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Monday, January 11, 2010
The Israeli firm ICTS International (not to be confused with ICTS Europe, which is a different company), and two of its subsidiaries are at the crux of an international investigation in recent days, as experts try to pinpoint the reasons for the security failure that enabled Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to board Northwest flight 253 and attempt to set alight explosives hidden in his underwear. A Haaretz investigation has learned that the security officers and their supervisor should have suspected the passenger, even without having early intelligence available to them. At this time, ICTS and the Dutch security firm G4S are hurling recriminations at each other, as are the authorities at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, the Federal Aviation Authority and U.S. intelligence officials.
The failure was a twin flop: An intelligence failure, which U.S. President Barack Obama has already stated, in the poor handling of information that arrived at the State Department and probably also the CIA from both the father of the would-be bomber and the British security service; and a failure within the security system, including that of the Israeli firm ICTS. The ICTS daughter company, I-SEC, has another daughter company - called PI (Pro-Check International). The firms provide security services to airports: consultation, instruction, training, inspection and supervision. Two decades ago, ICTS adopted the system used in Israel, namely of profiling and assessing the degree to which a passenger is a potential threat on the basis of a number indicators (including age, name, origin and behavior during questioning). At the same time, a decade ago, the company developed a technological system called APS (Advanced Passenger Screening). This system is based on a computerized algorithm, and is fed passenger information from the airline company. The system was offered to the Israel Airports Authority and the Shin Bet in the past, but rejected. According to the company's Web site, most of the large airlines in the United States use the system. However - in real time - the system of ICTS failed. Even if U.S. intelligence failed and the name of the Nigerian passenger was not pinpointed as a suspect for the airline, he should have stirred the suspicion of the security officers. His age, name, illogical travel route, high-priced ticket purchased at the last minute, his boarding without luggage (only a carry on) and many other signs should have been sufficient to alert the security officers and warrant further examination of the suspect. However, the security supervisor representing I-SEC and PI allowed him to get on the flight. ICTS was established in 1982 by former members of the Shin Bet and El Al security. Menachem Atzmon, who has been chairman of the board of directors since 2004, holds the controlling shares in the firm. The ICTS headquarters are in the Netherlands and the company is traded in the New York Stock Exchange. Some senior managers are Israeli, including the joint managing director Ran Langer. Another important figure is Doron Zicher, general manager of I-SEC. Zicher has been in charge of operations in the Netherlands for more than two decades and has served as adviser to the Dutch Justice Ministry, which is responsible for setting guidelines for airport security. The company prides itself on employing 1,300 persons and providing security services to airports in 11 countries including France, Britain, Spain, Hungary, Romania and Russia.
All 9/11 Airports Serviced by One Israeli Owned Company
It's one of those times when an innocuous comment in an unrelated news report triggers a revelation.
In the article at http://afrocubaweb.com/news/israelispying.htm there is the following paragraph:
"To make the situation worse, a private security company called ICTS, owned by an Israeli, Ezra Harel, and registered in the Netherlands, was employed at Charles de Gaulle airport to screen passengers boarding US planes. Most of its personnel are ex-Shin Bet officers. The company covers security at Boston's Logan airport, where the American Airlines plane came down after flight attendants and passengers overpowered Reid."
The point of the article was that ICTS knew shoe bomber Richard Reid was dangerous, but allowed him on board a flight from Tel Aviv to Paris. Maybe they did and maybe they didn't. But the idea that an Israeli owned company had inside access to the airport used to launch an abortive terror attack brought to mind the strange message Odigo Systems, another Israeli owned company with offices near the World Trade Towers, received that warned of the impending attacks before the hijacked planes had even left the ground.
So, I went back to another story that had surfaced briefly, reported at www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26626 about how at least one hijacker had smuggled a GUN aboard one of the hijacked planes. Even prior to 9-11, getting a gun on board a passenger plane represented a serious lapse of security. I wondered why this story of a gun was being concealed behind talk of box cutters and screwdrivers.
Then I went back to the first article and its mention that ICTS handled security at Logan International Airport, from which two of the 9-11 hijacked planes had departed.
Sure enough, a visit to ICTS' own web site at http://www.icts-int.com/ confirms that ICTS is in fact an Israeli owned company, and that it sells services to every airport from which the hijacked planes operated, including security, sometimes through wholly owned subsidiaries like Huntleigh USA Corporation.
It has been suggested that the incredible feat of hijacking four aircraft without a single arrest at the gate would require the resources of a nation-state. This is even more true with the revelation that at least one gun had managed to be aboard a hijacked plane. One company had automatic inside access to all of the airports from which hijacked planes departed on 9-11, and to the airports used by Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. An Israeli company. One that Mossad agents could easily find employment with without the management knowing who they were or what their purpose really was.
But one thing is clear. By virtue of the Odigo warning, someone knew enough about the planned attacks to warn Odigo before the planes had even departed the airport gates, yet they did not call the Israeli security company at the airports which could have stopped the flights from leaving.
Think about that one for a while.
Hours before the House version of the first Patriot Act went to a vote, "technical corrections" were inserted into the body of the legislation whereby foreign security companies such as ICTS-International would be immune from lawsuits related to the events of 9/11. Talk about not being available for deposition! This "Patriot" act legislative sleight of hand occurred before the inception of the 9/11 Commission when Fearless Leader George W. Bush was still resisting the very IDEA of an investigation into 9/11. Hence, in the face of an institutional cover-up, citizens were denied the possibility of a discovery process which is normally afforded to litigants. Without such discovery process, ICTS-International would never be compelled by a court of law to give testimony and show evidence related to the missing airport video surveillance tapes of 9/11 or any other aspect of security measures in place on 9/11. [rense.com]
"Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information."
US official quoted in Carl Cameron's Fox News report on the Israeli spy ring.
"Investigators within the DEA, INS and FBI have all told Fox News that to pursue or even suggest Israeli spying ... is considered career suicide."
Carl Cameron, as quoted in The Spies Who Came In From The Art Sale
"While I agree with you, if I say anything about US geopolitical interests with Israel, I might as well clean off my desk."
Unnamed reporter as quoted in American Media Censorship and Israel
See also: Israel and 9/11 - Index of What Really Happened
In the article at http://afrocubaweb.com/news/israelispying.htm there is the following paragraph:
"To make the situation worse, a private security company called ICTS, owned by an Israeli, Ezra Harel, and registered in the Netherlands, was employed at Charles de Gaulle airport to screen passengers boarding US planes. Most of its personnel are ex-Shin Bet officers. The company covers security at Boston's Logan airport, where the American Airlines plane came down after flight attendants and passengers overpowered Reid."
The point of the article was that ICTS knew shoe bomber Richard Reid was dangerous, but allowed him on board a flight from Tel Aviv to Paris. Maybe they did and maybe they didn't. But the idea that an Israeli owned company had inside access to the airport used to launch an abortive terror attack brought to mind the strange message Odigo Systems, another Israeli owned company with offices near the World Trade Towers, received that warned of the impending attacks before the hijacked planes had even left the ground.
So, I went back to another story that had surfaced briefly, reported at www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26626 about how at least one hijacker had smuggled a GUN aboard one of the hijacked planes. Even prior to 9-11, getting a gun on board a passenger plane represented a serious lapse of security. I wondered why this story of a gun was being concealed behind talk of box cutters and screwdrivers.
Then I went back to the first article and its mention that ICTS handled security at Logan International Airport, from which two of the 9-11 hijacked planes had departed.
Sure enough, a visit to ICTS' own web site at http://www.icts-int.com/ confirms that ICTS is in fact an Israeli owned company, and that it sells services to every airport from which the hijacked planes operated, including security, sometimes through wholly owned subsidiaries like Huntleigh USA Corporation.
It has been suggested that the incredible feat of hijacking four aircraft without a single arrest at the gate would require the resources of a nation-state. This is even more true with the revelation that at least one gun had managed to be aboard a hijacked plane. One company had automatic inside access to all of the airports from which hijacked planes departed on 9-11, and to the airports used by Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. An Israeli company. One that Mossad agents could easily find employment with without the management knowing who they were or what their purpose really was.
But one thing is clear. By virtue of the Odigo warning, someone knew enough about the planned attacks to warn Odigo before the planes had even departed the airport gates, yet they did not call the Israeli security company at the airports which could have stopped the flights from leaving.
Think about that one for a while.
Hours before the House version of the first Patriot Act went to a vote, "technical corrections" were inserted into the body of the legislation whereby foreign security companies such as ICTS-International would be immune from lawsuits related to the events of 9/11. Talk about not being available for deposition! This "Patriot" act legislative sleight of hand occurred before the inception of the 9/11 Commission when Fearless Leader George W. Bush was still resisting the very IDEA of an investigation into 9/11. Hence, in the face of an institutional cover-up, citizens were denied the possibility of a discovery process which is normally afforded to litigants. Without such discovery process, ICTS-International would never be compelled by a court of law to give testimony and show evidence related to the missing airport video surveillance tapes of 9/11 or any other aspect of security measures in place on 9/11. [rense.com]
"Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information."
US official quoted in Carl Cameron's Fox News report on the Israeli spy ring.
"Investigators within the DEA, INS and FBI have all told Fox News that to pursue or even suggest Israeli spying ... is considered career suicide."
Carl Cameron, as quoted in The Spies Who Came In From The Art Sale
"While I agree with you, if I say anything about US geopolitical interests with Israel, I might as well clean off my desk."
Unnamed reporter as quoted in American Media Censorship and Israel
See also: Israel and 9/11 - Index of What Really Happened
ICTS International NV Auditor Raises 'Going Concern' Doubt
06/26/2009
ICTS International NV filed its 20-F on June 26, 2009 for the period ending December 31, 2008. In this report its auditor, Mahoney Cohen & Company, CPA, P.C., gave an unqualified opinion expressing doubt that the company can continue as a going concern.
06/26/2009
ICTS International NV filed its 20-F on June 26, 2009 for the period ending December 31, 2008. In this report its auditor, Mahoney Cohen & Company, CPA, P.C., gave an unqualified opinion expressing doubt that the company can continue as a going concern.
AND FOR THE REALLY PARANOID-http://www.realzionistnews.com/?p=474
The 9-11 Lottery Coincidence
Analysis Shows Such Coincidences Aren't So Unusual
CommentaryBy John Allen Paulos
Oct. 6
Everything's connected: the attacks on America last year, the New York State lottery, the collapse of WorldCom, the Bush Administration's proposed war against Iraq, the death of quarterback Johnny Unitas, and many other private events. To top this off, Arthur C. Clarke anticipated some of these incidents decades ago.
