Thread: CO Supreme Court: Immigrants' Tax Records Illegally Searched

Dec 14, 12:25 PM EST

Court: Immigrants' tax records illegally searched

DENVER (AP) -- The Colorado Supreme Court says Weld County authorities violated privacy rights of immigrants when sheriff's deputies seized thousands of tax returns to investigate them for identity theft.

The Court's Monday ruling affirms a decision by a district judge who suppressed evidence against one of the defendants. That judge said authorities had no probable cause to search the man's tax returns and that the documents are confidential.

The defendant was one of more than 70 people charged with criminal impersonation and identity theft. Some other defendants pleaded guilty and were deported before the district court ruling.

Prosecutors had said they planned to charge more people before the ruling.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/ ... TE=DEFAULT

They can send a SWAT TEAM into your house to kill you and your pets "looking for marijuana growing in the home" but they can't search government tax records "looking for illegal aliens impersonating US citizens and stealing their identities"?!! Upside down, inside out.

So what possible good are tax records to begin with? Get rid of them all then and pass the FairTax.

www.fairtax.org

Is there no feeling of American cohesiveness at all in our court system these days? Invasion of privacy of identity thieves?
Any person appointed to the bench should undergo a psychological exam, IMO.

Originally Posted by vortex

Is there no feeling of American cohesiveness at all in our court system these days? Invasion of privacy of identity thieves?
Any person appointed to the bench should undergo a psychological exam, IMO.

I have to agree, vortex. I'm sure the Sheriff's Department had a warrant didn't they? That's my recollection. If they didn't, then the people handed them over voluntarily.

Tax records are supposed to be confidential, that's true. But the IRS hands them over to unemployed debt collectors working out of their basements to troll for fees collecting so called unpaid taxes so who would you trust more with your tax records? Sheriff's Departments, headed by an elected representative of the people, conducting criminal investigations of illegal aliens impersonating US citizens and stealing their identities or some low-life faceless nameless debt collector with personal private information on taxpayers strung all over their house visible to every tom, dick and harry dropping by?

And what of the people who had their identities stolen? Who stands up for them? If not the County Sheriff, then who?

It was done all according to book, the loophole of illegal searching is something pushed by Open borders people that are influential in Colorado politics.

There were so many ID thieves involved that had been collecting tax returns for years form this woman, its sicking!!!!

So the rest of the Illegal thieves that got caught get away it,

In your Face America!! Is what they are chanting to the bank!!

Originally Posted by 93camaro

It was done all according to book, the loophole of illegal searching is something pushed by Open borders people that are influential in Colorado politics.

There were so many ID thieves involved that had been collecting tax returns for years form this woman, its sicking!!!!

So the rest of the Illegal thieves that got caught get away it,

In your Face America!! Is what they are chanting to the bank!!

I thought it was done with warrants, so once again foreign influence upon our courts and judges even at the State Supreme level, favor the foreign thugs destroying American lives instead of protecting the rights of Americans including their tax privacy from foreign thugs is tossed to the wind.

Wake Up America! If you want to protect your identity and your privacy, then pass the FairTax which eliminates all personal private information being disseminated about you by tax preparers, accountants, debt collectors, government IRS agents, government contractors, mortgage companies and hundreds of other organizations that demand copies of your tax returns because under the FairTax there is no tax return for them to demand or misappropriate to illegal aliens, impersonators or identity thieves to steal your life.

www.fairtax.org

In your Face America!! Is what they are chanting to the bank!!

Our entire government is chanting that these days!!!

This is very disappointing indeed.

Colo. court upholds tax privacy for illegals

December 15, 2009

By Valerie Richardson

DENVER | The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Monday that authorities violated the constitutional privacy rights of suspected undocumented workers when they seized their tax records in an identity-theft investigation, a decision that infuriated foes of illegal immigration.

In a 4-3 decision, the court held that Weld County investigators lacked probable cause to search a tax preparer's office in search of the tax records of illegal immigrants suspected of identity theft. The court also ruled that the tax filings were confidential.

The decision affirmed the ruling of the Weld County District Court, which had suppressed the evidence against one of the defendants, Ramon Gutierrez, ruling that the search violated his Fourth Amendment rights.

More than 70 people were charged with criminal impersonation and identity theft after the 2008 search of the office of Amalia's Translation and Tax Service in Greeley. During the investigation, known as Operation Numbers Game, authorities copied the files of 1,338 tax filers thought to have used false or stolen Social Security numbers.

The district court ruled that the Weld County Sheriff's Office conducted "an exploratory search" that allowed investigators to rummage through "the confidential records of thousands of persons based on nothing more than a suspicion that one or more of them may have committed a crime."

"The warrant in the present case did not identify the tax preparer or Gutierrez as the target of the search. It made no showing of probable cause as to Gutierrez or any other client of Amalia's Tax Service," Justice Michael Bender said in the 76-page majority opinion.

Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck said that identifying specific targets in the search warrant would have been impossible because the suspects used multiple identities.

"The crime of identity theft involves a person using multiple names. How can we go to the court and say, 'We want the file of this person' when that person isn't using his or her real name?' " he said.

Mr. Buck also contended that the suspects had given up their right to privacy by filing documents with conflicting names and identification numbers with the Internal Revenue Service. The suspects in the case had used false or stolen Social Security numbers on their W-2 forms and then Individual Tax Identification Numbers on their 1040 forms.

Mr. Gutierrez had used different Social Security numbers on two W-2 forms in the same year. One of those numbers belonged to another person. He also had an ITIN, which illegal immigrants commonly use in combination with a Social Security number.

All people working in the United States are required to file tax returns regardless of their immigration status.

"They're telling the IRS, 'We're here illegally,' and the IRS is acknowledging that they're here illegally," said Mr. Buck, who is running for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate. "I think the Constitution has been turned on its head."

The American Civil Liberties Union has sued on behalf of Amalia's Translation and Tax Service, which caters to agricultural workers in Greeley, arguing that the search and seizure was illegal.

Critics of illegal immigration called the decision an example of courts conferring constitutional rights onto noncitizens. Lawyers representing Mr. Gutierrez said the case showed that authorities must follow proper procedure even when dealing with suspected illegal immigrants.

"The Fourth Amendment requires you to have probable cause particular to the person you want to search for," said Kevin Strobel, head of the Greeley public defender's office, which represented Mr. Gutierrez. "It applies to everyone in this country, regardless of how you got here."

http://washingtontimes.com