However, if you really can’t make it out to train in person, I’m still willing to throw you a bone. Our investigative reporter Todd Shepherd has been THE man to know when it comes to Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) requesting. This man knows the CORA statutes like Doug Bruce knows escape routes from subpoenas. The information that floats around in Todd’s head is so valuable, we “talked him into” recording a tutorial video on the how-to’s in filing a CORA request with governments and other public institutions. Check out our CORA class website here, and when you’ve finished the tutorial, join our Google discussion group to learn more and ask any questions you might have.

Now go out and audit government! Because it’s your money they’re spending after all.

This is why, with the help of Mothers Against Debt, the Independence Institute, Liberty on the Rocks and Americans for Prosperity, we are sponsoring Citizen Auditor training throughout Colorado. Everything you wanted to know about tracking your money through the bureaucratic nightmare of our state government awaits you in these sessions. After learning how to use the state’s transparency website, how to file Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) requests, and navigate the unfriendly waters of state and local government budgets, you’ll be ready to set off on your own and be a great citizen auditor.

In fact, those of you who become the best citizen auditors will be rewarded with cash for your efforts! That’s right, we’re going to have a little contest for the best example of wasteful, outrageous government spending uncovered by our new legion of citizen auditors. First place nets a cool $2,500! We’ll also be rewarding a second and third place, plus ten honorable mention prizes. If you’re interested in coming out for some training, we’ll be coming to a town near you.

Dates and locations for training:

Denver: Monday, July 26th, 5 to 7pm, at Pasquinis Restaurant, 8101 E. Belleview Ave. Denver, CO

Grand Junction: Tuesday, July 27th, 6 to 8 pm, at the Old Mesa County Courthouse, Multipurpose Room 544 Rood Avenue (east entrance) Grand Junction, CO

Colorado Springs: Thursday, July 29th, 6 to 8pm, at Rockrimmon Library, 832 Village Center Drive, Colorado Springs, CO

Loveland: Thursday, August 12 5:30 to 7:30pm McGraff’s Restaurant, 1602 East Eisenhower Blvd. Loveland, CO

For more information and to RSVP contact citizenauditor@libertyontherocks.org

In this case, the court will determine whether Colorado’s K-12 education funding is spread so thin that schools are not funded adequately – or as the official language goes – education funding is not “thorough and uniform” per the requirement of our state constitution. As Colorado’s attorney, AG Suthers will defend the state in this case against an array of school districts who have signed on as plaintiffs. In the podcast, the AG explains that he has amassed probably the largest amount of school budget data the world has ever known. By looking at how school districts spend money, the state can show that maybe the problem isn’t the funding, but rather, where school districts spend the money they have.

There are a couple of interesting points to make regarding this case. First, a result is not expected for at least a year, maybe two. Secondly, taxpayers are not only funding the defense (as we do anytime the state is sued), but some of us are funding the plaintiffs as well! 18 school districts are suing the state, therefore, 18 school districts’ taxpayers happen to be funding BOTH the prosecution AND the defense! Ouch. And with the case set to go over a year, that’s a whole lot of money going to both sides. It’s almost like we’re suing ourselves! Oh wait, we kind of are. That’s sad…

Take health care in Colorado.  Last year, State Rep John Kefalas sponsored legislation that would have laid “the groundwork” for government-controlled health care, a.k.a. single-payer, to all Coloradans by 2011. It failed even in the Democrat-controlled state legislature.

This year, Kefalas and other Democratic legislators tried a different approach. HB 1330, the All-Payer Health Care Cost Database was signed into law by Governor Ritter on May 26. The bill grants unlimited power to the Executive Director of Health Care Policy and Financing to mandate the collection of any and all health care data, to conduct audits, to give the data to third parties without seeking permission, and to impose unlimited fines for refusing to provide data to the database.

The legislation is a frightening invasion of privacy because patients and providers have no say over whether the state may have, according to the bill, “access to individual information on physical functioning, medical treatment, supposed mental stability, marital problems, family structure, sexual habits, addictions, adherence to government health recommendations, and individual financial arrangements.”

Kefalas bragged about the massive privacy invasion in a press release, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” In other words the state must know the intimate details of your private medical records in order to “manage” your health care for you.

Sponsors of the legislation say your information will be secure and private…wink, wink. Colorado state government has a history of losing supposedly secure data. In this era of Big Data, there is no way to guarantee privacy or security. In the words of CU Associate Law Professor Paul Ohm, who specializes in privacy issues, “data can either be useful or perfectly anonymous but never both.”

Furthermore, the database will be funded by “unknown” sources with “unknown” agendas. Whoever is willing to pay to establish the database will have access to your private medical information.

In a paper released last fall, Ohm refers to “databases of ruin” where an individual’s most personal information is stored. Nate Anderson, senior editor of ARS Technica, summarized Ohm’s paper, “Scrubbing data just isn’t enough to keep our individual ‘databases of ruin’ out of the hands of the police, political enemies, nosy neighbors, friends, and spies.”

