Is ‘Friending’ in Your Future? Better Pay Your Taxes First

By LAURA SAUNDERS

WSJ

Tax deadbeats are finding someone actually reads their MySpace and Facebook postings: the taxman.

State revenue agents have begun nabbing scofflaws by mining information posted on social-networking Web sites, from relocation announcements to professional profiles to financial boasts.

In Minnesota, authorities were able to levy back taxes on the wages of a long-sought tax evader after he announced on MySpace that he would be returning to his home town to work as a real-estate broker and gave his employer’s name. The state collected several thousand dollars, the full amount due.

Meanwhile, agents in Nebraska collected $2,000 from a deejay after he advertised on his MySpace page that he would be working at a big public party.

In California, which has recently been so strapped for revenue it has had to pay some bills with IOUs, agents are also using social Web sites. When one delinquent was identified as a rigger of sails, a curious collection agent searched his name and the term online and found a discussion board used by local riggers. In one thread someone asked where the rigger was because his store had closed, and a reply was posted, “Oh, he moved across the bay.” The agent found the man and collected a four-figure sum.

An Internal Revenue Service spokesman declined to say whether its agents use social-networking sites to pursue delinquent taxes or assist audits.

Searches for tax dodgers typically begin with examinations of bank, employment, tax, and motor-vehicle records. “These new supplements are often far more efficient than the older ones, such as reading the local newspaper or making inquiries at barbershops and church meetings,” said Jim Eads, director of the Federation of Tax Administrators.

Now, when a tax dodger can’t be found, said Nebraska tax official Steven Schroeder, agents often turn to Google. One agent collected $30,000 of unpaid tax from a resident after a Google search found him listed as a high-ranking local marketing rep for a national firm. If a Google online search isn’t productive, agents use the social sites or chat rooms in a last-chance hunt for their quarries.

There are limits to what state agents can do on the Web. In Nebraska, agents are only allowed to use information that is publicly available online. So, MySpace — owned by News Corp., publisher of The Wall Street Journal — tends to work best because its users often post more public information than do those of sites like Facebook, Mr. Schroeder said. The default settings for adults on MySpace create a public profile, while the default settings on Facebook create a profile only viewable by an approved list of friends.

“Agents are not allowed to ‘friend’ someone using false information,” Mr. Schroeder said. The same ethics rules hold in California, according to a spokesman for the state’s Franchise Tax Board.

Not all state tax departments are jumping on the trend. Massachusetts, long known for its aggressive tax collections, said it has “no systematic program” for trawling social media at the moment. According to Mr. Eads of the tax administrators’ group, many state tax authorities currently block social sites on workplace computers to prevent employees from spending personal time on them. “They may change their minds,” he said.

“Using social media is something we will explore,” said Jessica Iverson, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Department of Revenue. A spokesman for Oregon’s revenue agency said his state is also “considering it.”

Other states are looking for ways use Internet information to enhance not only collections but also audits and negotiations. A Minnesota tax official said that when firms try to negotiate payments by claiming to be strapped for cash, agents always check their Web sites. At the time one tanning business was crying poverty to the state, agents pointed out that its site boasted of supplying all the tans for participants in a big body-building contest.

Everything You Need to Know About the H1N1 Vaccine

Wednesday, August 26, 2009 
By Marrecca Fiore

Safety questions are being raised about the rush to get an H1N1 vaccine into the hands of doctors before the virus re-emerges this fall, possibly more dangerous and widespread than it was last spring.

And, those questions are brewing concern among many Americans wondering whether to risk putting off being vaccinated, or take a shot at beating the bug before it gains the upperhand.

“They’re pushing it as fast as they can, but they still have to meet good manufacturing standards,” said Dr. Peter Gross, senior vice president and chief medical officer at Hackensack University Medical Center.

“It will be tested to make sure it’s safe and contains the proper amounts of protective antibodies,” said Gross, who tested flu vaccines for 20 years for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

How It’s Being Made

Each year, scientists with the FDA, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, and vaccine manufacturers meet in January or February to decide which strains of the flu virus will be included in the seasonal flu vaccine.

