The Name Game: Labeling Tricks That Hide Aspartame and its Hidden Dangers | Healthy Holistic LivingHealthy Holistic Living.

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.” — Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare

The rose Juliet refers to is the Montague name, which Romeo symbolically rejects in defiance of his father. Setting poetic license aside, there is less to feel rosy about when it comes to playing on words to disguise the presence of food additives. Take artificial sweeteners, for instance. Aspartame by any other name may be just as sweet, but potentially just as toxic — whether you call it NutraSweet®, Equal® or the manufacturer’s latest moniker: AminoSweet.

As the name “AminoSweet” suggests, aspartame is a non-saccharide sweetener derived from amino acids. Specifically, it is the methyl ester of aspartic acid and the dipeptide of phenylalanine, a molecule consisting of two amino acids coupled by a single peptide bond. Phenylalanine is an essential amino acid and a precursor to tyrosine, a signaling molecule that stimulates the synthesis of the skin pigment melanin and certain neurotransmitters, such as dopamine. Introduced in Europe more than 25 years ago where it is known as E951, aspartame was approved for use in the U.S. by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1981. Not long after, researchers began to find evidence that aspartame was a possible carcinogen. Ergo, the controversy surrounding the safety of this substance arose and has persisted to this day.

The Bitter-Sweet Story

In July 2005, the European Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences (ERF) published a carcinogenicity study in which the researchers concluded that aspartame causes cancer, namely lymphomas and leukemias in male and female rats. (1) In April 2007, the FDA released a statement announcing that the agency did not find sufficient evidence to support the ERF’s conclusion. Further, the FDA maintained its position that the use of aspartame is safe. (2)

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) notes that a 1996 report showing an increase in the incidence ofbrain tumors between 1975 and 1992 correlated these statistics with the introduction of aspartame in the U.S. Later, the results of a 2005 laboratory study in which rats were fed high doses of diet soda sweetened with aspartame once again suggested a link to an increase in lymphomas and leukemias. However, NCI also points out problems with study design and inconsistencies in extrapolating statistical results. For instance, the rats in the 2005 study were exposed to impossible amounts of the sweet stuff, in some cases the equivalent of drinking more than 2,000 cans of soda a day. And, according to NCI, although the 1996 report was correct that the rate of brain cancers did increase during the period in question, the rise actually started eight years before aspartame became FDA-approved and occurred most frequently in people in their 70s, who typically have a lower exposure level to this agent. (3)

Sweeten, Stir, Repeat

What does all of this scientific hullabaloo really mean for you? First, it means that no one really knows if aspartame – or other artificial sweeteners, for that matter – causes cancer or not. However, there is one position that can’t escape common sense: If the question of toxicity exists, why use the stuff at all?

We do know for certain that some people have a sensitivity to aspartame (including this writer). Even the FDA concedes that excess levels of free aspartic acid in the body can trigger migraines, asthma attacks, anxiety, depression and other reactions. In addition, because this amino acid impairs glucose uptake in the brain, it may cause fatigue and memory loss. According to Joseph M. Mercola, DO, the manufacturer of aspartame was warned by scientists at Washington University’s School of Medicine in 1971 that aspartic acid produces holes in the brains of mice. In response, the manufacturer, G.D. Searle, started looking for a pharmaceutical drug to counter memory loss due to amino acid damage, albeit more than a decade later. (4)

Aspartame is also known to be dangerous to people with phenylketonuria (PKU), a rare congenital disorder in which the body cannot metabolize phenylalanine, the co-amino acid that makes up the composition of aspartame. According to the American Cancer Society, the buildup of phenylalanine in the bloodstream blocks other important chemicals from entering the brain. In children, this can lead to impaired brain development. This may also explain the persistent association with aspartame and memory loss, seizures, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease in adults. (5)

Stick to the Bottom Line, Sweetie

Sugar, obtained from natural sources like sugar beets and cane, is the real deal. Sugar in its most natural state is turbinado, commonly recognized as Sugar in the Raw®. Honey is another all-natural sweetener, although it shouldn’t be given to children under the age of 1 year because Botulinum spores may be present, which increases the risk of infant botulism.

If diabetes is a concern, Mother Nature produces a plant called stevia, the leaf of which yields a natural sugar-like substance that is 150 to 300 times sweeter than cane sugar, but has no affect insulin levels. As an added bonus, stevia has zero calories.

References

Committee On Carcinogenicity Of Chemicals In Food, Consumer Products And The Environment: Statement On A Carcinogenicity Study Of Aspartame By The European Ramazzini Foundation; Dec. 2006 http://www.advisorybodies.doh.gov.uk/pdfs/aspart.pdf

FDA Statement on European Aspartame Study: CFSAN/Office of Food Additive Safety April 2007 http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodIngredientsPackaging/FoodAdditives/ucm208580.htm

National Cancer Institute: Artificial Sweeteners and Cancer http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/artificial-sweeteners

Mercola.com: Aspartame Dangers and Side Effects http://aspartame.mercola.com/

American Cancer Society: Aspartame http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/CancerCauses/OtherCarcinogens/AtHome/aspartame

Supporters of President Obama claim that businesses that oppose his new “greenhouse gas” regulations (a.k.a. the return of cap-and-tax) are greedy capitalists who care more about profits than people. In contrasts, those who support the regulations are farsighted humanitarians willing to compromise with the administration for the greater good.  Writing in the Washington Examiner, the indispensable Tim Carney explains that the truth is more complex than that. As is usually the case with government regulations, some corporations benefit while others are losers. (Linked here with excerpts below):

Corporate lobbyists are divided on Obama’s current climate push, for a perfectly sensible reason: Obama’s rules benefit some companies while hurting others. This isn’t new. The history of climate policy is a story of some businesses seeing profit in regulation, and thus lobbying for regulation, and others seeing only costs, and thus lobbying against regulation.
Al Gore made the first serious push to curb greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. The-then Vice President endorsed the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change. The Clinton White House, however, soon realized Congress would never ratify the treaty. This didn’t stop the Treaty’s biggest boosters from trying, though.
“This agreement will be good for Enron stock!!” That was the bottom line of a 1997 memo by John Palmisano, an environmental policy executive at the notorious energy giant. Throughout the memo, Palmisano referred to various Enron “victories,” such as a slush fund for renewable energy, the creation of a trading scheme in emissions credits and rules that would favor natural gas over its competitors coal and oil.
So Enron liked a policy that helped it get government money for reducing U.S. emissions. Environmentalists applaud that. But that same Enron memo also defended Kyoto’s exemption for the developing world: Poor countries wouldn’t be covered by the same emissions rules affecting the U.S. Guess what Enron was doing in Africa, Asia, and South America at the time? Building coal-fired power plants.
If Enron was burning coal in Africa, it would benefit from the U.S. shutting down coal-fired plants, because that would lower the global coal price. Making it more profitable for Enron to burn coal in Nigeria is an odd feature of a climate policy.
When Enron died, its heir in climate policy was the U.S. Climate Action Partnership. USCAP brought together the same environmental groups that used to applaud Enron with companies like General Electric and DuPont.
USCAP lobbied for a federal “cap-and-trade” scheme in emissions credits, similar to that required by Kyoto and currently proposed by Obama’s EPA. One USCAP member, AES, was pulling an Enron — lobbying to limit coal use in the U.S., while opening coal-fired plants in the developing world…
ack in 2007, when the Supreme Court first ruled that carbon dioxide is a pollutant (and thus covered by the Clean Air Act), energy giants Calpine and Entergy filed an amicus curiae brief with the court supporting federal regulation of CO2.
In an April Supreme Court case on emissions where the EPA beat a power company, Calpine filed another pro-regulation amicus brief, along with energy giant Exelon.
Most industry lobbyists will oppose Obama’s current rules, but many will see profit in them. One lobby, called “Advanced Energy Economy,” is applauding Obama. “We see this as a real opportunity,” said Malcolm Woolf, an Obama donor and AEE’s top lobbyist. AEE represents companies like First Solar and Johns Mansville, a manufacturer owned by billionaire Obama lobbyist Warren Buffett.
Each time one of these corporate-green collaborations occur, Democrats or the mainstream liberal media declare some sort of great breakthrough and a sign of consensus. This climate policy is so necessary and reasonable that even Corporate America is on board!!!

The post Surprise! Obama benefits corporate cronies via new greenhouse gas regulations appeared first on Campaign for Liberty.

Surprise! Obama benefits corporate cronies via new greenhouse gas regulations
Norm Singleton
Fri, 06 Jun 2014 18:34:06 GMT

Cops In Texas Seize Millions By ‘Policing for Profit’

Nick Sibilla , Contributor

Texas law enforcement are continuing to enrich themselves using a little-known legal doctrine known as civil forfeiture, according to a new series of investigative reports. Under civil forfeiture, property can be forfeited even if its owner has never been charged with a crime. In these proceedings, accused criminals have more rights than innocent owners and the government sues the property, not its owner. These cases can be so baffling, one Texas Supreme Court Justice recently compared civil forfeiture to Alice in Wonderland and the works of Franz Kafka. But civil forfeiture isn’t just a quirky curiosity—it’s a powerful incentive for law enforcement to take millions.
Last month, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that the District Attorney’s Office in Tarrant County, Texas seized $3.5 million, plus almost 250 cars and 440 computers in fiscal year 2013, roughly equal to about 10 percent of its budget. Of the property seized, almost $845,000 was spent on salaries for 16 employees at the office. By comparison, only $53,000 went to “six nonprofits that benefit victims or prosecution efforts.” The county’s narcotics unit spent an even greater proportion of forfeiture funds on salaries. Last year, the unit seized $666,427 in cash and used $426,058 to pay salaries.
 