Let me back up a bit. On Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2002 9/11/02 the New York State lottery numbers were 911, an eerie coincidence that set many people to thinking or, perhaps more accurately, to not thinking.
A natural question comes to mind: How likely is this? After all, the lottery took place in New York state on the anniversary of the mass murder exactly one year before.
These factors are not relevant, however. On any given day, each of the 1,000 possiblities 000, 001, ... 233, ..., 714, ..., 998, 999 is as likely to come up as any other. This is true of Sept. 11 as well, so the probability that 911 would come up on that date is simply 1 in a 1,000. This probability is small, but not minuscule.
A Better Question
The broader question that should come to mind, however, is: What is the probability that some event of this general sort something that is resonant with the date or likely to stimulate us to think of it would occur on Sept. 11? The answer is impossible to say with any precision, but it is, I argue, quite high.
First off, there are two daily drawings in the New York State lottery so there were two chances for 911 to come up that day, increasing the probability to (a bit under) 1 in 500. More importantly, there were innumerable other ways for an uncanny coincidence to occur.
How many addresses or license plates, for example, have 911 in them? At each of these addresses and for each of these vehicles, something could have occurred that caused people to think of Sept. 11. Possibilities include an accident, murder, or arrest of someone suspected of terrorism, related to a victim of the attack, or otherwise associated with it.
Or consider sports scores and statistics. There are countless ways for 911 to occur here. One coincidence that I personally noted involved the death of Johnny Unitas, the former Baltimore Colts star, on Sept. 11th. Arguably the best quarterback in history, he might be ranked No. 1 among NFL quarterbacks. Combine this ranking with his jersey number 19 and you have yet another instance of 911, albeit in a different order, on Sept. 11.
You might say that there is no message associated with Unitas' death, but even those people believing in the significance of the 911 drawing can't say what its message was.
Stocks, War, and Arthur C. Clarke
The stock market is also a major producer of numbers, many of them, it seems, totally fictional.
This brings to mind WorldCom, whose collapse dwarfed Enron's and whose stock was selling a bit under $64 per share a couple of years ago. The 3 billion or so outstanding shares are now worthless, so $191 billion in investors' wealth has disappeared. Those same three digits again! Oddly, $191 billion is very close to the Pentagon's estimated cost for the proposed war in Iraq, which, some claim, is sheltering al Qaeda members, bringing us back once again to Sept. 11. Talk about circular reasoning!
Another "close" example is the Sept. 10 closing value of the September S&P 500 futures contracts. You guessed right; it was 911. And yet another lottery coincidence occurred on Nov. 12 of last year, when 587 was drawn on the same day that Flight 587 crashed into Queens.
The bottom line is that this is too easy to do. There are an indeterminate number of ways for such events to come about even though the probability of any particular one of them is tiny. Furthermore, after such an event occurs, people glom onto its tiny probability and neglect to ask the more pertinent question: How likely is something vaguely like this to occur?
Keep this in mind when you read the following excerpt from the great science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke. In his 1973 novel, Rendezvous with Rama, Clarke wrote: "At 0940 GMT on the morning of September 11 in the exceptionally beautiful summer of the year 2077, most of the inhabitants of Europe saw a dazzling fireball.... Somewhere above Austria it began to disintegrate.... The cities of Padua and Verona were wiped from the face of the earth, and the last glories of Venice sank forever..."
Who would have thought that Arthur C. Clarke was the brains behind Osama bin Laden?
Professor of mathematics at Temple University and adjunct professor of journalism at Columbia University, John Allen Paulos is the author of several best-selling books, including Innumeracy and A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper. His Whos Counting? column on ABCNEWS.com appears the first weekend of every month. http://www.snopes.com/rumors/lottery.asp
Analysis Shows Such Coincidences Aren't So Unusual
CommentaryBy John Allen Paulos
Oct. 6
Everything's connected: the attacks on America last year, the New York State lottery, the collapse of WorldCom, the Bush Administration's proposed war against Iraq, the death of quarterback Johnny Unitas, and many other private events. To top this off, Arthur C. Clarke anticipated some of these incidents decades ago.
Let me back up a bit. On Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2002 9/11/02 the New York State lottery numbers were 911, an eerie coincidence that set many people to thinking or, perhaps more accurately, to not thinking.
A natural question comes to mind: How likely is this? After all, the lottery took place in New York state on the anniversary of the mass murder exactly one year before.
These factors are not relevant, however. On any given day, each of the 1,000 possiblities 000, 001, ... 233, ..., 714, ..., 998, 999 is as likely to come up as any other. This is true of Sept. 11 as well, so the probability that 911 would come up on that date is simply 1 in a 1,000. This probability is small, but not minuscule.
A Better Question
The broader question that should come to mind, however, is: What is the probability that some event of this general sort something that is resonant with the date or likely to stimulate us to think of it would occur on Sept. 11? The answer is impossible to say with any precision, but it is, I argue, quite high.
First off, there are two daily drawings in the New York State lottery so there were two chances for 911 to come up that day, increasing the probability to (a bit under) 1 in 500. More importantly, there were innumerable other ways for an uncanny coincidence to occur.
How many addresses or license plates, for example, have 911 in them? At each of these addresses and for each of these vehicles, something could have occurred that caused people to think of Sept. 11. Possibilities include an accident, murder, or arrest of someone suspected of terrorism, related to a victim of the attack, or otherwise associated with it.
Or consider sports scores and statistics. There are countless ways for 911 to occur here. One coincidence that I personally noted involved the death of Johnny Unitas, the former Baltimore Colts star, on Sept. 11th. Arguably the best quarterback in history, he might be ranked No. 1 among NFL quarterbacks. Combine this ranking with his jersey number 19 and you have yet another instance of 911, albeit in a different order, on Sept. 11.
You might say that there is no message associated with Unitas' death, but even those people believing in the significance of the 911 drawing can't say what its message was.
Stocks, War, and Arthur C. Clarke
The stock market is also a major producer of numbers, many of them, it seems, totally fictional.
This brings to mind WorldCom, whose collapse dwarfed Enron's and whose stock was selling a bit under $64 per share a couple of years ago. The 3 billion or so outstanding shares are now worthless, so $191 billion in investors' wealth has disappeared. Those same three digits again! Oddly, $191 billion is very close to the Pentagon's estimated cost for the proposed war in Iraq, which, some claim, is sheltering al Qaeda members, bringing us back once again to Sept. 11. Talk about circular reasoning!
Another "close" example is the Sept. 10 closing value of the September S&P 500 futures contracts. You guessed right; it was 911. And yet another lottery coincidence occurred on Nov. 12 of last year, when 587 was drawn on the same day that Flight 587 crashed into Queens.
The bottom line is that this is too easy to do. There are an indeterminate number of ways for such events to come about even though the probability of any particular one of them is tiny. Furthermore, after such an event occurs, people glom onto its tiny probability and neglect to ask the more pertinent question: How likely is something vaguely like this to occur?
Keep this in mind when you read the following excerpt from the great science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke. In his 1973 novel, Rendezvous with Rama, Clarke wrote: "At 0940 GMT on the morning of September 11 in the exceptionally beautiful summer of the year 2077, most of the inhabitants of Europe saw a dazzling fireball.... Somewhere above Austria it began to disintegrate.... The cities of Padua and Verona were wiped from the face of the earth, and the last glories of Venice sank forever..."
Who would have thought that Arthur C. Clarke was the brains behind Osama bin Laden?
Professor of mathematics at Temple University and adjunct professor of journalism at Columbia University, John Allen Paulos is the author of several best-selling books, including Innumeracy and A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper. His Whos Counting? column on ABCNEWS.com appears the first weekend of every month. http://www.snopes.com/rumors/lottery.asp
Gov. Pat Quinn admits mistake on early-release of prisoners, blames corrections chief. Governor's mea culpa provides plenty of fodder for his Democratic and Republican rivals.
