Category: 09 Justice

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Journal: US Government Party to $4 Trillion Fraud

03 Economy, 09 Justice, Commercial Intelligence, Ethics, Government

Thursday, April 01, 2010

AltNews3 http://alcuinbramerton.blogspot.com/

Largest fraud case in world history deliberately ignored by Western mainstream media. $3.87 trillion phantom shares lawsuit against US Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Shapiro and others actively suppressed in senior editorial offices. The Bivens action suit was filed on Friday 8th January 2010 by Pasadena attorney Al Hodges on behalf of CMKM Diamonds shareholders.

CMKM Diamonds was used by the US government as part of a covert sting operation – unbeknown to shareholders – to apprehend criminals for their offences. However, instead of prosecuting most of them, restitution deals were cut. CMKM was registered as a publicly traded diamond and gold mining company. By 2005, concrete evidence detailing fraud within the company emerged. CMKM sold hundreds of billions of unregistered shares (naked short selling) to third parties. One official estimate cites two trillion phantom shares and 40,000 shareholders as being involved. Eventually, the US Securities and Exchange Commission moved to delist CMKM stock, whose value never exceeded one penny per share. After several administrative proceedings, CMKM Diamonds stock was ultimately deregistered in October 2005. The legal status of a meeting held in Las Vegas and chaired by Robert A. Maheu is being questioned. In exchange for a US Government promise of no prosecution for phantom share sales in CMKM Diamonds, brokers, dealers, market makers and hedge fund managers promised to pay negotiated amounts to a frozen trust for disbursal at a later time. What happened to these trust monies is not clear. Robert A. Maheu was heart-attacked out in Las Vegas on Monday 4th August 2008, and died aged 90. The Central District of California Court document (08.01.10 – Case Number CV10-00031-JVS [MLGX]) can be viewed heere. Deep background here (31.03.10), here (02.03.12), here (29.01.10) and here (09.01.10). And more about Bivens Actions (Constitutional Torts) can be found here.

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Court Decision (NOT Congress Oversight) Declared NSA Warrantless Wiretapping Illegal

09 Justice, Civil Society, Communities of Practice, Government, Law Enforcement, Media, Military, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

Court document: Alharamain versus National Security Administration

(From Secrecy News)
WARRANTLESS SURVEILLANCE OF CHARITY RULED UNLAWFUL

Warrantless surveillance of an Islamic charity in Oregon in 2004 violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a court ruled (pdf) on March 31.

In the culmination of a four-year lawsuit, Judge Vaughn Walker of the Northern District of Columbia found that the government had unlawfully intercepted international telephone conversations of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation without a warrant, as required by the FISA for intelligence and counterterrorism surveillance.  The government had contended that the state secrets privilege barred a resolution of the case, but the court found that the defendants were able to make their case without the use of state secrets.

At least by implication, the ruling means that aspects of President Bush's Terrorist Surveillance Program were illegal.  Significantly, that determination was made by a court, based on a private complaint years after the fact, and not through congressional intelligence oversight.  While Congress did enact the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which was the foundation of the court's ruling, contemporary congressional oversight alone would have left the Al-Haramain violation (and untold others) undiscovered and unpunished.
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Banksterism: Total Wall Street Bailout Cost, Financial Crisis Tracker

03 Economy, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Government, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth
Financial Crisis Tracker
Center for Media and Democracy's Financial Crisis Portal

The Wall Street Bailout Cost table is produced and updated monthly by the Real Economy Project of the Center for Media and Democracy, which publishes SourceWatch. The total is reflected on the Financial Crisis Tracker widget (to the left). This calculation was peer-reviewed by economists at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. This table represents a unique accounting of actual funds disbursed. Our total includes major programs of the U.S. Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and other government agencies to assist the financial sector and institutions that had a role in the crisis. It does not include stimulus funds, unemployment, student loans, auto bailout and other initiatives to create jobs or support citizens.

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Journal: Israel’s Government a Mutant Cancer

04 Inter-State Conflict, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, 12 Water, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence
Chuck Spinney

If the peace settlement does not include relocation assistance (economic), the settlers who want to relocate will be left ruined–at the same time that the government has ruined them, it plans to once again ruin Lebanon.  Apart from economic equity for the relocatable settlers, a regional water management treaty that is fully transparent and enforceable through international sanctions against Israel as needed, are essential elements of any sustainable regional peace plan that integrates prosperity for all.

Israel Threatens Lebanon … Again

A New Middle East War?

By CONN HALLINAN, Counterpunch, 30 Mar 2010

When Israeli Minister without Portfolio Yossi Peled said recently that a war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah was “just a matter of time” and that such a conflict would include Syria, most observers dismissed the comment as little more than posturing by a right-wing former general. But Peled’s threat has been backed by Israeli military maneuvers near the Lebanese border, violations of Lebanese airspace, and the deployment of an anti-missile system on Israel’s northern border.

