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Bank of America Cuts Off Wikileaks Transactions
Chaonici writes "The first actual bank to do so, Bank of America has decided that it will follow in the footsteps of PayPal, MasterCard, and Visa, and halt all its transactions that it believes are intended for WikiLeaks, including donations in support of the organization. 'This decision,' says the bank, 'is based upon our reasonable belief that WikiLeaks may be engaged in activities that are, among other things, inconsistent with our internal policies for processing payments.' Coincidentally, in a 2009 interview with Forbes magazine, Julian Assange stated that he was in possession of the hard drive of a Bank of America executive, and that he planned to release information about a major bank early next year."
Ok, so it's time for a run on the bank.
Get in before the rush!
the war has begun (?)
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
If the government can declare something "illegal" and pressure private companies to not do business with a particular entity... does it really matter if they can "make no law" abridging freedom of speech? Isn't the first amendment completely worthless?
accepted any manner of shady transactions regarding
-Bernie Madoff
-mortgage derivatives
-selling mortgage securities without proper paperwork
The problem, anymore, is that banks and ISPs aren't content to just be carriers. They have to judge the content of your transactions, too.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
It is clear then that Bank of America is an instrument of US foreign policy.
expandfairuse.org
I'm assuming that they're trying to keep the rape allegations and wikileaks issues separate.
Expect it if he gets shipped off to America specifically over wikileaks stuff.
his arrest was temporary and for show. nothing more.
not worth getting big guns out just for that. that was simply a practice run.
this drama won't end for years, in all probability.
and keeping it all alive is *exactly* what the big liars don't want.
btw, if I was a bofa customer, I'd pull all my funds out of their bank. if my bank pulls this shit, I'll definitely yank my account and transfer it all elsewhere. it will be a hassle but I'm fully willing to do it. (hint, its over 6 figures, too. that HURTS banks, if enough of us do that).
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Let's make wagers on how long it takes until Anonymous DDOS's them because at this point it's not a matter if it will happen but when.
Though this isn't the best fit, I came across a quote by Thoreau in a short story called "Repent Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman that seems like a good fit for the whole thing in general so I thought I'd share.
The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly,
but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army,
and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc.
In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the
judgement or of the moral sense; but they put themselves
on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men
can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well.
Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt.
They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs.
Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens.
Others--as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers,
and office-holders--serve the state chiefly with their heads;
and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as
likely to serve the devil, without _intending_ it, as God.
A very few--as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the
great sense, and _men_--serve the state with their consciences
also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and
they are commonly treated as enemies by it.
Maybe Bank of Ireland would be willing to help out Wikileaks. They are so broke they are not really in a position to care about where the money is going to
I think, technically, he turned himself in to the UK police.
Which I think is a strategic move on his part. Once Sweden extradites him, in all likelihood, he can't be extradited *from* Sweden by another country (say, US). Note that he got bail in the UK despite basically being a nomad, and all he has to do is spend four hours during daylight hours and four hours during night hours at a friend's mansion. I suspect (and it is just a guess) that the reason is that he agreed not to fight extradition to Sweden. Note also that the criminal charges he faces in Sweden do not carry any mandatory jail time.
-- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
Assange also claimed he had a "poison pill" file he'd release if he were arrested.
No he didn't. I challenge you to find a single quote from him saying anything even remotely like that.
All the "poison pill" stuff has been speculation by commentators and pundits regarding the insurance.aes256 file - but Assange hasn't said one word about what that file is or what anyone might do with it.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
If Federal regulators even SUSPECT you have been allowing terrorists to receive payment, you are subject to an audit with a cost of about 50 million dollars to support (you have to pay all of your people to deal with the audit instead of their normal job responsibilities). The fines and reprecussions are on top of that initial cost, and can include being barred from the FDIC, which basically shuts down a bank forever.
My guess is that bank of america merely has the inside scoup and wikileaks is about to be declared official terrorists.
