dollar is not a 'federal crime,' as claimed by the U.S. Mint. And the organization further asked the court to enter a permanent injunction against the U.S. Mint requiring it to remove any reference that the use of Liberty Dollars is a federal crime from its website.

This is quite interesting, as I'd assumed that the issue had died. Now, it seems that The Liberty Dollar (formerly NORFED) is suing the US Mint in Federal court in order to get a solid ruling in favor of competing private currencies. On a similar note, I spent a $20 1oz silver Liberty piece at a handmade soap and beauty products store last week. The owner was very happy about this, and she asked if I wanted to "waste" it on something as "simple" as her products. I said, "yes"! I can't remember the exact name of the place, but if you're ever in Lynden, WA, be sure to have some Liberties with you! Lynden is a few miles North of Bellingham, WA, and is a cute little Dutch themed tourist trap and rural town. I highly recommend visiting (no sarcasm here).

Labels: federal government, liberty dollar, travel

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

When it comes to paying income taxes, eBay's legions of small-time entrepreneurs are on an honor system in which they are supposed to declare their profits to the Internal Revenue Service. Many users, however, ignore the law or are unaware of their obligation.

Now a growing chorus of tax experts is hoping to crack down on the cheating by requiring eBay -- and other online auctions, such as those on Yahoo, Ubid.com and Amazon -- to track users and report their gross sales to the federal government. Armed with such information, the IRS could better seek any taxes owed, potentially reaping millions of dollars in extra revenue for the U.S. Treasury.

But requiring eBay to out its sellers to tax collectors could send a shockwave across its vast online bazaar, where users trade everything from Ferraris to Ugg boots to pepper spray. Paying Uncle Sam could significantly reduce their profits or even make their businesses money-losers.

The latest call for more aggressive tax collection was heard last week at a congressional committee hearing focused on closing the tax gap, the hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes that go unpaid each year. Nina Olson, the national taxpayer advocate for the IRS, spoke of the heavy burden put on the nation by the shortfall and then cited undeclared online sales -- particularly on eBay, given its size -- as part of the problem.

"The IRS must have the tools needed to address under-reporting of this income," said Olson, whose job is to voice taxpayer concerns to the federal government.

EBay, based in San Jose, has 97 million U.S. users, who, in 2006 sold $25.2 billion in merchandise, exceeding the gross national product of many countries. More than 720,000 Americans make their primary or secondary income from the Web site, according to a 2005 study.

How many eBay users pay the taxes they owe on their online earnings is unknown. But experts suspect the percentage is low.

Virtually all tax filers -- 96 percent -- pay what's owed on income that is reported to the IRS by a third party, such as when a bank reports interest earned on a savings account, according to the IRS. However, when a third party doesn't tip off the government, compliance drops dramatically, to below 50 percent.

The remedy, according to many federal officials, is to expand reporting requirements. The question is, which businesses and what kind of income should fall under the rules?

As part of his proposed federal budget for 2008, President Bush made what many believe is the first step to more vigorously collect taxes on online sales. Although vaguely worded, the proposal would require "brokers," or middlemen, to collect taxpayer identification numbers from clients and report their sales of personal property to the IRS on a 1099 form if sales surpass 100 transactions or more than $5,000 annually.

Under current law, eBay and other auction sites aren't considered brokers. But definitions can be changed.

In November, a citizen advisory group for the IRS recommended as much. Expanding the definition to include online auctions, the group said, would open the door to reporting and increased tax compliance.

Paul Heller, chairman of the citizen advisory group, made up of accountants and tax preparers, applauded the president's proposal, but called it so nebulous that it's unclear what kind of businesses he's targeting. Heller, a vice president for JPMorgan Chase, suspects that the provisions are at least partly aimed at Internet sales.

"I have no idea who it would be referring to," Heller said of the proposal, "if not online auctions."

Jennifer Zuccarelli, a spokeswoman for the Treasury Department, declined to name any companies the Bush proposal applies to. All she would say is that the provisions would affect both online and offline commerce, without discrimination as to the medium.

Other than Internet sales, tax experts said that art galleries and consignment stores could be potential targets of the Bush proposal.

Hani Durzy, a spokesman for eBay, insisted that his company would be unaffected if Bush's ideas are enacted as written. EBay doesn't meet the definition of a broker, he said, because it never takes possession of the merchandise its users sell.

