House's Gutted USA FREEDOM Act

May 20, 2014 | By Mark Jaycox and Nadia Kayyali and Lee Tien


EFF and Other Civil Liberties Organizations Call on Congress to Support Uncompromising Reform

Since the introduction of the USA FREEDOM Act, a bill that has over 140 cosponsors, Congress has been clear about its intent: ending the mass collection of Americans' calling records. Many members of Congress, the President's own review group on NSA activities, and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board all agree that the use of Section 215 to collect Americans' calling records must stop. Earlier today, House Leadership reached an agreement to amend the bipartisan USA FREEDOM Act in ways that severely weaken the bill, potentially allowing bulk surveillance of records to continue. The Electronic Frontier Foundation cannot support a bill that doesn't achieve the goal of ending mass spying. We urge Congress to support uncompromising NSA reform and we look forward to working on the Senate's bipartisan version of the USA FREEDOM Act.

Passing the bill out of the Judiciary Committee for a vote on the House floor is an important sign that Rep. Bob Goodlatte, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, and other leaders of the House are engaging in a conversation over NSA reform. We are glad that the House added a clause to the bill clarifying the content of communications cannot be obtained with Section 215. Unfortunately, the bill's changed definitions, the lack of substantial reform to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act, and the inability to introduce a special advocate in the FISA Court severely weakens the bill.

In particular, we are concerned with the new definition of "specific selection term," which describes and limits who or what the NSA is allowed to surveil. The new definition is incredibly more expansive than previous definitions. Less than a week ago, the definition was simply "a term used to uniquely describe a person, entity, or account.” While that definition was imperfect, the new version is far broader.1 The new version not only adds the undefined words "address" and "device," but makes the list of potential selection terms open-ended by using the term "such as." Congress has been clear that it wishes to end bulk collection, but given the government's history of twisted legal interpretations, this language can't be relied on to protect our freedoms.

Further, the bill does not sufficiently address Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act. We are specifically concerned that the new language references "about" searches, which collect and review messages of users who do not even communicate with surveillance targets.Congress must include reforming Section 702 in any NSA reform. This includes stopping the NSA from searching illegally collected Americans' communications, stopping the suspicionless "about" surveillance, and ensuring companies can report on the exact number of orders they receive and the number of users affected.

We are encouraged by Senator Leahy's commitment to continue with the more comprehensive version of the USA FREEDOM Act over the summer and look forward to working towards NSA reform in the Senate.
1. The bill reads “(2) Specific selection term.—The term ‘specific selection term’ means a discrete term, such as a term specifically identifying a person, entity, account, address, or device, used by the Government to limit the scope of the information or tangible things sought pursuant to the statute authorizing the provision of such information or tangible things to the Government.

I spent 14 years in the NFL. Here’s why I’m quitting Congress after four. by Jon Runyan

Fourth and So Long
By REP. JON RUNYAN
January 24, 2014


People are constantly asking me how similar politics is to pro football. I spent more than a decade in the NFL before spending the past three years in Congress, and the truth of the matter is the two occupations are more alike than not. Both are contact sports, and you’d better be ready to play when you step onto either field. While it’s tough to say which is more difficult, there have been plenty of times in the past few years when I’ve thought politics was harder. At least in football you know exactly who your opponent is.

When I decided to run for Congress, I saw it as an opportunity to serve the South Jersey community that had become my home after signing to play for the Philadelphia Eagles. I didn’t choose public service out of political ambition or a desire for power, and never once thought of making a career of it. For me, it was simply a chance to give back to my community and the country.

There is no doubt that I am enormously proud of the work I’ve done on behalf of my constituents. We’ve got more than 60,000 veterans and their families in the 3rd District of New Jersey — and not a day has gone by that I wasn’t fighting for them. South Jersey is home to Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, one of the finest military installations in the world, and it was my honor to represent the base and all of those who serve there. That’s the stuff that matters to me.

But my frustrations with the ways of Washington have been well-documented. Of course, the things that have bothered me most — the petty ambitions and the misplaced priorities — have frustrated many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Believe it or not, there are members of Congress who actually want to govern and get stuff done. Unfortunately, there are others whose agendas and strategies serve to advance their own interests and expand their donor base.

I guess, to use another football analogy, there’s no substitute for teamwork — and in Washington, I saw too little of it. I got myself into some trouble very early on when my comments in a closed meeting about the importance of working toward a common goal were leaked before the meeting even adjourned! At the time, we were attempting to pass a spending package to fund the government, and I had noticed that individual personalities and self-serving strategies had become the focus of our attention — a classic example, you could say, of guys playing to get to the Pro Bowl rather than the Super Bowl. In the months and years that followed, I watched repeated marches right up to the very edge of fiscal calamity, even the shutdown of the federal government — all of it leaving me quite frustrated and my constituents scratching their heads in bewilderment. Things seemed dysfunctional, and despite all the accomplished people around me, too often we accomplished less than I would have liked.

***

It was Hurricane Sandy that not only decimated parts of my district but pushed me to the brink of my frustrations with the game of politics. In the fall of 2012, in the immediate wake of Sandy, I suspended my congressional reelection campaign and got to work helping those folks in South Jersey whose lives had been turned upside down by the storm. (My political opponent, well, she ran a radio ad comparing my record to that of the hurricane.)

I returned to Washington ready to fight for emergency aid to help the towns affected in my state and throughout the Northeast rebuild. Governors from both political parties joined ranks and Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.) and President Barack Obama famously teamed up to “restore the shore.” Republicans and Democrats from the impacted areas worked together in the House on a clean package to get immediate relief to our constituents.

And what did we get out of the Senate? A bill laden with sweeteners intended to secure yes votes from senators whose states weren’t even impacted by the storm. Things like money for fisheries in Alaska. Pretty soon opposition to the bill developed even as millions of Americans sifted through what remained of their possessions — those who were lucky enough to have something to sift through, that is.

It took weeks for a relief package to reach the floor of the House of Representatives. Even when it was pork-free, that bill garnered 180 “no” votes — including 179 members of my own party. Many of these members had previously requested aid for their own districts following other natural disasters. I actually carried the list of those members in my lapel pocket for weeks following that vote.

I can’t really pinpoint a specific moment when I made the decision not to seek a third term in Congress. It was more like a series of gut-check moments. Like on the third day of a seven-day family reunion vacation — I was leaving the next day to return to Washington — when my youngest daughter sat on the end of my bed and made it very clear to me she did not want me to go back, ever. A month before that, I was at the Detroit airport after dropping my son off at football camp at the University of Michigan. I was headed back to D.C. when I took the call from the head football coach at Michigan (my own alma mater), letting me know that my son was being offered a scholarship to play ball there. I missed the first plane that day to take the phone call, but I really missed being with my son and sharing that moment that you get once in a lifetime.

