Corruption – Page 637 – Public Intelligence Blog

Brazil Squanders Chance At Geopolitical Influence; Kills Internet Rights Bill In Political Fiasco

Infopolicy: Yesterday, the Brazilian parliament effectively killed the much-heralded Internet Bill of Rights, the Marco Civil, that had been praised by entrepreneurs and free-speech activists worldwide. This follows a ridiculous watering-down and dumbing-down of the bill, at the request of obsolete industry lobbies. Having been permanently shelved, this means that Brazil has practically killed its chance of leapfrogging other nations’ economies – BRICS is now just RICS.

The Internet Rights bill in Brazil, the Marco Civil, was a marvel. It would have enabled Brazil to leapfrog most other economies today, skipping a whole generation of industries.

The Marco Civil would have established that;

Internet access is a precondition for exercising citizenship;
As such, nobody may be cut off from the Internet for any other reason than failure to pay the connection fees;
The messenger immunity was almost absolute – nobody had any kind of accountability for carrying messages for a third party unless explicitly told so by a judge on a case-by-case basis;
Net neutrality was written into law;
All Internet regulation had to be based on preserving openness, participatory culture, and the open entrepreneurship that the Net brings;
Privacy applies online and must not be violated;
and much more.

Really, it was that good. Read it for yourself (in English).

Continue reading “Rickard Falkvinge: Brasil Kills Internet Bill, Loses Way”

2012/11/222012/11/22

SchwartzReport: Treason within USA Elections — From Nixon Killing 20,000 in Viet-Nam to Florida and Ohio to Karl Rove’s Nine Ways and Twelve Amigos

Corruption, Government, Law Enforcement, Military

Why Anonymous’ Claims about Election-Rigging Can’t Be Ignored

As laid out in the previous article, Anonymous, Karl Rove and the 2012 Election Fix?, it’s possible that Karl Rove used SmartTECH’s servers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to flip the vote totals in Ohio in 2004 and thus steal the election that year for George W. Bush – and just as possible that he tried to do the same thing this year on Romney’s behalf but was thwarted by the hacktivist group Anonymous.

Many people have responded to these claims with a variation on: “That’s impossible. A presidential candidate committing treason? That would never happen, and, if it did, it would be front-page news. Everybody would know about it, right?”

Wrong.

Consider some simple history.

Read full article.

Continue reading “SchwartzReport: Treason within USA Elections — From Nixon Killing 20,000 in Viet-Nam to Florida and Ohio to Karl Rove's Nine Ways and Twelve Amigos”

2012/11/21

NIGHTWATCH: Fall of Jordan Impact on Israel?

Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government

israel and jordan — Click on Image to Enlarge

Jordan: Update. Anti-government protests occurred for four days last week and might still be taking place. However no mainstream news services have provided recent update reports on anti-government ferment in Jordan.

Comment: The Gaza story has more glamor than Jordan, but threats to the Hashemite monarchy are far more significant for the stability of the Middle East than the Gaza fighting.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

Phi Beta Iota: The three dictatorships that surrounded Israel and provided stability for Israel despite the cost to their own populations, are in turmoil. Egypt is no longer stable; Syria may re-stabilize but is at risk; Jordan is increasingly at risk. It is Israel's tragedy that it is an invented state; that it has chosen to be genocidal toward the Palestinian people whose land it has taken over; and that it has relied on its stability and survival on three dictators. This is not a sustainable proposition.

2012/11/202012/11/20

Robert Steele: Big Four Audit Firms “Not Our Job to Detect Fraud”

Commerce, Corruption

steele smiling final — Robert David STEELE Vivas
Click on Image for Bio Page

I do not make this stuff up. Of course one has to recognize that “best practices” are defined to favor the larger players, and the larger players are very interested in things like import-export pricing fraud and other less than ethical tax avoidance strategies. But the idea that the Big Four do not consider it part of their job to detect fraud when evaluating companies for acquisition, I find reprehensible. In addition, Hewlett-Packard was insanely cavalier at multiple levels, not least of all in assigning $6.6 billion as the intangible asset value of “good will” in the purchase of Autonomy — for that alone everyone at HP who signed off on the deal should be walking the plank. What troubles me as I continue to reflect on the importance of transparency, truth, and trust, is that fraud is so heavily embedded into our politics and economics that the Big Four feel absolutely no shame in adopting such an outrageous position. As a society, we are broken.