Gov. Pat Quinn admitted Wednesday that state corrections officials made a "mistake" in putting hundreds of inmates back on the street after just a few weeks in prison and said he didn't know about his own administration's cost-cutting decision beforehand.Stung by the politically embarrassing revelations, the governor blamed his hand-picked corrections chief, Michael Randle, for exercising "bad judgment" but said he will not fire him."I have told (Randle) in no uncertain terms that this was a big mistake and I am very disappointed that this occurred," Quinn said at a Chicago news conference.Instead, the governor announced he was ending the program that accelerated good-time credit of sentences for more than 1,700 inmates this fall -- and saw more than 50 quickly return to prison for violating parole or getting arrested.With little more than a month remaining before Quinn faces Democratic primary voters, the governor's mea culpa provided plenty of fodder for his Democratic and Republican rivals.Democratic challenger Dan Hynes' campaign said in a statement that Quinn failed to take responsibility, offered a "lame" explanation and that "this whole sorry affair is an outrageous violation of trust."The host of Republican candidates in the Feb. 2 primary adopted a similar theme, with state Sen. Kirk Dillard, of Hinsdale, saying Quinn "needs to stand up, tell the truth and take responsibility for his actions instead of creating a scapegoat."Quinn's explanation that he was unaware of a policy instituted by a major state agency under his control also undercuts one of his major campaign themes -- that he's the one who has stabilized state government after taking over nearly a year ago from disgraced ex- Gov. Rod Blagojevich.The governor's spokesman, Bob Reed, said Wednesday's admissions show the administration is "responsive and forthright" about addressing problems. Reed did not say whether Randle informed the governor's chief of staff about the early-release program.Moreover, the developments come as Quinn is promising a somewhat skittish public that safety would not be compromised by the state's effort to sell a little-used state prison in northwestern Illinois to the federal government to house terror suspects detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.Quinn moved to end a program that he said Randle put in place from Sept. 16 to Dec. 13 in which 1,718 inmates got released early from state prisons. About 80 percent of the inmates would have been released by Wednesday, while the rest would have gotten out by the end of January, the administration said. The inmates on average served 37 days less than they would have if the state did not adopt the early-release program, Quinn said.The governor sought to place much of the blame on the state's budget woes, saying Randle implemented the program as a way to save money after lawmakers refused to pass an income tax increase.To an extent, Quinn is right -- the state's prisons were overcrowded and there were too few parole officers before he became governor. But Quinn also signed a budget last summer that put the spending power in his hands. And he decided to spend the bulk on health care, education and social services -- and to save money on prisons.Randle said it was his responsibility to make sure budget cuts were carried out according to Quinn's order that public safety not be compromised. Under the program, dubbed "meritorious good time push," Randle could grant any inmate 90 days' worth of credit based on their behavior in prison. Many were granted such credit immediately and as a result, served only weeks in state prison after starting their terms at county jails."There were mistakes made in judgment and the planning," Randle said. "It was not implemented the way that the governor had directed, and for that, as director of this agency, I take responsibility."Of those released, Quinn said 56 are back in state custody. Of those, 48 are charged with violating the terms of their release, and eight have been charged with new offenses. Six were arrested for retail theft or drugs and one for domestic assault. Another inmate released Sept. 22 after an aggravated drunken driving conviction was arrested on the same charge less than a month later, records show.The impact of the early-release program is still unfolding. Prison officials released the long list of who was released Wednesday afternoon and would not say which of the inmates were among the 48 who violated parole.Quinn said Wednesday that all prisoners now will be required to serve at least 61 days behind state bars before they can earn such credit, which is typically given for completion of drug rehabilitation programs or education courses. Prison officials also must provide prosecutors with at least 14 days' notice before an inmate is released.Quinn and Randle also said they will work to narrow the state statute guiding who qualifies for good behavior credit to exclude crimes such a drunken driving.But David Erickson, a former judge that Quinn appointed to review the program, cautioned that awarding credit for good behavior is not inherently a bad thing."Meritorious good time is not our enemy here, it's not," Erickson said. "It's a good thing. It's a way to help rehabilitate people, especially young people."The accelerated behavior credit program is separate from a policy previously announced by Quinn to release 1,000 nonviolent offenders early if they are within the last year of their sentence.Tribune reporter Rick Pearson contributed to this report. mcgarcia@tribune.com
This is a page I put together about a frightening and real threat we all face when doing business on the Internet. This threat is a rapidly growing type of FRAUD and just recently, I had a personal and painful experience with it! With the advent of "Ebay" and "Paypal", Internet fraud is increasing at an alarming rate. This page also shows examples of how fraudulent activity can appear in a junk-email message that appears to be legitimate at first glance, but is not and criminal in nature. Identity theft is rampant, and it can affect ANYONE, regardless of how "careful" you are - but there are ways to recognize it early on. I urge anyone who sees this page to read both my experience and what you can do to protect yourselves.
TABLE OF CONTENTS - CLICK TO GO TO PAGE
ABOUT - INTERNET FRAUD EXPLAINED - WHAT IS IT?
PHISHING - THE INTERNET IS FULL OF "PHISH" - RECOGNIZE PHISHING! FIRST - THERE IS ALWAYS A "FIRST TIME"
IDENTITY - IDENTITY THEFT WHICH I CAUGHT EARLY ENOUGH!
AVOID - YOU CAN AVOID FRAUD - PREVENT IT!
PHISHING - THE INTERNET IS FULL OF "PHISH" - RECOGNIZE PHISHING! FIRST - THERE IS ALWAYS A "FIRST TIME"
IDENTITY - IDENTITY THEFT WHICH I CAUGHT EARLY ENOUGH!
AVOID - YOU CAN AVOID FRAUD - PREVENT IT!
INTERNET FRAUD EXPLAINED - WHAT IS IT?
First of all, I will identify what FRAUD is. FRAUD is defined as a deliberate action to achieve and unfair and / or unlawful gain. FRAUD comes in many forms and sizes, such as tax fraud, securities fraud, and the topic of this page, INTERNET FRAUD. Internet fraud is such unfair or unlawful practices using the Internet as a medium. Below are examples of two of the most common types of fraud found on the Internet.
IDENTITY FRAUD - Mis-representation of a person's name, address, passwords, etc. If someone steals a user ID and password, and uses it to get into a web-site, such as AOL for "free" (using your money), that is an example of IDENTITY FRAUD.
BUSINESS SCAMS - Mis-representation of a seller (or buyers) goods, or unfair conduct during a transaction. Examples can be buying a 3 drawer dresser on-line and receiving a chair instead, or in my case, paying for something and not receiving the item(s).
OTHER - There are many other types of fraud common on the Internet, including SECURITIES (mis-representation of investments) and INSURANCE (false claims) fraud, just to name a few.
THE INTERNET IS FULL OF "PHISH" - RECOGNIZE PHISHING!
First of all, I will identify what FRAUD is. FRAUD is defined as a deliberate action to achieve and unfair and / or unlawful gain. FRAUD comes in many forms and sizes, such as tax fraud, securities fraud, and the topic of this page, INTERNET FRAUD. Internet fraud is such unfair or unlawful practices using the Internet as a medium. Below are examples of two of the most common types of fraud found on the Internet.
IDENTITY FRAUD - Mis-representation of a person's name, address, passwords, etc. If someone steals a user ID and password, and uses it to get into a web-site, such as AOL for "free" (using your money), that is an example of IDENTITY FRAUD.
BUSINESS SCAMS - Mis-representation of a seller (or buyers) goods, or unfair conduct during a transaction. Examples can be buying a 3 drawer dresser on-line and receiving a chair instead, or in my case, paying for something and not receiving the item(s).
OTHER - There are many other types of fraud common on the Internet, including SECURITIES (mis-representation of investments) and INSURANCE (false claims) fraud, just to name a few.
THE INTERNET IS FULL OF "PHISH" - RECOGNIZE PHISHING!
THERE IS ALWAYS A "FIRST TIME"
My first major experience with a type of fraud over the Internet with was with a type of BUSINESS SCAM fraud, common to the Internet, especially with eBay users. EBay is an on-line auction and trading company where registered users can buy and sell items. I have used eBay several times for purchasing items, normally used, or hard-to-find, for modest prices. The turn of luck, and money, began with me on July 23, 2003 at about 4:30 PM. Please read about my experience below.
On July 23, 2003, I went to eBay and after careful searching, bided on a Sony Vaio for $1,399 sold by a user, named NUKIT. I was outbided by another user and upped my bid to $1424.98 (still good for a $1799 laptop). By 4:30 PM, I won the auction and was notified by eBay the total (including shipping) was $1454.98. This number, "Fourteen-Fifty-Four-Ninety-Eight" was to haunt me for a while!
On July 24, I authorized the $1454.98 payment via my Paypal account. And the auction bid was satisfied. One strange thing, however, was that the seller, NUKIT did not send that "thank you for your payment" email like you usually get on eBay. I went back onto eBay to check the now closed status of the auction only to find a chilling surprise.
The eBay user ID of the seller had been changed, and eBay removed that user from the auction site. I was worried, but told by friends and co workers that people change their names all the time on eBay. As an act of courtesy, I emailed the seller NUKIT, via his email address advising that my payment was complete and to give me a UPS shipping number when the laptop ships (it was from California).
The email above was never responded to until 4 days later, where I was given a UPS shipping number. I went to UPS's site, entered the shipping number, and was declined with the message "The shipping number you entered is invalid". I figured I typed it wrong, so I copied the number from the email and pasted it into the UPS's tracking system. Still, it did not work. I emailed the seller back again, telling him that the UPS number he gave me was wrong. I called UPS's "1-800" number, and their customer service was of no help with anything other than a tracking number!
Two days later, the seller returned the email, but instead of a tracking number, I was given a contact to another person, a woman named VORAPHAN, with her full address in Logan Utah, cellular, and home numbers! I got really upset and concerned at this point! More alarming, I called this woman long distance, and she answered. I asked her about the auction, and this person (NUKIT) who was the seller. She stated she knew the person from 5 or 6 years ago when she lived in California. I told here about what happened with the laptop sale and the shipping number. She seemed to be scared and worried how I got her address and phone number(s), and rudely hung up on me when I was in the middle of a sentence.
About two weeks passed by since the transaction on July 23. It was now around August 10. Nothing ever came to my door from UPS. I diligently tried to email the seller and like "no response to a personal ad from a person you are not their type", the email(s) were never returned. I opened a fraud request case on both Paypal and eBay and explained the case. Paypal was the first to investigate. On August 11, I received and email from Paypal stating that NUKIT, the seller, refunded the money. I wiped the sweat off my forehead, "swew!", but the "Swew" became "Uh-Oh" when the refund code said "Pending ... Waiting for funds to clear from seller's account, there is no guarantee funds will clear in 3 business days."
The three business days passed, around August 14, and an email came from Paypal's fraud department. It read "We have found the seller is AT FAULT of your fraudulent claim, but we REGRET TO INFORM YOU that the funds have not cleared from the seller's account. As stated, we cannot guarantee refunds from such cases."
After some SEVERE FRUSTRATION and having to take a walk to calm down, I contacted my bank, dispute the charge from Paypal from my checking account. They forwarded me to their fraud department and sent me a load of paperwork. Meanwhile, I tried to resolve the issue with "squaretrade", a resolution / dispute mediation division of eBay, but to no avail because the seller, NUKIT never returned / responded to their emails either.
Over a month went by, and I filed a case (#103081315355021) with the Internet Fraud Protection Act division of the government on FBI's site with more details than this essay. That was the last I heard about anything, and I wound up doing around August 20 what "I SHOULD HAVE DONE" in the first place: I went to Sony's site and bought the Vaio laptop I needed for $1617.97. I got it only 5 days after I ordered it on my front door. I was happy, but I keep getting haunted by the "gross" cost I actually spend. I keep adding the $1617.97 (laptop I did get) plus the $1454.98 (the amount STOLEN from me) to get the $3072.95 (this is what I spent in the long-run)!
Later on September 9, 2003, the $1454.98 was slowly passing into a bad memory and a few sacrifices (such as holding off on buying a fence for my property, saving money from going out on weekends, not going on trips, etc). This day, I was at work early and checked my personal email. I received two emails, both from Paypal, but one saying my checking account was charged $1454.98 and the other my credit card charged $1454.98, both at 4:30 AM that day!
Again, after walking and calming down, and speaking to my co-worker / boss who asked me why I was upset, I called my Bank and my Credit card. The bank was able to stop the $1454.98 because it was from a non-trusted account (Paypal) that I flagged back in August when all the original fraud was happening. The credit card charge did go through, and it's another thing I have to dispute with lots of paperwork and explain. This should bring the total cost of the laptop up another $1454.98, so the amount is now $4527.93! WOW, could have bought a car on eBay Motors for that price!
