INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller today announced the top three telemarketing calls Hoosiers have reported receiving the most.

Since January, the Attorney General’s office has received more than 5,100 complaints from consumers who received a telemarketing call from either a live operator or prerecorded message.

“Indiana’s Do Not Call law protects registered numbers from receiving certain telemarketing calls,” Zoeller said. “Unfortunately, illegitimate businesses and scammers skirt the law by trying to deceive consumers with phony sales pitches. That’s why if you are on the Do Not Call list and receive a sales call or text message you can count on it being a scam.”

The next quarterly deadline to block annoying sales calls and text messages is Tuesday, May 21. Consumers can register their residential landline, cell, VOIP or prepaid wireless numbers.

Zoeller said the top three most annoying telemarketing calls aim to separate consumers from their money or collect consumers’ personal information.

1. Card Services

More than 920 consumers reported receiving an automated call from a woman, who says her name is Rachel (or Kelly, Courtney, Heather, etc.) from “Cardholder Services,” offering to lower their credit card interest rates. Rachel warns that this “is your final notice,” but Zoeller says Hoosiers should just hang-up on Rachel and her sisters. If you follow through with the prompts, you will be connected with a representative who will collect an upfront payment from you without any intention of providing services or a refund.

2. Home Security

Since January, more than 370 complaints have been filed about an automated call which mentions an FBI report on the number of home break-ins and offers a “free” home security system. These telemarketers have no relationship with federal law enforcement agencies. The caller will take your information and sell it to a home security company that may charge up to $45 per month for monitoring services.

3. Prize/Sweepstakes Scams

So far this year, more than 110 consumers have received calls from a live operator that says “You have won $2 million from Publisher’s Clearinghouse. All you need to do is transfer $250 for fees and taxes via Moneygram, Western Union or GreenDot money card…” This is a scam designed to separate you from your money. Once you wire money, it’s like using cash and it’s nearly impossible to get back.

In Indiana, most robocalls are illegal regardless of whether or not a consumer’s number is registered on the Do Not Call list. Exceptions include calls from school districts to students, parents or employees and businesses advising employees of work schedules. It is also legal if a live phone operator first obtains your permission before playing a pre-recorded message.

Zoeller said consumer complaints help the Attorney General’s office bring enforcement actions against violators and stop unwanted calls. Since 2009, the office has obtained 57 settlements or judgments against companies that violated Indiana’s telephone privacy laws. The total awarded to the state has been more than $4.9 million and the total collected is more than $791,800. Zoeller said this money collected is used to defray the cost of enforcing the state’s telephone privacy laws.

Individuals do not need to re-register for the Do Not Call list unless their address has changed. To sign up or to confirm a number is already on the list, visit www.IndianaConsumer.com or call 1.888.834.9969.

Out-of-state area codes can also be added as long as the billing address is located in Indiana. Those consumers who are registered and receive an unwanted call can file a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office by visiting www.IndianaConsumer.com and clicking on “file a complaint.”

Evansville, Ind. – A capacity crowd welcomed seasoned rockers Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to the stage at Ford Center with deafening cheers on Thursday night as Petty kicked off his 2013 tour in Evansville. And once the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer began to swing through their extensive catalog of hits, the enthusiastic reaction from the multi-generational crowd only got louder. Classic rock band The Smithereens opened the show with a 45-minute set, and when they closed with “A Girl Like You,” the audience was warmed up and on their feet. By the time Petty and company started in on “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” several minutes into their set, most in the arena were on their feet and lending their voices to the chorus.

“The Ford Center is honored to have Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers open their tour in Evansville, and we’re thrilled to be able to welcome him with a full house,” said Executive Director Scott Schoenike. “Classic rock like this resonates with a lot of people, and we saw a number who attended the Midwest Rock N Roll Express concert last night return to enjoy this show.”

The Ford Center winds down a very active event season with upcoming shows WWE World Tour Supershow May 18 and Barry Manilow June20.

President Obama Is Not Doing His Job

Andrew Napolitano | May 16, 2013
Government is bad for personal freedom. That argument is premised upon the truism that everything government does interferes with freedom because it either prohibits or compels. Everything it owns it has taken from others. Much of what it says is divorced from the truth. President Obama, like President George W. Bush, has argued that his first job is to keep America safe, and if he impairs personal freedom in the process, that is a small price to pay for safety. Many of my colleagues in the media on the left and right have bought this argument, notwithstanding its fallacies.

Until now.

This past week, we learned that the IRS has targeted for additional scrutiny the tax exemption applications of groups with whose messages it disagrees. We also learned that the Department of Justice obtained the personal telephone records of hundreds of reporters and editors employed by the Associated Press without a search warrant issued by a judge. And during this past week we learned that the White House, the Department of State and the CIA all engaged in a conspiracy of disinformation so that the official version of events of what caused the murders of four Americans at our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, would not impair Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012.

The common threads in all of this government secrecy and lying are a general rejection of government’s moral obligation to tell the truth, a disturbing yet brazen willingness to evade and avoid the restrictions the Constitution has deliberately built around government, and a glib admission that the government can do as it pleases so long as it can politically get away with it.

The Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause requires that the government treat all similarly situated entities in a similar manner. The Constitution’s First Amendment prohibits the government from using the speech and expressive activities of persons in America as a basis for the disparate treatment of them.

Thus, on its face — that is, on the basis of what the IRS has admitted and without any further investigation — we have violations of these constitutional principles. If the IRS were to examine the applications for tax exemption of Media Matters with the same level of scrutiny as it does with Tea Party Patriots, it would not run afoul of these principles. But Congress has given the IRS broad latitude to scrutinize the behavior of the taxpayers it chooses to scrutinize, and the IRS has given itself authority to probe, prod and plunder wherever it wishes. I say “given itself,” because the IRS has rule-making power, which when overlooked by Congress (as is almost always the case) actually serves to enhance IRS powers beyond what Congress permits.

Short of criminal behavior such as bribery or conspiracy, the IRS employees who have singled out applications for tax exempt status for more scrutiny based on anticipated political expression are subject to removal from office, but they cannot be prosecuted or sued. Here again, Congress is to blame, as both Republicans and Democrats have used and abused the IRS to their advantage, and neither party inwardly wants laws that will prevent it from doing so in the future. Is this what you expect of our tax collectors?

The First Amendment also assures the right of professional journalists to seek and protect their sources, and it gives them immunity from government prosecution or retribution for truthfully publishing matters of material public interest, even when it involves information stolen from the government. The Supreme Court taught us this in the Pentagon Papers case.

White House FlickrMoreover, the Fourth Amendment requires that if the government wants private information about who stole its secrets, it needs a search warrant from a judge. But the Patriot Act, which was celebrated by some in the media whose telephone records have since been seized, permits federal agents to write their own search warrants when they seek records from a third party like a telephone company and can claim that pursuit of terrorists is at stake. The Patriot Act makes a mockery of the Fourth Amendment, and the government knows that. When the government chills free speech, we all suffer. Thomas Jefferson preferred newspapers without government to government without newspapers. Whose personal records will the government authorize itself to seize next?

The lesson of Benghazi is that we had no lawful right to interfere in the domestic affairs of the Libyan government. It was unlawful for Obama to bomb Col. Gadhafi without a congressional declaration of war. The organized assault on our consulate was the unintended consequence of us using force to infuse American-style democracy on a people whose culture is unable and unwilling to accept it.

But the president’s people were terrified that the murder of our ambassador to Libya during the 2012 presidential campaign might impair Obama’s re-election chances. So they and he tried to rewrite history, and the more they and he lied the more they and he needed to lie to cover up their original lies. Would you retain an employee who lied to you about the deaths of innocents and lied more to cover up the original lies?

Now, back to Bush and Obama and the president’s job. According to the Constitution, the president’s first job obligation is to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. According to the Constitution, that means preserving Americans’ freedom first and safety second. Freedom is our natural state and is the ultimate natural right. Safety is a need that we ourselves can provide when unimpeded by the government. If the president keeps us safe but not free, he is not doing his job. Do you know anyone who feels freer or even any safer because the government trampled personal freedoms and so far has gotten away with it?

Source: Andrew Napolitano

Acting IRS chief Steven Miller on Friday said he did not believe agency officials did anything illegal when giving extra scrutiny to conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.
Miller, who was forced to resign this week by President Obama, said he didn’t believe the scrutiny was illegal even as he apologized for the IRS’s actions, which have turned into a political storm for the White House.

He also admitted under questioning from House Ways and Means Committee members that facts could emerge that might change whether he thinks anyone in the agency committed a crime, and he said one staffer involved in the extra scrutiny was reassigned and another received counseling.

Facing tense, and at times hostile, questions from GOP lawmakers at the first congressional hearing on the IRS controversy, Miller said the screening process the IRS used was “obnoxious” and called the customer service the agency offered “horrible.”

For Immediate Release Contact: John Blair 812 550 3003

Valley Watch applauds the decision by Indiana Governor Mike Pence to stop State financial support to the Pakistani company who was trying to build a giant fertilizer plant in Posey County. Governor Pence wisely discerned that the widely reported connection between the company and the manufacture of Improvised Explosive Devices in Afghanistan was more than Hoosier veterans should have to put up with just for some promised jobs.

Valley Watch had previously called for a “moratorium” on the construction of new Indiana fertilizer manufacturers until adequate safety assessments could be in place to determine the feasibility of locating such facilities so near to other facilities that have severe explosive potential. In the case of Posey County, it was proposed that Fatima be placed adjacent to the second largest ethanol plant in the US. The combined plants’ potential for a major catastrophe needed better assessment that the diligence given by local economic development officials who seemed nearly overwhelmed by their support for Fatima.

Valley Watch suggests that in the future, decisions like this should be given more public scrutiny and transparency before dangerous and essentially unvetted proposals are given the green light. Citizens of southwest Indiana deserve more from self appointed economic development regimes.

Check out the Valley Watch website at: http://valleywatch.net

ecoserve@valleywatch.net

John Blair
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” Mahatma Gandhi

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