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Obama's proposal, posted on WhiteHouse.gov four days before a bipartisan meeting with congressional leaders, "puts American families and small-business owners in control of their own healthcare," the White House's explanation said. Among other things, the White House said the proposal would set up a new competitive health insurance market to give millions Americans the same insurance choices congressional members will have. Also, the White House said, the plan would bring greater accountability to the healthcare system by providing "common sense rules of the road" to keep premium costs down, prevent insurance industry abuses and denial of care and end denial of coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. It also includes middle-class tax cuts for healthcare, which the White House said would reduce premium costs for tens of millions of families and small-business owners. The tax breaks would provide affordable health coverage to about 31 million Americans who do not get it today, the explanation said. The White House said the plan would reduce the deficit by $100 billion over the next 10 year by cutting government overspending and reining in waste, fraud and abuse.

However, tax experts say that if you want to really annoy the IRS, you could do one of three things: Fail to file a return completely; loudly maintain that the tax code doesn’t apply to you; or cheat on employment tax filings for your workers. Stack appears to have done all three. And if the tone of his letter is any indication, he not only hit all of these IRS hot buttons, he hit them with a belligerent attitude that could have further exacerbated his tax woes. “The IRS is toughest on people who reject the whole concept and authority of the system, who are not accepting that we do have income tax laws that we are all subject to,” said Philip J. Holthouse, partner at the Santa Monica tax law and accounting firm of Holthouse, Carlin & Van Trigt. “If the anger expressed in this posting is consistent with how he interacted with the government representatives, it would not have enhanced their compassion.” Stack’s note refers to meeting with “a group” in the early 1980s who were holding “tax readings and discussions” that zeroed in on tax exemptions that make “the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy.” He said in the post that he then began to do “exactly what the ‘big boys’ were doing.” “We took a great deal of care to make it all visible, following all of the rules, exactly the way the law said it was to be done.” Since Stack wasn’t a church, this is like waving a red flag at a bull. The IRS apparently considered this foray into tax avoidance the real corruption. Stacks letter says: “That little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000.” Incidentally, the notion that anyone (other than a legitimate charity) doesn’t need to pay income taxes is one that’s well familiar–and refuted–by not only the IRS but every legitimate tax preparer in the country. So-called tax protestors or “tax defiers” take bits and pieces of the law, string them together in incomprehensible ways to come up with arguments that they say exempt them from tax. They can sound convincing, so the IRS publishes a long list of “frivolous” tax arguments on its web site, explaining when and where each argument was refuted, in an effort to keep innocent taxpayers from drinking the tax protest KoolAid. But that wasn’t all. Stack also says in his letter that he drained a retirement account and didn’t pay tax on any of that money–didn’t even file a return. The penalties for not filing a tax return are roughly ten times worse than for not paying your taxes. That’s one of the reasons that accountants tell their clients to file returns, even when they don’t have the money to pay, said Holthouse. Finally, Stack rails about independent contractor rules. Experts said the only way this rant could make sense is if Stack started a company that employed other people, who he maintained were independent contractors rather than employees. If an employer maintains he’s hired only independent contractors, he doesn’t need to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes on their wages. But the IRS audits these claims carefully. When an employee is improperly classified as an independent contractor so that the employer can avoid these taxes, the IRS prosecutes aggressively because it considers it tantamount to stealing from workers Social Security and Medicare accounts. Notably, the IRS has a Taxpayer Advocate’s office that helps resolve disputes when taxpayers have a legitimate problem with the agency. People who can’t pay tax bills promptly; have a dispute over the validity of a deduction or think they’ve been improperly penalized are often given some slack. But these are not areas where you’re going to get a lot of sympathy.

Based on the discussions at the event, it is evident that body scanners can be easily defeated by concealing explosive materials in body cavities, the letter says. There is also little information on the health risks posed by the use of such scanners, according to the letter. The fact that the systems can be configured at any time to record and store images of travelers also raises privacy questions, the letter says. "The public does not currently understand the inability of these devices to detect the types of explosive materials that could be used or the possible risks to privacy and health," Rotenberg and Nader wrote. "The Department of Homeland Security has made significant mistakes with similar programs in the past," they added, citing as an example the agency's discontinued effort to equip airports with so-called explosive trace portals (ETP), which are designed to detect traces of explosives on travelers' clothing.

The CNCI consists of a number of mutually reinforcing initiatives with the following major goals designed to help secure the United States in cyberspace: To establish a front line of defense against today’s immediate threats by creating or enhancing shared situational awareness of network vulnerabilities, threats, and events within the Federal Government—and ultimately with state, local, and tribal governments and private sector partners—and the ability to act quickly to reduce our current vulnerabilities and prevent intrusions. To defend against the full spectrum of threats by enhancing U.S. counterintelligence capabilities and increasing the security of the supply chain for key information technologies. To strengthen the future cybersecurity environment by expanding cyber education; coordinating and redirecting research and development efforts across the Federal Government; and working to define and develop strategies to deter hostile or malicious activity in cyberspace.