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Secret Service Investigating Romney Tax Hack Claim
A federal investigation has been launched after hackers claimed to have stolen Mitt Romney’s tax returns. The hackers have given Romney until September 28th to pay $1 million in bitcoins or they say they will release the returns. From the article: "The claim was made in a post on the Pastebin site on Sunday that alleged that Romney's federal tax returns were taken from the offices of PriceWaterhouse Coopers in Frankin, Tenn., on August 25 by someone who snuck into the building and made copies of the document. The message author threatened to release the files publicly on September 28 and said copies of the files had been given to Democratic and Republican leaders in that county. Democrats have made Romney's refusal to release his tax returns a key point in their criticism that he is not in touch with working class voters."
Someone actually thinks bitcoins are worth having.
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I remember when Bush II was being attacked as a draft dodger. Someone released faked documents, which the news media picked up as real. When they were discredited, no one would touch the issue anymore, whether it was legitimate or not.
This could turn out to be a similar ploy to help Romney - by associating the tax returns with criminal activity, it might get too hot for the Dems to touch, making an otherwise legitimate issue go away.
Except there was no electronic vault. As the summary quite clearly states, someone broke/snuck into the building and made copies. I'm not even sure where the term "hacker" comes in here... maybe just because they want to be paid in bitcoins?
"Romney’s 1040 tax returns were taken from the PWC office 8/25/2012 by gaining access to the third floor via a gentleman working on the 3rd floor of the building. Once on the 3rd floor, the team moved down the stairs to the 2nd floor and setup shop in an empty office room. During the night, suite 260 was entered, and all available 1040 tax forms for Romney were copied. A package was sent to the PWC on suite 260 with a flash drive containing a copy of the 1040 files, plus copies were sent to the Democratic office in the county and copies were sent to the GOP office in the county at the beginning of the week also containing flash drives with copies of Romney’s tax returns before 2010. A scanned signature image for Mitt Romney from the 1040 forms were scanned and included with the packages, taken from earlier 1040 tax forms gathered and stored on the flash drives."
Possible, but I am thinking this is actually part of a larger ploy.
Since anyone of even a modicum of technological capability, who actually uses BitCoins, knows that they are somewhat traceable, I wonder why someone would demand such an outlandish sum in them. Let's see here...we have the key words BitCoins, hackers, and all of it tied to a presidential election.
We all know that for the last several months, the press has been falling over themselves to paint BitCoins in the darkest light possible, playing up every rumoured instanced of malfeasance even remotely tied to them. We also know that the military, for lack of enemies, has recently decided that their next shipment of bread and butter will have to come from the 'cyber-crime' division, and that they are desperate to find a playmate, domestic or otherwise, to justify the purchase orders already signed and dated, in top brass's top drawers. And seeing how the BitCoin community has been relatively effective in educating people with regards to the f*cked up claims the press loves to make, perhaps someone decided to take it to the next level. By launching an attack on a presidential campaign, you are guaranteed coverage in the press, at decibel levels well above the normal white noise; you also guarantee that the attacked opponent will respond with a calculated defence (denial, followed by revenge if / when elected), with the added bonus that since you went after a minor but incredibly irritating election issue (his tax returns, and it is), he will take it personally. If he is elected, he will willingly sign any law that mentions this incident and 'justice'; if he loses, the other guy will do the same, as he doesn't like the idea of what happened to his opponent possibly happening to him or his friends. It's the equivalent of a Morton's fork, where the tech industry is damned if they do, damned if they don't. The military gets paid either way, though they won't be invited to any tech parties for a few years.
Hackers (unknown enemy, up there with the boogey-man these days, hiding under your bed and in your computer, going to get you), BitCoins (another unknown, a 'competing' currency to the US dollar, so it's 'patriotic' to be against it; plus 'hackers' and drug dealers use it, unlike the US Dollar, so it must be bad), and a presidential election (when politicians make a black list, and begin adding names).
The best part is, even if the hackers are arrested, we may never get the people behind it all. Sounds a little conspiracy-ish, but it is in the CIA handbook, that you 'groom' someone else to do the dirty work, then get rid of them.
I am John Hurt.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=2009+FBAR+amnesty
tl;dr: In early 2009, the Swiss bank UBS was indited in a massive tax-evasion scheme and as part of their settlement with the American IRS, they revealed thousands of names of account holders (to the IRS, but not to the public). The IRS then instituted an amnesty program, where if you came clean about your previously undisclosed offshore accounts in your 2009 tax returns, your penalty would be reduced and you wouldn't go to jail for tax evasion.
Romney is only releasing his tax returns from 2010 or later.
For me at least, it isn't a case of 'should we go after them', but how much more attention gets paid to a case by law enforcement if the target if famous or politically connected. The Palin one was is a classic example... a type of hack that is not unusual and gets reported to the police fairly frequently, but very little is done about it. Yet all the stops came out to track down the person when Palin's emails were stolen.
I am all for people like this being tracked down and arrested for their crimes, I just wish it did not matter so much who your victim is.
