- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

FOIA appeal, again
by bill payne 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Friday 5/15/98 2:55 PM E-mail Federico.F.Pena(a)hq.doe.gov and mail Federico F. Pena The Secretary of Energy United States Department of Energy Washington, D.C. 20585 Dear Secretary Pena: Purposes of this letter are to 1 protest an improper Freedom of Information Act dismissal by Thomas O. Mann , Deputy Director, Office of Hearings and Appeals Thomas.Mann(a)hq.doe.gov 2 appeal a denial of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request. I attach a copy of my 3/10/98 appeal letter to you. DOE/ALOO failed to respond with time allotted by law to my FOIA request, as you can read in my appeal letter. On March 30, 1998 Barfield finally did respond. But late. APR 28 Mann writes me, We learned that AOO issued a determination concerning your request on March 30, 1998. Because your appeal was based on the Departments failure to respond, and because the Department has responded you appeal is now moot. I follow the law. If Mann feels that there is law or federal regulation to support is claim that the time-out clause in the FOIA no longer applies because of a late agency response, then he should report this to you. Mann adds in the final paragraph of his APR 28 letter Accordingly, the appeal dated march 10, 1998, that you filed under the Freedom of Information Act, is hereby dismissed. My appeal is not, as Mann concluded, moot. My appeal is active. Mann, however, writes You may, however, file an appeal with the Office based on the March 30 determination. Man also writes Please note that, as stated in the determination letter, appeals under the Freedom of Information Act should be addressed to the Director of the Office of Hearings and Appeals. And Barfield writes Such an appeal must be made in writing within 30 calendar days after receipt of this letter, addressed to the Director, Office of Hearing and Appeals, ... Secretary Pena, your employees are apparently trying to invent their own FOIA rules instead of complying with federal law. Whenever a FOIA request is denied, the agency must inform the requester of the reasons for the denial and the requester's right to appeal the denial to the head of the agency. I am appealing to you, not http://www.hr.doe.gov/htbin/callup?name=breznay&SYNONYM=YES, George.Breznay(a)hq.doe.gov I ask that your office takes WRITTEN corrective action to educate or perhaps reprimand both Mann and Barfield for not following the law. Barfield writes in her Mar 30 letter The Kirtland Area Office (KAO), oversight for the Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), conducted a search but could not locate any responsive documents. The KAO also made the determination that the documents you are seeking are contained in procurement files in possession and control of SNL and are, therefore, not agency records subject to provision of the FOIA. Secretary Pena, Barfields statement appears to be an attempt for bureaucrats to hide, perhaps in the case of RSA and VP Al Gore, possibly incriminating records from the public. Therefore, I assert that the requested documents are or should be part of DOE agency documents, if DOE is doing a proper job of managing its contractors. Therefore, I add this clause to my previous appeal. And ask that your respond within the time limit allowed you by law. Of course, I continue to feel that we should settle this unfortunate matter seen on Internet at http://www.jya.com/whp050898.htm http://www.jya.com/whp-10usca.htm http://www.jya.com/whp043098.htm http://www.jya.com/mf050998.htm http://jya.com/whpfiles.htm http://www.jya.com/crack-a5.htm http://caq.com/cryptogate http://www.aci.net/kalliste/speccoll.htm http://www.aci.net/kalliste/nukearse.htm before it gets even more serious and eventually costly to the taxpayer. Sincerely, William H. Payne 13015 Calle de Sandias Albuquerque, NM 87111 Tuesesday 3/10/98 8:10 PM E-mail Federico.F.Pena(a)hq.doe.gov and mail Federico F. Pena The Secretary of Energy United States Department of Energy Washington, D.C. 20585 Dear Secretary Pena: Purpose of this letter is to appeal a denial of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request. I wrote on Tuesday February 17, 1999 15:11 e-mail and mail Ms. Elva Barfield Freedom of Information Office U. S. Department of Energy Albuquerque Operations Office/OIEA POB 5400 Albuquerque, NM 87185-5400 EBARFIELD(a)DOEAL.GOV Dear Ms. Barfield: VP Al Gore is in the crypto business. Information SuperSpyWay Al Gore Approved Encryption for China in Return for Campaign Donations by Charles R. Smith Portions of the above document posted on Internet at http://www.us.net/softwar/ and http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ states 1. Gore charged with encryption policy according to PDD-5 and PRD-27 on April 16, 1993. 2. Government officials represent themselves on Al Gore's behalf for RSA patent purchase negotiations in Feb. 1994. 3. RSA chairman Bidzos meets with Chinese officials at the same time as Ron Brown in Oct. 1995. 4. RSA Chairman Bidzos enters into merger negotiations with Security Dynamics, a company backed by Sanford Robertson, in Nov. 1995. 5. VP Gore calls Sanford Robertson from the White House for a donation in Nov. 1995. 6. Robertson delivers $100,000 donation ($80,000 soft - $20,000 directly into the Clinton/Gore campaign) in Jan. 1996. 7. RSA signs deal with China in Feb. 1996. The administration previously prosecuted similar deals but this time does nothing. 