Policing for profit
Even more property was forfeited by participating in a federal program known as “equitable sharing.” By partnering with a federal agency, local andstate law enforcement can keep up to 80 percent of the proceeds from a forfeited property. Incredibly, police can collaborate even if doing so would circumvent their own states’ protections for property owners.
Equitable sharing doled out almost $60,000 to the Arlington Police Department and nearly $400,000 to the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport Department of Public Safety in 2013. A joint task force composed of the Tarrant County DA’s Office and the DEA received almost $2.9 million, one of the highest bounties in the state.
In Texas, law enforcement can keep up to 90 percent of the proceeds from forfeited property. That clearly affects police priorities and provides an incentive to pursue cases rich in assets. In another article, the Star-Telegram delved into the forfeiture battlethat ensued after law enforcement busted a low-level drug ring atTexas Christian University (TCU). Police arrested twenty-three people for selling marijuana, pills and other controlled substances. Most of those arrested were TCU students, including four members of the football team. No one went to prison; they got probation, deferred adjudication or the charges were dismissed. Others received punishments as low as $300 in court costs.
Yet by using civil forfeiture, police seized over $300,000 worth of property from the students, including 15 cars, trucks and SUVs valued at more than $250,000; over $46,000 in cash; and over $17,000 from laptops, iPads, iPhones and the like. As the paper noted, “The items were seized before formal charges were filed and months before any convictions.” But according to an after-action report issued by theFort Worth Police Department, the drugs seized in the investigation only had an estimated street value of $29,000. So the property seized was worth far more than the drugs that were actually taken off the streets.
Civil forfeiture creates a “perverse incentive” and “skews law enforcement priorities,” noted Allen St. Pierre, the executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). “It’s one of the worst stepchildren of the war on some drugs.”
Among the TCU cases, cash and electronic devices were typically forfeited to the state. As for the cars, some students were able to retrieve them, but only after months of waiting and negotiations. One student paid $7,500 in an “economic agreement” with Tarrant County to retrieve his Cadillac Escalade. Another person sent $17,500 to the county’s narcotics unit to get back his Ford F-150.
Across the state, pursuing forfeiture cases related to cannabis has generated millions for Texas police. Between 2002 and 2012, the federal government processed $64.3 million in cash and other valuables in civil and criminal marijuana forfeitures in Texas. According to the Wall Street Journal, that amount is the fourth highest in the nation.

“Police power cannot go unpoliced”

Texas law enforcement has a long history of policing for profit. The Institute for Justice found that the average law enforcement agency in Texas took in forfeiture proceeds equal to about 14 percent of its budget in 2007. Among the 10 agencies that obtained the most forfeiture proceeds, that figure soared to one-third. Between 2001 and 2007, law enforcement agencies seized and kept over 35,000 cars, homes and electronics, forfeiting more than $280 million. District attorneys have used these forfeiture fundson ridiculous purchases, including visiting casinos, a vacation to Hawaii and a margarita machine, as seen in the video below.
Most infamously, police in Tenaha seized over $3 million from hundreds of drivers and even made “cash-for-freedom deals” with drivers. As The New Yorker reported last August, drivers “would go to jail and their children would be handed over to foster care. Or they could sign over their cash to the city of Tenaha, and get back on the road.”
“The Texas criminal justice system wages war on the politically powerless and the poor are just grist for the mill,” remarked Robert Guest, a former prosecutor in Texas and now a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP).
Despite enacting some modest reforms in 2011, the Lone Star State still has an appalling lack of safeguards for property owners. To forfeit property, the government needs only to show by a “preponderance of the evidence” that someone’s property is related to a crime. But in criminal convictions, the government must prove someone is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, a much higher standard.
Unfortunately, Texas isn’t an outlier. According to the Institute for Justice’s report, “Policing for Profit,” 19 other states use the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard in civil forfeiture cases. Another 14 states require even less evidence to forfeit property.
The cost to defend oneself in court further stacks the deck against property owners. “Unlike a criminal charge, you do not have the right to court-appointed counsel when the government wants to take your property,” explained Guest. “So the state usually wins their case by default judgment.”
Tarrant County is no exception. Last year, the District Attorney’s office filed 431 cases, but almost half of them were never contested. Less than 10 percent of cases actually went to trial. One attorney in Fort Worth noted that litigating complicated civil forfeiture cases can cost anywhere from $25,000 to over $100,000.
The odds of an owner winning a forfeiture case are further lowered by the reverse burden of proof in Texas. Incredibly, innocent owners actually bear the burden of proof in civil forfeiture proceedings. In other words, they are guilty until proven innocent.
Zaher El-Ali lost his car to the government because someone else got a DWI with his car. Back in 2004, Ali sold a 2004 Chevrolet Silverado to a man who paid $500 and agreed to pay the rest on credit. In 2009, the buyer was arrested for a DWI and sentenced to prison. Police in Harris County also seized the Silverado for civil forfeiture. But since Ali still held on to the car’s title and the Silverado was registered in his name, he partnered with the Institute for Justice and sued to get his car back. Ali petitioned the Texas Supreme Court to hear the case.

Zaher Eli-Ali
In March, the court declined, meaning Texas gets to keep one more Chevy. In a scathing dissent, Justice Don Willett, joined by two other justices, lambasted the court for deciding not to hear Ali’s case. Justice Willett also criticized the profit incentive (“When agency budgets grow dependent on asset forfeiture…constitutional liberties are unavoidably imperiled”) and the reverse burden of proof (“owners trying to retrieve their homes and other possessions bear a heavier burden than the government that confiscated them”).
To that end, the Texas legislature should enact a series of common-sense reforms. First, take away the incentive to police for profit. Instead of allowing law enforcement to keep up to 90 percent of the proceeds, mandate that those funds be deposited in either the general fund or in a specific neutral fund, like feeding the homeless.
Second, forfeiture should require a criminal conviction. Last month, Minnesota lawmakers overwhelmingly approved such a measure. Third, the government must bear the burden of proof when it comes to innocent owners. This would better protect the property rights of Texans like Ali.
Finally, to prevent cops from collaborating with federal agents and doing an end-run around these reforms, legislators should greatly restrict local and state law enforcement agencies from participating in equitable sharing. Utah once had a very effective ban that essentially killed equitable sharing in the state, until lawmakers defied the will of the voters and overturned it.
These reforms would go far in restoring constitutional protections to Texans. As Justice Willett succinctly put it, “police power cannot go unpoliced.”
Civil Forfeiture Scam: Cops In Texas Seize Millions By ‘Policing for Profit’
Kevin
Fri, 06 Jun 2014 16:47:52 GMT

One week ago, Hope and Russell Lane’s home security alarm was accidentally triggered when their granddaughter departed for school and left the front door ajar. What followed, the Lanes say, just doesn’t make sense. Although Russell deactivated the alarm, the police of Round Rock, Texas came and killed the family’s dog.
A CBS affiliate reported at the time:

Two officers arrived to Lane’s home Friday, entering the house and shouting verbal warnings. Round Rock authorities say when they came upon the 120-pound Rottweiler named Bullet, the dog became aggressive toward them and made threatening actions.

The police fired at the dog seven times, hitting him five.
The Lanes became skeptical of the officers’ account when they came home to find that the bloody scene had already been wiped clean and the eight-year-old dog’s body had been taken away.
On a Facebook page titled “Justice for Bullet,” the family claims that the Round Rock Police Department can’t keep its story straight:

When we first talked with Captain Stuart he told us that his officer’s said bullet stood up on the futon and lunges at them. Now since they’ve had time to get their story together it changed. Now bullet barked, growled, showed teeth three feet behind the officer. How did he get from the futon to three feet behind the officers. Couldn’t explain how the bullet holes got in the wall and he didn’t think the hole in the futon was a bullet hole. I got home and stuck a rod all the way though in the hole.

