Corruption Corner – Page 27

The Presidential Business Hit List

Regulatory agencies have for a long time been the tool of choice for the executive branch when it wanted to target things it didn’t like but didn’t want to wait for approval by the legislative branch. The current head of the executive branch has made no attempt to conceal his distain for guns so it’s not surprising to see that he sicced his dogs on firearm sellers:

The administration is using an anti-credit card fraud effort dubbed Operation Choke Point to go after legitimate businesses it deems “high-risk,” says a staff report by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Internal Justice Department documents show that Attorney General Eric Holder was informed that small businesses were being hurt by the operation as banks dropped them and exited entire lines of business deemed “high-risk” by the government, yet his department has continued to pursue the operation, the report says.

[…]

The Washington Times has reported that several gun retailers have been dropped by their banks as a result of the operation — the most recent being Powderhorn Outfitters, a sporting goods shop in Hyannis, Massachusetts, which was dropped last week by TD Bank after a 36-year business relationship.

And gun stores aren’t the only organizations being targeted by Operation Choke Point. The Washington Times included a convenient picture that covers other so-called high-risk businesses that have cause the Department of Justice’s ire:

It’s pretty ironic that surveillance equipment made it onto a government list of high-risk merchants but I digress. While many people are focusing on the gun store angle specifically I think the take away from this story is that giving the state regulatory power is dangerous. Whenever something bad happens the government always steps in and offers to regulate that bad thing. If the Democrats are in power then self-proclaimed Democrats take the government up on its offer. If the Republicans are in power then self-proclaimed Republicans take the government up on its offer (even though they claim to want a smaller government). Neither side stops to consider the fact that their party won’t be in power forever and when the party in power changes those new regulatory powers will be used in a different manner.

After Having Over a Year to Scrub Its Records the NSA Claims Snowden Never Raised Concerns

After Edward Snowden released his treasure trove of leaked data from the National Security Agency (NSA) many statists asked why he didn’t go through “proper” channels. Snowden said that he did raise concerns numerous times to no avail. It has been over a year since Snowden let us in on the NSA’s surveillance game and now the agency is claiming that Snowden never filed a complaint:

In response to claims by Edward Snowden that he raised concerns about NSA spying in emails sent to the spy agency’s legal office, the NSA released a statement and a copy of the only email it says it found from Snowden.

That email, the agency says, asked a question about legal authority and hierarchy but did not raise any concerns.

“NSA has now explained that they have found one e-mail inquiry by Edward Snowden to the Office of General Counsel asking for an explanation of some material that was in a training course he had just completed,” the NSA said in a statement. “The e-mail did not raise allegations or concerns about wrongdoing or abuse, but posed a legal question that the Office of General Counsel addressed. There was not additional follow-up noted.

“There are numerous avenues that Mr. Snowden could have used to raise other concerns or whistleblower allegations,” the statement continued. “We have searched for additional indications of outreach from him in those areas and to date have not discovered any engagements related to his claims.”

Let me get this straight. The NSA, one of the most unscrupulous agencies of the United States government (and that’s saying a lot, expects us it when it says Snowden never filed a complaint? I’m guessing that the NSA has been busy scrubbing all records of Snowden’s filed complaints just so it could claim that he never filed any.

But let’s assume he didn’t file any complaints, why does it matter? Anybody who has dealt with government bureaucracy knows that “proper channels” is synonymous with memory hole. It’s impossible to get anything done within a government agency by using the agency approved channels. The only way to get a government agency to change its ways is to create public outrage and even that isn’t a guarantee that anything will improve.

Why Legalizing Driverless Cars is Likely to Be an Uphill Battle

One of the political battles currently being waged in Minnesota is cannabis legalization. The reason the battle is so heated is because law enforcement agents are opposing legalization because they know it will hurt their funding from civil forfeiture laws. This will likely be the reason why law enforcement agents will also oppose legalizing driverless cars:

Google’s driverless cars have now combined to drive more than 700,000 miles on public roads without receiving one citation, The Atlantic reported this week. While this raises a lot of questions about who is responsible to pay for a ticket issued to a speeding autonomous car – current California law would have the person in the driver’s seat responsible, while Google has said the company that designed the car should pay the fine – it also hints at a future where local and state governments will have to operate without a substantial source of revenue.