8. Justice Dept. approves RSA merger with Security Dynamics in April 1996 for $280 million dollars, netting Sanford Robertson's company a cool $2 million just to write the deal. In 1991 I was in involved with Sandia National Laboratories Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty seismic data authenticator. At that time Sandia director Tommy A Sellers had assumed responsibility for directorship from Robert Clem. Sandia supervisor Tom Wright replaced my supervisor, John Holovka, who was the supervisor for the CTBT seismic data authenticator. Wright brought in Ph.D. Steven Goldsmith to supervise me. Sellars, Wright, and Goldsmith were new to crypto-type projects. Much of this is documented at http://www.jya.com/whp021598.htm. This is evidenced by Sellar's attached SEP 24 1991 memorandum, which Goldsmith help author, addressed to Dr James J Hearn at the National Security Agency. The SEP 24 memorandum contained a number of technical errors. I corrected these errors in my attached December 20, 1991 memorandum. Department of Energy and it predecessors have a well-documented history of not requiring technical expertise for pursuit of interests. Stewart Udall, The Myths of August, writes, Any cover-up must be implemented and enforced by designated agents, and one man emerged in 1953 as the quarterback of the AEC's damage-control effort. His name was Gordon Dunning. Although the personnel charts of the 1950s list him as a low-level "rad-safe" official in the Division of Biology and Medicine, documents demonstrate that he was clothed with authority to manage and suppress information about the radiation released by the testing of nuclear weapons. ... About the time Sellers and Sandia Ombudsman gave me a directed transfer to break electronic locks for the FBI/ERF [engineering research facility], Goldsmith and Wright, certainly with the approval of Sellers, placed a contract with RSA Inc [http://www.rsa.com/] I was told. Ms Barfield, we think the American public needs to know more about RSA's work with Sandia National Laboratories. Therefore, Under the provision of the Freedom of Information Act, 5 USC 552, I am requesting access to: 1 ALL purchase requisitions, including any attached statement of work, issued by Sandia National Laboratories, Los Alamos National Laboratories, or DOE/ALOO between January 1, 1991 and February 17, 1998 to RSA Inc. 2 Copies of all invoices from RSA Inc received by Sandia National Laboratories, Los Alamos National Laboratories, or DOE/ALOO between January 1, 1991 and February 17, 1998 If there are any fees for searching for, or copying, the records I have requested, please inform me before you fill the request. As you know, the Act permits you to reduce or waive the fees when the release of the information is considered as "primarily benefiting the public." I believe that this requests fits that category and I therefore ask that you waive any fees. Your office agreed to waive fees before. This request is surely of "public interest." December 13, 1994 DOE/AL FOIA officer Gwen Schreiner waived fees for the reason, "We have considered your request and have determined that release of the requested records is in the public interest, that disclosure of this information is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government, that you or the organization you represent have little or no commercial interest in the material contained in the records, that you or the organization you represent have the qualifications and ability to use and disseminate the information, and that the records are not currently in the public domain. A waiver of fees is therefore granted." This waiver of fees was, undoubtedly, issued as a result of former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary's Openness initiative. Heart of America paid my way to hear Secretary O'Leary's celebrated whistleblower speech. If all or any part of this request is denied, please cite the specific exemption(s) which you think justifies your refusal to release the information and inform me of your agency's administrative appeal procedures available to me under the law. I would appreciate your handling this request as quickly as possible, and I look forward to hearing from you within 20 working days, as the law stipulates. I received no response to the above FOIA. Therefore I appeal as a result of non-response. As you may be aware (6)(A) Each agency, upon any request for records made under paragraph (1), (2), or (3) of this subsection, shall-- (i) determine within ten days \1\ (excepting Saturdays, Sundays, and legal public holidays) after the receipt of any such request whether to comply with such request and shall immediately notify the person making such request of such determination and the reasons therefor, and of the right of such person to appeal to the head of the agency any adverse determination; and And you may also be aware ------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ Under section 12(b) of the Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments of 1996 (Pub. L. 104-231; 110 Stat. 3054), the amendment made by section 8(b) of such Act striking ``ten days'' and inserting ``20 days'' shall take effect on October 3, 1997. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- (ii) make a determination with respect to any appeal within twenty days (excepting Saturdays, Sundays, and legal public holidays) after the receipt of such appeal. If on appeal the denial of the request for records is in whole or in part upheld, the agency shall notify the person making such request of the provisions for judicial review of that determination under paragraph (4) of this subsection So I expect a response to this appeal within the time allotted to you by law. Much of this unfortunate matter is appearing on Internet. http://www.jya.com/whp021598.htm http://www.jya.com/cylinked.htm Letter from Bill Payne Regarding Cryptography at Sandia http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ Crypto AG: The NSA's Trojan Whore? http://caq.com/CAQ/caq63/caq63madsen.html NSA, Crypto AG, and the Iraq-Iran War http://www.aci.net/kalliste/speccoll.htm How Secure is America's Nuclear Arsenal? http://www.aci.net/kalliste/nukearse.htm And, of course, we continue to seek settlement. Sincerely, William H. Payne 13015 Calle de Sandias Albuquerque, NM 87111