Furthermore, the Lanes believe it would have been physically difficult for Bullet to lunge at the law enforcement agents. Not only was Bullet “not an aggressive dog,” explains Hope, but he also had hip dysplasia. The family posted a video to Facebook showing Bullet’s stiff, slow movement.
“If they’d have just waited they would have saw my dog was probably going to wait for them to let him out the backdoor to use the restroom,” speculates Russell.
In light of this incident, the Texas Humane Legislation Network (THLN) said on Tuesday that they’d like to see a law requiring that police take training courses to understand animal body language. “Anytime a canine approaches an officer, that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily coming to attack,” said THLN representative Stacy Suttonkerby.
The department launched an internal investigation, which yesterday concluded that the “the officers acted in a reasonable manner and followed protocol,” reports ABC.
House Alarm Accidentally Triggered, Cops Shoot Dysplasia-Stricken Dog
Zenon Evans
Fri, 06 Jun 2014 17:51:00 GMT

Via: Counterpunch: The United States, which leads the world in imprisonment rates, is exporting its model of mass incarceration to developing countries around the world. This “prison imperialism” is one of the foundational components to the infrastructure of Empire. Along with the militarization of police forces and borders, mass incarceration enables neoliberal economies to manage […] JUNE 05, 2014
How the United States is Spreading Mass Incarceration around the World

Empire of Prisons

by JAMES P. JORDAN
This article explains how the United States is exporting its model of mass incarceration and social and political control to at least 25 countries.  This “prison imperialism” is rooted in the Program for the Improvement of the Colombian Prison System signed in March, 2000 by the US Embassy and Colombia’s Ministry of Justice.  That program coincided with a rapid increase in Colombia’s prison population including a rise in political arrests and the militarization of the prison system. Other aspects of this experience are worsened overcrowding, human rights abuses and unhealthy conditions.  Nevertheless, the US-Colombia collaboration has become the standard for prison imperialism around the world with Colombian training programs forming a major component.  US involvement in international prison systems is carried out by several government agencies including the Bureau of Prisons, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Pentagon, and the US State Department’s Bureaus of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL), Democracy, Human Rights and Law Enforcement (DRL) and Consular Affairs, as well as state penal systems. This article provides close-ups of prison imperialism in Colombia, Mexico and Honduras and ends with a discussion of international resistance to the US model by Prisoners of Empire and their allies. The author especially wishes to thank the Colombian human rights group, Lazos de Dignidad (Links of Dignity)for their invaluable help in researching and developing the ideas presented herein, and for their tireless advocacy for Colombia’s political prisoners. This article is a result of an ongoing joint effort between Lazos and the Alliance for Global Justice (AfGJ) in exposing and resisting the Empire of Prisons, and in standing up for its antidote: peace with justice and real, participatory democracy.)
Prison Imperialism: an Overview
The United States, which leads the world in imprisonment rates, is exporting its model of mass incarceration to developing countries around the world.  This “prison imperialism” is one of the foundational components to the infrastructure of Empire.  Along with the militarization of police forces and borders, mass incarceration enables neoliberal economies to manage by force and intimidation the inevitable consequences of global capitalism:  widespread social disruption and rising political dissent. (Neoliberalism is a system including free trade agreements, austerity programs and other measures that assure profitability is treasured above any other social value, and in the developing countries of the US Empire, it is backed up by the US military and its allies.)
Since 2000, there has been an explosion in US efforts to augment and restructure international penitentiary systems, providing training for prison personnel and/or building new jails in at least 25 different countries. The first of these efforts was the Program for the Improvement of the Colombian Prison System, signed by the US Embassy and the Colombian Department of Justice on March 31, 2000.  The program was funded as part of the $9 billion the US has invested since 1999 in Plan Colombia mostly to benefit the military and law enforcement.
By 2002 in Afghanistan, and 2003 and 2004 in Iraq, the US was building and managing prisons as part of the invasion and occupation of those countries.  These programs were connected from the start with the so-called “Global War on Terrorism” as well as the “Drug War”, through which many prison efforts have been funded.  Closely related was the establishment of the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp in January 2002. Many have heard the horror stories of abuses in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and the Bagram military detention camps.  What most are unaware of is that US involvement in foreign jails has become a worldwide affair and is not just associated with direct military occupations.
The Foundation is Laid in Colombia
Virtually unreported in the US media were the appalling conditions that resulted from the initial US-Colombia collaboration that laid the foundation for future international programs.  Funding began with an initial grant from the US of $4.5 million.  The first prison built was the penitentiary in Valledupar, commonly known as Tramacúa, completed in November, 2000. Conditions at Tramacúa are so bad that prisoners have access to clean water for only an average 10 minutes a day, sanitary facilities rarely work, torture is common, neglect of health care is systemic and UN and Colombian authorities and international observers have on three different occasions documented the presence of fecal matter in prison food.
Alleviation of overcrowding and improvement of prison conditions were cited as reasons for the Colombian restructuring program.  However, the accord itself more explicitly links the project to the War on Drugs.  The document states that, “Within the objective of the program of narcotics control, the project…seeks to consolidate strategies aimed at controlling illicit actions committed from the interior of the prisons by persons that belong to groups on the margin of the law and that are related to the [narcotics] traffic and crimes against humanity.”
The document goes on to declare that, “The financial support of the United States government to the Ministry of Justice and Law – INPEC [Colombian Bureau of Prisons], will be supplied under this Appendix of the Supplement to Plan Colombia and with annual allocations from the Department of State/ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL)….”
The reality is that this program has little to do with narcotrafficking or “crimes against humanity”. This is shown by the double standard applied in Colombian prisons.  Right-wing paramilitaries and narcotrafficking gangs are often one and the same, and paramilitary organizations and the military have been responsible for 70 to 80% of political violence and atrocities during the more than 50 years of the Colombian Civil War. Yet paramilitaries, big narcotraffickers and their associates regularly enjoy privileges and favors far beyond what is available to common prisoners.  Of course, most rarely if ever see the inside of a jail.  Murderers of unionists and human rights defenders enjoy a 98% impunity rate for their crimes and many who are convicted are awarded with house arrest–rarely an option for Colombia’s political prisoners.
A 2008 article by the Colombian weekly La Semana exposed how at the Itaguí maximum security prison, paramilitary prisoners were using cell phones to arrange murders and other violent operations.  In a common area near paramilitary leaders’ cells, security cameras were not functioning, and a search found a pistol, grenade and money hidden inside books.  La Semana questioned prison Director Yolanda Rodriguez about this, to which she responded that whenever she tried to do anything about paramilitary privileges, she found her “hands tied”.  She said that on a daily basis she received communications from high government officials, including the Regional and General Directors of INPEC and the Minister of Justice, ordering rule changes in favor of paramilitary prisoners.
The experience is very different for the general populace and especially for the political prisoners.  Indeed, Colombian prisons have been converted into theaters of war.  While common prisoners already must deal with overcrowding, neglect and abuse, these are multiplied greatly for political prisoners and prisoners of war for whom direct attacks and torture are common occurrences. Prison professionals are being replaced with current and ex-members of the Colombian Armed Forces, including several instances of School of the Americas graduates put in charge of penitentiaries.
Part of the legacy of US involvement has been the formation of GRI (Immediate Reaction Groups) and CORES (Operative Commandos with Special Reference to Security) in the prisons.  These SWAT-style special operations units have on multiple occasions launched assaults on political prisoners and prisoners of war, especially those participating in hunger strikes and other forms of nonviolent protest. Raquel Mogollón visited Tramacúa prison representing the Alliance for Global Justice (AfGJ) shortly after an attack by the GRI and CORES against striking prisoners in June, 2011.  Many of the inmates had suspended themselves in protest from makeshift hammocks and harnesses attached to railings up to 5 floors high. In an AfGJ article about Mogollon’s visit, she reports that:

“’The GRI took these little nasty mats they had, about two inches thick, and put them on the floors. When they would start to cut down prisoners from their harnesses and hammocks, they would hope they hit the mats. Some did, some didn’t. One prisoner after another reported they counted as many as 50 to 60 times that projectiles were fired.
Prisoner Wilson Rodriguez said that he had been thrown from the fourth floor. He was one of five prisoners carried unconscious from the prison and hospitalized. He was later locked away and given access to water only five minutes each day. Osvaldo Guzman Toro, had fallen three floors. Rodriguez added, “They put out these little mattresses, pretending to use them for safety, but some of the people were being cut down from the fifth floor.”’