I reported what happened to my bank and credit card as well as eBay and Paypal's fraud centers. I even, for the heck of it, lashed out at the seller's email with a message telling him to stop whatever he was doing. The email message, of course, was never answered. I also went out to my eBay, Paypal, online banking, and personal email accounts and changed all passwords which I now keep in my wallet (non-memorizable), just to be safe.
After lots and lots of fighting and red tape with my bank, the charges were eventually reversed from my checking account(s). Paypal put my account on hold for nearly a month until I proved to them that I was who I said I was. My credit card is handling the additional charge I am disputing as fraudulent at the time I am writing this essay.
In addition to all this excitement, I received an email from the same address as the seller, NUKIT. This time the email stated the mother's name of the seller, and that the seller moved to Thailand permanently, and produced the full new address with phone numbers of the seller in that country. The email also stated the same woman, VORAPHAN in Utah with here full address claiming it was the seller's girlfriend! This email also stated that if I was to investigate and try to contact these, I was not to mention any emails, but that I am from INS or the police.
The strange email was not to be trusted, but it was carbon-copied (CC'd to several others). For the heck of it, I wrote to each of the other recipients this strange email was also sent to. Nearly all responded stating that the same seller caused each of them similar, if not worse, frustration. One lost nearly $3,500, another who also lived in California, traveled to the seller's residence to try to confront him, only to find the placed vacated.
Sounding more like a "dramatic soap opera", this story seems like fiction. But it is not. Some names have been omitted to protect privacy. No actors or made up stories here, this really happened, and it could happen to anyone, even you (Yes YOU). Don't become a victim of fraud!
IDENTITY THEFT WHICH I CAUGHT EARLY ENOUGH!
My second experience with Internet fraud began on one normal morning in August of 2006. I have some credit-card accounts on-line to pay bills, check balances, and such. I have each set up so if any activity is done on each account, an email will be sent to me alerting me of the transaction, which hopefully would be by myself and nobody else.
That morning I received an email to my personal email account from "DiscoverCard.com", one of my on-line credit card administration accounts. The email stated my user name and password were changed to sign into the account. I attempted to sign into it to check things out, using the same password and login I used for years and they did not work. Luckily, catching this in the nick of time, I contacted customer service immediately and told them what happened. They wound up cancelling my account and creating a new one, and even sent me a new credit card via same-day delivery. Since I caught it in time, nothing was charged on my account and my old credit card was promptly cancelled.
Luckily here, the only hassle was dealing with cancelling the old credit card and getting a new one, as well as making sure any billing pending with the old (cancelled) card was straightened out. Upon speaking with the customer support for Discover, I was told that their security team had the username / password my (now cancelled) account was changed to, as well as the perpetrator's email address. The scary part then came, when I was told a SS number, address, and phone number is required to changed my on-line information. But who got it? And how?
I can only assume that my personal information could have been gathered in two ways. First, and most probably, from the trash. People actually go through garbage looking for sensitive information such as credit-card numbers, social security numbers, and such - Many with great success. Second, and less likely, a Trojan horse or spyware program was on my computer and recorded my key strokes as I was on sites such as Expedia or eBay. Spyware can actually get a SS number or credit card in this way, even if the site you are visiting is secure, since it is recording key-for-key what you are typing, and not the encrypted data being sent!
Identity theft is scary. Very scary. Most likely, whoever got my information, did not even get it recently. It could have happened last month, or 5 years ago, who knows. Do you remember back in college when you wrote your name and SS number down for class attendance / roll call? Did you know that those SS numbers can and HAVE BEEN used in identity theft! Now days, this has changed with ID theft in mind. To name a few of the things a person can do with a social security number, check out the scary possibilities below...
The person can create a whole "copy" of your identity, and keep it to himself, even using YOUR name.
He or she can get a credit check, using your information, then buy a car, get a credit-card, and such - Using YOUR good credit rating.
The perpetrator will charge or get loans using your credit, and, of course, not pay - Destroying YOUR credit without you even knowing it (until perhaps years later).
Finding out about identity theft, especially when later on such as trying to finance a car and being turned down, will take many, MANY hours of hard work and frustration to resolve (if at all).
You can avoid such theft of your identity (or at least reduce the threat). Try to shred ANY sensitive information, don't just toss it in the trash. You can also burn it, but that is not recommended. Always keep close tabs on bank accounts, credit card activity, and your credit history to see if any thing looks amiss, and you catch it early on if you find something. NEVER give out personal and sensitive information to anyone. Do not even write a SS number on a check (use only the last 4-digits if you have to). Make sure you use a spy-ware blocker program AND full anti-virus software if you do ANY financial work of any kind online, even purchasing. Subscribe to an identity theft campaign for a small monthly fee. I did so as it was available with my credit card company, and I get a free credit report, and details about any financial and identity change activity where I can see if anything that I do not know about has happened.
YOU CAN AVOID FRAUD - PREVENT IT!
Unfortunately, fraud is a nasty way many people lose money, and even worse, businesses, such as eBay, lost customers. Not a good thing in a bad US economy. You probably can't stop fraud, but the first step is to PREVENT IT by protecting yourself in the ways shown below. These tips are based on my experience.
Don't buy anything off eBay over $50 or $100. Big purchases are too risky.
Use a credit card if possible. Never use money-orders, cash, or checks! Even cash-transfers are nearly impossible to reverse if fraudulent.
Don't wait too long for a UPS / FedEx package. These are guaranteed 5 days coast to coast at most. Don't assume that "The check is in the mail"!
Look at a seller's eBay feedback. It should be near or at 100% positive rating. Assume that YOU can always be the FIRST one a seller chooses to impose an unfair transaction on!
Passwords are to be for security and protection. Names such as your "pet's name" or initials are not passwords! Also, don't use the same password for different Internet sites / services.
Don't be in a hurry to win an online auction. Don't be careless. What you see may NOT be what you get!
Stick to reputable sites! "sony.com" is a lot more trustworthy that "fly-by-night-video.com".
Never, EVER give out your name, phone number, address, or any confidential information such as credit card or bank account numbers. Trustworthy firms normally don't even ask for these things over the phone.
You get what you paid for. If a price appears "Too good to be true", then it probably is "Too good to be true!"
Avoid identity theft by destroying (shredding) any trash containing sensitive information such as social security numbers, credit card, bank accounts, immigration paperwork, etc.
Never give away any sensitive information. For example, do not write a social security number on an envelope or check. Do not provide such to any strangers or "casual" friends / acquaintances.
Always use a reputable spy-ware and anti-virus package on your computer that you use to do any online shopping, Internet banking, or where any sensitive information is provided. Make sure the site you are visiting is secure and legitimate.
Never reply to a SPAM (junk) email since doing so will confirm that your email is valid as most SPAM is computer-generated and random. Watch out for PHISHING (explained in detail above).
If you feel you are the victim of fraud, contact your local authorities, or start case at the FBI's Internet Fraud Site at WWW.IFCCFBI.GOV
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing
My first major experience with a type of fraud over the Internet with was with a type of BUSINESS SCAM fraud, common to the Internet, especially with eBay users. EBay is an on-line auction and trading company where registered users can buy and sell items. I have used eBay several times for purchasing items, normally used, or hard-to-find, for modest prices. The turn of luck, and money, began with me on July 23, 2003 at about 4:30 PM. Please read about my experience below.
On July 23, 2003, I went to eBay and after careful searching, bided on a Sony Vaio for $1,399 sold by a user, named NUKIT. I was outbided by another user and upped my bid to $1424.98 (still good for a $1799 laptop). By 4:30 PM, I won the auction and was notified by eBay the total (including shipping) was $1454.98. This number, "Fourteen-Fifty-Four-Ninety-Eight" was to haunt me for a while!
On July 24, I authorized the $1454.98 payment via my Paypal account. And the auction bid was satisfied. One strange thing, however, was that the seller, NUKIT did not send that "thank you for your payment" email like you usually get on eBay. I went back onto eBay to check the now closed status of the auction only to find a chilling surprise.
The eBay user ID of the seller had been changed, and eBay removed that user from the auction site. I was worried, but told by friends and co workers that people change their names all the time on eBay. As an act of courtesy, I emailed the seller NUKIT, via his email address advising that my payment was complete and to give me a UPS shipping number when the laptop ships (it was from California).
The email above was never responded to until 4 days later, where I was given a UPS shipping number. I went to UPS's site, entered the shipping number, and was declined with the message "The shipping number you entered is invalid". I figured I typed it wrong, so I copied the number from the email and pasted it into the UPS's tracking system. Still, it did not work. I emailed the seller back again, telling him that the UPS number he gave me was wrong. I called UPS's "1-800" number, and their customer service was of no help with anything other than a tracking number!
Two days later, the seller returned the email, but instead of a tracking number, I was given a contact to another person, a woman named VORAPHAN, with her full address in Logan Utah, cellular, and home numbers! I got really upset and concerned at this point! More alarming, I called this woman long distance, and she answered. I asked her about the auction, and this person (NUKIT) who was the seller. She stated she knew the person from 5 or 6 years ago when she lived in California. I told here about what happened with the laptop sale and the shipping number. She seemed to be scared and worried how I got her address and phone number(s), and rudely hung up on me when I was in the middle of a sentence.
About two weeks passed by since the transaction on July 23. It was now around August 10. Nothing ever came to my door from UPS. I diligently tried to email the seller and like "no response to a personal ad from a person you are not their type", the email(s) were never returned. I opened a fraud request case on both Paypal and eBay and explained the case. Paypal was the first to investigate. On August 11, I received and email from Paypal stating that NUKIT, the seller, refunded the money. I wiped the sweat off my forehead, "swew!", but the "Swew" became "Uh-Oh" when the refund code said "Pending ... Waiting for funds to clear from seller's account, there is no guarantee funds will clear in 3 business days."
The three business days passed, around August 14, and an email came from Paypal's fraud department. It read "We have found the seller is AT FAULT of your fraudulent claim, but we REGRET TO INFORM YOU that the funds have not cleared from the seller's account. As stated, we cannot guarantee refunds from such cases."
After some SEVERE FRUSTRATION and having to take a walk to calm down, I contacted my bank, dispute the charge from Paypal from my checking account. They forwarded me to their fraud department and sent me a load of paperwork. Meanwhile, I tried to resolve the issue with "squaretrade", a resolution / dispute mediation division of eBay, but to no avail because the seller, NUKIT never returned / responded to their emails either.