Approximately 41 million people receive speeding tickets in the U.S. every year, paying out more than $6.2 billion per year, according to statistics from the U.S. Highway Patrol published at StatisticBrain.com. That translates to an estimate $300,000 in speeding ticket revenue per U.S. police officer every year.

Driverless cars are less likely to violate traffic laws. As driverless cars become more prevalent this will cause the number of traffic citations issued by police to dwindle. Without the kickback from those citations departments will find that their funding will also dwindle. In other words this is why we can’t have nice things.

One of the major problems with modern policing is the fact that it incentivizes the creation of criminals. The more criminals that exist in society the more money law enforcement agencies can rake in. That creates a conflict of interest as law enforcement agencies are incentivized to support any measure that creates more criminals and oppose any measure that reduces the number of criminals. This conflict of interest becomes especially egregious when you consider that technology like driverless cars have the potential to save a lot of lives by reducing traffic accidents.

How the Abolition of Net Neutrality is Being Bought

The battle for net neutrality is a difficult one to sort out because it’s effective oligarchs arguing with other oligarchs. Oligarchs that hold actual monopoly in many areas to distribute Internet content want the ability to suck more money out of both customers and service providers. These oligarchs own much of the infrastructure and claim that they have a right to use it as they please since it is their property. What they don’t mention is that they have legal protections from other oligarchs that prevent any meaningful competition from arising in the Internet content distribution market.

The other set of oligarchs are the ones that compose the legislature and regulatory bodies. It’s an election year for many in the legislature so they want to convince the serfs that their rulers are very benevolent and should be vote in for another term. Since the serfs are quite fond of the current model used to distribute Internet content the oligarchs in the legislature are demanding the model stay in place. The regulatory body most involved in this fight, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is stuck between both sides. Its current chairman, Tom Wheeler, is a form lobbyist for the infrastructure oligarchs but he also wants to continue his position as chairman of the FCC, which means he must also make the oligarchs in the legislature happy.

Fortunately when competing sects of the oligarchy go to war they don’t use bombs. Instead they negotiate with one another to determine how much which sect will pay to get its way:

These lawmakers, including the top House leadership, warned the FCC that regulating broadband like a public utility “harms” providers, would be “fatal to the Internet,” and could “limit economic freedom.”

According to research provided Friday by Maplight, the 28 House members received, on average, $26,832 from the “cable & satellite TV production & distribution” sector over a two-year period ending in December. According to the data, that’s 2.3 times more than the House average of $11,651.

What’s more, one of the lawmakers who told the FCC that he had “grave concern” (PDF) about the proposed regulation took more money from that sector than any other member of the House. Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) was the top sector recipient, netting more than $109,000 over the two-year period, the Maplight data shows.

The infrastructure oligarchs obviously feel very strongly about being able to change their current distribution model because they are paying a good chunk of change to key oligarchs in the legislature. I predict an end to what we call net neutrality in the near future (probably not until the next election cycle or two have concluded though). It will be a slow death consisting of apparently minor changes over the coming years.

If we want to continue enjoying a distribution model that is neutral towards service providers then we will likely have to cut out the infrastructure oligarchs entirely. That will involve building our own infrastructure, which will almost certainly be declared an illegal act at some point. I’ve mentioned several times that I’m working with a handful of other people in the Twin Cities to develop a local mesh network with the hopes of expanding it over time. I think mesh networks, being decentralized (and therefore hard to stop through the judicial and law enforcement systems), are a promising strategy for bypassing the Internet service providers that are trying to double dip by charging both content consumers and content providers more money to access one another. The Chaos Computer Club’s idea to launch small satellites into orbit to bypass state censorship also appeals to me. Between all of us who dwell online would should be able to develop a practical solution to the oligarchy problem.

