TurboTax Stops Filing State Tax Returns Due To Massive Fraud

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United States tax preparation company TurboTax, a subsidiary of "financial software" developer Intuit, has discontinued its e-filing service for state tax returns due to concerns over massive fraud. Reportedly Utah was the first state to raise concerns to the company identifying 28 returns as fraudulent with a further 8,000 suspected fraudulent returns. Minnesota followed by refusing to accept state returns filed through Turbo Tax after users reported logging in and seeing TurboTax show their taxes already had already been filed for them. Alabama similarly flagged 16,000 returns as likely fraudulent and insists that their computer and network security practices are in no way connected to the existence of fraudulent returns. Continue reading →

Indefinite Yahoo Gag Struck Down by Judge

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Reuters reports that yesterday U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal ruled against a gag order issued against Yahoo, that would have potentially prevented them from ever revealing they had been subjected to a particular grand jury subpoena. The order in question rather than seeking to compel Yahoo's silence on the matter of the subpoena for a set period of time, subject to potential renewal, sought instead to compel Yahoo's silence until ordered otherwise by the court. Continue reading →

MuckRock: DEA Documents Show Parallel Construction Widely Used

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Yesterday MuckRock released a number of United States Drug Enforcement Agency documents acquired through a Freedom of Information Act request. The documents reveal that methods of parallel case construction are widely utilized and trained institutionally within the Drug Enforcement Agency and collaborating agencies, with strong institutional controls in place to prevent knowledge of parallel construction involved in cases from reaching any court officers, including the prosecutors assigned the cases. Continue reading →

Ulbricht Show Trial Ends

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After being precluded from presenting much of a defense at all a jury has found Ross Ulbricht guilty of running the Silk Road deliberating for around three hours. This falls in line with the money on Bitcoin prediction markets which leaned towards deliberations lasting under six hours. Mainstream press outlets have even begun questioning the competence and intentions behind the way defense lawyer Josh Dratel handled the case over its entire duration.