Eeyore's News and view

FCC’s Warrantless Household Searches Alarm Experts
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/fcc-raid/
By Ryan Singel
You may not know it, but if you have a wireless router, a cordless phone, remote car-door opener, baby monitor or cellphone in your house, the FCC claims the right to enter your home without a warrant at any time of the day or night in order to inspect it.
That’s the upshot of the rules the agency has followed for years to monitor licensed television and radio stations, and to crack down on pirate radio broadcasters. And the commission maintains the same policy applies to any licensed or unlicensed radio-frequency device.
“Anything using RF energy — we have the right to inspect it to make sure it is not causing interference,” says FCC spokesman David Fiske. That includes devices like Wi-Fi routers that use unlicensed spectrum, Fiske says.
The FCC claims it derives its warrantless search power from the Communications Act of 1934, though the constitutionality of the claim has gone untested in the courts. That’s largely because the FCC had little to do with average citizens for most of the last 75 years, when home transmitters were largely reserved to ham-radio operators and CB-radio aficionados. But in 2009, nearly every household in the United States has multiple devices that use radio waves and fall under the FCC’s purview, making the commission’s claimed authority ripe for a court challenge.
“It is a major stretch beyond case law to assert that authority with respect to a private home, which is at the heart of the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure,” says Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer Lee Tien. “When it is a private home and when you are talking about an over-powered Wi-Fi antenna — the idea they could just go in is honestly quite bizarre.”
George Washington University professor Orin Kerr, a constitutional law expert, also questions the legalilty of the policy.
“The Supreme Court has said that the government can’t make warrantless entries into homes for administrative inspections,” Kerr said via e-mail, refering to a 1967 Supreme Court ruling that housing inspectors needed warrants to force their way into private residences. The FCC’s online FAQ doesn’t explain how the agency gets around that ruling, Kerr adds.
The rules came to attention this month when an FCC agent investigating a pirate radio station in Boulder, Colorado, left a copy of a 2005 FCC inspection policy on the door of a residence hosting the unlicensed 100-watt transmitter. “Whether you operate an amateur station or any other radio device, your authorization from the Commission comes with the obligation to allow inspection,” the statement says.
The notice spooked those running “Boulder Free Radio,” who thought it was just tough talk intended to scare them into shutting down, according to one of the station’s leaders, who spoke to Wired.com on condition of anonymity. “This is an intimidation thing,” he said. “Most people aren’t that dedicated to the cause. I’m not going to let them into my house.
But refusing the FCC admittance can carry a harsh financial penalty. In a 2007 case, a Corpus Christi, Texas, man got a visit from the FCC’s direction-finders after rebroadcasting an AM radio station through a CB radio in his home. An FCC agent tracked the signal to his house and asked to see the equipment; Donald Winton refused to let him in, but did turn off the radio. Winton was later fined $7,000 for refusing entry to the officer. The fine was reduced to $225 after he proved he had little income.
Administrative search powers are not rare, at least as directed against businesses — fire-safety, food and workplace-safety regulators generally don’t need warrants to enter a business. And despite the broad power, the FCC agents aren’t cops, says Fiske. “The only right they have is to inspect the equipment,” Fiske says. “If they want to seize, they have to work with the U.S. Attorney’s office.”
But if inspectors should notice evidence of unrelated criminal behavior — say, a marijuana plant or stolen property — a Supreme Court decision suggests the search can be used against the resident. In the 1987 case New York v. Burger, two police officers performed a warrantless, administrative search of one Joseph Burger’s automobile junkyard. When he couldn’t produce the proper paperwork, the officers searched the grounds and found stolen vehicles, which they used to prosecute him. The Supreme Court held the search to be legal.
In the meantime, pirate radio stations are adapting to the FCC’s warrantless search power by dividing up a station’s operations. For instance, Boulder Free Radio consists of an online radio station operated by DJs from a remote studio. Miles away, a small computer streams the online station and feeds it to the transmitter. Once the FCC comes and leaves a notice on the door, the transmitter is moved to another location before the agent returns.
http://frc4u.org/phpbb/index.php?topic=1465.0;topicseen

Supervisor Asks Woman To Take Down American Flag
Reporting Carol Cavazos MANSFIELD (CBS 11 News) ―
Is it okay to show your patriotism at the office?
For one Arlington woman, the answer was "no" after she hung an American flag in her office just before the Memorial Day weekend.
Debbie McLucas is one of four hospital supervisors at Kindred Hospital in Mansfield. Last week, she hung a three-by-five foot American flag in the office she shares with the other supervisors.
When McLucas came to work Friday, her boss told her another supervisor had found her flag offensive. "I was just totally speechless. I was like, 'You're kidding me,'" McLucas said.
McLucas' husband and sons are former military men. Her daughter is currently serving in Iraq as a combat medic.
Stifling a cry, McLucas said, "I just wonder if all those young men and women over there are really doing this for nothing."
McLucas said the supervisor who complained has been in the United States for 14 years and is formerly from Africa. McLucas said the supervisor took down Debbie's flag herself.
"The flag and the pole had been placed on the floor," McLucas said. But McLucas also said hospital higher ups had told her some patients' families and visitors had also complained.
"I was told it wouldn't matter if it was only one person," she said. "It would have to come down."
McLucas said hospital bosses told her as far as patriotism was concerned, the flag flying outside the hospital building would have to suffice.
Kindred Hospital Corporate Headquarters are located in Kentucky. They have yet to make a final decision on the matter. They have not returned our phone calls for comment.
The Kindred Hospital Corporation was chosen as Fortune's most admired for 2009. McLucas hopes they'll back her patriotism.
"I find it very frightening because if I can't display my flag, what other freedoms will I lose before all is said and done," McLucas asked.
http://cbs11tv.com/local/patriotism.at.office.2.1020415.html