Hewlett-Packard's Autonomy Allegations: A Material Writedown Puts All Four Audit Firms On The Spot

Francine McKenna

Forbes, 20 November 2012

You can bring a Big Four audit firm to court for missing a major accounting fraud but it’s much harder to bring the auditor to justice.

Deloitte was the auditor of Autonomy, a UK software firm acquired by HP in 2011 for $11.7 billion. HP announced today it is writing down more than $5 billion, or almost half of the acquisition price, because of “serious accounting improprieties, misrepresentation and disclosure failures”.

Continue reading “Robert Steele: Big Four Audit Firms “Not Our Job to Detect Fraud””

2012/11/20

Michael Ostrolenk: Grover Norquist vs. the Pentagon

Corruption, Military

Grover Norquist vs. the Pentagon

By Michael D. Ostrolenk

The American Conservative • October 24, 2012

Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, famously quipped that he didn’t want to do away with government, merely “shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” He is best known as the architect of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, a promise from lawmakers to their constituents to oppose any and all tax increases. Since its inception in 1986, the pledge has become a virtual litmus test for Republican office-seekers, and today all but a handful of GOP congressmen have signed it.

Though the GOP often professes a desire to reduce spending, the party has been notably reluctant to go after the largest item in the discretionary budget—the Pentagon. TAC’s Michael Ostrolenk recently spoke to Norquist about this curious exception.

TAC: Grover, you are famous for saying that the U.S. government does not have a revenue problem but a spending problem. Sequester aside, how would you recommend the next Congress and President address pork at the Pentagon?

Continue reading “Michael Ostrolenk: Grover Norquist vs. the Pentagon”

2012/11/20

David Isenberg: Google Scholar Results for “Intelligence Reform” and “Intelligence Reform Steele”

10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, Ineptitude, IO Impotency

Found this interesting. Last round of discussion in 2005-2007, the one hit below is outrageously expensive, but “for the record.”

Intelligence Reform: Adapting to the Changing Security Environment (Comparative Strategy Volume 31, Issue 5, 2012)

Google Scholar / “Intelligence Reform”

Google Scholar / “Intelligence Reform” Steele

A Look Back at Intelligence Reform (FAS, 1 June 2010)

2012/11/202012/11/20

SchwartzReport: Marijuana Prohibition Fuels Lawlessness, Violence

Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Law Enforcement

Marijuana Prohibition Fuels Lawlessness, Violence

ROBERT SHARPE, Policy Analyst, Common Sense for Drug Policy – The Baltimore Sun

This is the truth that is becoming increasingly apparent.

WASHINGTON — If the goal of marijuana prohibition is to subsidize Mexican drug cartels, prohibition is a success (“The nonsense of marijuana busts shown,” Nov. 11). The drug war distorts supply and demand dynamics so that big money grows on little trees. There is a reason you don't see drug cartels sneaking into national forests to cultivate tomatoes and cucumbers. They cannot compete with legitimate farmers.

If the goal of marijuana prohibition is to deter use, prohibition is a failure. The United States has double the rate of marijuana use as the Netherlands, where marijuana is legally available. Spain legalized personal use cultivation and has lower rates of use. Portugal decriminalized all drugs and still has lower rates of use than the U.S. If anything, marijuana prohibition increases use by creating forbidden fruit appeal.

Thanks to honest public education, tobacco use has declined, without any need to criminalize smokers or imprison tobacco farmers. This drop in the use of one of the most addictive drugs available has occurred despite widespread tobacco availability. The only clear winners in the war on marijuana are drug cartels and shameless tough-on-drugs politicians who've built careers confusing the drug war's collateral damage with a plant.

Continue reading “SchwartzReport: Marijuana Prohibition Fuels Lawlessness, Violence”