The Lebanese are certainly not treating it as Likud bombast.

“We hear a lot of Israeli threats day in and day out, and not only threats,” Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri told the BBC. “We see what is happening on the ground and in our airspace…during the past two months—every day we have Israeli airplanes entering Lebanese airspace.” Hariri added that he considered the situation “really dangerous.”

By Tobias Buck in Karnei Shomron
Financial Times,March 30 2010 20:06

Benny Raz put up a “For Sale” sign outside his home last year, but he admits there is little hope of finding a buyer. The house itself is a three-bedroom property on a quiet street, with a garden and terrace offering views across rolling hills dotted with olive trees.

The problem is one of location: Mr Raz’s house sits on the outskirts of Karnei Shomron, a Jewish settlement built in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. He bought the house 15 years ago for $130,000 (€97,000, £87,000). Today, Mr Raz says, no buyer is willing to pay more than $70,000 for the property – not nearly enough for the family to afford another place inside Israel itself.

Like thousands of so-called “economic settlers”, the 57-year-old moved to the West Bank for the cheap housing, the tax breaks and the promise of a comfortable life. Now, many of them find they are stuck. “The government said: I will help you buy a house in Karnei Shomron, so I went with my family. I came for economic reasons, not ideological reasons. I came because I wanted a cheaper house,” says Mr Raz.

Phi Beta  Iota: There is nothing wrong with Israel, or the United States of America, that could not be fixed by restoring informed participatory democracy.  Right now both governments are out-of-control and totally corrupt monsters, both cancers encroaching on everything they touch.

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Journal: Legality of US Drones as Killing Machines . . .

08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Government, Military

Death by Drone
Berto Jongman Recommends...

U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee Hearing:

“Rise of the Drones:

Unmanned Systems and the Future of War”

Tuesday, March 23, 2010, 2:00 pm 2154 Rayburn House Office Building Written Testimony Submitted By Kenneth Anderson March 18, 2010

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Journal: Attacks Against the US Government

09 Justice, 11 Society, Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Peace Intelligence, Reform
Marcus Aurelius

Timeline: Government Under Attack

By Dawn Lim and Ross Gianfortune dlim@govexec.com March 5, 2010

Thursday evening's shootout between Pentagon police officers and a gunman apparently motivated by anti-government sentiment was the latest in a spate of attacks on federal employees and facilities and serves as a stark reminder that public servants too often find themselves unexpectedly in harm's way. The following timeline reviews major attacks during the past two decades.

Feb. 18, 2010. A small jet is flown into a building housing a federal tax office in Austin, Texas, injuring 13 and killing two. The pilot, Joseph Andrew Stack, was angry with the Internal Revenue Service.

Nov. 5, 2009. An Army psychiatrist goes on a rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 people and wounding dozens. The alleged gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was a Muslim who had been in contact with a radical Imam and was about to be deployed overseas.

June 1, 2009. A gunman opens fire on a U.S. military recruiting office in Little Rock, Ark., killing one soldier and wounding another. The suspect, a Muslim convert, opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but was not affiliated with a larger terrorist network.

Full Story Online

Phi Beta Iota: The full list is both very incomplete, and hugely misrepresentative.   The list does not include the hanging of census workers, the increased calls for Tyrannicide, the many under-reported bombs and threats across the country, and the growing underground economy that is turning its back on a government many now consider to be an unaffordable burden.   The list also fails to address the nuances between state-sponsored attacks, state-allowed attacks, Islam-oriented attackes, and domestic insurgency such as documented in Harvest Of Rage–Why Oklahoma City Is Only The Beginning and Rage of the Random Actor.  The list also avoids addressing the behavior of the US Government acting “in our name” but far removed from our values as a Republic Of, By, and For We the People, a story told in many books, such as Blood Money–Wasted Billions, Lost Lives, and Corporate Greed in Iraq on top ofSAVAGE CAPITALISM AND THE MYTH OF DEMOCRACY–Latin America in the Third Millennium and Open Veins of Latin America–Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent;  and in journal articles such as Why they hate us (II): How many Muslims has the U.S. killed in the past 30 years?.

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Journal: US Counterterrorism Hosed, EOP/OMB AWOL

08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 11 Society, Ethics, Government, Law Enforcement, Methods & Process, Military, Peace Intelligence
Marcus Aurelius

Hurdles Stymie Counterterrorism Center

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

By ERIC SCHMITT and THOM SHANKER, The New York Times (Syndicated)

Full Story Online

WASHINGTON — The nation's main counterterrorism center, created in response to the intelligence failures in the years before Sept. 11, is struggling because of flawed staffing and internal cultural clashes, according to a new study financed by Congress.

The result, the study concludes, is a lack of coordination and communication among the agencies that are supposed to take the lead in planning the fight against terrorism, including the C.I.A. and the State Department.

. . . . . . .

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