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foia fee denial appeal and settlement letter
by bill payne 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Friday 5/15/98 3:48 PM By e-mail and US mail Lieutenant General Kenneth A Minihan, USAF Director, National Security Agency National Security Agency 9800 Savage Road Fort George G. Meade, MD 20755-6000 Dear General Minihan: Purposes of the letter are to 1 appeal a FOIA fee waiver denial. 2 continue to explore settlement possibilities of our current lawsuit. 30 March Joann H. Grube, Deputy Director of Policy, NSA, wrote in response to my Friday February 27, 1998 attached letter to you There are 706 cases ahead of your in our processing queue. .. Please be advised that your request for a waiver of fees has been denied. Public knowledge of how much taxpayer NSA has likely squandered ATTEMPTING to build public key crypto chips certainly in the public interest. Therefore, I appeal Grubes denial. Grube wrote Any person notified on an adverse determination may, within 60 days after notification of the determination, file an appeal to the NSA/CSS Freedom of Information Act Appeal Authority. The appeal shall be in writing and addressed to the NSA/CSS FOIA Appeal Authority, ... General Minihan, Grube apparently is attempting to invent her own FOIA appeal rules instead of follow federal law. Whenever a FOIA request is denied, the agency must inform the requester of the reasons for the denial and the requester's right to appeal the denial to the head of the agency. I ask that you educate and possibly reprimand Grube for her failure to properly state law. As you may be aware (6)(A) Each agency, upon any request for records made under paragraph (1), (2), or (3) of this subsection, shall-- (i) determine within ten days \1\ (excepting Saturdays, Sundays, and legal public holidays) after the receipt of any such request whether to comply with such request and shall immediately notify the person making such request of such determination and the reasons therefor, and of the right of such person to appeal to the head of the agency any adverse determination; and And you may also be aware ------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ Under section 12(b) of the Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments of 1996 (Pub. L. 104-231; 110 Stat. 3054), the amendment made by section 8(b) of such Act striking ``ten days'' and inserting ``20 days'' shall take effect on October 3, 1997. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- (ii) make a determination with respect to any appeal within twenty days (excepting Saturdays, Sundays, and legal public holidays) after the receipt of such appeal. If on appeal the denial of the request for records is in whole or in part upheld, the agency shall notify the person making such request of the provisions for judicial review of that determination under paragraph (4) of this subsection So I expect a response to this appeal within the time allotted to you by law. Our lawsuit has attracted international attention on Internet. http://www.jya.com/whp050898.htm http://www.jya.com/whp-10usca.htm http://www.jya.com/whp043098.htm http://www.jya.com/mf050998.htm http://jya.com/whpfiles.htm http://www.jya.com/crack-a5.htm http://caq.com/cryptogate http://www.aci.net/kalliste/speccoll.htm http://www.aci.net/kalliste/nukearse.htm Partially, perhaps, as the result of the about .5 million dead Iranian Shiite Muslims. Or maybe judicial misconduct? Morales and I plan to appeal to the Tenth in event that Morales dismissal is upheld. Further, we feel that YOU must be held accountable. Therefore we will appeal your removal from our lawsuit. But this is sure to cost the taxpayer much more money. And failure to fairly settle these unfortunate matters raises the possibility of a understandable, or opportunistic, retaliatory attack for NSAs bungled spy sting on Iran by the aggrieved or their enemies. Innocent people may be harmed. Both alternatives are unpleasant to think about. Therefore, Morales and I continue to offer to engage in settlement talks with YOU. I cannot find your e-mail address Therefore I will forward the e-mail copy of this FOIA appeal /settlement letter to Ray Kammer of NIST [http://www.nist.gov so that Kammer can possibly forward an e-mail to you. I am not reading e-mail. Sincerely, William Payne 13015 Calle de Sandias Albuquerque, NM 