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.
Showing posts with label bid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bid. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 1, 2016
Monday, October 31, 2016
Reasons Why
Here are some reasons why I believe this proposal is important, appropriate, and why it would help improve our country. Here are some answers to some common objections I anticipate.
* The reason PRISM scoops up all US communications, they say, is simply because the majority of world communications pass through our computers even when sent between people outside the US. This is certainly true of financial communications.
* The reason PRISM proponents say that the eavesdropping overrides privacy concerns, such as the 4th Amendment, is because terrorism costs lives, threatens the security and stability of entire countries, and is one of the most illegal activities on the planet. Even though many sophisticated financial frauds exist in legal gray areas... rate-fixing, bid-rigging, and many similar practices are also blatantly illegal. And as their damage piles up to tens of billions of dollars in the middle of a worldwide recession, surely these activities are also a clear and present threat to the security and stability of communities, industries, and even entire countries, including our own. Arguably this threat is even more important than the threat of terrorism, which while heinous and shocking, is far more rare. Fraudulent financial communication over electronic networks occurs virtually every hour of every single day.
* The reason PRISM scoops up all US communications, they say, is simply because the majority of world communications pass through our computers even when sent between people outside the US. This is certainly true of financial communications.
* The reason PRISM proponents say that the eavesdropping overrides privacy concerns, such as the 4th Amendment, is because terrorism costs lives, threatens the security and stability of entire countries, and is one of the most illegal activities on the planet. Even though many sophisticated financial frauds exist in legal gray areas... rate-fixing, bid-rigging, and many similar practices are also blatantly illegal. And as their damage piles up to tens of billions of dollars in the middle of a worldwide recession, surely these activities are also a clear and present threat to the security and stability of communities, industries, and even entire countries, including our own. Arguably this threat is even more important than the threat of terrorism, which while heinous and shocking, is far more rare. Fraudulent financial communication over electronic networks occurs virtually every hour of every single day.
Saturday, September 28, 2013
About This Proposal -- and What Do I Think Will Happen
I don't believe it is constitutional for the US government to be engaging in massive surveillance of its citizens. But most people seem to agree that the government is going to do this no matter what, and many people argue it's necessary for American safety. If it must be done, then, let's apply it equally. As I imply elsewhere, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. If all 300 million of us Americans' private communications need to be monitored in order to protect our personal safety against a threat that is about as common as shark attacks, then it seems only fair and appropriate that our financial apparatchiks' communications should all be monitored too. In order to prevent a clear and present crime that is not only picking people's pockets directly, as well as depleting the budgets of our States and Cities and major retirement funds, but also sapping tens of billions of dollars from the world economy in a time of incredibly severe economic downturn.
I suspect our politicians and our financial elite share a common belief: that surveillance is for the "little people", that they themselves are above the law and above reproach. I don't believe the financial elites will want this high-tech scrutiny turned upon them, and I believe the financial elites have the power to make sure it doesn't happen.
So if we manage to insert this concept into the public political discussion -- and if we are successful to the point where perhaps some Senators start drafting legislation that would bring this about... it's going to be fun to watch...
I suspect our politicians and our financial elite share a common belief: that surveillance is for the "little people", that they themselves are above the law and above reproach. I don't believe the financial elites will want this high-tech scrutiny turned upon them, and I believe the financial elites have the power to make sure it doesn't happen.
So if we manage to insert this concept into the public political discussion -- and if we are successful to the point where perhaps some Senators start drafting legislation that would bring this about... it's going to be fun to watch...
Saturday, September 7, 2013
Latest Evidence, #1 in a series
Matt Taibbi's reports, "Everything Is Rigged", will obviously figure prominently on this blog. Matt isn't the only reporter covering this beat, but he aggregates everything conveniently. Scratch the surface of how our finances are handled by major players, mainly by private mega-banks like Goldman Sachs, but also including government agencies such as the Federal Reserve and Fannie Mae, and you quickly realize that the scale of the financial fraud that occurs every hour dwarfs the economy of some entire First World countries.