"our reasonable belief that WikiLeaks may be engaged in activities ... inconsistent with our internal policies for processing payments"
Shut up. You're a bank. Just move people's money around for them and don't try to have an opinion.
Having a hard drive of a B of A executive is hardly conclusive as to the banks safety. As far as we know, the contents might have been removed, etc - and it was sent in for repair.
Safety? Wikileaks isn't going to be releasing Bank of America's passwords or security information. If they release anything it's going to be about corruption, insider dealing, complicity in illegal activities etc. The concern isn't the bank's "safety" per se. It's that if shit falls on Bank of America, their share price will get hit, there might be legal investigations into wrong-doing... That sort of thing. And I don't know what sort of shape Bank of America is in - are they part of the general morass that US banking has sunk into over the last couple of years? If so, probably the last thing they need right now is investors getting out. A run on the bank by the public? That's not a first response to this. It's this hit on share price and investors that would be the immediate effect. Expect some emergency buying by non-neutral parties to keep share price up if Wikileaks comes out with anything juicy.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Assange / Wikileaks doesn't do business with Bank of America, and likely never has.
Bank of America did not close a bank account (like the swiss postbank) or terminated a payment processing contract (like Paypal, Visa and Mastercard), it stops transferring money to other banks. So anybody with a Bank of America account is no longer allowed to transfer his money to another bank account without "moral approval" of the BoA.
I am surprised that this hasn't led to more media coverage jet.
They deal with scum like Bernie maddoff and involved with some of the shadiest operations imaginable and they turn off the hose to THIS? banksters are the cancers of our society. When the revolution comes, there won't be enough brick layers to keep up with the wall building demand.
Just bought a new quantum computer, but I'm uncertain how it works.
http://www.businessinsider.com/julian-assange-is-going-to-drop-a-poison-wiki-bomb-if-hes-killed-or-arrested-2010-12
I wouldn't worry too much however if Assange does have a B of A harddrive means he is in position of stolen goods which is a crime.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
When you close your account, be sure to note that it is because you have reasonable belief that Bank of America may be engaged in activities that are, among other things, inconsistent with your internal policies for a bank-customer relationship.
It does need to be a lesson to every organization though. Wikileaks / Assange will turn on you any second that they think they have something that they can use to feed their ego. You're not safe doing business with this guy
In order: 1. It's not a lesson to every organization. It's only a warning to ones that have been engaged in wrong-doing. 2. "Wikileaks / Assange" is not good terminology: Wikileaks is not synonymous with Julian Assange and the constant identification of the two with each other is a symptom of our media which simplifies everything to Hollywood plot-lines. We shouldn't perpetuate this. 3. Wikileaks has not "turned on" anyone because this has strong connotations of betrayal. When were Wikileaks and Bank of America ever partners in anything? 4. Why this business of "feeding the ego"? It seems a cheap way to try and invalidate an action by alleging a base motive to the person doing the action. If someone wants to "feed their ego", they're better off trolling innocents on Slashdot or getting a job in Airport security where they can boss people around, than taking on the US government. As a member of the public, I have an interest in knowing about wrong-doings committed by world governments or large corporations.
On a side note, I'm going to go hide that childhood picture of me dressed as a girl for halloween... I'd hate to see it end up on Wikileaks after the cleaning lady steals it.
Wikileaks isn't for people's personal foibles - it's about malfeasance by those in power.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
In Arizona, BoA is being charged with fraud.
http://foreclosureblues.wordpress.com/2010/12/17/arizona-attorney-general-charges-bank-of-america-with-mortgage-and-foreclosure-fraud-complaint-here/
So yes... my hope is that Wikileaks does right by the people and exposes this corrupt bank and its practices.
Banks are the number one enemy these days, and rightfully so. They could have actually helped stop the recession by helping homeowners with the mortgages.
The actions of Americans to hide what they have truthfully and secretly said to their kin disgusts me.
The whole insular and antagonistic country needs to go and d.i.a.f. and leave the rest of the world to live their lives in peace.
Americans espouse freedom of speech... until it gives them a red face, then they show their true colours. A country of warmongers.