In each of these moments, I was reminded of a promise I made to myself while still playing football, that once I retired, I would be there for my kids. It became clear to me that there was no way I could do both. I came to Washington to serve my constituents, and I gave it my all. I’m grateful for the trust that my constituents in the 3rd District placed in me, and the opportunity they gave me to serve. Now it’s time for me to take my place on the sidelines.

***

Rep. Jon Runyan has represented New Jersey’s 3rd Congressional District since 2011 and previously played 14 seasons as a Pro Bowl offensive tackle in the NFL.

AIPAC 101

uh oh, criticize anything to do with Israel and you are a racist! Israel's people are cool, it's their government that sucks ass. And their govt has way too much sway with the US govt. That is some suck.

It's funny cuz it's sad...

Insider Trading by the Legislative and Executive Branches of Govt.

Do as We Say, Congress Says, Then Does What It Wants

Friday, 01 February 2013
By Theodoric Meyer, ProPublica | News Analysis


When CBS News reported in 2011 that members of Congress weren’t prohibited from insider trading, Congress moved swiftly. President Obama signed a law banning it within six months of the broadcast.

But Congress is still exempt from portions of a number of federal laws, including provisions that protect workers in the private sector but don’t apply to the legislative branch’s approximately 30,000 employees.

Here’s our rundown of measures Congress exempts itself from:

Whistleblower Protections: Congress passed the Whistleblower Protection Act in 1989, which protects workers in the executive branch from retaliation for reporting waste, mismanagement or lawbreaking. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act gives similar protections to private-sectors workers. But legislative-branch workers — a category that includes congressional staffers as well as employees of the Library of Congress, the Architect of the Capitol and other offices —don’t get the same protections. 

Subpoenas for Health and Safety Probes: The Occupational Health and Safety Act empowers the U.S. Department of Labor to investigate health and safety violations in private-sector workplaces. If an employer doesn’t cooperate, the agency can subpoena the records it needs. The Office of Compliance, the independent agency that investigates such violations in the legislative branch, doesn’t have the power to issue those subpoenas. 

Keeping Workplace Records: A number of workplace-rights laws — the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act and others — require employers to retain personnel records for a certain period of time. But as a recent report on the congressional workplace notes, “Congress has exempted itself from all of these requirements.” Congress is also exempt from keeping records of injuries and illness the way private-sector employers are. 

Prosecution for Retaliating Against Employees: If a private-sector employer retaliates against a worker for reporting health or safety hazards, the Department of Labor can investigate and, if necessary, sue the employer. Congress’ Office of Compliance doesn’t have that power — legislative-branch employees must file suit personally and pay their own legal fees. 

Posting Notices of Workers’ Rights: Workplace-rights laws require employers to post notices of those rights, which often appear in office lunchrooms. Congress is exempt from this requirement, though this has little real-world impact. The Office of Compliance sends legislative employees the same information each year, formatted “in a manner suitable for posting.”

Anti-Discrimination and Anti-Retaliation Training: The No Fear Act requires agencies in the executive branch to provide such training to employees, but the legislative branch is exempt. 

The Freedom of Information Act: The public can request information from federal agencies, but Congress, the federal courts and some parts of the Executive Office of the President are exempt.

In addition to sparing itself from complying with measures it has made mandatory for others, Congress is violating of some of the laws that do apply to it, according to a recent report from the Office of Compliance. (The pint-sized agency, created by Congress in 1995, is responsible for enforcing a number of workplace-rights laws in the legislative branch.) The sidewalks surrounding the three House office buildings, the report noted, don’t comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Neither do the restrooms in the House and Senate office buildings and the Library of Congress’ James Madison Building.

The Office of Compliance cites certain congressional exemptions as particularly problematic. The agency’s inability to subpoena information regarding some legislative workers’ complaints about health and safety often means the office must negotiate with congressional offices to gather the facts it needs.

“It can tie our hands sometimes,” said Barbara J. Sapin, the office’s executive director.

The Office of Compliance has urged Congress to apply the laws listed above to itself — except the Freedom of Information Act — with little result. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the non-voting delegate who represents the District of Columbia, introduced a bill in 2011 to do this, but it died in committee.

The number of complaints of discrimination and harassment filed by legislative-branch workers with the Office of Compliance has nearly doubled in the last two years, from 102 in the 2009 fiscal year to 196 in the 2011 fiscal year. Workers’ complaints about retaliation or intimidation have risen even more sharply, from 36 in fiscal year 2009 to 108 in fiscal year 2011.

Even so, Debra Katz, a Washington lawyer who specializes in workplace-rights law, said some Capitol Hill employees might be holding back from filing complaints. House and Senate staffers, she said, are often reluctant to speak up about harassment or discrimination for fear of jeopardizing their careers.

“People are very loath to burn bridges by filing a complaint or going to the Office of Compliance,” she said. “They don’t want to go forward with bringing a claim, even when it’s covered under the law.”

The Weekly Not-So-Funnies

 

The Bi-Partisan Fiscal Scam

Obama Gave It All Away
by JILL STEIN


As daylight begins to shine on the fiscal cliff deal just passed by Congress, it’s clear the expected bipartisan betrayal has occurred. And even worse, it lays the groundwork for much more to come.

In brief, the deal protects wealthy households earning up to $450,000 annually from tax increases, as it makes Bush tax cuts permanent for 98.5% of Americans. With this provision, Obama broke his promise to raise taxes on those earning over $250,000 per year.

The deal also ended the payroll tax holiday, hitting vulnerable working and middle class families with significant tax increases likely to take further steam out of the economy. This increased tax burden – of about $1000 for a family earning $50,000 per year- should have been replaced by another tax break for working families to prevent a reduction in demand that’s likely to further stall the ailing economy.

The deal also ushered in an additional $205 billion in wasteful corporate tax favors. New racetracks will get tens of millions, Goldman Sachs gets $1.6 billion in tax-free financing for its new massive headquarters, banks get a $9 billion dollar loophole for offshore financing, and U.S. multinationals are allowed to dodge taxes on income earned by foreign subsidiaries – giving them all the more reason to move jobs offshore.

Taking care of ill family members at home was dealt a set-back with a provision in the Affordable Care Act designed to let millions of elderly and disabled people get help at home rather than be placed in institutional care being repealed.

The deal included an urgent renewal of unemployment insurance, though many observers considered this virtually a given. It also deferred the self-inflicted devastation of the ‘sequester’, which would impose $110 billion in across the board domestic and military cuts, but only for two months.

In supporting the bill, President Obama gave away the one bargaining chip – the expiring Bush tax cuts – that he could have used in the upcoming negotiations on spending cuts and the debt ceiling. Not only did Obama get little of substance in return for his only bargaining chip. He actually ceded nearly half the $1 trillion in new revenue that John Boehner agreed to, (getting only $600 billion in tax increases on the wealthy over the next decade).