"Everything Is Rigged, Vol. 9,173: This Time It's Currencies"
"Everything Is Rigged, Vol. 9,173: This Time It's Currencies"
Traders at some of the world's biggest banks manipulated benchmark foreign-exchange rates used to set the value of trillions of dollars of investments, according to five dealers with knowledge of the practice... Employees have been front-running client orders and rigging WM/Reuters rates by pushing through trades before and during the 60-second windows when the benchmarks are set, said the current and former traders, who requested anonymity because the practice is controversial. Dealers colluded with counterparts to boost chances of moving the rates, said two of the people, who worked in the industry for a total of more than 20 years. The $4.7-trillion-a-day currency market, the biggest in the financial system, is one of the least regulated. The inherent conflict banks face between executing client orders and profiting from their own trades is exacerbated because most currency trading takes place away from exchanges.One after another, it's the same thing: Insiders rigging benchmark rates, shaving money from basically everyone on earth, systematically and over periods of many years. It's the ultimate taxation-without-representation story...
Saturday, July 27, 2013
More news roundup
I see I have a few hundred page views, but I don't know if anybody is hanging on waiting for me to update this blog anymore... Haven't received any comments.
But the basic issue continues to simmer on the back burner of our collective attention, at least, as reflected in the news media. I don't think this issue is going to go away. Every other day comes some new revelation that we are being spied upon to a degree that was never before technologically possible.
The one thing the news media does not do, as they report these revelations, is speculate about what is the motive and what are the overseers going to do with this information.
Because I mean, you can't really expect me to believe the Federal Government needs the passwords to my accounts, even as it is already intercepting and decrypting my messages.
Feds Tell Web Firms To Turn Over User Account Passwords
You can't really expect me to believe the police are monitoring all the movements of our automobiles in all our cities just in order to track terrorists.
The Cops Are Tracking My Car -- And Yours
You can't really expect me to believe that opening my safe deposit box is necessary to fight terrorism.
DHS Claims Authority To Open Safe Deposit Boxes Without Warrants
So yeah, terrorism terrorism terrorism, but I just don't see these steps as being a necessary part of the battle against terrorism.
Sure the concept of broad surveillance may have originated (long before 9/11) as a misguided idea to fight terrorism. But I don't think that's the true, ultimate purpose of it anymore. As the examples above show, it's really going beyond plausibility to think that our government urgently needs to do these things, all without a warrant or court oversight, in order to fight terror.
Of course part of it is just for the money. We're Americans, and what Americans have done for the past 100 years is to take serious, bloody, moral and ethical issues and find ways to make profits off them, profits which of course are amoral. It's easy to convince yourself that spying on your fellow citizens is moral if your salary is paid by people who are buying your surveillance cameras.
Lawmakers Who Upheld NSA Phone Spying Received Double the Defense Industry Cash
I wrote before, that surveillance is equivalent to pornography for people in positions of power. Because the surveillance isn't about monitoring anymore than pornography is about cinematography. Surveillance is ultimately all about control. You have to use this data for something, and as I wrote, if the actual thing you're fighting is pretty small and elusive, you as a government overseer are going to find new uses for the data. You're going to use it, in secret, against people you personally don't like or disagree with. It's not even a slippery slope, it's a highway directly to Hell. It's just how human nature works when granted social authority at the same time as technological miracles. You're just bound to abuse it, no question.
The actual incidence of terrorism is small, and obviously they make themselves hard to find. So those doing the surveillance find themselves going out on a limb and provoking the thing they claim to be defending us from.
Most Terrorist Plots in the US Aren't Invented by Al Qaeda -- They're Manufactured by the FBI [Sting Operations]
As other people have written, one of the major problems with permitting things like torture, assassination and surveillance against "foreign enemies" is that all those things inevitably return back home to be used against the citizens.