From there, the chosen strains will be sent to the World Health Organization so that its scientists can view the selected strains and make any necessary — though usually minor — changes, said Gross.

“So they really start the process nine months ahead of time,” Gross said.

Manufacturers begin making the virus in the spring so that it will be ready to use in the fall.

Like the seasonal flu vaccine, the new H1N1 vaccine will be made using innoculated eggs. The viruses used in the manufacturing process are dead, which means they cannot sicken people who are vaccinated, but will help them build immunity to live viruses — that can be spread from person to person. Unlike, the seasonal flu vaccine, the new H1N1 vaccine will contain just one strain of the flu virus instead of three.

H1N1 Is Nothing New

The H1N1 flu virus has been around for decades in various strains. The new virus, however, is different in that it contains a mix of human, bird and swine strains of the virus.

“An H1N1 strain has been included in the influenza vaccine every year since 1977,” Gross said, “which is why the elderly and people in their 50s who have been getting the vaccine for the past 32 years are not really at a significant risk for complications from the novel H1N1 virus, like they are from the seasonal flu.”

The process of manufacturing the H1N1 vaccine is also being made over a much shorter time period than the traditional flu vaccine because of fears of what might happen should a fall or winter outbreak occur and no vaccine be available.

“If people aren’t vaccinated, you’re going to see a lot more complications, a lot more hospitalizations,” said Gross. “Even so, we have to realize that the experience the U.S. had with novel H1N1 virus is very different than the experience Mexico had. Mexico had a lot more deaths. We’ve had 500 to 600, and I’m not trying to minimize any of the deaths, but that’s not even on par with the seasonal flu, which results in about 35,000 deaths.”

The first human volunteers to test the new vaccine were inoculated this month. Most of the volunteers will receive two shots, spaced three weeks apart and it will take another few weeks for volunteers to demonstrate full immunity to the virus if the vaccine works the way it should.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said Monday that all Americans who receive the vaccine will also need two shots, meaning that if the vaccine arrives on schedule for mid-October, most will not have full immunity to the virus until Thanksgiving.

However, fears that manufacturers are moving too fast may be unfounded.

“If the vaccine passes all of the trials and the only thing that results is a sore arm, then most people who receive the vaccine will probably only receive a sore arm,” Gross said. “Serious side effects are rare and we might not know what those will be until 100,000 or a million people are vaccinated. Serious side effects for the polio vaccine were 1 in a million and that’s something you can’t figure out until a million people are vaccinated.”

Three Shots Instead of One?

Americans are potentially looking at three flu shots this year instead of the normal one shot. That would include one for the seasonal flu, and two for the new H1N1 virus.

Who should consider getting all three?

“Pregnant women, people in their 20s to 40s, very young children and, in contrast to previous years, those above 50 will not need the H1N1 vaccine unless they are in a high risk category or have underlying health problems,” Gross said.

Dell CEO Michael Dell ordered to testify in crime camera lawsuit

by David Hammer, The Times-Picayune

Monday May 18, 2009, 7:25 PM

An Orleans Parish judge has ordered Michael Dell, the chairman and chief executive of computer giant Dell Inc., to give sworn testimony in person about his company’s ill-fated crime-camera deal with the city of New Orleans.

Also Monday, Dell’s attorney acknowledged a 2004 meeting between Dell and Mayor Ray Nagin, whose connection to Dell’s partner in the camera project, NetMethods, is being investigated by the FBI.

Several times since it came to light that NetMethods paid for lavish trips for Nagin, the mayor has said he doesn’t remember meeting with Dell, though his 2004 calendar showed a scheduled meeting.

But Scott Campbell, a Dell vice president, signed an affidavit last week stating that Dell met with Nagin during a conference in New Orleans. Campbell said, however, that the two men discussed public school equipment, not crime cameras, at that June 2004 meeting.