Mogollón described the GRI, the guards who undertook the attacks, saying that they ‘…look like SWAT teams, with shields, helmets and all. Several of the prisoners said they pleaded with the GRI not to attack, saying that the GRI shouldn’t be there, that the strike was peaceful. But the GRI responded that they were following orders, that they couldn’t back down. Specifically, the inmates said the GRI told them that they had been “ordered by the Minister and the General….”
Mogollón reported that, ‘At least three inmates told me that guards stripped them naked and shot tear gas cans at their genitals. They said that during the attacks the guards were using “pimienta, pata y palos”, or, “peppers, kicks and batons”. Prisoners reported that some of the canisters they were shooting were the size of their forearms–about a foot long.’”
What have been the general results of the US-Colombia prison improvement program?  With regards to overcrowding, the problem has not been alleviated but has gotten worse.  According to the Office of the People’s Defender, the rate of overcrowding is 58%, the worst rate ever reported and some jails are overcrowded by as much as 400%.  In 1998, two years before the program began, the Colombian prison population, according to INPEC figures, was 51,633.   By 2007, the population had risen to 63,603.  By December 2013, the number of prisoners had reached 120,032.
Torture has become widespread.  INPEC’s office for internal disciplinary control documented 79 cases of physical or verbal abuse against prisoners during the first six months of 2008.  These included beatings, broken bones, denial of medical care, death threats, sexual harassment and hog-tying prisoners with both hands and feet handcuffed.  In a 2008 survey of 230 prisoners, 54% of respondents answered they had been tortured in jail—46% did not answer the question at all, possibly for fear of reprisals.  Psychological torture was reported by 86% of those who did answer, including isolation, threats to relatives and simulated executions.
Another feature of the Colombian model has been massive relocation of prisoners far from family and friends.  For poor families, these transfers make it virtually impossible to maintain contact with loved ones.  When family members are able to visit, they are frequently subjected to humiliating treatment and sudden policy changes that often result in denial of the visitor’s entry into penal institutions.
The rate of increase of political prisoners has gone up considerably as well.  In a meeting with Colombia’s  MOVICE (the Movement of Victims of State Crimes)  in 2009, the Alliance for Global Justice (AfGJ) was told that between 1992 and 2002, there were some 2,000 provably arbitrary political arrests later thrown out of courts. Between 2002 and 2006, there were 8,000 such arrests.  Detainees were usually charged with “rebellion” based on falsified evidence and the testimony of paid informers. Charges were usually dropped after “suspects” had served an average two to three years in jail.  Thousands of prisoners of conscience and those jailed as a result of frame-ups for nonviolent political activities do not have their cases dismissed  and are condemned to spend long years in prison.  Prisoners of war, who make up a minority of the political prisoners, are treated the worst of all.  The social and political context to their imprisonment has been largely unrecognized or denied, although the current peace process will likely address their situation as part of the negotiations, provided it is not derailed by Colombia’s extreme right wing.
Exact statistics are not currently available regarding rates of political arrests today.  However, based on the experience of the AfGJ and what we are hearing from our partners and contacts in Colombia, all indications are that the rate has not diminished but risen, especially since the installation of the Marcha Patriótica (Patriotic March) popular movement for a just peace.  Marcha Patriótica leaders and members have been specifically targeted for repression.  The state is especiallytargeting leaders of farmers strikes and union officers for arrest.
Honduras
Colombia has provided the pattern for US involvement in international prison systems, including the institutionalization of abuses that are now being exported globally.  Especially, the Colombian model has been applied to Mexico and Central America where the US (and Colombia) have been involved in prison programs since 2009.  Once again, these have been funded and overseen as part of the Drug War via the Central America Regional Security Initiative (CARSI).  Of great concern has been the support the US has given to Honduras following the 2009 coup.  Since that time, reports of human rights abuses have skyrocketed.  In 2012, Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs William Brownfield visited Central American countries offering funds from a $200 million package earmarked to fight drug trafficking by reinforcing police departments, borders, courts and prisons.
In his March, 2012 visit to Honduras, Brownfield designated an additional $1.75 million for Honduras to spend on prison, police and border and port security.  In his announcement, Brownfield heaped praise on the Honduran coup government and Armed Forces.  A State Department spokesman said of the visit that “”By partnering with Honduran law enforcement agencies, the United States aims to boost anti-drug trafficking efforts, promote citizen safety, and help young people find alternatives to joining gangs.”  By May, 2012 the US government had authorized another $50 million for security aid to Honduras.
The 2014 Human Rights Watch report on Honduras, maintains,

“Honduras suffers from rampant crime and impunity for human rights abuses. The murder rate, which has risen consistently over the last decade, was the highest in the world in 2013. Perpetrators of killings and other violent crimes are rarely brought to justice. The institutions responsible for providing public security continue to prove largely ineffective and remain marred by corruption and abuse, while efforts to reform them have made little progress.
Journalists, peasant activists, and LGBTI individuals are particularly vulnerable to attacks, yet the government routinely fails to prosecute those responsible and provide protection for those at risk….
Impunity for serious police abuses is a chronic problem. Police killed 149 civilians from January 2011 to November 2012, including 18 individuals under age 19, according to a report by Honduras’s National Autonomous University. Then-Commissioner of the Preventive Police Alex Villanueva affirmed the report’s findings and said there were likely many more killings by police that were never reported….”

Specifically in regards to prisons, a February 13, 2014 report by Marcos Rodriguez of the HRN radio network informs us that,

“The investigations of HRN reveal that overcrowding in the country’s jails has soared by 300%….Presently apprehensions by the police increased 35% according to official statistics….It is calculated that by the end of 2014, the penitentiary population in Honduras could exceed 19,000 inmates….In these instances the 24 jails of the country are occupied by almost 13,000 inmates, however the system only has capacity for 8,500 prisoners, signifying a [rate of] overcrowding of approximately 49%.”

Mexico
In Mexico, the US is funding the construction of up to 16 new federal prisons and is advising an overall prison “reform” based on the US and Colombian models.  The Federal Center for Social Readaptation (CEFERESO) #11 in Hermosillo, Sonora is the first Mexican prison built with private investment and will be managed by a for-profit company for the next 20 years.  True to form, the opening of Ceferso #11 was occasioned with the massive transfer of 1,849 prisoners from all over Mexico.  Five months after the transfer, prisoners were still being denied access to family and legal defense teams.
Mexico’s National Commission for  Human Rights (CNDH) visited CEFERESO #11 in October, 2013 a year after its installation to investigate conditions in Mexico’s for-profit prison and reported that  the institution had “…even graver deficiencies than those found in other jails of the Republic of Mexico without private capital.”  The abuses noted by the CNDH included arbitrary and sudden transfers, being held for long periods incommunicado, being kept in cells for excessively long periods, no classification system for prisoners, insufficient food, poor quality of health services, lack of sports, recreation and cultural activities, lack of work and job training, and insufficient personnel.  In only 4 months, the CNDH received 47 complaints regarding sudden transfers to CEFERSO #11 without warning or notice either to families or legal reps.
And while exact figures are not readily available, reports from a number of sectors in Mexico indicate a significant increase in politically motivated arrests since US involvement, including notable political detentions of labor and indigenous leaders.
Once more, the Drug War is the main reason cited for US involvement in the Mexican prison system.  But in a country that has been itself described as a “Narco-state” with a 98% impunity rate for violent crime, one must question the veracity of this justification just as we must in Colombia, Honduras and elsewhere.  According to a report by the Universal Periodic Review (EPU by its Spanish initials) of the United Nations Human Rights Council in coalition with three Mexican human rights organizations, 60% of those incarcerated in Mexico are there for minor crimes and only 12% for grave crimes such as murder, rape and violent robbery.  Again, we must state the obvious:  US funded and restructured prisons are about social and political control, not about drug trafficking. Federal prison construction in Mexico is the southern twin to immigrant detention centers on the US side of the border.  Privately run immigrant detention centers make profits off of the misery of those uprooted by the neoliberal policies imposed by the US government and the US and Mexican oligarchy, and off of the displacement of rural communities, the vacuum of which has been filled by the proliferation of extremely violent narco-gangs.
Colombia as Partner in Prison Imperialism
In Mexico, Central America and elsewhere, the US has drafted Colombia as a major partner in prison imperialism.  Both in collaboration with the US and independently, Colombia operates its own international training programs.  Between 2009 and 2013, Colombia had given training to 21,949 international students, including military, police, court and prison officials. Half of those trained are from Mexico.  Honduras, Guatemala and Panama are the other leading recipients of this training.
An earlier April 14, 2012 US Department of State Fact Sheet on the Colombia Strategic Development Initiative (CSDI) reported that Colombia had trained over 11,000 police officers in 20 Latin American and African countries, as well as in Afghanistan.  It reported that “Colombia has trained more than 6,000 Mexican federal and state law enforcement personnel, over 500 prospectors and judicial personnel and 24 helicopter pilots.  Prison guards and officials are included among the “law enforcement personnel”.
General John Kelly who oversees the US Southern Command, told aHouse hearing on April 29, 2014 that

“The beauty of having a Colombia – they’re such good partners, particularly in the military realm, they’re such good partners with us. When we ask them to go somewhere else and train the Mexicans, the Hondurans, the Guatemalans, the Panamanians, they will do it almost without asking. And they’ll do it on their own. They’re so appreciative of what we did for them. And what we did for them was, really, to encourage them for 20 years and they’ve done such a magnificent job.
But that’s why it’s important for them to go, because I’m–at least on the military side–restricted from working with some of these countries because of limitations that are, that are really based on past sins. And I’ll let it go at that.”