DHS confirms it's spying on 'anti-government' Americans
And so if there aren't enough real traitors and terrorists among the domestic citizenry to justify the massive, bloated security operation -- inevitably, the government starts to declare more and more people as enemies and terrorists. It's happened in every repressive totalitarian regime that I know of.
How the US Turned Three Pacifists [an 82-year-old Catholic nun and two elderly vegetarians] into Violent Terrorists
Yet again I have to repeat, this is how empires fall. When the government slowly convinces itself that the citizens are the enemy instead of their employers. That situation can't last for long, historically speaking. One thing or the other has got to change.
But the basic issue continues to simmer on the back burner of our collective attention, at least, as reflected in the news media. I don't think this issue is going to go away. Every other day comes some new revelation that we are being spied upon to a degree that was never before technologically possible.
The one thing the news media does not do, as they report these revelations, is speculate about what is the motive and what are the overseers going to do with this information.
Because I mean, you can't really expect me to believe the Federal Government needs the passwords to my accounts, even as it is already intercepting and decrypting my messages.
Feds Tell Web Firms To Turn Over User Account Passwords
You can't really expect me to believe the police are monitoring all the movements of our automobiles in all our cities just in order to track terrorists.
The Cops Are Tracking My Car -- And Yours
You can't really expect me to believe that opening my safe deposit box is necessary to fight terrorism.
DHS Claims Authority To Open Safe Deposit Boxes Without Warrants
So yeah, terrorism terrorism terrorism, but I just don't see these steps as being a necessary part of the battle against terrorism.
Sure the concept of broad surveillance may have originated (long before 9/11) as a misguided idea to fight terrorism. But I don't think that's the true, ultimate purpose of it anymore. As the examples above show, it's really going beyond plausibility to think that our government urgently needs to do these things, all without a warrant or court oversight, in order to fight terror.
Of course part of it is just for the money. We're Americans, and what Americans have done for the past 100 years is to take serious, bloody, moral and ethical issues and find ways to make profits off them, profits which of course are amoral. It's easy to convince yourself that spying on your fellow citizens is moral if your salary is paid by people who are buying your surveillance cameras.
Lawmakers Who Upheld NSA Phone Spying Received Double the Defense Industry Cash
I wrote before, that surveillance is equivalent to pornography for people in positions of power. Because the surveillance isn't about monitoring anymore than pornography is about cinematography. Surveillance is ultimately all about control. You have to use this data for something, and as I wrote, if the actual thing you're fighting is pretty small and elusive, you as a government overseer are going to find new uses for the data. You're going to use it, in secret, against people you personally don't like or disagree with. It's not even a slippery slope, it's a highway directly to Hell. It's just how human nature works when granted social authority at the same time as technological miracles. You're just bound to abuse it, no question.
The actual incidence of terrorism is small, and obviously they make themselves hard to find. So those doing the surveillance find themselves going out on a limb and provoking the thing they claim to be defending us from.
Most Terrorist Plots in the US Aren't Invented by Al Qaeda -- They're Manufactured by the FBI [Sting Operations]
As other people have written, one of the major problems with permitting things like torture, assassination and surveillance against "foreign enemies" is that all those things inevitably return back home to be used against the citizens.
DHS confirms it's spying on 'anti-government' Americans
And so if there aren't enough real traitors and terrorists among the domestic citizenry to justify the massive, bloated security operation -- inevitably, the government starts to declare more and more people as enemies and terrorists. It's happened in every repressive totalitarian regime that I know of.
How the US Turned Three Pacifists [an 82-year-old Catholic nun and two elderly vegetarians] into Violent Terrorists
Yet again I have to repeat, this is how empires fall. When the government slowly convinces itself that the citizens are the enemy instead of their employers. That situation can't last for long, historically speaking. One thing or the other has got to change.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Satire: About ready to destroy the world again [ONION]
There are often cases where people quote the satirical newspaper, "The Onion", by mistake, thinking The Onion is fact -- because it's so damn close to reality. With that in mind, I feel I should label this post clearly as satire.