Also Monday, Civil District Judge Rose Ledet agreed to set a hearing to determine whether the Dell company should be held in contempt for delaying the disclosure of corporate communications showing that it sold camera casings to New Orleans in 2004. That’s two years earlier than the firm previously acknowledged.

Lawsuit claims conspiracy

Dell didn’t start selling actual cameras through NetMethods and Veracent, firms owned by Mark St. Pierre until 2006. State Purchasing Director Denise Lea said in a recent deposition that Dell was prohibited from selling the cameras under its multistate contract, but e-mails released in the civil case indicate that Dell employees tried to come up with other terms, such as “surveillance module” and “eyeball, ” to make it look like the company wasn’t selling cameras.

In her deposition, taken last week, Lea said that after hearing about the company’s camera sales in early 2007 from a Times-Picayune reporter, she ordered Dell to “cease and desist.”

Until late 2006, the city had been buying cameras from Active Solutions and Southern Electronics. In their lawsuit, those companies claim Dell, NetMethods, Veracent and city officials conspired to steal their surveillance camera technology.

The lawsuit has helped uncover hundreds of thousands of dollars in gratuities NetMethods gave Nagin and his former technology chief, Greg Meffert. Nagin and his family took trips to Hawaii, Jamaica and Chicago on NetMethods’ dime. Meffert had free access to a corporate credit card while he was the city’s tech chief, using it for everything from strip club visits to cruises to home furnishings, and then collected more than $600,000 in fees from St. Pierre’s firm once he left City Hall.

In addition to trying to establish that Nagin and Meffert created an unlevel playing field at City Hall, the plaintiffs are zeroing in on Dell and its deep pockets — making Michael Dell’s involvement a point of contention. Southern and Active Solutions aim to prove the company was involved early and the decisions came from the top.

Interest in Meffert

A newly released corporate e-mail shows that Dell Inc. appeared to be angling for a camera deal in New Orleans in February 2004 and that Michael Dell had his eye on more business in the Big Easy as soon as Meffert came to City Hall in 2002.

“Michael Dell would be proud. Remember when he sent you that email making sure we were on top of the business in New Orleans when Greg Meffert took over as CTO?” Dell’s regional sales manager Kim Fury wrote to colleague Troy West at the time.

Later, she said Meffert “is also throwing in a video surveillance piece that he will pull from the street if we can provide it.” That was an apparent reference to the camera deal.

Two weeks ago, Dell’s attorneys said it was harassment for the plaintiffs to insist on deposing Michael Dell, saying there was no reason to believe Dell knew what was happening in New Orleans.

But records the company turned over last week showed the chairman was briefed about his firm’s dealings in New Orleans in preparation for a June 2004 meeting with Nagin at the Hampton Inn.

In an internal memo, Dell’s assistants tell their boss: “We’ve also sold them housing units for a camera project.”

The plaintiffs want Ledet to hold Dell in contempt for not turning over those documents earlier. The lawsuit is already more than two years old, and Ledet has warned Dell she is leery of further delaying the September trial date.

The briefing memo Dell attorneys produced last week describes the mayor as “an ‘up-and-comer’ in Democratic political circles” who “was elected on a call to end corruption in the city government and is driving an effort to revitalize the way New Orleans does business.”

Company may appeal

Dell attorney Wayne Lee said the company still has the option of appealing Ledet’s decision to require Michael Dell to be deposed. Lee tried to convince the judge to limit Dell’s testimony to one hour and let him give it over the telephone. But Ledet set a three-hour time limit and required Dell to show up in person.

The deposition will be held within the next 60 days, plaintiffs attorney James Garner said.

“We are disappointed in the court’s ruling today and are confident Mr. Dell’s deposition will prove our assertion that he has never had any communication with the mayor or his staff on any issues related to the city’s crime camera project, ” Lee said in a prepared statement.

According to Garner’s description in court, there are e-mails from Dell’s Fury to St. Pierre and others in the city technology office asking for contract numbers and “talking about Dell’s visit” about a week before Michael Dell’s meeting with Nagin.