This lays groundwork for a disaster. Obama has already agreed to 4 trillion in deficit reduction. The revenue side of the deal he just signed generates little more than $600 billion. That means we can expect bipartisan collaboration on more than $3 trillion in cuts going in to the next round of brinksmanship over the debt ceiling. Obama has already indicated his willingness to cut Social Security, Medicare and other health programs. Now, thanks to his early capitulation, the Republicans have all the cards in their hands.

Stay tuned. Our voices are needed more than ever to continue the fight for strong Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid – and for an economy that works for all of us. Once again we’re seeing that real solutions will not be coming from the corporate sponsored political establishment. You can be prouder than ever of your vote against the continued bipartisan sell out. More than ever, we – the people – are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

The Poor Will Be the First Over the Fiscal Cliff

Bryce Covert on November 14, 2012 - The Nation

 

The fiscal cliff may not be a real cliff, but jumping off it could be a catastrophe for the poor.

Absent action from Congress and President Obama, come January 1, 2013, the Bush tax cuts, Obama’s payroll tax cut and extended unemployment insurance expire just as spending cuts from the sequester kick in. (To recap, in order to get Congress to lift the debt ceiling last year, President Obama formed a Congressional committee that was supposed to recommend ways to cut $1.5 trillion from the deficit. If it failed, “sequestration” would kick in—$1 trillion in automatic spending cuts split evenly between defense and non-defense spending, with Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare mostly protected, coinciding perfectly with the other expirations on January 1. The committee never came through, so now we’re facing down the cuts.)

It’s not a pretty picture, although some have found silver linings. My Roosevelt Institute colleague Mark Schmitt is hopeful that real tax reform waits on the other side of the big leap.

Jonathan Chait argues that the impact will be gradual enough that Obama can delay or cancel out most of it. Some Democrats, including Representative Peter Welch of Vermont and Howard Dean, think it’s worth going over the cliff in order to force Congress’s hand in getting the budgetary house in order.

These are all potential upsides of going over the fiscal cliff, but the downside for the country’s poorest would likely be very harsh. First, the budget cuts from sequestration will hit the poor incredibly hard—even if they will not represent a majority of the revenue raised. The term “non-defense discretionary spending” will warm few cockles of the heart. But it’s an incredibly important portion of the budget. Ethan Pollack of the Economic Policy Institute broke it down in the graph below:

As you can see, this money represents public investment: in education, transportation, children’s health, etc. And many of these programs directly impact the poor. Housing assistance, child care and education, nutrition assistance, home heating assistance and income security for the blind, disabled and aged all together make up 17 percent of this spending—more than the largest category in that chart. This money goes to job training, Title X family planning services and Head Start, among other things. It’s anything but discretionary for those who rely on these critical programs.

And they’ll get pummeled by these automatic cuts. According to a letter from the Obama administration released in July, the cuts will mean nearly 100,000 children losing Head Start services and the elimination of child care assistance for 80,000 others, for starters. That’s a lot of pain and suffering on the other side of the cliff.

But the impact on the poor doesn’t stop there. They’ll also be hurt by the tax cuts that are set to expire at the same time. Overall, the loss of the Bush tax cuts for income, capital gains and the estate tax will hit rich people harder, as the top 20 percent would see their effective tax rate increase an average 5.8 percentage points, while the bottom 20 percent would see an increase of only 3.7 points. But the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit, credits aimed at low- and moderate-income Americans, were expanded under the 2009 stimulus, with the former aimed in particular at low-income families. Those expansions will expire, too, if we tumble over the cliff.

This all means that while the richest will experience a larger increase in rates, the poor will actually feel the biggest hit to their bottom lines. The bottom 20 percent of Americans will see their taxes go up by an average of $209, reducing their after-tax income by nearly 2 percent. The top 40 percent, however, will only see their after-tax income dinged by .1 percent. That’s a lot of money to come from those already struggling to make ends meet.

There’s another group of vulnerable people who get smacked as well: the unemployed. As the recession began in June of 2008, President Bush signed into law the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, which has since been reauthorized ten times. The National Employment Law Project reports that the unemployment rate is more than 40 percent higher now than when it was first enacted, and the percentage of the unemployed who have been out of work for more than six months has jumped by over 20 points. If Congress doesn’t reauthorize the EUC and the extended benefits expire along with everything else, 2 million workers currently collecting federal benefits will be cut off immediately and a million more will run out of state benefits by the end of the first quarter in 2013. That’s an actual cliff, not a gradual slope.

If a “grand bargain” is reached to avert some of this chaos that includes cuts to the social safety net, including the entitlements that are currently protected from the sequestration, poor people will of course still get hit hard. So that’s even more reason to favor solutions such as raising taxes on high income so that we can do what Katrina vanden Heuvel suggests will put us on a sustainable path: invest in our country. Revive manufacturing and lead in green jobs, invest in public education and affordable college and reign in Wall Street and CEOs’ excesses. It’s what voters want—they didn’t side with austerity to fix our problems. And it’s certainly what the poorest and most vulnerable among us need.

A History of the US Congress

Nearly all of Congress refuses to release tax returns

By Eric W. Dolan - RAW Story
Wednesday, July 18, 2012

 

 

Democrats in Congress have called on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to release more tax returns, but most of them have refused to release their own tax forms.

For three months, McClatchy requested the most recent tax returns from all 535 members of Congress, but only 13 Democrats and 3 Republicans shared their detailed tax information. The rest either refused to share their tax returns or ignored McClatchy’s request.

Members of Congress are required to file financial disclosure reports that list their major sources of earned and unearned income. However, the disclosure reports do not contain the same detail of information found in tax returns, omitting financial data such as spousal income.

Romney has repeatedly insisted that he would not release more than his 2010 and 2011 tax returns, even though his own father set a standard of releasing 12 years of returns.

“In the political environment that exists today, the opposition research of the Obama campaign is looking for anything they can use to distract from the failure of the president to reignite our economy,” Romney told the conservative National Review Online.

“I’m simply not enthusiastic about giving them hundreds or thousands of more pages to pick through, distort and lie about,” he added.

Congress Debates the Federal Reserve: Reform or Abolish?

Wednesday, 09 May 2012
Written by  Alex Newman - New American

In a rare moment of bipartisan unity, lawmakers and economists on both sides of the aisle largely agreed on two points: The Federal Reserve System as it stands is hurting America and something must be done to stop it. Just what exactly needs to happen, however, was the subject of considerable debate during a Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy hearing Tuesday chaired by sound-money advocate and GOP presidential contender Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas). 

Dr. Paul, of course, has become famous around the world for his tireless efforts to audit, expose, and abolish the central bank. He even published a best-selling book in 2009 entitled End the Fed, a title that has become a rallying cry for millions of Americans angry about the institution’s multi-trillion-dollar bailouts, market manipulations, corruption, and debasement of the currency.

The subcommittee hearing, entitled “The Federal Reserve System: Mend It or End It?”, examined a range of different proposals to reform the nation’s monetary system — it was supposed to look at six different options emanating from both parties. One of the measures on the agenda was Congressman Paul’s own “Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act,” legislation to dismantle the central bank and restore sound money based on market principles.

