Lois Lerner and the IRS “scandal” is business as usual in a federal government that is no longer accountable, not only to the people but even to itself.
Today via the New York Observer we learn that not only did Lois Lerner’s computer crash somehow destroying all pertinent emails having to do with the IRS alleged targeting of conservative and Tea Party groups, but “remarkably” her Blackberry was destroyed.
In two elusive and nebulous sworn declarations, we can glean that Ms. Lerner had two Blackberries. One was issued to her on November 12, 2009. According to a sworn declaration, this is the Blackberry that contained all the emails (both sent and received) that would have been in her “Outlook” and drafts that never were sent from her Blackberry during the relevant time.
With incredible disregard for the law and the Congressional inquiry, the IRS admits that this Blackberry “was removed or wiped clean of any sensitive or proprietary information and removed as scrap for disposal in June 2012.” This is a year after her hard drive “crash” and months after the Congressional inquiry began.
The article goes on to explain that despite this obvious lawlessness, this opens up an entirely new method of retrieving the emails through Blackberry’s servers which Judge Sullivan is very likely to do.
But there is a bigger problem that needs to be addressed. Many people both on the right and the left have recognized that the Obama Administration has a total disregard for constitutional restraint and realize that Obama’s abuse of power is far beyond any seen in American history making Richard Nixon’s corruption look amateurish. All of this does not explain an unaccountable and out of control federal bureaucracy that willingly almost gleefully participates in this lawlessness.
Lois Lerner and the IRS is just an easy example of a decades long pattern of the federal government’s institutional disregard for American values.
This is not just about politics and has reached far beyond ideological differences between left and right, we are now witnessing a systemic destruction of American values and liberties by a federal bureaucracy which is no longer accountable. Not to the congress which created it and ostensibly funds it, or even to the executive branch which “manages” it.
Don’t get me wrong, there is little doubt that the current administration most likely colluded with the IRS to achieve its political goals and advance its agenda, but the facts are that Lois Lerner and most others involved in this particular “scandal” were not political appointees but career federal employees who acted in their institution’s best interest. They sought to destroy their enemies, small government advocates, to maintain their power, prestige and financial well-being. The only variable here was that they currently have an ideological compliant administration at their disposal.
It does not matter which particular scandal of the week you look at an unmistakable pattern exists, federal agencies are operating to advance or protect their own institutional powers with little if any regard to American governing statutes or values .
Our elected representatives no longer control the Leviathan of our national government they are controlled by it. Since Obama and his progressive ilk believe in a technocratic and elitist control of the “masses” by government, this administration is able to just ride the horse of bureaucratic control and in fact put it to full-out gallop to achieve their political agenda But it really does not matter which party is currently playing the jockey, the horse is now determining the course it will take.
The National Security Agency built its own search engine and shares hundreds of billions of digital records with federal law enforcement and several other U.S. government agencies, The Intercept investigative site reported Monday.
This program which was started by an executive directive (12333) back during the Reagan administration far outside of the current “war on terror” has morphed into a “tool” for federal agencies to operate outside the control of congress or even the courts.
The 12333 surveillance takes place with no court oversight and has received minimal congressional scrutiny because it is targeted at foreign, not domestic, communication networks.”
Some may see this as a valuable law enforcement tool and I am sure it is, but it is also “Big Brother” unleashed
The search engine, known as ICREACH, is aimed at “worldwide intelligence targets” but also appears to provide access to “millions of records on American citizens who have not been accused of any wrongdoing,” according to The Intercept. The engine apparently does not have a “direct relationship” to a previously disclosed NSA database that stores information on phone calls by millions of Americans, which is allowed under the USA Patriot Act.
This is an example of federal agencies taking legitimate and perhaps needed government directives in this case an Executive order by Reagan, stretching it through bureaucratic authority to encompass a legislative action, The Patriot Act, to establish an entirely new and different program which neither previous legitimate government actions intended or authorized. The NSA created its own program to spy on millions of “American citizens who have not been accused of any wrongdoing,” and share that information with other federal agencies without any law being passed by congress or signed by any president authorizing it to do so.
Of course all of this is in direct violation of not only the spirit but the plain written text of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
It is one thing for our elected representatives to pass laws or issue executive orders based upon “national security concerns” which are of questionable constitutionality, it is quite another thing for federal agencies to create their own shadow government outside any elected control whatsoever.
While congress holds hearings galore on the growing abuses of the bureaucracy to the core values of Americanism, the federal government has been taken over by an unaccountable consciousless monster whose only task is self-perpetuation and glutinous growth. This is how the new Commissioner of the IRS while ostensibly being raked over the coals for this obvious abuse of institutional power can, in all seriousness, claim the problem is the result of lack of funding. This is like the drunk complaining he cannot get sober without another drink.
As government bureaucracies grow they ceases to have the people’s best interest as their primary goal, they even cease to have America’s interest as a goal, eventually they become their own most important self-interest.
The special interest which is destroying America is in fact the United States Government.