Prison Imperialism Around the World
According to a Report on International Prison Conditions released by the Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Law Enforcement (DRL), the US has been involved in prison programs in at least 25 countries since 2000.  State Department agencies participating in international prison programs besides the DRL include the Bureaus of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) and Consular Affairs.   The report also refers to participation of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the US Bureau of Prisons and state prison systems.
In 2003, the INL along with the Department of Justice and International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) led efforts by the US government to reestablish Iraq’s national security system. The INL is now funding 23 programs overseas in partnership with federal and state agencies.    The report also tells us that “In South Sudan, for example, INL has obligated $6.5 million since 2010 in support of the country’s first prison training center for corrections officers, the Lologo training academy.” Similarly, since 2010, the DRL has spent $5 million in programs around the globe, including in Iraq, Morocco and South Korea.
What this document downplays is perhaps more telling than anything.  In the whole report, Colombia only bears the following mention:  “In Haiti, Colombia, El Salvador, and Guatemala, USAID Missions have worked to address prison overcrowding through the reform of penal codes and by improving processes such as alternative dispute resolution to reduce the amount of time individuals spend in pre-trial detention.” An appendix states that “…prison and detention facility conditions in the following 25 countries whose governments receive United States assistance raise serious human rights or humanitarian concerns….” Nowhere on that list is Colombia.
Likewise, the report downplays the role of the US Bureau of Prisons, letting us know that “The Federal Bureau of Prisons…has also provided prison reform assistance to 17 countries.  This assistance is primarily comprised of visits by foreign delegations to BOP institutions and briefings by BOP staff on issues ranging from inmate and staff management to prisoners’ rights and correctional services.” What they don’t let us hear is anything about the major construction projects carried out with BOP supervision in Colombia and Mexico, nor the extent of BOP advice, direction and accreditation in restructuring those countries’ prison systems.
Also unmentioned are US military detention centers.  It is with military oversight that the transitions of these centers to civilian institutions is undertaken.  We have already seen the example of the INL and other agencies that in the midst of the invasion and occupation of Iraq were tasked with setting up a new prison system.  US prison imperialism is one of many threads that weave together the US government’s civilian and military branches.
In Conclusion – and in Resistance
For us in the United States it is important that we remember that US international prison programs are reflections and extensions of our own internal situation.  The US has the highest overall rate of incarceration in the world.  This rate has almost quadrupled since 1980 despite falling crime rates.  In 1980 the rate was 221 per 100,000 US residents. Today the rate is 716 prisoners per 100,000.  The number of US federal prisoners has risen by 790% since 1980. Thus we can see that this expansion overseas parallels what is happening at home. To further put this matter in perspective, the US has 700,000 more prisoners than China, even though China has four times our population.
The US prison system has over 80,000 persons in solitary confinement.  In 2012 the Justice Department estimated that that year alone there had been 216,000 victims of prison rape. We have more political prisoners than many know of or care to admit, and our basic rights to protest and dissent are being undermined and even criminalized on an almost daily basis.  Overcrowding, denial of health services, physical abuse and torture, lack of safety, lack of job training and rehabilitation services, forced relocation far from home communities and family and denial of access to visitors and legal counsel for long periods of time are all features of prison imperialism that are rooted in the policies and practices of the US penal system.  It almost goes without saying that the beginning of resistance to prison imperialism must therefore begin at home.
But it must not stop there.  We must link our struggles with international struggles.  We have seen how the experiment  that began in 2000 in Colombia has spread to Afghanistan, Iraq, Mexico, Honduras, South Sudan and across the planet.  By looking specifically at the examples of Colombia, Mexico and Honduras, we start to see the kinds of results and concerns we must look for as we examine prison imperialism in other countries.
The US government is clearly spreading an Empire of Prisons around the world.  And just as clearly, around the world Prisoners of Empire are resisting abuses. On July 25, 2013, the AfGJ reported on a prison hunger strike in Colombia that, without planning, was happening at the same time similar hunger strikes were happening in California and elsewhere, noting that,

“Prisoners in the Doña Juana Penitentiary in Colombia are halfway through the third week of a hunger strike to demand better conditions. Located in La Dorada, Caldas, the prison is one of the jails built with US funding and advice as part of the ‘New Penitentiary Culture‘. Typical of such prisons are overcrowding, lack of medical treatment, a concentration of political prisoners, and beatings and other forms of torture by prison guards…It is no coincidence that prisoners at Doña Juana and prisoners in the California prison system began hunger strikes on the same day. Strikes are or have been also underway in Guantanamo and Afghanistan. From California to Colombia, all are protesting US ‘Prison Imperialism‘ that jails the population at high rates and uses inhumane practices such as solitary confinement, torture and denial of services to dehumanize the incarcerated.”

Shortly after the above statement was released, AfGJ also learned of hunger strikes happening in immigration detention centers in Arizona.
The international awareness and linking together of each others’ struggles is something that is just starting to happen and grow.  We are seeing these struggles come together spontaneously and by accident.  These movements resist not only the US model of mass incarceration:  they resist the Empire itself.  If these movements can become more cognizant of each other and interconnected through shared international solidarity, it may be more than just the prisons that are liberated.
James Jordan is an organizer with Alliance for Global Justice.

Empire of Prisons: How the United States Is Spreading Mass Incarceration Around the World
Kevin
Fri, 06 Jun 2014 16:20:06 GMT

Senator Rand Paul warns of drone strikes on Taliban

• Politics
• International
• US

By: Zach McAuliffe Jun 6, 2014

After a nearly 13 hour-long filibuster a year ago where he demanded the government reform of the drone program abroad and domestically, Senator Rand Paul has warned the five freed Taliban members of possible strikes against them.
While talking with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto on “Your World with Neil Cavuto” following the prisoner trade of five Guantanamo Bay detainees for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, Senator Paul said, “there would be a drone with their name on it.”
Senator Paul continued by saying “if people plot to attack our country, they will be dealt with, and they will be dealt harshly.”
This is not the first time Senator Paul has been in favor of using drones following his filibuster.  Not even a month after his speech, Senator Paul said he would be OK with the use of drones on American soil against violent criminals.
“If someone comes out of a liquor store with a weapon and fifty dollars in cash,” says Paul in an interview with Fox News previously, “I don’t care if a drone kills him or a policeman kills him.”
Senator Paul also took time to criticize President Obama’s decision surrounding the prisoner exchange.  The senator, who is aspiring for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, said he could never imagine a circumstance in which he would engage in open trade with enemy forces.
Read Other Stories

• U.S. Drone Strikes in Pakistan, Mainly Hit Homes and Schools
• Netflix’s House of Cards trolls Senator Rand Paul on Twitter
• Rand Paul: Mr. President, We Will Not Let You Shred Our Constitution
• Senator Rand Paul Suing Obama Administration
• Google Update Turns Phone Into Possible Tool For Others To Spy On You

Read more: http://benswann.com/senator-rand-paul-warns-of-drone-strikes-on-taliban/#ixzz33tGRe5ez
Follow us: @BenSwann_ on Twitter
Senator Rand Paul warns of drone strikes on Taliban
Zach McAuliffe
Fri, 06 Jun 2014 20:37:48 GMT

Exclusive: More Businesses Tell Gun Owners To Leave Guns At Home

• Politics
• US

By: Joshua Cook Jun 6, 2014

Sonic and Chili’s add themselves to the list of businesses who ask patrons to leave your gun at home.
According to Forbes, gun rights activists walked into a San Antonio Sonic and Chili’s with long rifles strapped to their backs, which caused corporate to release statements:
From Sonic: “Sonic and our franchise owners work hard to provide an inviting environment for customers and employees alike. While we historically have relied upon local laws to guide how we address the display of guns at drive-ins, recent actions required we carefully reconsider this approach. We’ve considered the views and desires of our customers and employees that staff the drive-ins across the country. Accordingly, we’re asking that customers refrain from bringing guns onto our patios or into our indoor dining areas. With respect to the storage of guns in vehicles, we ask that our customers continue to honor local laws.”
From Chili’s parent company Brinker International: “At Chili’s Grill & Bar, our passion is making our guests feel special in an environment where they can focus on family and friends over a great meal.  Recent open carry events at our restaurants and others have prompted passionate and diverse feedback.  We recognize that the open carry of firearms in restaurants creates an uncomfortable atmosphere and is not permitted under many local liquor laws.  So, we kindly ask that guests refrain from openly carrying firearms into our restaurants and we will continue to follow state and local laws on this issue.”
Sonic and Chili’s join Chipotle, Starbucks and Jack In The Box, who all have clear policies that violate customer’s 2nd Amendment rights.
Target Targeted by Gun-Control Activists
According to the LA Times, Minneapolis-based retailer Target is being asked to not allow open carry inside its big box stores.
A petition launched this week by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a group created following the Newton, Conn., school shooting, has now garnered more than 10,000 signatures.
“Target is a central part of the lives of American moms,” said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action. “We support the 2nd Amendment, but people walking through the aisles flaunting their loaded weapons … is unacceptable. How can we, or the store’s employees or law enforcement, possibly know if they are good guys or bad guys?”
Molly Snyder, a Target spokeswoman, said that “the safety and security of our guests and team members is our highest priority.” Snyder said stores follow state and federal laws regarding open carry. She pointed out that Target does not sell firearms or ammunition.
Target, a retailer who is still recovering after the large data breach last year, most likely can’t afford to alienate any of its customer base.
BenSwann.com reported that the NRA called Open Carry protesters “weird and certainly not a practical way to go normally about your business while preparing to defend yourself.”
BenSwann.com’s Joshua Cook asked the Public Relations Director for Open Carry Texas, Tov Henderson what he thought about the NRA’s statement.
Tov Henderson:“When I first read the blog post released by the NRA, condemning the open carry movement in Texas, I was completely taken back. As is the case with most gun owners, I’ve always seen the NRA as the vanguard of the 2nd Amendment.  You grow up revering that organization for always being at the forefront in the fight to preserve and restore our gun rights.”
“I was in utter shock seeing the NRA take a step back, attacking us for legally exercising our natural rights that are protected by both the law, and the Texas and U.S. Constititutions.  This is especially the case, as the article was critical of tactics that we no longer use.”
“Many weeks before the NRA’s negative statements on open carry, the four major open carry groups in Texas came together and decided, in a joint effort, to change the game plan in which we use to advance open carry legislation.  So the criticism seemed out of place, and totally unnecessary.”
“When the NRA’s Chris Cox publicly disavowed their own blogger’s statements, and reaffirmed their support for our organizations, it definitely helped to restore my faith in them.”
“I certainly had a hard time believing that the NRA would condemn organizations that have pushed the open carry issue to the forefront.  Prior to our open carry walks, open carry legislation wasn’t a priority in the legislature.  Bills continued to get shot down in committee.  It wasn’t until we, in the open carry movement, employed an nontraditional game plan, that Austin took notice.”
“It is reassuring to know that the NRA still supports open carry, and that they intend on continuing to exert their influence in helping us achieve the goal of getting open carry legislation passed in the state legislature.”
“I think the NRA also learned an important lesson: mistakes happen.  We’ve made mistakes as well.  No organization is perfect.  As long as both of our organizations continue to learn from our mistakes, correct them, and grow as a result, 2015 provides great potential to achieve our mutually desired legislative goal of open carry handgun in the state of Texas.”
Joshua Cook: “Is your movement growing?”
Tov Henderson: “In just over a year, we’ve manage to grow to approximately 20,000 members, and our rate of growth continues to expand every single day.  Just a few months ago, we were adding around 30 new members a day.  As of today, the average daily addition of new members has skyrocketed to 250.  Even with negative media attention from leftists media sources, it hasn’t hampered our growth in the least.  We’re learning that more and more people are eager to get back to the original, intended definition of the 2nd Amendment.”
Joshua Cook: “What are you trying to accomplish?”
Tov Henderson: “In the state of Texas, we have a peculiar set of laws that allow for an individual to open carry a long gun or a pre-1899 black powder pistol, but not a handgun.   In other words, it is perfect okay to sling an AR-15 over your should while you in public, but openly holstering a Glock would make you a criminal.  Not only is the concept itself absurd, but it is especially so when you consider the fact that 44 other states already allow some form of open carry handgun.”
“Being that Texas has always held the reputation of being the most gun friendly state in the nation, it almost comical when you consider the reality of how far behind our state actually is on gun rights.  Furthermore, we’re not asking for something that is alien, we’re asking for something that is actually the norm in the vast majority of states in this country.   What’s the hold up?”
Joshua Cook: “Is your campaign successful?”
Tov Henderson: “We’ve had a great deal of success in our campaign to achieve open carry legislation in the state of Texas.  We recently received something we never had before; a committee hearing in Austin that was especially created for us, and occurred as a direct result of what we do every week all across the state.”
“For the first time ever, open carry handgun is a serious topic, and that topic is receiving international attention.”
“Plus, everywhere we do our open carry walks, there is a vast outpouring of support from those we meet.  Texans all across the state are showing their support, and looking forward to having the option of open carrying their handgun  when they choose to do so.”
“Texans understand that  the words, “shall not be infringed”, form a clear statement, and that the government has no Constitutional authority to limit our right to bear arms as we see fit.  And we want the legal option to openly bear our handguns as is already clearly permitted by the 2nd Amendment.”
Read more: http://benswann.com/exclusive-more-businesses-tell-gun-owners-to-leave-guns-at-home/#ixzz33tFH865X
Follow us: @BenSwann_ on Twitter
Exclusive: More Businesses Tell Gun Owners To Leave Guns At Home
Joshua Cook
Fri, 06 Jun 2014 18:18:33 GMT