“More and more people are beginning to understand just how destructive the Federal Reserve's monetary policy has been. I hope that this hearing will kick start a serious discussion on the need to rein in the Fed,” Chairman Paul said in a statement about the event. “A hundred years is far too long for Congress to have taken a hands-off approach. The Fed continues to reward Wall Street banks while destroying the dollar’s purchasing power and driving up the cost of living for average Americans. This reckless behavior must come to an end.”

Several experts who testified before the subcommittee agreed with Paul’s proposals. And while efforts to reform the central bank have persisted for a century, in the wake of the economic crisis — which saw the Fed shower trillions of dollars on domestic and foreign banks — popular outrage has forced the controversy back into the spotlight. 

“The Fed simply does not know the ‘optimal’ supply of money or the ‘optimal’ intervention in the banking system; no one does,” explained Dr. Peter Klein from the University of Missouri during the hearing, noting that central banks do not fight inflation — they create it. “Add the standard problems of bureaucracy — waste, corruption, slack, and other forms of inefficiency well known to students of public administration — and it becomes increasingly difficult to justify control of the monetary system by a single bureaucracy.”

Dr. Jeffrey Herbner of Grove City College, an economist, echoed those concerns, citing a vast body of available data on the effects of central banking. “Economic theory and historical evidence demonstrate that a central bank confers no benefit on society at large,” Prof. Herbner testified, knocking down pro-central bank arguments one by one using facts and logic. “The Fed should be abolished and a market monetary system of commodity money and money certificates should be established.”

Another proposal that was examined during the hearing was the Sound Dollar Act. The legislation, introduced by Republican Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, seeks to reform the central bank’s mandate to focus only on keeping the value of the currency stable — as opposed to its current mission, which also includes maximizing employment.

Critics argue that the Fed has failed miserably on both counts — unemployment is out of control and the dollar has lost more than 95 percent of its value since the central bank took over. But under Brady’s bill, the Fed would face broad new restrictions in terms of what it could do. Its primary purpose, then, would be to ensure the stability of the currency’s value.

“Except in the very short term, monetary policy cannot boost real output and job creation,” Brady told the subcommittee. “The last four decades of U.S. monetary policy demonstrate the advantages of a rules-based regime over a discretionary one. During the 1970s, the Federal Reserve had ‘go-stop’ policies, in which monetary policy quickly swung from ease to tightness and back again. This incoherence produced a highly volatile real economy and a rising inflation rate.”

Brady later told reporters that he hoped fellow lawmakers would take action on the bill this year, but he acknowledged that his efforts may simply be building the foundation for legislative action on the issue next year. “While the dual mandate may be politically appealing, it makes no sense for Congress to charge the Fed with controlling what it cannot,” he noted.

Stanford economics Prof. John Taylor largely agreed with Brady’s proposal, saying nearly 100 years of experience had shown that giving central banks broad discretion in centrally planning the monetary supply does not work. "Multiple goals enable politicians to lean on the central bank to do their bidding and thereby deviate from a sound money strategy," he explained, calling for a rules-based system.

Democrat Rep. Barney Frank, on the other hand, saw different problems with the Fed — most notably, its domination by powerful financial interests. “The problem you have now is this: the regional Fed bank presidents are picked by bankers,” he told the subcommittee, blasting what he called “private sector government.” Other critics have seized on that point to describe the Fed as a banking cartel with a state-issued monopoly over the nation’s currency.

Frank’s proposal, H.R. 3428, would strip much of the policy-setting power from the 12 regional Fed chiefs by removing their votes on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). The legislation would also give lawmakers and the federal government more oversight authority over the privately owned central banking system, an idea the Fed itself has fiercely resisted under the guise of protecting its “independence.”

“I cannot think of another element of American government where there is formal binding legal power given to the representatives of the industry that’s in question,” Frank complained during his testimony. “I don’t think the American people are aware of the undemocratic nature of this.” Indeed, the Fed banks themselves have acknowledged on numerous occasions that they are owned and run by private banks. 

Other Fed reform bills that were on the agenda Tuesday included the “Democratizing the Federal Reserve System Act” introduced by Rep. Marcy Kaptur and Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s bill known as the “National Emergency Employment Defense Act.” Another piece of related legislation that was considered, H.R. 245, was introduced by Rep. Mike Pence. The bill is similar in some ways to Rep. Brady’s proposal in that it would end the so-called “dual mandate” of the Fed by forcing it to focus only on inflation.

While activists and lawmakers tear into the secrecy shrouding the controversial central bank, however, the Fed has gone to unprecedented lengths in recent years to protect its interests. It has accelerated its distribution of pro-Fed propaganda, for example, going so far as to design “education” lesson plans and comic books for the youth. The central bank also hired a lobbyist, and more recently, announced that it was developing a program to monitor critics online.

Still, despite the institution’s unconventional tactics to drum up support, pressure for change and outrage at the Fed continue to grow across the political spectrum. States are already taking action. Last year, Congress was finally able to obtain an audit — albeit a severely limited one — after the public outcry became deafening. According to polls, about 80 percent of Americans said they supported opening up the Fed’s books. And that, activists say, was just the beginning.   

Facebook Lobbies Washington to “Like” Spying on Users

Friday, April 27, 2012 by CorpWatchby Pratap Chatterjee


Facebook, the social network behemoth that is about to become a multi-billion dollar company, has been lobbying for a proposed new U.S. law called the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) that would allow companies to share information with government agencies. Zaid Jilani at the Republic Report has been digging up details on the Washington lobbyists who are helping Facebook.

“Under CISPA, private companies may spy on user communications, whether stored or in transit, and freely pass personal information to the government as long as they claim a vague "cybersecurity" exception,” write Mark M. Jaycox and Lee Tien at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “The bill also creates expansive legal immunity that makes companies and the government largely unaccountable to users. Companies ‘acting in good faith’ are also excused from all liability for engaging in potential countermeasures, even if they hurt innocent parties.”

This is not the first time that the U.S. Congress has tried to pass a dubious law on computer security in the name of stopping piracy. Last year, the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act – backed by Hollywood and opposed by Facebook, Google and Wikipedia – was defeated after a huge backlash. Opponents noted that the law – as drafted - would threaten freedom of speech and support Internet censorship.

Mike Rogers, a Republican from Michigan, and Dutch Ruppersberger, a Democrat from Maryland, are the sponsors of the new bill. Unusually for Washington, the two men work together well, according to the Washington Post. Rogers is a former Federal Bureau of Investigations agent who has been promoting the drone war, notes the Post, and the two men have the backing of people like Michael Hayden, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency. So it is small wonder that CISPA will help out the intelligence agencies by expanding their powers of surveillance.