So where are all the privacy advocates from the Left?  Where are the champions of “choice”?  You’d think they would have marched en masse to the Capitol to protest such a massive intrusion into medical privacy.

But an online search turned up a grand total of two dissenting voices against such a significant government intrusion into individual rights and privacy: Amy Oliver-Cooke and Linda Gorman, both from the Independence Institute.

If I missed a single progressive voice against HB 1330, I’d love to know about it.

The problem with governing is that it sometimes makes a mockery of principles once championed. And obedient allies remain silent as politics replaces concern over those pesky principles of privacy and choice.

A version of this was originally published in The Huffington Post

In the 2004 Cato Institute book Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything, James V. DeLong writes, “It seems as if the Left and Right have entered into an agreement whereby each side gets to criminalize conduct it abhors so long as it lets the other side do the same.”

It has been a dysfunctional relationship to say the least.

As described in Go Directly to Jail, there are now thousands of federal crimes filling some 27,000 pages of the U.S. Code, plus an untold numbers of criminally enforceable regulations expressed in the tens of thousands of pages of the Code of Federal Regulations.

And it looks like things are only getting worse.

In early May, the conservative Heritage Foundation teamed up with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to publish Without Intent: How Congress is Eroding the Criminal Intent Requirement in Federal Law.

The report finds that, “…the 109th Congress alone proposed 446 non-violent criminal offenses, 57 percent of which lacked an adequate guilty-mind requirement.”  Twenty-three of those inadequately protective offenses were enacted into law.

Other findings of egregious lawmaking activity by the 109th Congress includes:

• Criminal legislation was riddled with vague, far-reaching and imprecise language;
• Congress routinely delegated its authority to make criminal law to unaccountable regulators;
• Over half of all new criminal offenses were not sent to the House or Senate Judiciary Committees for review.

These findings  should set off loud alarms with limited government conservatives, civil libertarians, and anyone else who cares about unjust government encroachment into American liberties, and the integrity of the American justice system.

In other words, the financial crisis demands a massive new dose of government intervention.

Independence Institute Senior Fellow Barry Poulson begs to differ.  From the May 23 Denver Post opinion page:

Re: “Reforming Wall Street is essential,” May 12 op-ed by President Barack Obama.

President Obama makes the case for Sen. Chris Dodd’s financial regulation bill that will end “too big to fail” bailouts of financial institutions. He writes that the cost of this proposed financial market regulation will be paid for by financial institutions, not taxpayers.

But the president’s arguments are incorrect. The financial crisis was the result of flawed governmental institutions and financial market policies. So what we need are some reforms in Washington, D.C.

The origin of the financial crisis can be traced to policies encouraging unqualified borrowers to assume risky mortgages, and to mandates that financial institutions extend loans to these borrowers. The Federal Housing Authority loosened standards applied in non-prime lending. Through the Community Reinvestment Act and Department of Housing and Urban Development, the government pressured lending institutions to extend credit to unqualified borrowers.

The crisis was exacerbated by the quasi- governmental institutions Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which created a moral hazard by implicitly guaranteeing mortgages. By the time they collapsed in 2008, they together held $5 trillion in mortgages and mortgaged-backed securities. They continue to incur billions in losses, requiring taxpayer bailouts. The regulation the president favors does nothing to reform these institutions.

The mortgage bubble was also exacerbated by the cheap money policies pursued by the Federal Reserve System. Following the recession in 2001, the Fed reduced the federal funds rate to 1 percent. This policy fueled an unsustainable growth in liquidity, ending in the credit market collapse.

The Dodd bill would give the FDIC expanded powers, including the discretion to take over financial institutions, using the “orderly liquidation fund.” In fact, the bill provides for unlimited bailouts of financial institutions. The funding for these bailouts would come from assessments levied on financial institutions. But in reality, Americans invested in the markets would pay for these bailouts through higher costs on financial transactions and fees levied by these financial institutions.

The FDIC should not be given this expanded power over financial markets. Private markets are best at signaling when financial institutions are insolvent or illiquid, and a new bankruptcy code is the best way to address failed financial institutions.

The net neutrality debate took on new life earlier this month when the Federal Communications Commission Chairman proposed regulating broadband under old rules originally established for traditional telephone networks.  This after a federal appeals court rejected the FCC’s recent attempts to enforce network neutrality rules.

The event consists of remarks by the FCC Commissioners and a panel discussion from 11:00 AM-12:30 PM, followed by lunch with a keynote address by Chairman Binz.

The Pinnacle club is located at 555 Seventeenth Street on the 37th Floor in Denver.

The event is free and open to the first 150 RSVPs. To RSVP, e-mail mary@i2i.org, or call (303) 279-6536.