But after The Times-Picayune persuaded Dell to release the documents late Monday, it appears Fury mentions the Nagin meeting only to Dell colleagues, not to St. Pierre and others who were included in previous e-mail messages.

Ohio Dad Calls 911 Over Politician Son’s Messy Room

foxnews.com

BEDFORD, Ohio —  An Ohio man who argued with his grown son over a messy bedroom says he overreacted when he called 911.

Andrew Mizsak called authorities Thursday after his 28-year-old son threw a plate of food across the kitchen table and made a fist at him.

His son, also named Andrew, lives with his parents and has a room in the basement.

The father declined to press charges and told police he doesn’t want to ruin his son’s political career. The younger Mizsak works as a political consultant and is a school board member in Bedford, a Cleveland suburb.

The son says he and his father love each very much and that he’s lucky to be living in the house rent free. He also promises to keep his room clean.

CNN) — Top Republicans are demanding an apology from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or proof to back her claim that the CIA misled Congress about the use of harsh interrogation tactics.

Pelosi last week said that she was briefed by the CIA on such techniques only once — in September 2002 — and that she was told at the time that techniques like waterboarding were not being used.

Pelosi, D-California, said she learned from an aide that waterboarding had been used after other lawmakers were briefed in 2003.

A recently released Justice Department memo says the CIA used waterboarding at least 83 times in August 2002 in the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, a suspected al Qaeda leader imprisoned at U.S. facilities in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said Monday that if Pelosi’s accusations are not true, she may need to step down.

“She made some outrageous accusations last week where she said that the CIA lied to her and lied systematically over a period of years. That is a very, very serious charge,” Hoekstra said Monday on CNN’s “American Morning.”

“Either the CIA needs to be held accountable for their performance during this time or the speaker needs to be held accountable and be responsible for the actions and the statements that she made last week. One or the other is correct, one or the other is wrong,” he said.

Hoekstra wants the notes from the CIA briefing in question to be declassified, as does Pelosi. The House speaker says the notes will show she wasn’t told that techniques such as waterboarding were being used. Related: GOP wants Pelosi held accountable

While Pelosi declined offers to appear on the Sunday talk shows, her critics fired away.

House Minority Leader John Boehner demanded that Pelosi provide evidence to support her accusations.

“Lying to the Congress of the United States is a crime,” Boehner, R-Ohio, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “And if the speaker is accusing the CIA and other intelligence officials of lying or misleading the Congress, then she should come forward with evidence and turn that over to the Justice Department so they can be prosecuted. And if that’s not the case, I think she ought to apologize to our intelligence professionals around the world.”

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Pelosi “has stepped in it big time.”

Steele said he wants to know if President Obama backs Pelosi’s account or that of the CIA director. The White House has not commented on the controversy.

Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate, used a different outlet to voice his criticism, posting a seven-stanza poem about the House speaker on his Web site.

“She sat in briefings and knew about enhanced interrogation; But claims she wasn’t there, and can’t give an explanation. She disparages the CIA and says they are a bunch of liars; Even the press aren’t buying it and they’re stoking their fires.”

“I believe in the integrity of the men and women who sacrifice to keep us safe; Not the woman who has been caught flat-footed, lying to our face. I say it here and I say it rather clear — It’s time for Nancy Pelosi to resign and get out of here,” he wrote.

As Republicans continue to hammer away, Republican strategist and CNN contributor Ed Rollins said Monday that Pelosi has no one to blame but herself.

“This is a self-inflicted wound. … She brought the whole subject up,” he said. “She started this. I think it was the worst week she’s had. I’m not accusing her of lying or any of the rest of that, but I think she certainly doesn’t have her facts correct.”

But Democratic strategist and CNN contributor James Carville said he doesn’t see what the big deal is.

“I think that she and [CIA Director Leon] Panetta ought to sit down, come out. I don’t think the Democrats want to be like the Bush administration and be at war with the CIA. And it might be that they have different recollections here. And if there are different recollections, we’re not going to resolve what was said in a meeting seven years ago,” he said on CNN Sunday. “It could be that people remember something differently. I have no idea. But it looks like something we can get to the bottom of without a lot of trouble.”