US Foreign Wealth Confiscation Begins Under the Code Names FinCen, FATCA and FBAR

Posted on June 6, 2014 by Jeff Berwick

We have been reporting on how the US government is using very nefarious and egregious methods on tracking its own citizens’ financial information, fining them and even instituting the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) as a form of subterfuge capital controlswhich is closing off international banking to Americans (as we reported yesterday in Mexico).
FinCen, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, has, in essence, been making nearly any international transfers of money viewed as a criminal activity.  FATCA has been making it harder and harder for Americans to open international bank accounts.  And FBAR, the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, has made it a highly punishable offense for any American with a foreign account worth over $10,000 if they do not file an FBAR each year.
The problem with FBAR is that countless Americans with foreign accounts and US expats are completely unaware of its existence.  And, despite the fact that there are literally tens of thousands of rules in the US tax code for things like this, ignorance of its requirement is not excusable.
We have stated in the past that FinCen, FATCA and FBAR are all intermingled to essentially put in capital controls on the US populace and, as well, steal most of the money from those with funds abroad. In the past many said that we were being too alarmist and surely the US government would not do something like this.
Well, think again, it just happened.  And it was even worse than we thought.
CARL ZWERNER JUST GOT FBAR’ED
In a court decision just released a man who ignorantly did not file an FBAR had not only all of his funds seized by the US government but, unbelievably, even more than he had in his account.
Carl Zwerner, an 87-year old Florida man, must pay the US government a 150% penalty on the value of his Swiss bank account, amounting to the biggest penalty by percentage on record, according to his lawyer. Carl Zwerner will pay more than $2 million “for willfully failing to file a US Treasury form called a Report on Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, or FBAR. Prosecutors and the Internal Revenue Service use FBAR penalties, which sometimes are worse than criminal fines, in order stamp out “offshore tax evasion.”
As we’ve discussed in The Dollar Vigilante Blog, individuals have flocked to the IRS amnesty program which purports to allow holders of undeclared offshore accounts avoid prosecution. Over 43,000 Americans have joined the program since 2009, shelling out $6 billion to the US.
In Zwerner’s case, the IRS sought to seize 50% of the value of his account compounded over each of four years where he was deemed in non-compliance. With Zwerner’s case a new precedent has been set. “As this jury verdict shows, the cost of not coming forward and fully disclosing a secret offshore bank account to the IRS can be quite high,” Kathryn Keneally, the head of the tax division, said in the statement.
“They can get 50 percent for the non-filing of one piece of paper, and 200 percent for the non-filing of four pieces of paper,” Zwerner’s lawyer Martin Press said in a phone interview. “The question is whether such a massive penalty is appropriate for simply a disclosure form which carries no tax.”
Zwerner’s Swiss account at ABN Amro Group NV, the Netherlands’ third-biggest bank, was valued at $1.48 million in 2004, when his FBAR penalty was $723,762; the value in 2005 was $1.49 million, when the penalty was $745,209; and the value in 2006 was $1.55 million, and a $772,838 penalty. The total penalties were $2.24 million.
Many naysayers said that the US government would not come after the total value of an account deemed in non-compliance.  In a sense they were right … the US government came for nearly double the amount held in the account!

But Zwerner’s isn’t the biggest FBAR penalty in terms of size on record. H. Ty Warner, the billionaire founder of Beanie Babies, pleaded guilty last year on evading taxes on secret Swiss accounts that held as much as $107 million. He paid an FBAR penalty of $53.6 million.  Although, compared to Zwerner, he got off easy with only 50% of his funds stolen.
Mary Estelle Curran, a 79-year-old widow from Palm Beach, Florida, pleaded guilty last year for not disclosing $43 million at UBS AG. (UBSN) She paid a $21.6 million FBAR penalty.  Ms. Curran fell for the IRS’s “limited-amnesty program” in 2009, where they said they would not fine her if she came forward. But the agency simply rejected her and fined her anyway.  In her case it is even worse as she was indicted in late 2011 and faced up to 37 months in prison.
Zwerner testified, telling jurors that he tried to enter the IRS voluntary disclosureprogram, and that he didn’t know until 2008 that he must file FBARs. “Zwerner’s original tax returns for 2004 to 2007 didn’t report any income from the Swiss bank account,” reads a US complaint filed in June 2013. “The first time he reported such income was when he amended those returns.”
He failed to declare interest on his foreign account. The account was opened in the 1960s, and was held in the name of two foundations, according tot he Justice Department. “Zwerner was able to use the proceeds of the account whenever he wanted and used it for personal expenses, including European vacations,” the department said.
A TIME OF GREAT RISK … AND A TIME OF GREAT OPPORTUNITY
It can seem like there are no options for hardworking Americans, that the nation has reached that point which Ayn Rand predicted where the most productive would stop working simply because it paid more to do nothing. Even if you do work your whole life, you might be thinking, the government will ultimately come one day and take it all away.
This does not have to be the case. There are still many options available, but the landscape is quickly changing and in order to get the right advice you’ll need a highly informed and nimble team such as the one at TDV Wealth Management (TDVWM) where we advise the countless Americans who have been caught up in this extortion dragnet.  And you can stay informed with The Dollar Vigilante (TDV) Newsletter.  TDV has been ahead of the curve advising people to internationalize their precious metals (Getting Your Gold Out Of Dodge), been early into the importance of bitcoin in protecting your assets and advising Americans to get a second passport.
On the bright side, although the news and information can be depressing, there are countless things to be excited about and a plethora of opportunities to not only survive the coming collapse of the West but to prosper. The End Of the Monetary System As We Know It (TEOTMSAWKI) will be a time of Great Transformation. If you remain open-minded, relaxed, well informed and focused you could actually do better than you even thought possible … but it is going to mean taking personal responsibility in how to navigate the coming collapse.
Your government registered financial advisor will likely not know and/or tell you about what is going on.  Take responsibility for your own personal and financial future.
Through taking control and paying attention to what is going on you will be positioned for a period of great change and opportunity.  If not you may get FBAR’ed like Carl Zwerner.
It’s really that simple.
FATCA, the IRS & Freedom… Join the discussion at The Dollar Vigilante Today!
Anarcho-Capitalist. Libertarian. Freedom fighter against mankind’s two biggest enemies, the State and the Central Banks. Jeff Berwick is the founder of The Dollar Vigilante, CEO of TDV Media & Services and host of the popular video podcast, Anarchast. Jeff is a prominent speaker at many of the world’s freedom, investment and gold conferences as well as regularly in the media including CNBC, CNN and Fox Business.
Courtesy of Activist Post.
The post US Foreign Wealth Confiscation Begins Under the Code Names FinCen, FATCA and FBAR appeared first on .