Or for that matter, his college records. As much as I'd like to see those from Obama, he's under no obligation to release them, and it would be just as wrong to release them illegally as it would be to release Romney's tax returns.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Wait, you don't think a crime done for the purpose of influencing the outcome of the election for the POTUS is more serious than one that is done just to annoy someone or for financial gain? By that logic the entire Watergate scandal should never have been prosecuted - after all, it was just a simple office burglary.
Mitt Romney pays less taxes (~15%) because his money was taxed when it was initially earned and now he's paying taxes on his investments so he's being taxed twice - a fact often omitted form reports.
By that logic, my plumber should only have to pay 15% on his taxes, since that money was already taxed once when me and all of his other customers earned it. But of course things don't work that way for ordinary people, only for the 1%.
In Mitt's case, there are 2 popular theories as to what he's hiding: 1) he was paying the Mormon church less tithing than he was supposed to be paying; 2) he was one of the tax cheats that applied for amnesty when the Swiss cooperated with the IRS. Hell, it could even be both.
For all his faults, George W. Bush even released 13 years of tax returns. He probably had lots of complex business arrangements, but nothing that you wouldn't expect of a typical high net worth individual. If you aren't doing something that would betray the trust of the American people, who are considering making you the most powerful person in the world, you won't be hiding anything.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
How in the world did you go from 'these crimes should be prosecuted even if the victim is a nobody' to 'watergate should never have been prosecuted'?
I am just tired of the 'people with power deserve more justice then regular people'. Crow, a crime like this probably has less personal impact then one on a regular person... you think something like this would actually impact Romney in any significant way? Hacks like this are about as politically dangerous as fumbling a line during an interview. On the other hand when some average person has their personal information stolen it can be life destroying. So in a very real way this is a less serious crime since it is unlikely to have much impact on anyone or anything.
Well bitcoins are like wire transfers...its all just meaningless account numbers, but.... the movement has to be consistent. So if I give you X bitcoins, I can see the account they go to when you spend them.... but its just another meaningless account number.
Where things get interesting is, that they mix.... so, if I see a transfer to another account, I can then trace any other transfers to or from that account, or other ones it is associated with.
If alice the crook uses her coins to buy a service from bob, then bob mixes her coins with others of his when he spends them, maybe from some tips he recieved from posting a tip bitcoin account on some web forum.... then he becomes easy to link.... and question. its "old fashioned police work" from there.
Of course, if they are careful, and only use those coins for relatively anonymous transactions which they can turn into cash or unassociated bitcoins.... that trail could go cold fast.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
The thing about Bitcoins is you can "transact" them into something completely unattached to the original. So, $1M worth of crypto codes gets sent to the blackmailer, they immediately turn it into $1M worth of equally valid, but completely different crypto codes (probably using servers scattered around the world) and poof, the trail is dead. That's the good, bad, and ugly of Bitcoin in a nutshell.
How is he being taxed twice?
You pay tax on your income, you invest your income (principal) and pay tax on the investment's earnings. You don't pay tax again on the investment principal.
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
I didn't think anybody was dumb enough to think that we have the resources to "track down and arrest" someone for every crime that is reported. So I assumed (incorrectly) that your point was every instance of a crime should be treated the same as all other incidents of that crime. Since we can't possibly prosecute them all, we should either prosecute none, or just randomly pick some to prosecute. It is unlikely that Watergate would have been prosecuted to the extent it was in those circumstances.
Like it or not, prosecution of crime (like everything else we do) is going to have priorities assigned. We do not have infinite resources. And like it or not, any crime which is done for the purposes of influencing an election is going to get a high priority, whether you think the crime would actually influence the election or not.
For all the people complaining about making private things public:
1) At one time in the US, tax returns were public information. When the IRS was new, everyone's info was published to show that everyone paid their share. I'm not saying we need to force people back to this precedent, but just saying that there is a a precedent.
2) The precedent of Presidential Candidates releasing tax returns for 10 years was started by... George Romney, Willard M. Romney's dad. His reasoning was that any one year could be a fluke, but 10 years would show a pattern. Again, not saying they should have broken in and taken his taxes, but the precedent was set.
The people should be prosecuted. They've broken the law and should face consequences. But anyone rising up in anger against the unprecedented nature of this needs to look at precedents.
And then they pay taxes on the "Gains" not the part they previously earned. Nothing is taxed twice. We need to keep pointing that out because the GP was a complete moron.
It's a gimmick. It's right up there with having a Philly cheesesteak in Gino's versus Pat's. American politics is filled with those kinds of traps.
All the issue is there to serve is to suggest Romney is "not one of you" and fits the stereotype of "rich white republican."
Truth is, Obama is rich, too. You can't really do federal politics without being quite wealthy.
Time wasted talking about tax returns, or birth certificates, or whatever is time spent not talking about the facts. And when you look at FACTS, both Republicans AND Democrats have each done massive harm to this country over the past 80 years.
More Twoson than Cupertino
A fine example of whataboutery. The issue is not that Romney is wealthy - it's a matter of public record that his wealth is double that of the last eight presidents combined - but that he may have been illegally evading taxes through the use of off-shore banks, and took advantage of the 2009 amnesty.
My next sig will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush
Where are your messiah's income tax returns
12 years worth, for both Obama and Biden:
http://www.barackobama.com/tax-returns/
Your move.
With the first link, the chain is forged.