Following Pelosi’s remarks, Panetta on Friday stood up for the agency and challenged Pelosi’s assertions.

“There is a long tradition in Washington of making political hay out of our business. It predates my service with this great institution, and it will be around long after I’m gone. But the political debates about interrogation reached a new decibel level yesterday when the CIA was accused of misleading Congress,” Panetta said in a letter to employees.

“Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values,” he said.

Panetta said the agency’s records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers “briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing ‘the enhanced techniques that had been employed.’”

Pelosi issued a response to Panetta and shifted her criticism from the CIA to the Bush administration.

“My criticism of the manner in which the Bush administration did not appropriately inform Congress is separate from my respect for those in the intelligence community who work to keep our country safe,” she wrote

Separately Thursday, the CIA rejected a request from former Vice President Dick Cheney to declassify memos that Cheney has said show that the agency’s severe interrogation methods were crucial to getting information from detainees that helped disrupt terrorism plots.

In her most detailed account to date, Pelosi said she was told during a classified briefing in September 2002 that the CIA was not engaged in waterboarding, even though records now indicate that the agency had employed the method dozens of times on an Al Qaeda suspect one month earlier.

“The CIA was misleading the Congress” as part of a broader Bush administration pattern of deception about its activities, said Pelosi (D-San Francisco).

Pelosi’s comments amount to an allegation that the CIA violated its legal obligation to keep congressional leaders accurately informed. Republicans responded by ratcheting up their criticism of Pelosi.

“I think the problem is that the speaker has had way too many stories on this issue,” said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

Boehner said that given the briefings that were provided to Pelosi and other Democrats, their recent criticism, following their initial silence, is an attempt “to have it both ways.”

“It’s pretty clear that they were well aware of what these enhanced interrogation techniques were,” he said.

Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.), the ranking Republican on the intelligence committee, said it was “outrageous that a member of Congress would call our terror-fighters liars.”

The controversy has become a political side-show to the broader debate over CIA interrogation methods that Obama banned during his first week in office — a decision that Cheney and other Republicans have alleged will make the nation less safe.

Pelosi has been among the most vocal critics of the Bush administration’s counter-terrorism measures. On Thursday, she reiterated her call for the creation of a “truth commission” to investigate Bush-era practices.

Republicans have opposed that idea and warned that any such undertaking also would bring scrutiny to Democratic lawmakers. They have focused in particular on Pelosi, accusing her of hypocrisy for failing to attempt to stop the interrogation practices until well after she had learned about them in detail.

Pelosi said no protest would have mattered to Bush administration officials, and she pointed to competing legal opinions within the administration that had been brushed aside. Instead, she said her priority was to help deliver a Democratic majority to Congress as a way of terminating Bush administration policies.

The attacks on Pelosi gained traction last week when the CIA released a chart that showed she and former Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), who were then the top members of the House Intelligence Committee, were the first lawmakers to be told of the CIA’s interrogation program.

The table said both members attended a briefing in September 2002 during which the CIA described the particular interrogation techniques “that had been employed.” In August of that year, records now show, the CIA used the waterboarding method on Al Qaeda suspect Abu Zubaydah at least 83 times.

The table did not indicate whether waterboarding was specifically mentioned in 2002, but it did show that a senior aide to Pelosi attended a 2003 briefing in which the method was discussed.

Pelosi acknowledged that she was then informed by the aide that waterboarding was being used but noted that the disclosure came just one month before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. “At the same time,” she said, “the administration was misleading the Congress on the weapons of mass destruction.”

The CIA did not respond to Pelosi’s charges that the agency misled Congress. Agency spokesman George Little said, “The language in the chart . . . is true to the language in the agency’s records.”

Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee met with reporters Thursday to defend Pelosi and said the CIA routinely withheld key information in classified briefings.

