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I don’t like the government forcing business owners to assist in controlling the populace either, but this is hardly a unique situation. The best example I can

by nickff 2y ago

I don’t like the government forcing business owners to assist in controlling the populace either, but this is hardly a unique situation. The best example I can think of is requiring employers to pay deduct employees’ income tax. Should we stop requiring employers to deduct income tax? For the record, I think the answer to both is yes, but I’m in the minority.

notaustinpowers 2y ago
FISA allows these governmental agencies to force/compel businesses to share this information without users being notified of it. Requiring employers to deduct employee's pay for income taxes notifies the employee in question before it is done. The notice is the important bit here.
- nickff 2y ago
  People are constantly bombarded with notices, to the point that most of us actually read very few of them. I'm not sure the notice makes a big difference here; what proportion of taxpayers do you think actually know their total tax liability and/or effective tax rate at the federal, state, and/or local levels? We have notice of all of them, but it's so hard to keep track of income, investment, sales, and property taxes, that very few of us actually know this stuff. I bet that if you put a notice of FISA data collection on someone's pay stub, it's unlikely they would even notice.
candiddevmike 2y ago
It would be interesting to stop all employer collected things (including/especially health insurance) and have folks pay directly for them. Unless you read your paystubs, you don't realize how much this stuff costs you.
dylan604 2y ago
Deducting taxes is not an opaque issue though. It is known to everyone at time of employment with the filling out of the W-2. When the TLAs come knocking on a business' door to provide information, the employee(s) in question are not asked to fill out another form. Equating the two is just a sad attempt at white washing
repelsteeltje 2y ago
The analogy differs in the extent to which the populace may reasonably assume a level of privacy. The relation between employer and employee is usually less anonymous than that between a tech platform and some random visitor.

by nickff 2y ago

notaustinpowers 2y ago

FISA allows these governmental agencies to force/compel businesses to share this information without users being notified of it. Requiring employers to deduct employee's pay for income taxes notifies the employee in question before it is done. The notice is the important bit here.

nickff 2y ago
People are constantly bombarded with notices, to the point that most of us actually read very few of them. I'm not sure the notice makes a big difference here; what proportion of taxpayers do you think actually know their total tax liability and/or effective tax rate at the federal, state, and/or local levels? We have notice of all of them, but it's so hard to keep track of income, investment, sales, and property taxes, that very few of us actually know this stuff. I bet that if you put a notice of FISA data collection on someone's pay stub, it's unlikely they would even notice.

candiddevmike 2y ago

It would be interesting to stop all employer collected things (including/especially health insurance) and have folks pay directly for them. Unless you read your paystubs, you don't realize how much this stuff costs you.

dylan604 2y ago

Deducting taxes is not an opaque issue though. It is known to everyone at time of employment with the filling out of the W-2. When the TLAs come knocking on a business' door to provide information, the employee(s) in question are not asked to fill out another form. Equating the two is just a sad attempt at white washing

repelsteeltje 2y ago

The analogy differs in the extent to which the populace may reasonably assume a level of privacy. The relation between employer and employee is usually less anonymous than that between a tech platform and some random visitor.