US Foreign Wealth Confiscation Begins Under the Code Names FinCen, FATCA and FBAR
Jeff Berwick
Fri, 06 Jun 2014 18:02:20 GMT

Cellphone operator reveals scale of gov’t snooping

By DANICA KIRKA, Associated Press

Updated 12:21 pm, Friday, June 6, 2014

1 of 3

• FILE – In this Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2009 file photo, people walk by a Vodafone branch in central London. Vodafone, one of the world’s largest cellphone companies, on Friday, June 6, 2014 revealed the scope of government snooping into phone networks, saying authorities in some countries are able to directly access an operator’s network without seeking permission. Photo: SANG TAN, AP

• 
• 
• 

0
Larger | Smaller
Printable Version
Email This
Font
LONDON (AP) — Government snooping into phone networks is extensive worldwide, one of the world’s largest cellphone companies revealed Friday, saying that several countries demand direct access to its networks without warrant or prior notice.
The detailed report from Vodafone, which covers the 29 countries in which it operates in Europe, Africa and Asia, provides the most comprehensive look to date at how governments monitor mobile phone communications. It amounts to a call for a debate on the issue as businesses increasingly worry about being seen as worthy of trust.
The most explosive revelation was that in six countries, authorities require immediate access to an operator’s network — bypassinglegal niceties like warrants. It did not name the countries for legal reasons and to safeguard employees working there.
“In those countries, Vodafone will not receive any form of demand for lawful interception access as the relevant agencies and authorities already have permanent access tocustomer communications via their own direct link,” the report said.
Vodafone’s report comes one year after former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowdenrevealed that U.S. and other countries’ intelligence agencies routinely gathered huge amounts of private data belonging to millions of innocent people in America and across the globe.
The revelations have focused particular attention on the role of Western technology and telecommunications firms, which stand accused of facilitating the mass surveillance by giving spies unrestricted access to their networks. Several Silicon Valley companies have since attempted to restore consumers’ trust by publishing data on government surveillance.
But telecoms companies found themselves in an even more uncomfortable position. Historically closer to governments since many were once state-owned, telecoms companies are much more heavily regulated and have employees on the ground — making them more sensitive to government demands for data.
By making its report public, together with a breakdown on requests for information, Vodafone took the unusual step of entering the international debate about balancing the rights of privacy against security. Rather than being stuck with responsibility and consumer backlash when consumers realize their data has been scooped up without their knowledge, companies like Vodafone have decided it is time to push for a debate.
“Companies are recognizing they have a responsibility to disclose government access,”Daniel Castro, senior analyst for the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation in Washington, D.C. “This is new.”
The study comes at a time when other businesses are also calling for a revamp of laws too outdated to stand up to the quickly changing telecommunications universe.
Executives in Silicon Valley, for example, have stepped up pressure on President Barack Obama to curb the U.S. government surveillance programs that collect information off the Internet.
Twitter Inc., LinkedIn Corp., AOL Inc., Google Inc., Apple Inc., Yahoo Inc., Facebook Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are pushing for tighter controls over electronic espionage — fearing that eavesdropping threatens the technology industry’s financial livelihood.
“They want their customers to be able to trust them to store their data in a private andsecure manner,” Castro said.
Vodafone’s report is also seen by some as an effort to turn the page on the company’s embarrassing role in the protests that toppled Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak in 2011. As the protests raged, Vodafone bombarded its Egyptian subscribers with pro-government text messages. At the time, the company said it had no choice but to comply, but was severely criticized for its actions. A change in culture followed.
“They took a hard lesson there,” said Cynthia Wong, a senior internet researcher atHuman Rights Watch. “Even if the government is the ultimate problem, they realized they needed to take steps to mitigate harm to their users.”
Civil rights advocates applauded Vodafone for releasing the report, and cracking open the debate, even as they expressed alarm at the infringements into civil rights.
“For governments to access phone calls at the flick of a switch is unprecedented and terrifying,” said Shami Chakrabarti, director of the human rights group Liberty, adding that the Snowden revelations showed the Internet was already being treated as “fair game.”
“Bluster that all is well is wearing pretty thin – our analogue laws need a digital overhaul,” she said.
Though some of the governments included in the report were able to block disclosure of any aspect of how interception was conducted, the report is unique in that it offers insight into how governments conduct surveillance.
Though some of the U.S. operators, such as AT&T and Verizon offered information amid the Snowden allegations, the level of detail is minuscule compared with Friday’s report, Wong said.
Civil rights advocates weren’t the only ones applauding Vodafone’s actions. Norway’s Telenor Group, which also has operations across Eastern Europe and Asia, offered support, noting governments have the ultimate responsibility to act.
The countries included in the report are: Albania, Australia, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Congo, Egypt, Fiji, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, Lesotho, Malta, Mozambique, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, South Africa, Spain, Tanzania, Turkey and the U.K.
.

Cellphone operator reveals scale of gov’t snooping
-NO AUTHOR-
Fri, 06 Jun 2014 15:47:25 GMT

Startup Could Stop Feds from Controlling the Web

• Politics
• US

By: Joshua Cook Jun 6, 2014

With the use of mesh networks, Internet users could create their own networks, bypassing government-controlled or government-spied on ones.
A startup called Open Garden is looking to use people’s own cellular phones.
According to Forbes, over the last two years, five million people have downloaded the company’s free Android app Open Garden to create wireless hotspots, and its FireChat app for iPhones and Droids to chat anonymously with other users “off the grid.”
The FireChat app isn’t perfect, but what’s tantalizing about both services is that they need no WiFi connection or carrier plan to get connected. Just another person with the app, within a 70-meter radius, reported Forbes.
A “mesh network” refers to the creation of a peer-to-peer “mesh” of smartphones that form their own separate network. If at least one smartphone is online, the rest of the network can not only talk to one another, but connect to the web too.
This has caught on in places where the government could try to censor its people like in Taiwan where around 100,000 activists in Taipei had taken to the streets to protest a trade agreement with China, and local blogs urged them to download FireChat — just in case the government shut down web access.
There’s been similar interest for FireChat in Iran. Users in the country have started 1,800 FireChat groups, making Iran the second biggest user of the app after the United States.
“People can grow their own Internet,” said FireChat founder Micha Benoliel.
Read more: http://benswann.com/startup-could-stop-feds-from-controlling-the-web/#ixzz33t8FRvpn
Follow us: @BenSwann_ on Twitter
Startup Could Stop Feds from Controlling the Web
Joshua Cook
Fri, 06 Jun 2014 18:45:53 GMT

The Montana judge who drew national condemnation for saying a 14-year-old rape victim was asking for it will be suspended without pay for one month. District Judge Todd Baugh had said in court that the victim—who later killed herself—was just as much to blame as her attacker, whom he sentenced to serve a mere 31 days in jail.
Her attacker, by the way, was her 47-year-old public school teacher, Stacey Dean Rambold, and he admitted to “sexual intercourse without consent.” But to Baugh, the victim was “a troubled youth” who looked “older than her chronological age,” and this wasn’t the “beat-up rape” variety—which meant the freshman girl entrusted to this man’s care “was probably as much in control of the situation” as he was.
The state’s judicial ethics panel filed a complaint against Baugh, asking the Montana Supreme Court to publicly reprimand him. But the court took it a step further: In a decision Wednesday, it ordered Baugh—who is retiring at the end of the year—to be suspended from the bench withiout pay for his last month.
“There is no place in the Montana judiciary for perpetuating the stereotype that women and girls are responsible for sexual crimes committed against them,” it stated.
In April, the court vacated Rambold’s original sentence and remanded for resentencing by a new judge. On Tuesday, it denied his request to reconsider the ruling.
 

Montana Court Suspends Judge Who Said High School Freshman Was ‘In Control’ of Teacher Rape
Elizabeth Nolan Brown
Thu, 05 Jun 2014 16:31:00 GMT

Did the Bowe Bergdahl Story Get Michael Hastings Killed?

Posted on June 5, 2014 by Dean Garrison

There have many credible reports, from those who were in Afghanistan, that stated clearly that fellow soldiers were under orders of silence in reference to the desertion of Bowe Bergdahl. That is somewhat understandable. However…
If a reporter was able to reach out to those same troops, and get them to break that silence, would that be enough to get that reporter killed?
On June 7, 2012 Michael Hastings had a piece published in Rolling Stone titled America’s Last Prisoner of War. This was not a fluff piece. It was hard-hitting journalism that was the trademark of Michael Hastings’ reporting. Even back in 2012 Hastings was reporting that Bowe was a deserter and a lot of the stories you have been hearing and reading over the last week stemmed from that ground-breaking account. He was ahead of his time and effectively blew the lid off this story long before it was a story. Here is a brief excerpt from the article, although I would encourage you to read it in full.