"Financial Sector Thinks It's About Ready To Ruin World Again"
"Financial Sector Thinks It's About Ready To Ruin World Again"
Representatives from all major banking and investment institutions cited recent increases in consumer spending, rebounding home prices, and a stabilizing unemployment rate as confirmation that the time had once again come to inflict another round of catastrophic financial losses on individuals and businesses worldwide.
“It’s been about five or six years since we last crippled every major market on the planet, so it seems like the time is right for us to get back out there and start ruining the lives of billions of people again,” said Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein.
“Plus, it’ll be nice to finally wipe out the Euro once and for all this time,” Gorman added.
Monday, June 17, 2013
Multimedia -- Satire, "NSA Data Backup"
Just to lighten the tone a little, here's a brief two-minute spoof ad about the NSA and the PRISM program:
The above satire is a portion of the current episode of the "Extra-Environmentalist" podcast, a fascinating news analysis podcast focused on understanding the collapse of the current American culture from an outsider's point of view. Even though its producers and many listeners are Americans, we still think that trying to step outside of the current culture is key to understanding it.
The above satire is a portion of the current episode of the "Extra-Environmentalist" podcast, a fascinating news analysis podcast focused on understanding the collapse of the current American culture from an outsider's point of view. Even though its producers and many listeners are Americans, we still think that trying to step outside of the current culture is key to understanding it.
Multimedia: Why The Distinction Between Collected And Analyzed Is Useless
To address one comment that many, including President Obama, have made about PRISM: They say that the PRISM system is not an unreasonable, widespread search and seizure of communications because it is only a computer that collects and aggregates the communications, and no NSA human employee listens to the conversations until such time as they have reason to believe the conversation is connected to terrorism.
"Nobody is listening to your phone conversations right now," the President said, in so many words.
I believe this is a distinction without a difference. No person is on your phone line tapping your conversations right now, but thirty seconds from now, somebody can order it up for whatever reason they can get past the bureaucrats. Or 10 seconds from now. Or 5 seconds from now.
Good science-fiction always attempts to address present concerns by cloaking them in a disguise about a compelling problem in some imagined future world. One thing science-fiction has taught us is, when it comes to digital surveillance, the past begins a fraction of a second ago. If you can store up complete and accurate records of the past, and call them to your ears or fingertips at any moment, that's effectively the same as if you are eavesdropping all the time. Because the "past" begins a fraction of an instant ago, as far as computers are concerned. There isn't any scenario in the real world where it makes a difference, between storing all records of the "past" starting a half a second ago and making them instantly available, versus sitting on the phone line in real time. There is no difference versus having somebody eavesdropping on your conversation right now since he could just as well be doing it a half a second from now.
That's one of the topics the following book review discusses:
"Nobody is listening to your phone conversations right now," the President said, in so many words.
I believe this is a distinction without a difference. No person is on your phone line tapping your conversations right now, but thirty seconds from now, somebody can order it up for whatever reason they can get past the bureaucrats. Or 10 seconds from now. Or 5 seconds from now.
Good science-fiction always attempts to address present concerns by cloaking them in a disguise about a compelling problem in some imagined future world. One thing science-fiction has taught us is, when it comes to digital surveillance, the past begins a fraction of a second ago. If you can store up complete and accurate records of the past, and call them to your ears or fingertips at any moment, that's effectively the same as if you are eavesdropping all the time. Because the "past" begins a fraction of an instant ago, as far as computers are concerned. There isn't any scenario in the real world where it makes a difference, between storing all records of the "past" starting a half a second ago and making them instantly available, versus sitting on the phone line in real time. There is no difference versus having somebody eavesdropping on your conversation right now since he could just as well be doing it a half a second from now.
That's one of the topics the following book review discusses:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)