Tuesday, November 1, 2016

The Basic Proposal

I'm establishing this blog to discuss just one concept:

The United States collects and can analyze all voice & electronic communications that pass through our country, a system called "PRISM", in an effort to prevent terrorism. Supposedly originating from a handful of fanatics living in caves, terrorism -- though it is a shocking and heinous crime -- kills fewer Americans than does lightning strikes. On the other hand -- as documented extensively by many reporters such as Matt Taibbi and Bill Moyers -- currency manipulation, front-running, insider trading, rate-fixing, public bid-rigging, and related types of financial fraud have stolen many scores of billions or likely hundreds of billions of dollars over the past ten years alone, from the pockets of nearly every single citizen in the First World, on a daily basis, still ongoing. Yet nobody seems to think we can do anything about that.

Wouldn't the eavesdropping technology be a good match for the crime of sophisticated financial fraud?

I propose that the US Government, presumably through an Act of Congress, order the NSA, who runs the PRISM system, to share its database and its analysis capability with financial law enforcement agencies, such as the SEC, FinCEN, national and local Consumer Protection agencies, even FERC and the FEC, including regional or local law enforcement such as State Attorney Generals, for the express purpose of combating inter-State and international finance collusion, bid-rigging, market manipulation, energy price-gouging, election rigging, and similar crimes.

Please bring this proposal to the attention of your Federal representatives, senators, your neighbors, and the media voices you listen to.

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