The next day, American forces had a chance to free Bowe. The battalionoperations officer, call sign GERONIMO 3, met with two tribal elders from the nearby village. The elders had been asked by the Taliban to arrange atrade with U.S. forces. The insurgents wanted 15 of their jailed fighters released, along with an unidentified sum of money, in exchange for Bowe. The officer hedged, unwilling or unable to make such a bargain, and no deal was struck. Instead, the Army ordered all units stationed in the eastern half of Afghanistan – known as RC East, in military jargon – to join the search for Bowe.
On July 4th, the search effort got a break: Bowe was spotted in a village in Ghazni, about 15 miles across the mountains to the west. He was wearing khaki, with a bag covering his head, and he was being driven in a blackToyota Corolla, escorted by three to five motorcycles. But by the time troops arrived to investigate, it was too late. That was the last time that Bowe would be seen until the first propaganda video, released later that month.

Michael Hastings got Bowe Bergdahl’s fellow soldiers to speak upon conditions of anonymity while disobeying the “gag orders” of their superiors.
Many in the alternative media community believe that Michael Hastings did not simply die in a car accident on June 18, 2013. They believe that accident was the result of sabotage. However, the prevalent theory has been that, if he was targeted it must have had something to do with the NSA. Tim Brown reported back in August of 2013:

Ironically, Hastings had sent the following email to close friends just hours before his death:

“Subject: FBI Investigation, re: NSA -Hey (redacted names) — the Feds are interviewing my “close friends and associates.” Perhaps if the authorities arrive “BuzzFeed GQ,” er HQ, may be wise to immediately request legal counsel before any conversations or interviews about our news gathering practices or related journalism issues. Also: I’m onto a big story, and need to go off the rada[r] for a bit.

Some have speculated that Hastings’ car was booby trapped due to the numerous explosions. Former counter-terror czar Richard Clarke reacted to the news by telling the Huffington Post that the fatal crash was “consistent with a car cyber attack.”

Even if the FBI was investigating Hastings over his NSA reporting, that was not their only investigation into Michael Hastings. Yesterday Eric Barlow, reporting for wearechange.org, brought to light a scarcely known FBI document that was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request:

At the time of the story’s publication, the media had all but forgotten about Bergdahl — who was released on Saturday after five years in the hands of the Taliban, in exchange for five Guantanamo prisoners. And, with the exception of some initial chatter, Hastings’ piece, which paints a deeply unflattering picture of Bergdahl’s unit and its leadership, hardly had the impact of some of his other investigations.
But someone did pay attention to it: the FBI.
That, at least, is what was revealed in a heavily redacted document released by the agency following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request — filed on the day of Hastings’ death — by investigative journalist Jason Leopold and Ryan Shapiro, an MIT doctoral student whom the Justice Department once called the “most prolific” requester of FOIA documents.

For the FBI to launch an investigation into a Rolling Stone article about a military deserter would seem to open up a whole line of potential questions, but it can be simplified with just one.
Why?
These are the things that conspiracy theories are made of. Would this story have been enough to get Michael Hastings silenced permanently? Was it more of a case of Hastings whole body of work?
We will likely never know the answer to these questions and some will say it’s a stretch to even ask them. But you do not get to the truth without asking tough questions. My personal opinion is that this would only be enough if there was something larger that the government was trying to hide. For instance, and I am not stating these as facts, maybe Bergdahl worked for the CIA or maybe he really was working with The Taliban.
The original FBI report has been partially unredacted because of legal challenges. If you would like to read the report, you can see it at www.documentscloud.org
Whether the story of Bowe Bergdahl would have been enough to get Michael Hastings killed is certainly debatable. But you can not deny that he was way ahead of everyone else on this story as with many other stories.
This is the same guy who ended the career of General Stanley McChrystal.
In the current political climate I doubt nothing and am surprised by nothing. Could Michael Hastings have been killed by our government to shut him up?
If you don’t believe that is possible then you simply have not been paying attention. Our government doesn’t like real investigative reporters who expose the truth. They prefer thelap-dog media that simply follows the “talking points” and narratives they are given.
Did the Bowe Bergdahl Story Get Michael Hastings Killed?
Dean Garrison
Thu, 05 Jun 2014 15:27:10 GMT

Monarch butterfly decline linked to spread of GM crops

Milkweed essential to monarchs in decline because of herbicides used with genetically modified crops

By Emily Chung, CBC News Posted: Jun 04, 2014 7:00 PM ET Last Updated: Jun 05, 2014 1:31 PM ET

Tyler Flockhart, currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Guelph, led the analysis, which combined all the known data about monarch populations and the factors that influence them. (Courtesy Tyler Flockhart)
The main cause of the monarch butterfly’s decline is the loss of milkweed — its food — in its U.S. breeding grounds, a new study has found. That all but confirms that the spread of genetically modified crops is indirectly killing the monarch.
This past winter, the number of monarch butterflies wintering in Mexico fell to its lowest since 1993, when records first started being kept, the World Wildlife Fund and Mexico’s Environment Department reported in January. That report blamed the loss of milkweed owing to genetically modified crops and urban sprawl in the U.S. and illegal logging in the butterflies’ Mexican wintering ground.

• Monarch migration said to be in trouble as numbers fall

Now, an analysis combining all the known data about monarch populations and the factors that influence them shows that the monarch’s biggest threat is in the U.S., not Mexico.
The leaves of the milkweed plant are the only place that monarchs lay their eggs and the only food that monarch butterfly caterpillars will eat. A large proportion of monarchs east of the Rocky Mountains breed in the U.S. corn belt, stretching from Kansas in the west to Ohio in the east, and south to north from Missouri to North Dakota.

20% decline in milkweed

The new study led by Tyler Flockhart, currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Guelph, showed that the number of milkweed plants in the U.S. corn belt, where most monarchs breed, has fallen 20 per cent over the past few decades.
“It’s a massive number of milkweeds — about 1.5 billion milkweed plants,” he said.

This past winter, monarch butterfly numbers at the wintering grounds in Mexico fell to their lowest levels since records started being kept in 1993. (Associated Press)
The study, published today in the Journal of Animal Ecology, shows this decline in milkweed is the main cause of the monarch’s recent population decline, not deforestation in Mexico. If this milkweed loss continues, the study predicts, monarch populations will fall at least another 14 per cent and there is a five per cent chance they will be driven nearly to extinction over the next century .
Study co-author Ryan Norris, a biology professor at the University of Guelph, said that “likely the biggest cause of loss of milkweed is the adoption of genetically modified crops.”
Farmers have been increasingly planting corn and soybeans resistant to herbicides, and then applying those herbicides liberally on their fields. That kills off plants between the rows of crops that aren’t resistant, such as milkweed.
That’s been a big problem for the butterflies. Even now, 67 per cent of milkweed plants in the butterflies’ breeding grounds are found in “agriculture-intensive landscapes,” the study reported.

• Monarch butterfly numbers drop to new lows

There have also been some other causes of milkweed loss, Norris said. Because milkweed is poisonous to humans and to grazing animals, it’s considered a noxious weed in many jurisdictions and is removed as such. Some open areas where milkweed has previously grown have also been reforested in recent decades, wiping out the milkweed. Flockhart added that urbanization has also played a role.
Milkweed is also being lost in other parts of the monarch butterfly’s range, such as southern Ontario. But Flockhart said that has less of an effect because so few monarch butterflies breed there, and most of those that do come from farther south.
The findings suggest that the “top conservation priority to slow or halt future population declines of monarch butterflies in North America,” has to be addressing the milkweed loss in its breeding grounds, the paper said.
“One of the main focus areas has to be planting milkweed in the U.S. Midwest,” Norris said.

• How monarch butterflies find their way to Mexico

Thus far, he added, most monarch conservation efforts have focused on protecting the butterflies’ wintering site in Mexico, where millions of monarchs from all over North America converge each year. But recently, that hasn’t stopped monarch populations from declining.
“Here’s the lesson for any species that crosses international boundaries or any species that moves long distances over the course of its annual cycle,” he said. “You can’t focus on one part of the annual cycle.”

Roadside planting recommended

Flockhart said the study shows that a huge quantity of milkweed would need to be replanted in order for monarch butterfly populations to recover. He suggests taking advantage of roadsides for this purpose, and mowing the milkweed at strategic times to maximize their use by monarch butterflies, which prefer younger plants.
Flockhart also wants the plant delisted as a noxious weed in areas where monarchs breed. In Ontario, milkweed was delisted on May 9.
The study represented several years of work over the course of Flockhart’s PhD studies at the University of Guelph. Flockhart designed the study and brought together all the data he could find about monarch butterflies, including information about their range and survival rates at various points in their life cycle. The researchers also tracked monarchs using chemical markers to learn more about their movements.
The data was compiled into a computer model built by Jean-Baptiste Pichancourt at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Brisbane, Australia, in collaboration with University of Queensland researcher Tara Martin. That allowed the researchers to see what would happen to monarch populations when they manipulated different variables. It was funded by NSERC, the Canadian Wildlife Federation, the University of Guelph and CSIRO.
Monarch Butterfly Decline Linked To Spread Of GM Crops
Adan
Thu, 05 Jun 2014 15:32:42 GMT