Over a month went by, and I filed a case (#103081315355021) with the Internet Fraud Protection Act division of the government on FBI's site with more details than this essay. That was the last I heard about anything, and I wound up doing around August 20 what "I SHOULD HAVE DONE" in the first place: I went to Sony's site and bought the Vaio laptop I needed for $1617.97. I got it only 5 days after I ordered it on my front door. I was happy, but I keep getting haunted by the "gross" cost I actually spend. I keep adding the $1617.97 (laptop I did get) plus the $1454.98 (the amount STOLEN from me) to get the $3072.95 (this is what I spent in the long-run)!
Later on September 9, 2003, the $1454.98 was slowly passing into a bad memory and a few sacrifices (such as holding off on buying a fence for my property, saving money from going out on weekends, not going on trips, etc). This day, I was at work early and checked my personal email. I received two emails, both from Paypal, but one saying my checking account was charged $1454.98 and the other my credit card charged $1454.98, both at 4:30 AM that day!
Again, after walking and calming down, and speaking to my co-worker / boss who asked me why I was upset, I called my Bank and my Credit card. The bank was able to stop the $1454.98 because it was from a non-trusted account (Paypal) that I flagged back in August when all the original fraud was happening. The credit card charge did go through, and it's another thing I have to dispute with lots of paperwork and explain. This should bring the total cost of the laptop up another $1454.98, so the amount is now $4527.93! WOW, could have bought a car on eBay Motors for that price!
I reported what happened to my bank and credit card as well as eBay and Paypal's fraud centers. I even, for the heck of it, lashed out at the seller's email with a message telling him to stop whatever he was doing. The email message, of course, was never answered. I also went out to my eBay, Paypal, online banking, and personal email accounts and changed all passwords which I now keep in my wallet (non-memorizable), just to be safe.
After lots and lots of fighting and red tape with my bank, the charges were eventually reversed from my checking account(s). Paypal put my account on hold for nearly a month until I proved to them that I was who I said I was. My credit card is handling the additional charge I am disputing as fraudulent at the time I am writing this essay.
In addition to all this excitement, I received an email from the same address as the seller, NUKIT. This time the email stated the mother's name of the seller, and that the seller moved to Thailand permanently, and produced the full new address with phone numbers of the seller in that country. The email also stated the same woman, VORAPHAN in Utah with here full address claiming it was the seller's girlfriend! This email also stated that if I was to investigate and try to contact these, I was not to mention any emails, but that I am from INS or the police.
The strange email was not to be trusted, but it was carbon-copied (CC'd to several others). For the heck of it, I wrote to each of the other recipients this strange email was also sent to. Nearly all responded stating that the same seller caused each of them similar, if not worse, frustration. One lost nearly $3,500, another who also lived in California, traveled to the seller's residence to try to confront him, only to find the placed vacated.
Sounding more like a "dramatic soap opera", this story seems like fiction. But it is not. Some names have been omitted to protect privacy. No actors or made up stories here, this really happened, and it could happen to anyone, even you (Yes YOU). Don't become a victim of fraud!
IDENTITY THEFT WHICH I CAUGHT EARLY ENOUGH!
My second experience with Internet fraud began on one normal morning in August of 2006. I have some credit-card accounts on-line to pay bills, check balances, and such. I have each set up so if any activity is done on each account, an email will be sent to me alerting me of the transaction, which hopefully would be by myself and nobody else.
That morning I received an email to my personal email account from "DiscoverCard.com", one of my on-line credit card administration accounts. The email stated my user name and password were changed to sign into the account. I attempted to sign into it to check things out, using the same password and login I used for years and they did not work. Luckily, catching this in the nick of time, I contacted customer service immediately and told them what happened. They wound up cancelling my account and creating a new one, and even sent me a new credit card via same-day delivery. Since I caught it in time, nothing was charged on my account and my old credit card was promptly cancelled.
Luckily here, the only hassle was dealing with cancelling the old credit card and getting a new one, as well as making sure any billing pending with the old (cancelled) card was straightened out. Upon speaking with the customer support for Discover, I was told that their security team had the username / password my (now cancelled) account was changed to, as well as the perpetrator's email address. The scary part then came, when I was told a SS number, address, and phone number is required to changed my on-line information. But who got it? And how?
I can only assume that my personal information could have been gathered in two ways. First, and most probably, from the trash. People actually go through garbage looking for sensitive information such as credit-card numbers, social security numbers, and such - Many with great success. Second, and less likely, a Trojan horse or spyware program was on my computer and recorded my key strokes as I was on sites such as Expedia or eBay. Spyware can actually get a SS number or credit card in this way, even if the site you are visiting is secure, since it is recording key-for-key what you are typing, and not the encrypted data being sent!
Identity theft is scary. Very scary. Most likely, whoever got my information, did not even get it recently. It could have happened last month, or 5 years ago, who knows. Do you remember back in college when you wrote your name and SS number down for class attendance / roll call? Did you know that those SS numbers can and HAVE BEEN used in identity theft! Now days, this has changed with ID theft in mind. To name a few of the things a person can do with a social security number, check out the scary possibilities below...
The person can create a whole "copy" of your identity, and keep it to himself, even using YOUR name.
He or she can get a credit check, using your information, then buy a car, get a credit-card, and such - Using YOUR good credit rating.
The perpetrator will charge or get loans using your credit, and, of course, not pay - Destroying YOUR credit without you even knowing it (until perhaps years later).
Finding out about identity theft, especially when later on such as trying to finance a car and being turned down, will take many, MANY hours of hard work and frustration to resolve (if at all).
You can avoid such theft of your identity (or at least reduce the threat). Try to shred ANY sensitive information, don't just toss it in the trash. You can also burn it, but that is not recommended. Always keep close tabs on bank accounts, credit card activity, and your credit history to see if any thing looks amiss, and you catch it early on if you find something. NEVER give out personal and sensitive information to anyone. Do not even write a SS number on a check (use only the last 4-digits if you have to). Make sure you use a spy-ware blocker program AND full anti-virus software if you do ANY financial work of any kind online, even purchasing. Subscribe to an identity theft campaign for a small monthly fee. I did so as it was available with my credit card company, and I get a free credit report, and details about any financial and identity change activity where I can see if anything that I do not know about has happened.
YOU CAN AVOID FRAUD - PREVENT IT!
Unfortunately, fraud is a nasty way many people lose money, and even worse, businesses, such as eBay, lost customers. Not a good thing in a bad US economy. You probably can't stop fraud, but the first step is to PREVENT IT by protecting yourself in the ways shown below. These tips are based on my experience.
Don't buy anything off eBay over $50 or $100. Big purchases are too risky.
Use a credit card if possible. Never use money-orders, cash, or checks! Even cash-transfers are nearly impossible to reverse if fraudulent.
Don't wait too long for a UPS / FedEx package. These are guaranteed 5 days coast to coast at most. Don't assume that "The check is in the mail"!
Look at a seller's eBay feedback. It should be near or at 100% positive rating. Assume that YOU can always be the FIRST one a seller chooses to impose an unfair transaction on!
Passwords are to be for security and protection. Names such as your "pet's name" or initials are not passwords! Also, don't use the same password for different Internet sites / services.
Don't be in a hurry to win an online auction. Don't be careless. What you see may NOT be what you get!
Stick to reputable sites! "sony.com" is a lot more trustworthy that "fly-by-night-video.com".
Never, EVER give out your name, phone number, address, or any confidential information such as credit card or bank account numbers. Trustworthy firms normally don't even ask for these things over the phone.
You get what you paid for. If a price appears "Too good to be true", then it probably is "Too good to be true!"
Avoid identity theft by destroying (shredding) any trash containing sensitive information such as social security numbers, credit card, bank accounts, immigration paperwork, etc.
Never give away any sensitive information. For example, do not write a social security number on an envelope or check. Do not provide such to any strangers or "casual" friends / acquaintances.
Always use a reputable spy-ware and anti-virus package on your computer that you use to do any online shopping, Internet banking, or where any sensitive information is provided. Make sure the site you are visiting is secure and legitimate.
Never reply to a SPAM (junk) email since doing so will confirm that your email is valid as most SPAM is computer-generated and random. Watch out for PHISHING (explained in detail above).
If you feel you are the victim of fraud, contact your local authorities, or start case at the FBI's Internet Fraud Site at WWW.IFCCFBI.GOV
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing
Google expands tracking to logged out users
Now, everyone has their activities tracked in the name of a better service.
Now, everyone has their activities tracked in the name of a better service.
Anyone who's a regular Google search user will know that the only way to avoid the company tracking your online activities is to log out of Gmail or whatever Google account you use. Not any more.
As of last Friday, even searchers who aren't logged into Google in any way have their data tracked in the name of providing a 'better service'.
Anonymous cookie
The company explained: "What we're doing today is expanding Personalized Search so that we can provide it to signed-out users as well. This addition enables us to customise search results for you based upon 180 days of search activity linked to an anonymous cookie in your browser."
However, if you've previously been a fan of the log-out method to avoid being tracked, there's still the option to disable the cookie by clicking a link at the top right of a search results page.
As of last Friday, even searchers who aren't logged into Google in any way have their data tracked in the name of providing a 'better service'.
Anonymous cookie
The company explained: "What we're doing today is expanding Personalized Search so that we can provide it to signed-out users as well. This addition enables us to customise search results for you based upon 180 days of search activity linked to an anonymous cookie in your browser."
However, if you've previously been a fan of the log-out method to avoid being tracked, there's still the option to disable the cookie by clicking a link at the top right of a search results page.
DO NO EVIL! http://investor.google.com/conduct.html
An Affordable $199 Tablet for Everyone -- And It's Not From Apple
Daniel Ionescu, PC World
Daniel Ionescu, PC World
Just as the rumors of a pricey Apple tablet computer have reached a high-water mark, Freescale Semiconductor on Monday showcased reference designs of an affordable, lightweight tablet computer, which is set to hit the market later this year.
Freescale, which supplies the guts for this new breed of computers called smartbooks (about one third the size and volume of a typical netbook), is putting its weight behind this category with a concept of what could become everybody's tablet.