Not surprisingly, activists like Avaaz are campaigning against CISPA and so is (surprisingly) the Obama White House, which has threatened to veto the bill if it makes it to the president’s desk.

But Facebook – which opposed the cyber-security bills last year – has decided to support CISPA. The proposed law “would make it easier for Facebook and other companies to receive critical threat data from the U.S. government,” Facebook’s Washington DC office posted on its blog. It would “impose no new obligations on us to share data with anyone –- and ensures that if we do share data about specific cyber threats, we are able to continue to safeguard our users’ private information, just as we do today.”

Well, many Facebook users would testify that the company actually does a very poor job of protecting user’s private information.

Zaid Jilani at the Republic Report points out that Facebook is actively paying a Washington lobby firm to lobby for CISPA. In his article titled “Dislike: Meet The Lobbyists Facebook Hired To Help The Government Spy On You” he reports on the people at Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock that are working the halls of Congress to get the bill passed.

“What’s particularly interesting about all of these individuals is that every single one previously worked somewhere in the executive or legislative branches of the Federal government. They were paid by taxpayers to get the training and connections that now allow them to have high-paid lobbying jobs representing corporations,” writes Jilani.

After all, Facebook has a lot to gain from this such as the ability to “freely pass personal information to the government” and to be “excused from all liability even if they hurt innocent parties.”

On Friday, when Congress gets to vote, we will find out which members “like” Facebooks plans.

United State of Emergency: Outlawing Dissent

Under a president deemed worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize, the will of the authoritarian tyrant caste is being written permanently into American law.

H.R. 347/S1794, otherwise known as the “Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011,” passed unanimously in the House and receiving only three negative votes in the Senate, makes it a felony—a crime defined by the federal government as punishable by death or imprisonment in excess of one year—to “enter or remain in” an area designated as “restricted.” The law makes no exception for demonstrators who unknowingly gather outside of federally-designated free-speech zones; you may not have willfully or knowingly done anything other than exercise your free speech and free assembly rights, but if you “in fact” “[impede] or [disrupt] the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions,” you’re going to prison. And since Obama’s ink dried on the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 and America was declared a battleground, you could be held indefinitely.

++++

United State of Emergency: Outlawing Dissent
By Zakk Flash

During the 1967 Six Day War, a series of strict emergency laws were enacted across the Arab World, most notably in Egypt and Syria. Police powers became absolute while constitutional rights were suspended; any non-governmental political activity such as street demonstrations, rallies, protests, and organization of dissident political groups was quickly crushed by the iron fist of dictators. The laws were called temporary defensive measures, emergency acts that would be lifted once the nation was safe again.

The laws were simply left in place. The rulers of Egypt and Syria, content with their power, decided to concede nothing to their citizens. Tens of thousands of people found themselves imprisoned for extended periods of time, simply for demanding the principles of democracy already encoded in their constitutions or being critical of the government. The emergency laws provided these autocratic regimes with the authority to force their will onto to their people without opposition.

Under a president deemed worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize, the will of the authoritarian tyrant caste is being written permanently into American law.

H.R. 347/S1794, otherwise known as the “Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011,” passed unanimously in the House and receiving only three negative votes in the Senate, makes it a felony—a crime defined by the federal government as punishable by death or imprisonment in excess of one year—to “enter or remain in” an area designated as “restricted.” The law makes no exception for demonstrators who unknowingly gather outside of federally-designated free-speech zones; you may not have willfully or knowingly done anything other than exercise your free speech and free assembly rights, but if you “in fact” “[impede] or [disrupt] the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions,” you’re going to prison. And since Obama’s ink dried on the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 and America was declared a battleground, you could be held indefinitely.

These laws would have made Martin Luther King, Jr., and other Civil Rights luminaries felons subject to indefinite detention.

When, and if, demonstrators get released from incarceration, they will continue to suffer the long-term legal consequences termed by prisoner-rights advocates as “civil death.” Felons are barred from multitude vocations, associating with certain people or even living in particular areas, ineligible to serve on a jury or receive government assistance, and even denied the right to elect their own public servants. As of 2008, over 5.3 million people in the United States are currently left without the right to vote because of felony disenfranchisement. A sure-fire way of controlling political opposition is to deny it the ability to participate in political life.

Restricted areas spoken of in HR347, interpreted under existing law and court precedents, include any “building or grounds where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting” and “a building or grounds so restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance.” This definition, kept intentionally broad and vague, allows anti-protest measures to be applied at the whim of the political elite. Already in Chicago, Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel presides over crippling restrictions on public activity brought as a result of the upcoming NATO conference—and the simultaneous anti-globalization protests—on May 20-21st, 2012.

While the laws were called a temporary response to the G8 summit taking place in Chicago alongside the NATO conference, the Obama White House made a last minute decision to move G8 to the presidential compound at Camp David, a restricted military installation. The laws in Chicago will remain. Draconian laws enacted in the name of national defense in the Other Civil War are nothing new.

On September 14, 2001, President George W. Bush declared a national emergency due to the terrorist attacks of three days earlier. The National Emergencies Act of 1976 requires the President to renew this state of emergency on an annual basis if he wishes it to remain in effect; Bush renewed it every year he was in office and Obama has continued the trend.

The United States has been in a declared state of national emergency for the last 11 years.

According to Harold Relyea, a specialist working for the American government in the Congressional Research Service, the president “may seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation and communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise, restrict travel, and, in a variety of ways, control the lives of United States citizens.”

Combined with Patriot Act measures enacted by Congress under George W. Bush and extended by Obama, these laws provide a framework of surveillance and control only dreamed of in some Orwellian nightmare.

The nature of neoliberal globalization virtually ensures that fascist cartels will force their monopolies onto unwilling nations or unknowing populations; plurilateral agreements like the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, are created in secret by leaders of a select handful of the wealthiest countries and designed with the intention of forcing them upon developing nations. ACTA includes provisions that profoundly restrict fundamental rights and freedoms, most notably the freedom of expression and communication privacy. It also severely restricts generic drug creation and use in underdeveloped countries. They are nonnegotiable.

Kader Arif, the European parliament’s rapporteur for ACTA, resigned from his position in January 2012 denouncing the treaty "in the strongest possible manner” for having “no inclusion of civil society organizations, a lack of transparency from the start of the negotiations, repeated postponing of the signature of the text without an explanation being ever given, [and] exclusion of the EU Parliament’s demands that were expressed on several occasions in [the] assembly," concluding with his intent to "send a strong signal and alert the public opinion about this unacceptable situation” and refusal to “take part in this masquerade."

As with other undemocratic measures being passed around the world,  HR 347/S1794 is a ruthless and reactionary law designed to eliminate political and economic dissent.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution states:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

It is little wonder that HR 347/S1794 has been called by Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI), one of only three members of Congress to vote against the bill, the “First Amendment Rights Eradication Act.” While the NDAA seeks to remove your 4th, 5th and 6th Amendment rights, this newest attack on self-determination is aimed at the heart of 1st Amendment rights including Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Assembly, and Freedom to Petition.