“You have to play 20 questions with them,” said Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Menlo Park). “They are not forthcoming with information.”

Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), the chairman of the panel, said he intended to introduce legislation that would impose new standards on what the CIA is required to report to Congress.

In a separate matter, Cheney on Thursday lost — at least for now — his effort to have the government declassify memos describing the success of the CIA program. Cheney had requested their release in March.

In a letter to the National Archives, where the records are kept, the CIA said it could not declassify the documents because they were subject to an ongoing Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

“For that reason — and that reason only — CIA did not accept Mr. Cheney’s request,” said another CIA spokesman, Paul Gimigliano.

The civil liberties groups that filed the lawsuit criticized the CIA’s decision, noting the irony that the agency was citing a suit seeking the documents’ release as justification for not doing so.

“It is unusual for Amnesty International to find itself on the same side . . . as Cheney,” said Tom Parker, a counter-terrorism expert at the organization. “But we welcome his late conversion to the value of transparency in government.”

U.S. Will Pay $2.6 Million to Train Chinese Prostitutes to Drink Responsibly on the Job

By Edwin Mora

Stress test banks need $75 bln capital: Citi analyst

May 6 (Reuters) – Banks undergoing U.S. government stress tests will need a total of $75 billion in capital, with Bank of America (BAC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Wells Fargo (WFC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) having the largest need, analyst Keith Horowitz of Citigroup said.

The analyst expects 10 of 16 banks he covers, including KeyCorp (KEY.N: Quote, Profile, Research), Regions Financial Corp (RF.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and U.S. Bancorp (USB.N: Quote, Profile, Research), to raise capital after the stress tests. [ID:nWNAB4147]

While Bank of America is likely to need a substantial increase in common stock, the brokerage said it believes the bank can cover it via conversion of preferred stock.

“The (Bank of America) stock looks the cheapest in the group,” the analyst said.

He said he expects Bank of New York Mellon (BK.N: Quote, Profile, Research), Goldman Sachs (GS.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and State Street Corp (STT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) to fare best on the stress tests, and believes valuations for these stocks remain attractive.

Citigroup also downgraded Fifth Third (FITB.O: Quote, Profile, Research) to “hold” from “buy” and said the bank may need to raise upwards of $2 billion in capital, which is higher than the private preferred balance of $1.1 billion.

BB&T (BBT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) may need capital but can address the need by cutting its dividend, Horowitz said.

The top 19 U.S. financial institutions have been negotiating with regulators on how much of an additional capital buffer the banks will need to sustain losses that might occur if economic conditions deteriorate further.

Results of the stress test, which will determine the ability of the 19 lenders to weather a deep recession, are due out on Thursday.

Gay marriage is to be permitted in the US state of Maine after a bill was passed by both houses of the state’s legislature and signed by the governor.

Maine will be the fifth US state to allow gay marriage, after Connecticut, Masschusettes, Iowa and Vermont.

A number of other states, including New Hampshire and New York, are also due to consider proposals to legalise it.

Earlier this week, Washington DC’s city council passed a law to recognise gay marriages performed in other states.

PHANTOM AIR FARCE PICTURES May 5, 2009 —

The $328,835 snapshots of an Air Force One backup plane buzzing lower Manhattan last week will not be shown to the public, the White House said yesterday.

“We have no plans to release them,” an aide to President Obama told The Post, refusing to comment further.

The sole purpose of the secret photo-op, which sent thousands of New Yorkers running for cover, was to take new publicity shots of the presidential jet over the city.

“The photos . . . are classified — that’s ridiculous,” Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., said.

The photos have not technically been “classified,” a White House aide said, but they are being kept from public view.

New Yorkers said they could not understand how a president who shares intimate snapshots from the White House could justify keeping these secret.

“So we’re not gonna see the fruits of this cruel joke?” said Frank Antonelli, 39, one of the Wall Street traders spooked by last week’s flyover.

“I’m not surprised. Obama . . . wouldn’t further all the bad publicity by putting out those pictures.”

By JEREMY OLSHAN

New York Post