Have you ever been to America? They're some of the politest and most welcoming people you'll ever meet. The dichotomy between the decency of the people there, and the corruption of the government is inexplicable. Until you turn on a TV in the USA and see what passes for news in that country. You want someone to blame? Blame the oligarchy that owns America's media.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
This is crap, the banking world should have precisely 2 options:
1. they receive some kind of common carrier status, which means they will have to accept everyone as a customer and have to process everyone's transactions.
2. they can have the freedom to do business with whomever they like and maintain blacklists of payments they will not process, but that means they will become accomplishes if the transfer is part of some crime.
The only possible exception would be specific government regulation.
(assuming an uncorrupted government off course, in that case all bets are of)
They are known as MBNA in Europe (Bank of America took over MBNA, but kept the MBNA name in Europe because it is much better known than BoA), and they are in trouble with the Office of Fair Trading for their debt collection practices http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/dec/14/mbna-credit-card-debt-procedures
I smell duplicity.
I have been loving these articles, as it routes out the companies that obviously aren't aligned with supporting liberty, and I hate to use companies which don't espouse, or support in some way, the values I believe in. So all of these articles, and businesses, have saved me a lot of time. More so, I love the ones where some companies steps up to fill the void. Those are the companies I'll migrate my business, and my businesses business to.
Nothing like a little private and public sector cleansing!
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
But it's really not funny that there doesn't seem to be an inch of daylight between government and big business.
And, no, it hasn't always been that way. There have been times historically the situation was similar, but it hasn't always been that way.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Hah... anyone who was waiting for THIS news to leave BoA has had their head in the sand...
This decision,' says the bank, 'is based upon our reasonable belief that WikiLeaks may be engaged in activities that are, among other things, inconsistent with our internal policies for processing payments.'
Too bad Wikileaks is not an international drug running or firearms smuggling organization, they appear to be more befitting "internal policies".
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
Or more directly here in case anyone was wondering if the dailyheil had twisted it.
Thanks though, I hadn't kept up with the recent statements.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
every country has this shit, if anything it's that americans talk about it
1: because they're unlikely to be dragged from their beds and killed for speaking out.
2: sometimes things actually change.
A great deal of wikileaks supporters are americans who want to root out the corruption in their own government.
Bernie Madoff and his scheme had nothing to do with Bank of America.
Also Bank of America had very little to do with MBS, and only got bigger because by buying up those collapsed companies.
Bank of America purchased Countrywide Mortgages, which were right in the thick of the whole mortgage-backed security mess and practically started the system in the first place. When they purchased that company, they took on all of the liabilities including the responsibility to clean up the mess that the company made in the first place. In this sense, Bank of America is Countrywide Mortgages, one of the most notorious lenders of underwater property in America. Their hands are certainly not clean with this mess.
As for Bernie Madoff, I don't think Bank of America was necessarily active in terms of any of its officers directly involved with setting up the ponzi scheme, but to say that Bank of America was completely uninvolved is sort of a lie as well. I don't know the full extent of how they were involved, if any, but I'm sure at least some money that Madoff used went through one or more Bank of America accounts. They are too big of a bank not to be completely uninvolved with the kind of money and the number of clients involved. It was a bit unfair, however, to even invoke Madoff as the MBS mess and loans to illegal immigrants (at the insistence of many within the Democratic Party leadership in Congresss) and other "disadvantaged minorities" with little by way of credit worthiness or ability to pay off the loans routinely did happen with this bank, and that is sufficient to show how corrupt the system got. Madoff is a side show, not the main event, and may even be shown in the long run as a hero as he was at least up front in the end that he was running a ponzi scheme. These banks are doing much worse and getting away with it too.
Or perhaps he (or someone) bought a used computer that still had data on it. Much more likely, and legal too...
If you believe that helping the homeowners with mortgages would have magically helped stop the recession then you are woefully ignorance of economics.
you folks had it good for a long time.
btw, you're generally a religious group, right? (conservatives generally are.)
go back to your bible and re-read the david and goliath story.
sweet dreams banksters....