87111 505-292-7037 Friday February 27, 1998 3:15 PM By e-mail and US mail Lieutenant General Kenneth A Minihan, USAF Director, National Security Agency National Security Agency 9800 Savage Road Fort George G. Meade, MD 20755-6000 Dear General Minihan: Purposes of the letter are to 1 request information under the Freedom of Information Act 2 explore settlement possibilities of our current lawsuit. In about 1986 Sandia National Laboratories assigned me the task of design and construction of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty seismic data authenticator. In the initial stages of the project, Sandia cryptographer Gustavus Simmons attempted to convince both Sandia management and NSA employees Tom White, Mark Unkenholtz, and Ed Georgio that a form of public key authentication should replace NSA employee Ronald Benincasa's National Seismic Station/Unmaned Seismic Observatory 11-bit data authentication algorithm. My Sandia supervisor John Holovka and project leader H B [Jim] Durham ordered me to write a paper explaining public key cryptography. This paper, RSA ENCRYPTION, along with my SAND report describing my implementation of Benincasa's algorithm and filings in our lawsuit, now appear on Internet at http://www.jya.com/index.htm, click CRYPTOME, then OpEd, then http://www.jya.com/whprsa.htm. Sandia explored the merits of switching from Benincasa's algorithm to a public key-based authentication method suggested by Simmons. For Sandia's evaluation of the merits of public key, electronic tagging, and Bureau of Engraving and Printing projects , I bought for Sandia samples both the Cylink CY1024 and AT&T A & B two chip sets for modulo m arithmetic computations. NSA employee Tom White sent me a copy of the SECRET classified NSA report on IBM's hardware public key chip FIREFLY. I wrote in my tutorial paper RSA hardware computations The slow speed of software RSA computations plus the potential wide use prompted several companies to build chips which compute modular arithmetic to at least several hundred bits. Most of these chips "cascade" to compute with a larger number of bits. Corporations involved in building these chips are 1 IBM Firefly 2 AT&T 3 Motorola (apparently a three chip set) 4 Cylink Pittway-First alert 5 Sandia Labs (Algorithm M and predecessor chip) Details of the IBM chip is classified. AT&T as of July 1987 has not released details of their chip. Little information is available on the Motorola chip set. The Cylink chip is commercially available. Its price dropped from $1,500 to $600 each in June 1987. Data is transferred to and from the chip with serial shift register communication. The early Sandia chip was limited in speed. The replacement chip is cascadeable, communicates with 8 or 16 bits parallel, matches the speed of the Cylink chip, but is not out of fabrication. Rumors circulate that there is about an order of magnitude performance difference between some of these chips. These hardware chips improve exponentiation speed about 3 orders of magnitude over software implementation benchmarked on an Intel 8086 family microcomputer. Whitfield Diffie writes about both the Cylink and Sandia chips. And is quoted at http://www.aci.net/kalliste/nukearse.htm. Sandia had terrible luck with its public key chips. I reported SOME of the troubles to Electronic Engineering Times editor Loring Wirbel [http://techweb.cmp.com/eet/823/] on March 23, 1994. Dr. John Wisniewski was a supervisor at Sandia's Center for Radiation-hardened Microelectronics. Wisniewski was a graduate student at Washington State University in about 1975. I was a professor at WSU. Wisniewski knows all about the failing Sandia chips in the nuclear arsenal. I took notes on February 13, 1993. Wisniewski reviewed the problems again for me. 1 No quality initiative. Each chip lot had a different process. 2 Overall yield - 40-50%. Down to 10% after packaging. 3 Metalization problems. No planarization. No flow of glass. Couldn't use high temperature. Step coverage problems. Layed down over tension. 100% field returns over several years. 