Texas Coordinates With ATF to Share Income of Residents for Warrantless Monitoring

[Grayling813]

Texas Coordinates With ATF to Share Income of Residents for Warrantless Monitoring
https://www.captainsjournal.com/2023/04 ... onitoring/

Texas secretly gives its citizens’ incomes to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Documents show this has led to at least one person being monitored by the feds without a warrant through the federal gun background check system. The Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) told The Epoch Times that it has written contracts with ATF for “sharing income information” for criminal investigations. The revelation may lead to oversight by the legislature.

Texas state Rep. Briscoe Cain, a Republican, is “deeply troubled” about this coordination with the state’s unemployment agency and federal government.

“My office will be looking into whether the Texas Workforce Commission is assisting the ATF in the Biden Administration’s mission to violate the constitutional rights of law-abiding Texans,” Cain told The Epoch Times after reviewing the emails obtained by Gun Owners of America (GOA) as part of its ongoing FOIA lawsuit.

This is the third part in an exclusive Epoch Times series on the ATF giving information on innocent suspects to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for daily monitoring through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The FBI uses NICS as a database of people who are prohibited from possessing or buying guns.

In one of the documents, an ATF agent emailed the FBI that a person suspected of straw purchasing or firearms trafficking needed to be put into the gun background check database. The agent wrote that “per TWC,” the man’s “reported wage earnings with the State of Texas do not appear to supply the financial means to afford the firearms purchased.”

A spokeswoman for TWC said in a statement: “Federal and State law provides a path for sharing income information with a federal governmental agency if the federal agency can establish a purpose that is permissible under law and enters into a written agreement which sets forth legal requirements regarding allowable use and protection of the information.” She also said a warrant to release salary information is not required by law.

[Rafe]

Hm. I wonder what percentage of Texans (and the subset, gun-owning Texans) have filed for unemployment recently enough for the TWC to have data on them. And I wonder what "recently enough" means or what the relevance would be by date. In other words, if someone filed for unemployment in early 2021 at the height of the pandemic, does the TWC still have that on file; what about an unemployment filing from 2018; and would they send outdated information to the BATF (and how would it be relevant if the person is now gainfully employed years later)?

That said, the way things are going it wouldn't shock me to eventually learn that, despite federal regulations, the IRS (Department of the Treasury, in the Executive branch) is sharing information with the DOJ.

[Grayling813]

Hm. I wonder what percentage of Texans (and the subset, gun-owning Texans) have filed for unemployment recently enough for the TWC to have data on them. And I wonder what "recently enough" means or what the relevance would be by date. In other words, if someone filed for unemployment in early 2021 at the height of the pandemic, does the TWC still have that on file; what about an unemployment filing from 2018; and would they send outdated information to the BATF (and how would it be relevant if the person is now gainfully employed years later)?

That said, the way things are going it wouldn't shock me to eventually learn that, despite federal regulations, the IRS (Department of the Treasury, in the Executive branch) is sharing information with the DOJ.

The State of Texas knows your earnings due to your employer having to report them to pay payroll taxes to the state. It appears that information is available to TWC whether you have file unemployment claims or not.

Austin has a deep state swamp just like DC, with entrenched bureaucrats undermining the Republic.

[powerboatr]

Hm. I wonder what percentage of Texans (and the subset, gun-owning Texans) have filed for unemployment recently enough for the TWC to have data on them. And I wonder what "recently enough" means or what the relevance would be by date. In other words, if someone filed for unemployment in early 2021 at the height of the pandemic, does the TWC still have that on file; what about an unemployment filing from 2018; and would they send outdated information to the BATF (and how would it be relevant if the person is now gainfully employed years later)?

That said, the way things are going it wouldn't shock me to eventually learn that, despite federal regulations, the IRS (Department of the Treasury, in the Executive branch) is sharing information with the DOJ.

The State of Texas knows your earnings due to your employer having to report them to pay payroll taxes to the state. It appears that information is available to TWC whether you have file unemployment claims or not.

Austin has a deep state swamp just like DC, with entrenched bureaucrats undermining the Republic.

very troubling that i could be monitored because of a "certain" income level?
i am retired and none of my earnings are reported to texas? at least i do not believe the navy reports and i know the VA is prohibited by law unless a court orders release of financial data ...not that the fbi or atf or any other government entity follows the law, but ...

[Rafe]

The State of Texas knows your earnings due to your employer having to report them to pay payroll taxes to the state. It appears that information is available to TWC whether you have file unemployment claims or not.

Austin has a deep state swamp just like DC, with entrenched bureaucrats undermining the Republic.

Dang. Having never paid payroll taxes in Texas it never dawned on me that the Texas Workforce Commission would be the collecting entity, but, yeah: https://www.twc.texas.gov/businesses/re ... able-wages. I guess I was thinking more of "Texas Workforce Solutions." I've met some TWC staff before, even once presented at a conference where they also did, and all this time I thought they were about jobs and unemployment, not tracking and collecting payroll taxes.

Edited to add: Closer to home for me, independent contractor payments are not reported to the state: https://www.twc.texas.gov/businesses/cl ... ontractors. But Texas uses a 20-point checklist to determine who is and isn't a contractor vs. an employee, so it isn't as simple as whether or not the person's income is reported to the IRS via 1099.

[srothstein]

This makes no sense. I have no doubt that they are doing it, but it doesn't make sense for the ATF. Why would they want to go to 50 different state governments for wage information on any individual or the whole population when they could go to either of two federal agencies and get it for the country as a whole? Both the IRS and the SSA could (and probably do) give them this information.

[bbhack]

This makes no sense. I have no doubt that they are doing it, but it doesn't make sense for the ATF. Why would they want to go to 50 different state governments for wage information on any individual or the whole population when they could go to either of two federal agencies and get it for the country as a whole? Both the IRS and the SSA could (and probably do) give them this information.

True. It may be "cultivating the garden." They want the cooperation, even when there's no data that they can't get easier in other ways.