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
If you believe that helping the homeowners with mortgages would have magically helped stop the recession then you are woefully ignorance of economics.
Why? Because you say so? Oh, and how about all that TARP money? Yeah, that totally saved the economy!
Similar to the upcoming US election results
"We will no longer process payments to them because they are not consistent with our policy for who we process payments to."
This tautology neatly covers the fact that Wikileaks has been charged with precisely zero crimes over Cablegate. These upstanding organizations all like to pretend that they are following the law, but they are actually taking the law into their own hands. I hope they get the shit sued out of them.
Wikileaks' official position seems to be that the file is not blackmail material, but a failsafe measure to get the data public if their operations are disrupted too much to continue their gradual, controlled release. Also that the file simply contains all the material they are going to release anyway, eventually.
Assange also claimed he had a "poison pill" file he'd release if he were arrested.
No he didn't. I challenge you to find a single quote from him saying anything even remotely like that. All the "poison pill" stuff has been speculation by commentators and pundits regarding the insurance.aes256 file - but Assange hasn't said one word about what that file is or what anyone might do with it.
Direct quote from Assange himself:
The Cable Gate archive has been spread, along with significant material from the US and other countries to over 100,000 people in encrypted form. If something happens to us, the key parts will be released automatically.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/dec/03/julian-assange-wikileaks (last answer)
Granted, he didn't mention insurance.aes256 directly, but I'm not aware of any other encrypted archives being distributed on such a large scale, so I can't imagine what else he could be referring to. Also note that he said "if something happens to us," not "if something happens to me."
https://www1.bankofamerica.com/foundation/index.cfm?template=contact_us_here
Let them know what you think of their decision and that you'll be closing all your accounts with them.
Well unless that person from Bank of America had permission to give away the drive then they stole it and Assange revived stolen property. When you knowingly or in many places negligently (ie you should have suspected enough to check things out) receive stolen property its a crime.
Assange has effectively confessed to a crime here if Bank of America can show a drive missing from the inventory or some IT guy improperly disposing of one.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
To expand a little : extraditions can still happen even for crimes for which death penalty could be pronounced, they just involve a special agreement that it will not be. At least, that's how it works between France and the USA.
There's nothing like $HOME
EVERY tourist area has a "OMFG these idiots again" vibe among the locals. I live on an island that has tourism. It is good for our economy, but I curse them like everyone else when stuck in a traffic jam caused by them using my neighborhood as a shortcut.
Yes,and I totally balanced my check book by moving all my debt from one credit card to another.
Whether it "saved" the economy is something we will not be able to determine until we've paid for it.
Yes, this is total crap. Just more evidence that the banking system is more corrupt than anyone ever imagined. I mean Visa and MasterCard were content to deal with the Canadian Pharmacy operation for a DECADE and now suddenly the financial institutions are ganging up on WikiLeaks of all things?
Remember guys. If you want to do something about this, your best bet is to support BitCoin, a peer to peer currency with a small but rapidly growing economy. A BitCoin is worth roughly 25 cents on the exchanges. The production BitCoin network needs your CPU or GPU time to grow stronger, so mosey on over and grab the distribution. It's MIT/X11 licensed.
"If you guys do anything to harm me, I'll release this file full of information which I'll slowly release anyway".
I don't think the word "security" means what he thinks it means.
I have been enough to America, to know that msot of the folk is highly prejudicied for a reason or another. I am always polite, and try to speak the local language as good as possible. But once people remark my french accent, it is game over. I get cold shoulder and so on. And pelase don't tell me that's because I am french : 1) I have colleague from other nationality which also got cold shoulder (Iran, Indian, Swiss, german, Spanish nationalities) 2) For TRULY polite people it would not matter which color or nationaly one is, by default people should be polite with people they don't know anything beyond the nationality.
