Publicola

Irwinn Schiff will get a hearing before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals over a District Court Judge's ruling that his book may not be published & his customer list must be turned over.

"His attorney, Michael Stein, said the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed a District Court order that would have required Schiff to provide the government with the names of people who have bought Schiff's books since 1999.
The court also will look at whether a federal judge can ban the sale of Schiff's book, as U.S. District Judge Lloyd George did in June."

Of course given the 9th Circuit's track record I'm not so certain this will be a positive experience for anyone.

"In June, George ordered Schiff to stop selling or distributing his books. Stein said Schiff has complied with the order.
But Schiff refused to turn over his customer list and his database, which holds the names of 18,000 people who have contacted him, but might not have bought anything from him.
'People's rights to privacy are being trampled on,' Stein said.
Federal prosecutors asked George to hold Schiff in contempt of court for failing to turn over the information.
Stein and Lichtenstein said they would attend today's scheduled contempt hearing in federal court, but the appellate court's decision will stay the contempt issue."

I don't agree with Mr. Schiff on a good portion of his views. However I admire his courage. He is risking jail time in order to keep his list of customers from being turned over to the government. Undoubtably the government would immedietely hand over said records to the IRSS & audits galore would ensue. But Mr. Schiff is trying to prevent citizens from being harrassed merely because they purchased his books. & the agency he is trying to protect them from is perhaps the most feared of all government agencies among the general populace. Basically they're armed enforcers with incredible power to seize your property & possibly even seize you. The only difference between the IRSS agent & a mob enforcer working on a protection racket is that the government won't prosecute an IRSS agent.

In any event, I wonder fi the NRA's leadership would risk jail time rather than turning over their membership list?

For previous posts on economics, including more details about Mr. Schiff & alternatives to the progressive income tax please look here.