Congress is Making the Big Sacrifices

The United States is faced with a several trillion dollar deficit. Truth be told this isn’t a big deal because this country’s debt is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States, which is a euphemism for aircraft carriers, drones equipped with Hellfire missiles, and tanks. But Congress needs something to quibble about between their daily circlejerks so the deficit is brought up from time to time.

Every time the issue of the deficit is brought up Congress introduces some meaningless bill that is, at most, a symbolic gesture meant to make it appear as though they’re making major sacrifices. This time around the bill would prevent members of Congress from using tax victim money to buy first class airliner tickets:

A bipartisan group of lawmakers has introduced legislation aimed at preventing members of Congress from flying first class using taxpayer funds.

The bill, titled, “If Our Military Has to Fly Coach Then so Should Congress Act,” was introduced by Reps. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz.; Raul Ruiz, D-Calif.; John Barrow, D-Ga.; and Walter Jones, R-N.C., in a bid to end the purchase of first-class flight seats with taxpayer money.

“All it does is prohibit members of Congress from using taxpayer funds to purchase first class airfare,” Gosar said in a statement. “At a time of massive deficits and with a national debt in excess of $17 trillion, members of Congress should not be using taxpayers’ hard-earned money to buy luxury airline seats.”

You have to love how the authors were able to tied a bill restricting the flight arrangements of Congress to the military. Nothing gets people fired up quite like patriotism!

Much like the title the idea behind the bill is absurd for two reasons. First of all making members of Congress fly coach instead of first class isn’t going to put a noticeable dent in the deficit. We’re talking about a bill that could potentially save a couple of hundred dollars per flight per member of Congress. That amount of money isn’t even a blip on the radar when we’re talking about $17 trillion dollars.

But there’s another reason this bill is absurd. It doesn’t prevent members of Congress from utilize its fleet of private jets:

Congress plans to spend $550 million to buy eight jets, a substantial upgrade to the fleet used by federal officials at a time when lawmakers have criticized the use of corporate jets by companies receiving taxpayer funds.

The purchases will help accommodate growing travel demand by congressional officials. The planes augment a fleet of about two dozen passenger jets maintained by the Air Force for lawmakers, administration officials and military chiefs to fly on government trips in the U.S. and abroad.

Who gives a damn about first class when you have a fleet of private jets? I’d much rather fly on a private jet than a public one anyways and I’m sure members of Congress feel the same way.

The Level of Professionalism I Expect From the ATF

Yesterday morning people in Minneapolis who were traversing east on I-94 were in for delays. The police blocked off two lanes as it moved to arrest a man who reportedly brandished a firearm at another driver. As you can guess this headline got a few of the local gun control nuts riled up. This was exactly the event they were waiting for. One of those evil carry permit holders getting into a fit of road rage and threatening a fellow motorist with a firearm. Then the story was updated with information provided by the Minnesota State Patrol:

Police caught up to that driver on I-94 at Olson Hwy. and blocked two of the southbound lanes for a short time while making an arrest. That was enough to cause traffic to jam up back to West Broadway.

The State Patrol took the man with the gun into custody. He was questioned and released after officers learned he was an ATF agent who was carrying proper credentials.

Talk about a bummer. That update really killed the gun control nuts’ mojo (and I mean really killed it, as in the handful of comments I had collected to post here were tossed down the memory hole). But the update didn’t surprise me or any of my other gunnie friends. This is exactly the type of professionalism that we’ve come to expect from agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).

But the real icing on the cake, in my opinion, was how quickly the situation was swept under the rug:

His name was not released per Minnesota State Statue 13.82, which states that data would reveal the identity of an undercover law enforcement officer can be kept private.

Had you or I been accused of the same thing we’d be rotting in a cage. But since the suspect is an agent of the ATF he was not only released but his name was kept private. Service to the state has its privileges.

A Strange Coincidence

While I don’t subscribe to most of the zany explanations for it, I don’t believe the idea of synchronicity has something going for it. We often see multiple meaningfully related events that are unlikely to be causally related. Take the recent conflict in Ukraine that has rekindled that good old Cold War animosity between the United States and Russia. While the conflict wages on Ukraine’s biggest gas producer, Burisma Holdings, announced a meaningfully related new appointee to its Board of Directors:

Burisma Holdings, Ukraine’s largest private gas producer, has expanded its Board of Directors by bringing on Mr. R Hunter Biden as a new director.