The Supreme Court ruled in Boos v. Barry, 485 U.S. 312, 318 (1988),  that protesting outside an embassy was worthy of Constitutional protection, recognizing that freedom of speech, even if it may interfere with normal governmental activity “reflects a ‘profound national commitment’ to the principle” and “‘debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.’”

While the right to free speech, assembly, and the petition of grievances is enshrined in the US Constitution, the right of government to conduct its business without dissent is not.

In 1783, twenty-four year old William Pitt, then the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was petitioned to change the law based on the “necessity” to save the East India Company from bankruptcy. His reply was brief.

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”

The arguments of a tyrannical Congress would have you believe that HR 347/S1794 is a necessity, that demonstrations against the actions of government and business cause it undue hardship. While the government’s ability to permissibly restrict expressive conduct is limited by reasonable time, place, and manner regulations, the restrictions must, by law, be narrowly tailored to prevent unconstitutional adversity.

HR 347/S1794 flagrantly violates the First Amendment, since it is a broad and sweeping restriction based particularly on political speech in a public forum and not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.

Of course, the crypto-fascists in Congress will argue that protecting themselves from the sight of the “unwashed masses” is a compelling state interest. They wouldn’t be incorrect. The nature of power is self-preserving; by surrounding themselves with a no-free-speech zone, the State can continue its self-congratulatory paternalism, content in the false knowledge that they’re “looking out for the little guy.”

The unconstitutional socio-political deprivation embedded in these authoritarian anti-Occupy laws would arguably be unfeasible without an almost complete blackout by mass media.

Media and communication play a central, perhaps even a defining, role in the ability of police-state measures to pass. Where is the outrage over the state of emergency laws that have gripped this country for almost a dozen years? How can unelected bankers wrest power from leaders in Greece, the birthplace of democracy, while the rest of the world fumbles with “austerity measures” to save their own necks? Consolidation of the global commercial media system can be easily linked to deregulation in the name of neoliberal “progress.”That deregulation—and the resulting monopoly that keeps alternate news sources like Democracy Now! and Al Jazeera English off the air—has allowed only capitalist rhetoric to flourish.

The business interests that control the mainstream media are the same that control the United States government. They will allow no dissent as they continue their war on liberty.

American anarchist Noam Chomsky, long known for his critiques of U.S. policy, has often written about the “manufacture of consent,” something propaganda maven (and Freud nephew) Edward Bernays happily called the art of manipulating people. In his criticism of the global commercial media system, Chomsky posits that mass media, as a profit-driven institution, tends to serve and further the agendas and interests of dominant, elite groups over the social well-being of entire societies. His writing firmly rejects the kinds of censorship that HR 347/S1794 proposes.

“If you believe in freedom of speech, you believe in freedom of speech for views you don’t like. Goebbels was in favor of freedom of speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re in favor of freedom of speech, that means you’re in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise.”

What does this mean for us? Simply put, this is not a battle of the Left versus the moderate Right. This is a direct attack on the United States Constitution, a charter written expressly to limit the government’s power over its citizens.

This is a war of the authoritarian oligarchy upon the principles of democracy.

Around the world, the working and middle classes have risen up against the duplicity of their governments, the engineering of political realities by corporate interests, and the social stratification enforced by capitalist exploitation. In the United States, both Occupy Wall Street and the libertarian wing of the Tea Party have demonstrated against the excesses of the US federal government. These protests, however, have been relatively small compared to the injustice being perpetrated upon the American people.

Organized labor has tried to make up for their decline in membership and economic power in recent years by abandoning any pretense of non-partisan organizing and pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars of member dues money into the campaigns of Democrats. The opponents of organized labor are allowed to paint it as a partisan special interest group in the pocket of the Democratic Party. This has proven to be the case for far too long. The Democrats, in turn, have taken labor’s vote as a matter of course and done little to advance the political agenda of the working class. The vast majority of workers who remain outside of traditional unions see no use in joining one; management sees suppression of organization as just another cost of doing business. A return of radical unionization, exemplified by the Industrial Workers of the World call to organize the entire working class into One Big Union to abolish the wage system, would do much to stop the pitting of worker against worker, allowing for people over profit, cooperation over competition. The Preamble to the IWW Constitution still reflects this.

“The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life. Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth.”

Organized labor can, and should be, a force to reckon with. It cannot do so, however, as long as it continues to blindly support a party that has forgotten the farmers, laborers, labor unions, and minorities that have made up its traditional base. Regardless of whether organized labor feels it must undergo a transitional program from capitalism to participatory economics, it must divorce itself from unwavering allegiance to the Democrats. Labor would be more effective supporting individual politicians who promote a working class agenda, whether they are Green Party, Libertarians, Social Democrats, or independents.

Civil libertarian organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, the First Amendment Coalition, and the Center for Constitutional Rights have a long history of defending the inalienable rights retained by—as opposed to privileges granted to—citizens of the United States under the Constitution. As nonpartisan organizations, they have the ability to denounce legislators of any camp for transgressions of civil liberties. It is expected that they will use test cases to undermine the illegal laws being propagated by the political elite; as part of a diversity of tactic, these kinds of cases should be applauded, even as the larger movement forges ahead with broader goals. Embracing different tactics allows radical proponents of liberty and democracy to work with mainstream advocacy groups to advance our larger strategy in accordance with our common goals. The Saint Paul Principles provide a framework for that cooperation without sectarian breakdown.

The fiscal conservatives, moderates, and libertarians who make up the Republican base have seen the party of Lincoln hijacked by social conservatives like Leo Strauss, who said the “crisis of our time” was a “permissive egalitarianism” embedded in liberal democracy and neoconservatives like Jeanne Kirkpatrick, who prompted Reagan to give financial and material support to pro-Western authoritarian regimes.

Libertarians and fiscal conservatives have little in common with the state-enforced conservative social policies pushed by the religious right wing that seems to dominate the Republican Party. The interventionist war machine driven by neoconservative thought—to say nothing of the government intrusion into privacy via the Patriot Act, REAL ID, and NSA domestic spying program—runs contrary to principles of state sovereignty and self-determination held in high esteem by traditional conservatism, principles that Thomas Paine instilled into American body politic under the phrase “Common Sense.”

As encroachments on personal privacy and individual liberties continue, both the Democratic and Republican parties have forgotten their base: the working and middle class.

Communist Karl Marx borrowed the term “proletariat” as a description for the working class from the Ancient Roman Empire, whose rulers believed the only contribution the masses could make to Roman society was the ability to raise children to colonize new territories. The crypto-fascist authority today, encompassing both the Democratic and Republican Parties, continues this view; to capitalists, workers are not individuals but only the rungs of a ladder designed to lift them higher on the pyramid scheme of capitalist economics.