In any case, Durzy said eBay doesn't even know whether any given transaction is completed and therefore can't report authoritatively about a user's sales to the IRS.

Simply reporting to the government, he added, would be a financial burden for his company.

David Yaskulka, marketing chairman for the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance, an industry group of more than 500 big eBay sellers, said it wouldn't bother him if eBay reported sales information about its users to the IRS. In his experience, big sellers already pay their fair share.

"Every professional seller I've ever talked to pays their taxes and has no problem with anyone finding out about the level of business they're doing," Yaskulka said.

His concern is that legislation will unfairly target eBay. All sales venues, online or off, should be treated the same, he said.

The next step for the proposed legislation, along with a number of other of Bush budget ideas, is to go through Congress, starting with the House Ways and Means Committee. Members are likely to address the issue during an upcoming hearing on closing the tax gap, tentatively scheduled for mid-March.

Matthew Beck, a spokesman for the committee's Democratic majority, declined comment, other than to say of the Bush proposal, "We certainly take that as a starting point, and we certainly look forward to addressing the tax gap."

Taxpayer advocate my ass. Ebay may not be able to help you, but check out Liberty Auctions. You can buy and sell anything you want with value backed currencies like the Liberty Dollar. No spying or reporting, and there are absolutely no site fees!

Labels: 16th Amendment, constitution, federal government, IRS, taxes

The 111th Congress has been up to it's usual tricks again. First, it was a Democratic log-roll of the typical pro socialism, anti political competition nature. Now, it's apparently the Republicans' term. It has been made known that the Republicans in Congress wish to pass a series of anti freedom bills under the guise of fighting criminals. Not much new here. Dubbed the "Law and Order Agenda (of doom)", they wish to do such things as eliminate child pornography, end drug trafficking, and killing all terrorists- just by passing a law about it! That's right, kids! Just like magic! There will never be any negative, unintended consequences of that... I don't know what to believe. Are Congresspeople really THAT stupid, or do they just think all of us are? Either way, it is a complete insult to YOUR integrity and intelligence as a so-called "citizen"!

For a complete outline of what's going on, click the title link of this post or click here. Oh by the way... They want to eliminate your on-line privacy by forcing ISPs and potentially web sites such as this to retain sensitive, personal information for a long period of time! We will not comply, of course, but God knows many others will if this bill passes.

Labels: congress, federal government, internet, privacy

Redress of greivances is central to quote "good" government. As many are aware, our current regime really sucks- but it could be a LOT worse. Things may in fact become worse, however, if the Senate's new anti grass-roots "lobbyist reform" bill is allowed to go into effect. It would force organizations to fill out many expensive new forms and drive many of the most important ones out of business. Below is an overview from DownsizeDC.org's president, along with a viable way to take action.

(Excerpted) "n response to our editorial earlier this week, "What Divides Us," a reader suggested that we address OMB Watch, and their ilk, directly -- explain where they are wrong about the grassroots lobbying provision of S.1.

Our opponents at groups like Public Citizen, Common Cause, and OMB Watch, want to make this a partisan/ideological issue -- to divide and conquer. They want to regulate so-called "Astroturf" groups (a funny play on the word "grassroots"), which they maintain are "fake" groups.

The thesis of the recent OMB Watch report, as well as the central claim of an open letter from Joan Claybrook of Public Citizen, is that the new regulations they propose won't _prohibit_ speech and political activity.

This is an instance of correct facts organized in a fashion that creates the wrong impression. These new regulations may not out-right prohibit, but they will definitely abridge and hurt small, upstart groups. They will chill political participation at the grassroots. AND YOU CAN VOICE YOUR OPPOSITION HERE: http://action.downsizedc.org/wyc.php?cid=61

Yet, as we'll explain later in this piece, they won't really do much to the so-called Astroturf class of groups.

On a more fundamental level, it doesn't matter whether or not the regulations "prohibit." We all agree that the Constitution excluded the ability to prohibit the rights in question. But the Constitution goes much farther than that.

And what should unite us is our Constitution and our desire for a healthy democracy where not only the rich and powerful can play, but where everyday Americans can petition their government without reservation.

And so today, I want to make the ultimate argument: I want to break this down to a fundamental level that every American should respect -- a Constitutional argument. And we'll conclude by offering a real solution to the problems these good government groups desire to address."

Labels: activism, downsizedc.org, elections, federal government, internet