4 Sandia would store lots of parts for replacements. Sandia management made the decision to place low yield parts in the nuclear arsenal. Sandia must meet DOD schedules management reasoned. Hundreds of millions spent on CRM. Sandia must show productivity. Wisniewski told me that low yield chip test survivors are those whichthe tests failed to detect failures. Wisniewski will talk. 503-625-6408. Wisniewski now works for Intel in Oregon. Have Wisniewski tell you about the fire in the CRM clean room! Sandia supervisor Jerry Allen later told me it cost $300,000 each to remove Sandia's failing chips at Pantex from a nuclear bomb. NSA apparently is biased toward hardware implementations of cryptographic and authentication algorithms. As opposed to software implementation. NSA representatives and Sandia management decided not to use a public key authentication scheme for its CTBT seismic data authenticator because of all of the problems with implementing public key algorithms. But NSA surely has spent MUCH MONEY on public key chip implementations. NSA is promoting its Clipper crypto chips as described at http://cpsr.org/dox/clipper.html. And we get some information about technical specifications of NSA's Clipper chip at http://www.us.net/softwar/http://www.us.net/softwar/clip.html Clipper Chip Information MYK-78 CLIPPER CHIP ENCRYPTION/DECRYPTION ON A CHIP 1 micron double level metal CMOS technology 0.35 watts power 28 pin plastic leaded chip carrier (PLCC) package Transistor to transistor logic (TTL) interface Chip ID, family key and device unique key are installed at programming. Chip ID, family key and device unique key are installed at programming facility and are completely transparent to the user. Therefore, Under the provision of the Freedom of Information Act, 5 USC 552, I am requesting access to: 1 Copies of all invoices from A AT&T B Motorola C IBM D Sandia National Laboratories to NSA for payments for developing ANY public key-related chips between January 1, 1980 and February 27, 1998. 2 Copies of all invoices to NSA from ANY corporation involved in development of ANY Clipper chip-related hardware between January 1, 1980 and February 27, 1998. The public has a right to know how much NSA spent on TRYING monoploize the crypto business. If there are any fees for searching for, or copying, the records I have requested, please inform me before you fill the request. As you know, the Act permits you to reduce or waive the fees when the release of the information is considered as "primarily benefiting the public." I believe that this requests fits that category and I therefore ask that you waive any fees. If all or any part of this request is denied, please cite the specific exemption(s) which you think justifies your refusal to release the information and inform me of your agency's administrative appeal procedures available to me under the law. I would appreciate your handling this request as quickly as possible, and I look forward to hearing from you within 20 working days, as the law stipulates. With respect to our current FOIA lawsuit, I feel that we should settle this unfortunate matter. I see from your biography at http://www.nsa.gov:8080/ and http://www.nsa.gov:8080/dirnsa/dirnsa.html that you are 1979 Distinguished Graduate Master of Arts degree in National Security Affairs Naval Postgraduate School Monterey, California One of my former M.S. and Ph.D students in Computer Science, Ted Lewis, is currently the chairman of Computer Science at Naval Postgraduate School [http://www.friction-free-economy.com/] Small world. But I think that this emphasizes that WE SHOULD all be on the same side. Not engaged in a conflict in US federal court. Or on Internet. NSA attempts to withhold requested information are possibly unwise. In our wired world the aggrieved know what happened to them. [http://www.aci.net/kalliste/speccoll.htm] http://www.wpiran.org/, http://www.netlink.co.uk/users/impact/namir/namirm.html And moderates in Iran, [http://persia.org/khatami/biography.html] appear want settlement too. My family and I have been damaged by these crypto wars. I ask you that consider fair settlement of damages caused by the National Security Agency. I cannot find your e-mail address on Internet. Therefore I will forward the e-mail copy of this FOIA/settlement letter to Ray Kammer of NIST [http://www.nist.gov/] who along with the FBI [http://www.fbi.gov/, http://www.fbi.gov/fo/nyfo/nytwa.htmand] and NSA are trying to control the crypto business so that Kammer can possibly forward an e-mail copy of the FOIA/Settlement letter to you. Sincerely, bill William Payne 13015 Calle de Sandias Albuquerque, NM 87111 505-292-7037 [I am not reading e-mail]