The time has come for the American middle and working classes to join their comrades in the campaign for liberty currently sweeping the globe.

H.R. 347/S1794, rightly nicknamed the “First Amendment Rights Eradication Act,” has been passed by both chambers of Congress. It now sits on President Obama’s desk, awaiting his signature. If his capitulation to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012—and its promise of indefinite detention—is any indication of his future action, he’ll sign it.

This issue transcends traditional party politics. Political opposition will be outlawed immediately. Pro-life rallies will effectively end with ban on public demonstrations, as well as pro-choice demonstrations. The government will not hesitate to prohibit any and all organizations it defines as dissenting or subversive, including alternative parties, labor unions, veterans’ associations, and others. Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party can both kiss the promise of reforming government goodbye.

Congress has already declared America a battleground. They now want to silence us. It is time to bring the battle home.

The NSA Wants Even More Power

April 16, 2012

by James Wilson

 "The NSA has been lobbying for a bigger role in the cybersecurity operations of private networks for some time, including more access to private communications." - Leslie Harris, Center for Democracy & Technology  

Two competing "cybersecurity" bills will be considered in the House the week of April 23.
Is Congress about to authorize private companies to share your personal information to the National Security Agency (NSA)?  

As this highly-recommended article by James Bamford shows, the NSA is already spending billions on supercomputers in order to unconstitutionally collect and permanently store your personal data. 

Should the NSA be further empowered? Or should it be stopped?

I sent the following letter to STOP the NSA using DownsizeDC.org's Hands Off the Internet Campaign, and I urge you to do the same. 

The hard-wired message says...

As a constituent, I insist that you oppose any attempts to undermine Internet freedom.

You may borrow from or copy these additional comments...

That is why I'm opposed to the Rogers bill (HR 3523) and the Lungren bill (HR 3674).
"Cybersecurity" is the new "terrorism." It's a made-up scare-word. It benefits those who seek federal power. It favors crony contractors. It does so at the expense of my privacy. It pretends I'll be safer if the internet is less free. 

• Jim Dempsey, of the Center for Democracy and Technology, calls these bills a "classic case of overreach."... (http://bit.ly/I31te2)

• Victims of cyber-attacks are already permitted to share information with The State, just as they are permitted to report crimes in the real world. 

• We may need a tweak in current law that allows service providers to share information about _attacks_ with one another. But both bills go farther than a tweak. And the Rogers bill is FAR worse than the Lungren bill. Lungren has limits on the sharing of cybersecurity information. But the Rogers bill... (http://abcn.ws/HyRizc)
• Contains vague language that could hand sweeping powers to agencies like the National Security Agency (NSA). For example, they could create "backdoor wiretaps." 

• Creates a sweeping "cybersecurity exception" to every single federal and state law, including key privacy laws. 

• Offers a very broad, almost unlimited definition of the information that can be shared with government agencies. 

• Allows private companies to share your private communications with each other and with all other agencies of the federal government. In a cyber-crisis, warrants and prior disclosure to customers would be unnecessary.  

• Gives blanket immunity to companies for cooperating with The State, thereby increasing the INCENTIVE to do so.   

• Authorizes any collected personal data to be used to prosecute ANY crime, not just cybersecurity crimes. Be careful what you write in email!. As James Bamford has reported, the NSA already has too much power. This agency is creating a Big Brother system of surveillance, called Stellar Wind. (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/1) 

• The NSA is currently constructing a $2 billion "data collection" facility in Utah. 

• In its "near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches." 

• It will have the most powerful hacking system in the world for financial information, stock transactions, business deals, foreign military and diplomatic secrets, legal documents, and confidential personal communications, including ALL of my emails and phone calls. Do you seriously want to give the NSA even GREATER ability to collect our data?

The Best Congress the Banks’ Money Can Buy

Friday, April 6, 2012 by Common Dreams
by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship


Here we go again. Another round of the game we call Congressional Creep. After months of haggling and debate, Congress finally passes reform legislation to fix a serious rupture in the body politic, and the President signs it into law. But the fight’s just begun, because the special interests immediately set out to win back what they lost when the reform became law.

They spread money like manure on the campaign trails of key members of Congress. They unleash hordes of lobbyists on Capitol Hill, cozy up to columnists and editorial writers, spend millions on lawyers who relentlessly pick at the law, trying to rewrite or water down the regulations required for enforcement. Before you know it, what once was an attempt at genuine reform creeps back toward business as usual.

It’s happening right now with the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act -- passed two years ago in the wake of our disastrous financial meltdown. Just last week, for example, both parties in the House overwhelmingly approved two bills that already would change Dodd-Frank’s rules on derivatives -- those convoluted trading deals recently described by the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as "the largest dark pool in our financial markets."

Especially vulnerable is a key provision of Dodd-Frank known as the Volcker Rule, so named by President Obama after the former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. It’s an attempt to keep the banks in which you deposit your money from gambling your savings on the bank’s own, sometime risky investments.

It will come as no surprise that the financial sector hates the Volcker Rule and is fighting back hard.

On March 26, Robert Schmidt and Phil Mattingly at Bloomberg News published an extensive account on the coordinated campaign being waged by the banking industry to persuade regulators to scale back reform. Headlined, "Bank Lobby’s Onslaught Shifts Debate on Volcker Rule," their report chronicles the many ways in which banks are turning up the heat, enlisting the help of clients, customers, and other companies, among others.

"Some banks recommended consultants and law firms," they write, "... to help clients write letters arguing that the proposed language defines proprietary trading too broadly. Partnering with trade associations, the banks also commissioned studies, tested messages with focus groups, distributed talking points and set up a phone hotline for Capitol Hill staffers."

The banks found another ally in the US Chamber of Commerce, the biggest pro-business lobby in America, which helped put together a coalition of companies, including Boeing, DuPont, Caterpillar and Macy’s department stores.

In one instance, the banking behemoth Credit Suisse got an assist from a man named Robert Auwaerter, who oversees hundreds of billions as the fellow in charge of the fixed income group at Vanguard Group, a mutual fund company. He came to a briefing Credit Suisse held for three congressmen who belong to the New Democrats, a group of House members known "for their centrist and pro-business leanings."

Auwaerter led the 90-minute meeting and said the three Democrats "were really receptive to our comments." We’ll just bet. According to the Bloomberg News reporters, one of them, Joe Crowley of New York, "pushed back at one point, telling the group that he’d recently marched in a Lunar New Year parade in Queens with Thomas DiNapoli, the New York State Comptroller who oversees a state retirement fund of about $140 billion. Why wasn’t DiNapoli complaining about Volcker?

"The asset managers told Crowley they have a closer view of how the markets work than the pension funds that hire them. The proposed rule, they said, would slow bond trading, making it harder for them to execute their strategies. They predicted that would mean lower returns for funds like DiNapoli’s, as well as for 401(k) plans and individual investors.