The Freescale tablet reference design (pictured above) has specifications close to what we have been hearing about the mythical Apple tablet: a 7-inch touch screen, 3-megapixel camera and various sensors such as a three-axis accelerometer and an ambient light sensor.
Next to the 512MB of RAM, up to 64GB of internal storage (microSD expansion) and a 1GHz processor, Freescale's smartbook tablet features a potentially killer spec: a $200 price tag. Next to an Android or Linux operating system, it also includes Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity and options for a 3G modem.
The Freescale tablet reference design (pictured above) has specifications close to what we have been hearing about the mythical Apple tablet: a 7-inch touch screen, 3-megapixel camera and various sensors such as a three-axis accelerometer and an ambient light sensor.
Next to the 512MB of RAM, up to 64GB of internal storage (microSD expansion) and a 1GHz processor, Freescale's smartbook tablet features a potentially killer spec: a $200 price tag. Next to an Android or Linux operating system, it also includes Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity and options for a 3G modem.
The smartbook reference design is intended to run everyday-use applications such as a Web browser (with Adobe Flash support), an e-mail client, an RSS reader, social networking tools, and an office suite, among others.
So far, no one has had a chance to have a deeper look at Freescale's holy grail smartbook, but the chipmaker is planning to demonstrate the design at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) later on this week.
If manufacturers pick up on Freescale's concept, such smartbooks should show up in a store near you perhaps later on this summer, with a price point below the $200 ceiling, the chipmaker says. However, no potential vendors for this tablet design have been named.
Here are the full specs of the Freescale smartbook:
Size: 200mm by 128mm by 14.9cm and weighing 376 grams; no need for fan or heat sink
Processor: Freescale i.MX515 applications processor provides high performance and low power
ARM Cortex-A8 1GHz
OpenVG & OpenGL/ES graphics cores
HD video decoder hardware
Memory: 512 MB DDR2
Display: 7-inch (1024 by 600) touch screen
Storage: 4-64 GB internal storage; removable micro SD
Connectivity: 3G modem (option) 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, RF4CE (option)
Ports: USB 2.0 and USB mini (also for charging), audio in/audio out, SIM card
Audio: speaker, microphone
Camera: 3 Megapixel (video recording up to VGA @ 30fps)
Battery: 1900mAh, USB charging
Sensors: the MMA8450Q three-axis accelerometer and an ambient light sensor
Power management IC
And while we are in tablet land, January should see another tablet design unveiled, as Apple is reportedly preparing to introduce its tablet on January 26. For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, check out PC World's complete coverage of CES 2010.
So far, no one has had a chance to have a deeper look at Freescale's holy grail smartbook, but the chipmaker is planning to demonstrate the design at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) later on this week.
If manufacturers pick up on Freescale's concept, such smartbooks should show up in a store near you perhaps later on this summer, with a price point below the $200 ceiling, the chipmaker says. However, no potential vendors for this tablet design have been named.
Here are the full specs of the Freescale smartbook:
Size: 200mm by 128mm by 14.9cm and weighing 376 grams; no need for fan or heat sink
Processor: Freescale i.MX515 applications processor provides high performance and low power
ARM Cortex-A8 1GHz
OpenVG & OpenGL/ES graphics cores
HD video decoder hardware
Memory: 512 MB DDR2
Display: 7-inch (1024 by 600) touch screen
Storage: 4-64 GB internal storage; removable micro SD
Connectivity: 3G modem (option) 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, RF4CE (option)
Ports: USB 2.0 and USB mini (also for charging), audio in/audio out, SIM card
Audio: speaker, microphone
Camera: 3 Megapixel (video recording up to VGA @ 30fps)
Battery: 1900mAh, USB charging
Sensors: the MMA8450Q three-axis accelerometer and an ambient light sensor
Power management IC
And while we are in tablet land, January should see another tablet design unveiled, as Apple is reportedly preparing to introduce its tablet on January 26. For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, check out PC World's complete coverage of CES 2010.
(WMR) -- WMR has obtained additional details on Business International Corporation (BIC), the CIA front company where President Obama spent a year working after graduating from Columbia University in 1983.
BIC used journalists as non-official cover (NOC) agents around the world. The firm published weekly and fortnightly newsletters for business executives, including Business International, Business Europe, Business Latin America, and Business Asia.
On February 24, 2009, WMR reported: �For one year, Obama worked as a researcher in BIC�s financial services division where he wrote for two BIC publications, Financing Foreign Operations and Business International Money Report, a weekly newsletter.
�An informed source has told WMR that Obama�s tuition debt at Columbia was paid off by BIC. In addition, WMR has learned that when Obama lived in Indonesia with his mother and his adoptive father Lolo Soetoro, the 20-year-old Obama, who was known as �Barry Soetoro,� traveled to Pakistan in 1981 and was hosted by the family of Muhammadmian Soomro, a Pakistani Sindhi who became acting president of Pakistan after the resignation of General Pervez Musharraf on August 18, 2008.
�WMR was told that the Obama/Soetoro trip to Pakistan, ostensibly to go �partridge hunting� with the Soomros, related to unknown CIA business. The covert CIA program to assist the Afghan mujaheddin was already well underway at the time and Pakistan was the major base of operations for the CIA�s support . . . BIC had long been associated with CIA activities since being founded by Eldridge Haynes, a self-professed liberal Democrat. The BIC headquarters was located at the prestigious address of 1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in Manhattan.�
Through its contacts with leading liberals around the world, BIC sought to recruit those on the left as CIA agents and assets. BIC documents obtained by WMR describe a series of top level �round tables� between U.S. business and intelligence chiefs and government leaders around the world, including Emperor Haile Selassie and 83 ministers and officials of 33 multinational organizations in Addis Ababa in 1969, Colombian President Carlos Lleras Restrepo and business and labor leaders of six Andean Bloc countries in 1968 and 1972, Argentine President General Juan Carlos Ongania and his junta in 1966, Spanish dictator Francisco Franco and his cabinet in 1962 and 1967, Brazilian President Emilio Medici in 1970, and Indonesian dictator Suharto and his cabinet in 1968 and 1972.
Obama�s mother, Ann Dunham, and his father, Barack Obama, Sr., met at the University of Hawaii in 1960 in a Russian-language class. At the time, the CIA and Britain�s MI-6 were concerned about Soviet penetration of Kenya�s independence movement. Kenya became independent of Britain in 1963.
After marrying Indonesian national Lolo Soetoro, Dunham moved with Barack Obama, Jr., to Indonesia in 1966, just as the Suharto dictatorship was consolidating its hold on power, which included the massacre of some 1 million Indonesian Communists. Dunham left Indonesia in 1972, returning to Hawaii with her son. Dunham periodically made trips back to Indonesia, as well as to Pakistan, while working for the Ford Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the latter commonly used by the CIA for official cover agents.
Dunham Soetoro was in Indonesia when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Barack Obama visited Lahore, Pakistan, where his mother worked as a �consultant,� in 1981. According to a declassified Top Secret CIA document titled �Worldwide Reaction to the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, dated February 1980, Indonesia became a hotbed of anti-Soviet students� demonstrations after Moscow�s invasion of Afghanistan. The report states, �Indonesian students have staged several peaceful demonstrations in Jakarta and three other major cities. They have also demanded the recall of the Soviet Ambassador because of remarks he made to a student delegation on 4 January and have called for a severance of Soviet-Indonesian relations.�
CIA files also contain a report on the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations (1971-1973), which is possibly pertinent to the agency�s involvement in Indonesia. One of the participants in the Chicago CFR�s 1971 conference in Oak Brook was Zbigniew Brzezinski, who would later become President Jimmy Carter�s national security adviser, the chief architect of the U.S. support for the Afghan mujaheddin, and one of Obama�s professors at Columbia University.
On April 27, 1973, the Chicago CFR sponsored a seminar titled �Indonesia Today,� according to the CFR Chicago report maintained in CIA files. Present were �four representatives of Center for Strategic International Studies in Jakarta� who discussed in presented papers Indonesia�s role in Southeast Asia. One of the participants was Soetaryo Sigit, Indonesia�s minister of mines.
The CFR report also states that the Atlantic Conference series that attracted the same high-level participants as BIC, was started in 1965 under the auspices of CFR Chicago by Joseph Slater of the Ford Foundation. The Ford Foundation employed Dunham in Indonesia.
CIA files also contain a single page from the �Chicago Buyers� Guide.� Listed on the page is the address and phone number for Business International Corporation in Chicago: One IBM Plaza, Suite 1420, 60611. 321-0300.
Obama gave scant reference to his employment with BIC in his 2006 book, �Dreams From My Father.�
BIC used journalists as non-official cover (NOC) agents around the world. The firm published weekly and fortnightly newsletters for business executives, including Business International, Business Europe, Business Latin America, and Business Asia.
On February 24, 2009, WMR reported: �For one year, Obama worked as a researcher in BIC�s financial services division where he wrote for two BIC publications, Financing Foreign Operations and Business International Money Report, a weekly newsletter.
�An informed source has told WMR that Obama�s tuition debt at Columbia was paid off by BIC. In addition, WMR has learned that when Obama lived in Indonesia with his mother and his adoptive father Lolo Soetoro, the 20-year-old Obama, who was known as �Barry Soetoro,� traveled to Pakistan in 1981 and was hosted by the family of Muhammadmian Soomro, a Pakistani Sindhi who became acting president of Pakistan after the resignation of General Pervez Musharraf on August 18, 2008.
�WMR was told that the Obama/Soetoro trip to Pakistan, ostensibly to go �partridge hunting� with the Soomros, related to unknown CIA business. The covert CIA program to assist the Afghan mujaheddin was already well underway at the time and Pakistan was the major base of operations for the CIA�s support . . . BIC had long been associated with CIA activities since being founded by Eldridge Haynes, a self-professed liberal Democrat. The BIC headquarters was located at the prestigious address of 1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in Manhattan.�
Through its contacts with leading liberals around the world, BIC sought to recruit those on the left as CIA agents and assets. BIC documents obtained by WMR describe a series of top level �round tables� between U.S. business and intelligence chiefs and government leaders around the world, including Emperor Haile Selassie and 83 ministers and officials of 33 multinational organizations in Addis Ababa in 1969, Colombian President Carlos Lleras Restrepo and business and labor leaders of six Andean Bloc countries in 1968 and 1972, Argentine President General Juan Carlos Ongania and his junta in 1966, Spanish dictator Francisco Franco and his cabinet in 1962 and 1967, Brazilian President Emilio Medici in 1970, and Indonesian dictator Suharto and his cabinet in 1968 and 1972.