Thes two articles are back supply and demand articles, common sence really, but i guess the people in government don't have enough common sence to see it or understand it. But the more you have to rely on them, the less you can really be able to think and act for yourself. If you depend on them to feed house and cloth you, then you have to go along with their program.
Americans' credit scores fall as they struggle to pay bills
As more consumers struggle with bills, their credit scores are paying a price.
From the third quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of 2009 — the latest data available — the average TransUnion credit score dropped 6 points to 651, the credit bureau says. Scores fell more dramatically in states hardest hit by the housing bust: California saw a 10-point drop, for example, and Arizona, 11.
"Consumers are feeling the bite of the current recession," says Ezra Becker, a director in TransUnion's financial services group. "With delinquencies showing up in credit files, it's not surprising that the average score is decreasing somewhat."
Becker believes credit scores aren't likely to improve — and could even drop further — through the second quarter of 2010.
More than 200 million U.S. consumers have credit scores, so a change of even a few points in the national average can be significant, experts say.
The latest drop is based on TransUnion's TransRisk credit score, rather than the widely used FICO credit score. Yet it's still a "meaningful" gauge of a possible trend because many of the same ingredients — including payment history and debt levels — go into calculating scores, says John Ulzheimer, a credit expert who used to work at Equifax credit bureau and Fair Isaac, the creator of the FICO score.
Amid the recession, rising unemployment has made it harder for some consumers to pay bills, dragging down their credit scores.
In the first quarter of 2009, credit card delinquencies hit a record high of 6.5%, while charge-offs reached 7.5%, a near-record high, according to the Federal Reserve.
Banks are closing a record number of credit card accounts and reducing millions of dollars in credit lines. That could boost the percentage of credit consumers are using, hurting their scores.
Foreclosures also are ruining credit. But in general, credit card problems take a greater toll on overall scores than mortgage woes. That's because only 50.6 million households have first mortgages, while nearly all of the nation's 114 million households have at least one credit card, says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com.
As lenders tighten credit, scores have become more important in determining who gets a loan, and at what rate. Advocates worry that falling credit scores could make it harder for borrowers to qualify for credit at a time when they most need it.
"It means that consumers really have to keep their eyes on the ball and focus on getting out of credit card debt," helping scores, says Ulzheimer, president of consumer education for Credit.com.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/credit/2009-05-26-credit-scores-recession_N.htm

IRS tax revenue falls along with taxpayers' income
Federal tax revenue plunged $138 billion, or 34%, in April vs. a year ago — the biggest April drop since 1981, a study released Tuesday by the American Institute for Economic Research says.
When the economy slumps, so does tax revenue, and this recession has been no different, says Kerry Lynch, senior fellow at the AIER and author of the study. "It illustrates how severe the recession has been."
For example, 6 million people lost jobs in the 12 months ended in April — and that means far fewer dollars from income taxes. Income tax revenue dropped 44% from a year ago.
"These are staggering numbers," Lynch says.
Big revenue losses mean that the U.S. budget deficit may be larger than predicted this year and in future years.
"It's one of the drivers of the ongoing expansion of the federal budget deficit," says John Lonski, chief economist for Moody's Investors Service. The Congressional Budget Office projects a $1.7 trillion budget deficit for fiscal year 2009.
The other deficit driver is government spending, which, the AIER's report says, is the main culprit for the federal budget deficit.
The White House thinks that tax revenue will increase in 2011, thanks in part to the stimulus package, says the report from AIER, an independent economic research institute. But it warns, "Even if that does happen, the administration also projects that government spending will be so much higher each year that large deficits will continue, and the national debt held by the public will double over the next 10 years."
The government may have a hard time trimming spending to reduce the deficit when the recession ends. The 77 million Baby Boomers— those born in 1946 through 1964 — will start tapping their federal retirement benefits soon, which means increased government outlays for Social Security and Medicare.
"It will be doubly difficult for federal government to reduce expenditures and narrow the deficit as rapidly as they did following previous recessions," Lonski says. At the end of the last major recession, in 1981, Boomers were in their 30s. Their incomes were expanding, as was their appetite for goods and services.
The Boomers now are in their 50s and 60s and unlikely to keep increasing incomes for long, which means that revenue from income taxes could flatten in the next few years. Also, Lonski says, they are more likely to save for retirement than spend — and consumer spending is a big driver of the economy.
"The American consumer led us out of previous recessions with some semblance of gusto," Lonski says. "They're too old to do it now."
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/2009-05-26-irs-tax-revenue-down_N.htm