"Less than two weeks after the Credit Suisse visit, 26 New Democrats signed a letter to regulators noting that 'millions of public school teachers, police officers and private employees depend on liquid markets and low transaction costs' to retire with ‘dignity and ease.'"

In other words, fellow members and regulators, lighten up on the Volcker Rule! A thick wallet helps, of course -- lobbyists for the financial sector spent nearly half a billion dollars last year. And the congressional newspaper The Hill reports, "Members of Congress pressuring regulators to go easy on the 'Volcker Rule' received roughly four times as much on average in contributions from the financial industry than lawmakers pushing for a stronger rule since the 2010 election cycle, according to Public Citizen, a left-leaning group advocating for strict implementation.

"When it is all added up, opponents of a tough Volcker Rule received over 35 times as much from the financial industry -- $66.7 million -- than advocates for a strong stance, who received $1.9 million."

All of which makes it darkly amusing to read in the April 4 edition of the financial newspaperThe American Banker that, in the words of Roger Beverage, president and CEO of the Oklahoma Bankers Association, "Congress isn’t afraid of bankers. They don’t think we’ll do anything to kick them out of office. We are trying to change that perception."

Which is why Beverage and his colleague are creating the industry’s first Super PAC. They’re calling it -- we’re not making this up -- "Friends of Traditional Banking," a smokescreen of a sobriquet if we ever heard one, vaguely reminiscent of the Chicago mobsters in Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot who dub themselves "Friends of Italian Opera."

Matt Packard, the Super PAC’s chairman, told The American Banker, "If someone says I am going to give your opponent $5,000 or $10,000, you might say, 'Yea, okay.' But if you say the bankers are going to put in $100,000 or $500,000 or $1 million into your opponent's campaign, that starts to draw some attention." Don Childears, president and CEO of the Colorado Bankers Association chimed in, "It would be nice to sit on the sidelines or sit on our hands and say, 'Oh we don't get involved in that stuff,' but that just means you get run over. We need to get more deeply involved as an industry in supporting friends and trying to replace enemies."

All of which demonstrates, as per Bloomberg News, "that four years after Wall Street helped cause the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression and prompted a $700 billion taxpayer bailout, its lobby is regaining its power to blunt or deflect efforts to rein in the banks."

Nonetheless, just last week, The Wall Street Journal reported on how a movement to challenge big banks at the local level has gained momentum around the country. Activists want to restructure Wall Street from the bottom up. As a result, the Los Angeles City Council is considering an ordinance that would gather foreclosure and other data on banks that do business with the city. Officials in Kansas, City, Missouri, passed a resolution directing the city manager to do business only with banks that are responsive to the community. And here in New York City, legislation is pending to require banks to reinvest in local neighborhoods if they want to hold city deposits. Similar actions are underway in other cities.

They’re turning up the heat. You can, too.

Obama Signs "Fraud-Friendly" JOBS Act into Law

Thursday, April 5, 2012 by Common Dreams

Economist: Bill will bring fraud, destroy jobs

President Obama has signed today the "fraud-friendly" JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act, which one leading economist has referred to as an "anti-jobs act" that will lead to more fraud.

Commenting on the “Jumpstart Our Business Startups” Act, economics and law professor William Black wrote in an open letter signed by other analysts:

"The JOBS Act is something only a financial scavenger could love. It will create a fraud-friendly and fraud-enhancing environment. It will add to the unprecedented level of financial fraud by our most elite CEOS that has devastated the U.S. and European economies and cost over 20 million people their jobs. "

Speaking on Up with Chris Hayes this past Sunday, Black added that "this is an anti-jobs bill." Reiterating that the act would create fraud, he said, "When you encourage fraud... you destroy jobs, you destroy millions of jobs."

SEC Commissioner Luis Aguilar also noted in a March 16 speech:

"The bill would benefit Wall Street, at the expense of Main Street, by overriding protections that currently require a separation between research analysts and investment bankers who work in the same firm."

Barbara Roper, director of investor protection at the Consumer Federation of America, also sees fraud increasing the passing of the bill:

"This legislation will unleash a new wave of damaging investment fraud, undermine market transparency, and increase the cost of capital for the small companies it purports to benefit. Unfortunately, both the administration and a bipartisan majority in Congress have chosen to ignore those warnings."

* * *

The JOBS Act is so Criminogenic that it Guarantees Full-Time Jobs for Criminologists

The “Jumpstart Our Business Startups” Act, the comically forced effort to create a catchy acronym, is the most cynical bill to emerge from a cynical Congress and Administration. It is an exemplar of why Congressional approval ratings are well below those of used car dealers. The JOBS Act is something only a financial scavenger could love. It will create a fraud-friendly and fraud-enhancing environment. It will add to the unprecedented level of financial fraud by our most elite CEOS that has devastated the U.S. and European economies and cost over 20 million people their jobs. Financial fraud is a prime jobs killer.

Powerful regulatory regimes – strong accounting rules, strict corporate governance, tough securities laws, and vigorous civil and criminal enforcement of the regulations and laws is the greatest infrastructure for strong economic growth that a nation can provide. [...]

Among the many fraud-friendly policies that led to the deregulation that prompts our recurrent, intensifying financial crises, the undisputed most destructive aspect is the recurrent, intensifying embrace of the “regulatory race to the bottom.” The “logic” of the argument in the securities law context is that (1) dishonest issuers like bad regulation because it allows them to defraud with impunity, (2) our “competitor” nations (typically described as the City of London) offer weaker regulation to induce the fraudulent issuers to locate abroad, and (3) we must not allow this to happen; we must make sure that fraudulent issuers are based in America. Of course, they never phrase honestly their “logic” about dishonesty. Four national commissions investigated the causes of financial crises – the S&L debacle, the ongoing U.S. crisis, the Irish crisis, and the Icelandic crisis. Each of the commissions has decried the idiocy of the “race to the bottom” dynamic and warned that it must end. The arguments advanced by industry in support of the JOBS Act reflect and worship at the altar of “the race to the bottom.”

* * *

The Huffington Post: Obama JOBS Act Leaves Labor Fuming In Democratic Feud

[T]he White House and congressional Republicans tout the JOBS Act as a shot in the arm for small companies that have bright prospects. Fast-growing start-ups are engines of job growth and the bill is intended to make it easier for these companies to raise capital.

In practice, however, the bill will be a greater boon for venture capitalists, large tech companies and Wall Street banks. This cadre quickly got the president’s backing for the JOBS Act, despite vocal opposition from consumer advocates, federal regulators and the largest U.S. coalition of labor unions, who warned of increased risk of financial fraud. [...]

"The bill would benefit Wall Street, at the expense of Main Street, by overriding protections that currently require a separation between research analysts and investment bankers who work in the same firm," SEC Commissioner Luis Aguilar said in a March 16 speech.

* * *

The Real News: Jobs Act 2012 a Recipe for Fraud
Bill Black: The "Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act" will create a race to the regulatory bottom