Obama�s mother, Ann Dunham, and his father, Barack Obama, Sr., met at the University of Hawaii in 1960 in a Russian-language class. At the time, the CIA and Britain�s MI-6 were concerned about Soviet penetration of Kenya�s independence movement. Kenya became independent of Britain in 1963.
After marrying Indonesian national Lolo Soetoro, Dunham moved with Barack Obama, Jr., to Indonesia in 1966, just as the Suharto dictatorship was consolidating its hold on power, which included the massacre of some 1 million Indonesian Communists. Dunham left Indonesia in 1972, returning to Hawaii with her son. Dunham periodically made trips back to Indonesia, as well as to Pakistan, while working for the Ford Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the latter commonly used by the CIA for official cover agents.
Dunham Soetoro was in Indonesia when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Barack Obama visited Lahore, Pakistan, where his mother worked as a �consultant,� in 1981. According to a declassified Top Secret CIA document titled �Worldwide Reaction to the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, dated February 1980, Indonesia became a hotbed of anti-Soviet students� demonstrations after Moscow�s invasion of Afghanistan. The report states, �Indonesian students have staged several peaceful demonstrations in Jakarta and three other major cities. They have also demanded the recall of the Soviet Ambassador because of remarks he made to a student delegation on 4 January and have called for a severance of Soviet-Indonesian relations.�
CIA files also contain a report on the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations (1971-1973), which is possibly pertinent to the agency�s involvement in Indonesia. One of the participants in the Chicago CFR�s 1971 conference in Oak Brook was Zbigniew Brzezinski, who would later become President Jimmy Carter�s national security adviser, the chief architect of the U.S. support for the Afghan mujaheddin, and one of Obama�s professors at Columbia University.
On April 27, 1973, the Chicago CFR sponsored a seminar titled �Indonesia Today,� according to the CFR Chicago report maintained in CIA files. Present were �four representatives of Center for Strategic International Studies in Jakarta� who discussed in presented papers Indonesia�s role in Southeast Asia. One of the participants was Soetaryo Sigit, Indonesia�s minister of mines.
The CFR report also states that the Atlantic Conference series that attracted the same high-level participants as BIC, was started in 1965 under the auspices of CFR Chicago by Joseph Slater of the Ford Foundation. The Ford Foundation employed Dunham in Indonesia.
CIA files also contain a single page from the �Chicago Buyers� Guide.� Listed on the page is the address and phone number for Business International Corporation in Chicago: One IBM Plaza, Suite 1420, 60611. 321-0300.
Obama gave scant reference to his employment with BIC in his 2006 book, �Dreams From My Father.�
The Rich Get Richer Because They Know How To Play The System! Small Businesses Always Complain About The Onerous Amount Of Paperwork The Government Requires But Are Always First In Line When The Government Is Handing Out Tax Credits And Other Financial Incentives!!!!
Michele Bachmann has become well known for her anti-government tea-bagger antics, protesting health care reform and every other government “handout” as socialism. What her followers probably don’t know is that Rep. Bachmann is, to use that anti-government slur, something of a welfare queen. That’s right, the anti-government insurrectionist has taken more than a quarter-million dollars in government handouts thanks to corrupt farming subsidies she has been collecting for at least a decade.
And she’s not the only one who has been padding her bank account with taxpayer money.
Bachmann, of Minnesota, has spent much of this year agitating against health care reform, whipping up the so-called tea-baggers with stories of death panels and rationed health care. She has called for a revolution against what she sees as Barack Obama’s attempted socialist takeover of America, saying presidential policy is “reaching down the throat and ripping the guts out of freedom.”
But data compiled from federal records by Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit watchdog that tracks the recipients of agricultural subsidies in the United States, shows that Bachmann has an inner Marxist that is perfectly at ease with profiting from taxpayer largesse. According to the organization’s records, Bachmann’s family farm received $251,973 in federal subsidies between 1995 and 2006. The farm had been managed by Bachmann’s recently deceased father-in-law and took in roughly $20,000 in 2006 and $28,000 in 2005, with the bulk of the subsidies going to dairy and corn. Both dairy and corn are heavily subsidized—or “socialized”—businesses in America (in 2005 alone, Washington spent $4.8 billion propping up corn prices) and are subject to strict government price controls. These subsidies are at the heart of America’s bizarre planned agricultural economy and as far away from Michele Bachmann’s free-market dream world as Cuba’s free medical system. If American farms such as hers were forced to compete in the global free market, they would collapse.
However, Bachmann doesn’t think other Americans should benefit from such protection and assistance. She voted against every foreclosure relief bill aimed at helping average homeowners (despite the fact that her district had the highest foreclosure rate in Minnesota), saying that bailing out homeowners would be “rewarding the irresponsible while punishing those who have been playing by the rules.” That’s right, the subsidy queen wants the rest of us to be responsible.
Bachmann’s financial disclosure forms indicate that her personal stake in the family farm is worth up to $250,000. They also show that she has been earning income from the farm business, and that the income grew in just a few years from $2,000 to as much as $50,000 for 2008. This has provided her with a second government-subsidized income to go with her job as a government-paid congresswoman who makes $174,000 per year (in addition to having top-notch government medical benefits). “If she has an interest in a farm getting federal subsidy payments, she is benefiting from them,” Sandra Schubert, director of government affairs for the Environmental Working Group, told Gannett News Service in 2007, when the subsidies to Bachmann were first publicly disclosed.
But Bachmann isn’t the only welfare recipient on Capitol Hill. As it turns out, there is a filthy-rich class of absentee farmers—both in and out of Congress—who demand free-market rules by day and collect their government welfare checks in the mail at night, payments that subsidize businesses that otherwise would fail. Over the past couple of decades, welfare for the super-wealthy seems to be the only kind of welfare our society tolerates.
In the 11 years for which the Environmental Working Group has compiled data, the federal government paid out a total of $178 billion to American farmers. We’re not talking about the Joads here. The bulk of subsidies go to the wealthy, not small farmers, as Ken Cook, the group’s president, explained to the Central Valley (Calif.) Business Times:
American taxpayers have been writing farm subsidy checks to wealthy absentee land owners, state prison systems, universities, public corporations, and very large, well-heeled farm business operations without the government so much as asking the beneficiaries if they need our money. ... Even if you live smack in the middle of a big city, type in a ZIP code and you’ll find farm subsidy recipients.
Chuck Grassley, the longtime Republican senator from Iowa who warns his constituents of Obama’s “trend toward socialism,” has seen his family collect $1 million in federal handouts over an 11-year period, with Grassley’s son receiving $699,248 and the senator himself pocketing $238,974. Even Grassley’s grandson is learning to ride through life on training wheels, snagging $5,964 in 2005 and $2,363 in 2006. In the Grassley family they learn early how to enjoy other people’s money.
Sen. Grassley railed against government intervention in the health care market, telling The Washington Times, “Whenever the government does more ... that’s a movement toward socialism.” As the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, he ought to know, especially because the government has done more for him and his kin than for Americans struggling with high medical bills and mortgages. Even the free-market think tank the Heritage Foundation criticized Grassley on his deep connections to farming interests and his stubborn lack of transparency.
Then there’s Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., whose family has been on the government take for at least the past 11 years, pocketing some $500,000. The senator recently held a “prayercast” with Michele Bachmann to beseech God to kill health care reform as soon as possible because it would bring an evil socialist spirit into America. Like Bachmann, Brownback has a fierce belief in God, the free market and a two-year limit on all welfare benefits—unless it’s welfare to rich Republicans who don’t need it.
Not surprisingly, Blue Dog Democrats are on board with this welfare-for-the-rich thing. Max Baucus, the fiscally conservative Democratic senator from Montana who did his best to sabotage the health care reform process before it ever began, collected $250,000 in taxpayer subsidies to his family’s farm while fighting to keep Americans at the mercy of free-market health insurance. Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, another Democrat, also helped hold the line against so-called socialized medicine for Americans who need assistance, even though her family farm business follows the socialized subsidy playbook to a T. The Lincolns pocketed $715,000 in farm subsidies over a 10-year period, and the senator even admitted to using $10,000 of it as petty cash in 2007. Democratic Rep. Stephanie Sandlin of South Dakota stayed true to her conservative free-market roots by voting against the public option. Meanwhile, her daddy, Lars Herseth, a former South Dakota legislator, collected a welfare jackpot of $844,725 paid out between 1995 and 2006.
That’s just the way the game is played these days. Republicans and conservative Democrats bitch and moan about the allegedly Marxist underpinnings of universal health care and do everything they can to deny struggling Americans access to social services. Meanwhile, many of them profit off taxpayers in a massive welfare program.
And she’s not the only one who has been padding her bank account with taxpayer money.
Bachmann, of Minnesota, has spent much of this year agitating against health care reform, whipping up the so-called tea-baggers with stories of death panels and rationed health care. She has called for a revolution against what she sees as Barack Obama’s attempted socialist takeover of America, saying presidential policy is “reaching down the throat and ripping the guts out of freedom.”
But data compiled from federal records by Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit watchdog that tracks the recipients of agricultural subsidies in the United States, shows that Bachmann has an inner Marxist that is perfectly at ease with profiting from taxpayer largesse. According to the organization’s records, Bachmann’s family farm received $251,973 in federal subsidies between 1995 and 2006. The farm had been managed by Bachmann’s recently deceased father-in-law and took in roughly $20,000 in 2006 and $28,000 in 2005, with the bulk of the subsidies going to dairy and corn. Both dairy and corn are heavily subsidized—or “socialized”—businesses in America (in 2005 alone, Washington spent $4.8 billion propping up corn prices) and are subject to strict government price controls. These subsidies are at the heart of America’s bizarre planned agricultural economy and as far away from Michele Bachmann’s free-market dream world as Cuba’s free medical system. If American farms such as hers were forced to compete in the global free market, they would collapse.
However, Bachmann doesn’t think other Americans should benefit from such protection and assistance. She voted against every foreclosure relief bill aimed at helping average homeowners (despite the fact that her district had the highest foreclosure rate in Minnesota), saying that bailing out homeowners would be “rewarding the irresponsible while punishing those who have been playing by the rules.” That’s right, the subsidy queen wants the rest of us to be responsible.