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Government misconduct
by bill payne 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Friday 5/15/98 5:36 PM Senator Grassley I sent you a copy of the criminal complaint affidavit I sent to judge Hug. Our NSA lawsuit was mostly done as practice for an upcoming Privacy Act violation/defamation lawsuit. John Young kindly posted greene.htm National Security Abuse: Greene v. McElroy April 8, 1998 I was NEVER interviewed by Sandia's Disciplinary Review Committee. The charges made against me are FALSE. I did nothing wrong. http://jya.com/whpfiles.htm Please help get this matter should be settled before it gets worse. bill payne Tuesday April 28, 1998 4:05 PM Tom Spellman Criminal Investigator Inspector General U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission POB 18858 Washington, D.C. 20036-8858 202-663-4375 800-849-4230 Dear Mr. Spellman: March 18, 1998 I phoned the Inspector General's hotline. I filed a verbal criminal Privacy Act violation complaint with Wanda. Wanda told me you were going to be the investigator. Monday March 23 you phoned me to leave your office number. You phoned several days later. I told you about the false and defaming documents both Sandia National Laboratories and EEOC Phoenix employees Burtner and Larry Trujillo released without my written permission. You asked that I send you a copy of these documents. I mailed them to you the same day. You told me that you had been reading about this case on Internet at jya.com and aci.net/kalliste. On April 3 I phoned to inform your office that a criminal complaint affidavit was filed with judge Hug on Monday April 1 naming those involve in the release of the documents and those who did not properly prosecute those involved.. I mailed a copy of the criminal complaint affidavit to you. I have not heard from you either in writing or by phone since our initial contact. Therefore, I ask that you write me and tell me about the status of your investigation. And, of course, I feel that this unfortunate matter should be promptly settled. I invite settlement negotiations of the civil aspects of this criminal release of documents. Sincerely, William H. Payne 13015 Calle de Sandias NE Albuquerque, NM 87111