If Hunter’s last name sounds familiar it should. He’s none other than the son of the current vice presiden. It’s amazing how the son of this country’s vice president was able to get a seat on the Board of Directors of Ukraine’s largest oil producer at the same time as this nasty Cold War-esque conflict. But I’m sure that it’s just a coincidence and the United States’s involvement in Ukraine has nothing to do with this appointment.

I’m Not Sure Why She’s in Prison

There are times where I’m left completely baffled by a court decision (OK, truthfully it happens more often than not). Take the case of Maria del Carmen Garcia. When her daughter was 13 years-old she was raped. The rapist was sentenced to nine years in prison and was released on parol after seven. After being released the rapist ran into Maria:

While on parole he came in contact with Garcia after returning to the family’s hometown in Spain and asked her, “How’s your daughter?”

I’m sure running into her daughter’s rapist wasn’t a happy situation to begin with but asking how her daughter is doing is rubbing salt in an open wound. Maria then responded in a way that I feel was actually very lenient:

Locating the convicted rapist in a bar, she doused him with newly purchased petrol, and set him on fire, reports The Local. The man died a week later as a result of the burns.

Of all the horrible tortures she could have inflicted on her daughter’s rapist I must admit that dousing him with gasoline and lighting him ablaze was actually quite civil. It was certainly far better than the rapist deserved. Unfortunately the courts disagreed and decided locking Maria in prison was the best way to handle the situation. Initially she received a longer sentence than her rapist but at least the Spanish Supreme Court reduced it. Still the decision to cage Maria doesn’t appear to be very popular with the locals as thousands have signed a petition requesting clemency, which goes to show how popular people who rape children are.

The fact that Maria is sitting in a cage baffles me.

I’ll Scratch Your Back If You Scratch Mine

Fascism is basically circlejerk economics. Government officials are jerking off corporate cronies while corporate cronies are jerking off government officials. This system works very well if you’re at the top but most of us aren’t at the top so we get to suffer protected monopolies, inferior products, and shitty service.

Another side effect of fascism is that government will always swoop in to protect its corporate cronies. Right now the White House is demanding that its corporate partners who hand over customer data to the National Security Agency (NSA) received legal immunity:

The White House has asked legislators crafting competing reforms of the National Security Agency to provide legal immunity for telecommunications firms that provide the government with customer data, the Guardian has learned.

In a statement of principles privately delivered to lawmakers some weeks ago to guide surveillance reforms, the White House said it wanted legislation protecting “any person who complies in good faith with an order to produce records” from legal liability for complying with court orders for phone records to the government once the NSA no longer collects the data in bulk.

In other words the White House doesn’t want any actual reform. Unless entities handing over data to the NSA face consequences there’s no motivation for them to not do so even when they know a request is illegal. This is especially true when you consider how much money many companies make off of government data requests.

As an aside, it’s funny how the White House never demanded whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden received legal immunity for revealing government corruption. I guess our illegal secrets aren’t the same as the government’s illegal secrets.

The Fourth Amendment Takes Another Hit Right to the Heart

Once again the Nazgûl have done an outstanding job of serving their master. This time they drove another stake through the heart of the already heavily staked Fourth Amendment:

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that police can stop and search a driver based solely on an anonymous 911 tip.

The 5-4 decision split the court’s two most conservative justices, with Justice Clarence Thomas writing for the majority and Justice Antonin Scalia penning the dissent.

Checkpoints should be much easier to setup now that this ruling has been made. Just have a gun on a cellphone a few miles away from the checkpoint call in an “anonymous tip” on every vehicle the passes. Reasonable suspicion has been a bit too rigorous for cops wanting to search a vehicle. Thankfully this ruling means that they can “receive an anonymous tip” and search go ahead with the search. Many opportunities have been opened by this ruling and I’m sure we’ll get to see them all as creative officers wanting to throw around their power put their minds to the civil rights bypassing grind stone.