Bachmann’s financial disclosure forms indicate that her personal stake in the family farm is worth up to $250,000. They also show that she has been earning income from the farm business, and that the income grew in just a few years from $2,000 to as much as $50,000 for 2008. This has provided her with a second government-subsidized income to go with her job as a government-paid congresswoman who makes $174,000 per year (in addition to having top-notch government medical benefits). “If she has an interest in a farm getting federal subsidy payments, she is benefiting from them,” Sandra Schubert, director of government affairs for the Environmental Working Group, told Gannett News Service in 2007, when the subsidies to Bachmann were first publicly disclosed.
But Bachmann isn’t the only welfare recipient on Capitol Hill. As it turns out, there is a filthy-rich class of absentee farmers—both in and out of Congress—who demand free-market rules by day and collect their government welfare checks in the mail at night, payments that subsidize businesses that otherwise would fail. Over the past couple of decades, welfare for the super-wealthy seems to be the only kind of welfare our society tolerates.
In the 11 years for which the Environmental Working Group has compiled data, the federal government paid out a total of $178 billion to American farmers. We’re not talking about the Joads here. The bulk of subsidies go to the wealthy, not small farmers, as Ken Cook, the group’s president, explained to the Central Valley (Calif.) Business Times:
American taxpayers have been writing farm subsidy checks to wealthy absentee land owners, state prison systems, universities, public corporations, and very large, well-heeled farm business operations without the government so much as asking the beneficiaries if they need our money. ... Even if you live smack in the middle of a big city, type in a ZIP code and you’ll find farm subsidy recipients.
Chuck Grassley, the longtime Republican senator from Iowa who warns his constituents of Obama’s “trend toward socialism,” has seen his family collect $1 million in federal handouts over an 11-year period, with Grassley’s son receiving $699,248 and the senator himself pocketing $238,974. Even Grassley’s grandson is learning to ride through life on training wheels, snagging $5,964 in 2005 and $2,363 in 2006. In the Grassley family they learn early how to enjoy other people’s money.
Sen. Grassley railed against government intervention in the health care market, telling The Washington Times, “Whenever the government does more ... that’s a movement toward socialism.” As the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, he ought to know, especially because the government has done more for him and his kin than for Americans struggling with high medical bills and mortgages. Even the free-market think tank the Heritage Foundation criticized Grassley on his deep connections to farming interests and his stubborn lack of transparency.
Then there’s Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., whose family has been on the government take for at least the past 11 years, pocketing some $500,000. The senator recently held a “prayercast” with Michele Bachmann to beseech God to kill health care reform as soon as possible because it would bring an evil socialist spirit into America. Like Bachmann, Brownback has a fierce belief in God, the free market and a two-year limit on all welfare benefits—unless it’s welfare to rich Republicans who don’t need it.
Not surprisingly, Blue Dog Democrats are on board with this welfare-for-the-rich thing. Max Baucus, the fiscally conservative Democratic senator from Montana who did his best to sabotage the health care reform process before it ever began, collected $250,000 in taxpayer subsidies to his family’s farm while fighting to keep Americans at the mercy of free-market health insurance. Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, another Democrat, also helped hold the line against so-called socialized medicine for Americans who need assistance, even though her family farm business follows the socialized subsidy playbook to a T. The Lincolns pocketed $715,000 in farm subsidies over a 10-year period, and the senator even admitted to using $10,000 of it as petty cash in 2007. Democratic Rep. Stephanie Sandlin of South Dakota stayed true to her conservative free-market roots by voting against the public option. Meanwhile, her daddy, Lars Herseth, a former South Dakota legislator, collected a welfare jackpot of $844,725 paid out between 1995 and 2006.
That’s just the way the game is played these days. Republicans and conservative Democrats bitch and moan about the allegedly Marxist underpinnings of universal health care and do everything they can to deny struggling Americans access to social services. Meanwhile, many of them profit off taxpayers in a massive welfare program.
Farm subsidies have become so corrupt that payments sometimes go to dead people for years. Federal farm subsidies, which were originally meant to help struggling farmers survive, are now little more than taxpayer robbery, taking taxpayer wealth from working Americans and sending it to the have-mores. According to 11 years’ worth of Environmental Working Group data that tracks $200 billion in subsidies, the wealthiest 10 percent of “farmers” have collected 75 percent of the money. That’s exactly the kind of socialism that Rep. Bachmann and her elite ilk like.
Yasha Levine is a freelance journalist and editor of eXiled Online. You can contact him at levine@exiledonline.com.
Yasha Levine is a freelance journalist and editor of eXiled Online. You can contact him at levine@exiledonline.com.
Irony Alert: Michele Bachmann Could Lose Seat With Low Census Count
January 6, 2010
(ChattahBox)—The wacky right-wing Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is fond of extreme paranoid rhetoric, as she storms through various media appearances promoting something she calls a “pro-freedom agenda.” She has accused President Obama of operating a “gangster government” with “Socialist” policies, and of perpetrating a plot to “effectively nationalize energy” and starve “freedom loving Americans.” Bachmann also said she wants people in her state to be “armed and dangerous” in a revolution against energy tax and to “slit our wrists, be blood brothers” in opposing health care reform. And let’s not forget Obama’s mandatory “re-education camps,” to indoctrinate young people.
But some of Bachmann’s most outrageous, fear-mongering nonsense may prove to be her political undoing. Bachmann advised her constituents to refuse to respond to the upcoming US Census, because the information could be used to violate their constitutional rights, and put them in “internment camps.” Well, as it turns out, if Minnesota has a low census response, the state which has suffered from a dwindling population, is in serious danger of losing a congressional House seat. And guess what district would be eliminated? That’s right, Michelle Bachmann’s House district. Oh, the irony.
It should be noted that refusing to fully complete a US Census form is a crime punishable by a $5,000 fine. And the information obtained from the census date is used to determine “a host of federal activities, from dairy price supports to Medicare reimbursement to health care providers to transportation subsidies.”
Despite this, Bachmann has come out against the US Census, seeing a vast communist conspiracy in the works:
“Take this into consideration. If we look at American history, between 1942 and 1947, the data that was collected by the Census Bureau was handed over to the FBI and other organizations at the request of President Roosevelt, and that’s how the Japanese were rounded up and put into the internment camps,” said Bachmann. “I’m not saying that that’s what the Administration is planning to do, but I am saying that private personal information that was given to the Census Bureau in the 1940s was used against Americans to round them up, in a violation of their constitutional rights, and put the Japanese in internment camps.”
And there was this:
“The motherload of all data information will be from the Census. … Unfortunately, the Census data has become very intricate, very personal, a lot of the questions that are asked. I know for my family, the only question we will be answering is how many people are in our home. We won’t be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn’t require any information beyond that.”
Bachmann’s hometown newspaper has condemned her for her anti-census rhetoric:
“It’s ironic that a Minnesota member of Congress, Republican Michele Bachmann, went so far last summer to declare her intention to only partially complete her census forms, and to suggest reasons for others not to comply with the census law. If Minnesota loses a congressional seat, Bachmann’s populous Sixth District could be carved into pieces. She likely would have to battle another incumbent to hang on to her seat. We’ve noticed that her anticensus rhetoric has lately ceased. We hope she got wise: Census compliance is not only in Minnesota’s best interest, but also her own.”
Since it has finally dawned on the dim Bachmann that she was advocating a policy that may result in her removal from office, she has been noticeably silent on her militant anti-census campaign. Imagine that.
(ChattahBox)—The wacky right-wing Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is fond of extreme paranoid rhetoric, as she storms through various media appearances promoting something she calls a “pro-freedom agenda.” She has accused President Obama of operating a “gangster government” with “Socialist” policies, and of perpetrating a plot to “effectively nationalize energy” and starve “freedom loving Americans.” Bachmann also said she wants people in her state to be “armed and dangerous” in a revolution against energy tax and to “slit our wrists, be blood brothers” in opposing health care reform. And let’s not forget Obama’s mandatory “re-education camps,” to indoctrinate young people.
But some of Bachmann’s most outrageous, fear-mongering nonsense may prove to be her political undoing. Bachmann advised her constituents to refuse to respond to the upcoming US Census, because the information could be used to violate their constitutional rights, and put them in “internment camps.” Well, as it turns out, if Minnesota has a low census response, the state which has suffered from a dwindling population, is in serious danger of losing a congressional House seat. And guess what district would be eliminated? That’s right, Michelle Bachmann’s House district. Oh, the irony.
It should be noted that refusing to fully complete a US Census form is a crime punishable by a $5,000 fine. And the information obtained from the census date is used to determine “a host of federal activities, from dairy price supports to Medicare reimbursement to health care providers to transportation subsidies.”
Despite this, Bachmann has come out against the US Census, seeing a vast communist conspiracy in the works:
“Take this into consideration. If we look at American history, between 1942 and 1947, the data that was collected by the Census Bureau was handed over to the FBI and other organizations at the request of President Roosevelt, and that’s how the Japanese were rounded up and put into the internment camps,” said Bachmann. “I’m not saying that that’s what the Administration is planning to do, but I am saying that private personal information that was given to the Census Bureau in the 1940s was used against Americans to round them up, in a violation of their constitutional rights, and put the Japanese in internment camps.”
And there was this:
“The motherload of all data information will be from the Census. … Unfortunately, the Census data has become very intricate, very personal, a lot of the questions that are asked. I know for my family, the only question we will be answering is how many people are in our home. We won’t be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn’t require any information beyond that.”
Bachmann’s hometown newspaper has condemned her for her anti-census rhetoric:
“It’s ironic that a Minnesota member of Congress, Republican Michele Bachmann, went so far last summer to declare her intention to only partially complete her census forms, and to suggest reasons for others not to comply with the census law. If Minnesota loses a congressional seat, Bachmann’s populous Sixth District could be carved into pieces. She likely would have to battle another incumbent to hang on to her seat. We’ve noticed that her anticensus rhetoric has lately ceased. We hope she got wise: Census compliance is not only in Minnesota’s best interest, but also her own.”
Since it has finally dawned on the dim Bachmann that she was advocating a policy that may result in her removal from office, she has been noticeably silent on her militant anti-census campaign. Imagine that.
Thank you for your support in helping me lead the charge in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District against the destructive neocon ideology that has mired the United States in an unnecessary war in Iraq at a cost of thousands of American lives, hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars, and untold damage to the international stature of the United States of America.
http://www.immelman.us/ Fiscal Restraint Without Extremist Rhetoric
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