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Tim May is a fine person.
by anonymous＠miron.vip.best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim May is a fine person. You people should not be sending out some many negative vibes. We all owe Tim a gread debt for his help an advancing cryptography.

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Re:A 'Nobody' Out From 'Obscura'
by StanSqncrs 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In a message dated 5/15/98 7:33:42 PM Central Daylight Time, mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com writes: << > Obviously, this is a forgery, it isn't me, my guess is, it's our 'nobody' - You're really out of your league here - lost and clueless. Get a clue ... and get lost >> You'd really like that wouldn't you! Come on, admit it, I'm fun to have around! ;-) Oh, and BTW: You're failure to deny the (tacit) charge sure looks like a (tacit) admission that it's true. I nailed your ass (IMHO.) Stan

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Re: Crypto & Taxes [WAS Re: Cybersecurity]
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A couple of weeks ago, Michael Froomkin <froomkin(a)law.miami.edu> wrote: >> > fully applied crypto (e. g. fully anonymous digital cash) >> > makes it essentially impossible to base a tax system on income. >Hold on. This is more "factoid" than "fact": recall that income is PAID >by people as well as EARNED by people. Most payers have easily >detectible physical presence and assets that can easily be attached by >regulators. It will be a cold day before, e.g., my employer agrees not >to report my earnings. And the same is true for most employers in most >industries. Unfortunately, this is true, at least for people whose employers are subject to income tax somewhere. Taxing businesses doesn't make sense economically - you could collect almost as much money with far less disruption to the underlying economy by taxing it as wages for workers and dividend or interest payments to owners* rather than inside the business itself, substantially reducing the accounting workload of businesses**. But it's still very attractive to governments, not only as a lever for implementing social policy and extracting cooperation, but as a critical tool to force businesses to report wages payed to employees - I don't know if law.miami.edu is a taxable business, but for most employers, if they don't report the wages they paid to their employees, but do report all their revenue, they get taxed on the additional profit, instead of the employee getting hit with the tax; most people I know who've been paid "under the table" have been working for small businesses that are also not reporting cash revenues. Of course, if a business isn't _spending_ money on employees, but is just contracting for work performed by an Anguillan corporation, they still have receipts for expenses, and the financial arrangements between the Anguillan corporation and any of its US employees aren't really their concern.... >And if it ever stops being true, we'll just get VAT, and VAT inspectors. >So the line about death and taxes remains as true as ever, crypto or no. Value is really hard to measure in a service economy. Most of my work over the last N years has been talking to people, typing on keyboards, going places on airplanes to talk to other people and type on other keyboards, and occasionally handing people piles of collated and stapled dead trees, a racket for which people pay my employer lots of money***. Where's the value? When was it added? If the Tax Collectors don't see people handing my employer lots of money, can they demonstrate how much money they can confiscate? - - - - - - * this misses payments to foreign owners and taxes on foreign customers, but any government foolish enough to discourage investment by foreigners and sales to foreign customers deserves to be blamed heavily for lost jobs.. ** US businesses spend approximately 40% as much calculating taxes as they do _paying_ them... *** My previous employer was very good at taking metal, sand, and fermented dinosaur parts, and shaping them into boxes and strings that people would give them money for; they were extremely optimistic that they could get lots of people to also pay them money for sending them people to talk about boxes and strings and getting other people to pay _them_ for talking and banging on keyboards. They shouldn't have been quite so optimistic, and now I'm in the racket on my own, having not yet acquired overseas corporations to shelter my income through :-) #--- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, Freelance Information Architect, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # Phone +1-510-247-0664 Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281 #---

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Re: Please include me
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

piss off! ME FIRST! >From cypherpunks-errors(a)toad.com Sat Oct 3 22:43:06 1998 >Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1998 05:06:01 GMT >Message-Id: <199810040506.FAA29119(a)earth.wazoo.com> >From: Anonymous <nobody(a)earth.wazoo.com> >Comments: This message did not originate from the Sender >address above. >It was remailed automatically by anonymizing remailer software. >Please report problems or inappropriate use to the >remailer administrator at <wazoo(a)wazoo.com>. >Subject: Re: Please include me >References: <80e9319b.3616faed(a)aol.com> >To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com >Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com >Precedence: bulk > > Include me on your mailing list >Me too!!!! >-- an anonymous AOL31 user

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This list is a joke
by Dave Temple 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

When I subscribed to this list, I thought it would have decent communication on worthwhile topics. I've come to realize though that 75% of the messages I receive are from people whining like 4 year olds. I am making a huge assumption in saying that most of the people on this list are adults. It is time to start acting like it. Please take my name off of this list.

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Ball Caps for Father's Day
by 92640856＠bellsouth.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

You procrastinated over Mothers Day so don't wait for Father's Day to get here and not have anything for him. Father's Day Hat's with worlds greatest father on them. 100% cotton, white, super adjustable, fit's large sizes. Great for all summer in the hot sun, on the golf course or any outside activity. Visit our Web page and see the hat at <A HREF="http://members.aol.com/WePrintAny/index.html">WePrintAny's Home Page </A> Another spot is here http://members.aol.com/WePrintAny/index.html Visit the web page then return here, this is your order Page. Order now before we're over booked. Orders are already comming in. 1 hat is $10.00 2 hats for $18.00 This includes postage and handling (USA only). Send cash, check or Money Order (sorry no credit cards) to: GDH P.O. Box 2092 Orange Park, Fl. 32067-2092 No checks after 1 June 1998. Not enough time for check to clear and hat to be mailed and received by Fathers Day. Print this page, this is your order form. Include your e-mail address________________________________ In case we need to contact you. This is your mailing Label. From WePrint Any P.O. Box 2092 Orange Park, Fl 32067 Name_______________________________________ Add._______________________________________ City__________________State_____ Zip_______ Don't wait, order now. Cash and Money Orders mailed the same day. Order: 1 Hat $10.00 $10.00 __ add. Hat's $8.00 _____ Fl. residents add 7% tax _____ TOTAL $_____ Check back after Fathers Day for full Product line.

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Gunpowder taggant solution
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I think that the gunpowder taggants are not as bad as it seems at first sight. EVen if all gunpowders are sold with taggants, and if there is enough people wishing to defeat them, they can simply organize gunpowder mixing parties at gun shows. After several such parties, the taggants might become completely useless. - Igor.

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