Sure it is only a bunch of anecdotial story, and so no real evidence, but really I call bullshit on what you said. The US is not a country of polite people. Provide us evidence of it and maybe we'll all think our anecdotial evidence is only a sign we got bad luck. until then, all i have to answer you is : get real.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Have you ever been to America? They're some of the politest and most welcoming people you'll ever meet. The dichotomy between the decency of the people there, and the corruption of the government is inexplicable.
It's not just us. Visit Italy or Kampuchea or Nigeria, among others. The average guy practically anywhere is usually pretty decent, even if his government is unbelievably corrupt. Democracy can reduce the level of official corruption, but it's not a silver bullet, e.g., Italy or Louisiana.
FWIW, America's problem is its hypertrophied nationalism. People here identify so strongly with their idealized image of their country that when someone points out flaws or misdeeds by the government, they interpret it as a personal attack.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
We assume that banks transact their client's funds with an implicit neutrality, or else anyone in possession of a check couldn't trust that it was a valid monetary substitute. BoA isn't indicating "illegal" behavior, only that the recipient is acting in a manner inconsistent with BoA policies.
Between the Government stampede to eliminate the 1st amendment, and the use of corporations to act where the rule-of-law isn't convenient, the US Government and Corporate overlords are playing with fire.
All democracy-loving non-US entities should be watching carefully as this plays out.
Let's set some things straight:
- Wikileaks leaks PUBLIC information (not PRIVATE). Credit card numbers are not public info, voters don't need this info to decide how to vote. What the government does, on the other hand, is something we need to know. Remember Wikileaks censored the names of US informants in the war diaries.
- About the cables - Wikileaks actually did not leak them to the public. They gave them to 5 major newspapers around the world who discussed them together and decided what to leak and what not to leak.
- It's not up to Wikileaks to decide what public info is important and what public info is not. This is up to us, the public. We already trust our governments to tell us info that is important, and they don't tell us (as evidenced by the Iraq Diaries leak). What good does it do if Wikileaks does the same thing as the government and also decides what we should know? Wikileaks is not an activist group, it only gives the public access to the info it can get us. Whether that information is important or not is up to members of the public to decide. And frankly, in a country where people elect their president based on his skin color, religion or how good looking he is in a suit then I think even whether Hilary Clinton wears red or white underwear is probably important public information too (at least to some people).
- Consider also that people who leak documents take risks. They want to be sure that the information they give Wikileaks WILL be published otherwise they could be taking risks for nothing. This is another reason why Wikileaks should not decide what is important and what is not. The only thing Wikileaks should sort out is what is public and what is private info.
- I'm not even sure what you guys are getting at. Are you suggesting Wikileaks sometimes leaks irrelevant information? Or that it should be shut down because it does not always leak important information? Or are you just bashing it for no reason other than you find it fun. Whatever your reasons I respect them, but I just don't understand what is the point you are trying to make.
Fortunately the US law doesn't apply where Mr. Assange has his mailbox.
I imagine because they have lots of lawyers and money and he does not.
Move to a local Credit Union. Cheaper fees and much better service along with responsiveness. I did and Yes I have Direct Deposit, Online Banking with Bill Pay, far better interest on my savings and checking plus a much better rate on my credit card. Another advantage is that a credit union can not pull this kind of shit as the members cand and should review the leadership on a regular basis, then decide if they need replacement.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
And would that be because of BoA's recent behaviour with Wikileaks, or the fraud and corruption of which Wikileaks claims to have evidence?
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
That will just make it illegal to send money to Bitcoin.
While I've taken a personal stance that sending money to Wikileaks via Bitcoin is a good thing, most of the people on the Bitcoin forums are against the idea and the lead developer wants to stay away from Wikileaks as long as he can. It is already causing grief for the Wikimedia Foundation, especially as Jimmy Wales ended up buying the domains for Wikileaks through a comedy of errors (via Wikia).
The nail in the coffin on the idea of using Bitcoin to send money to Wikileaks is that the Wikileaks guys don't want it either. If you set up an address for Wikileaks, they won't even take the bitcoins. I think they are foolish to do that, but that is their prerogative and not something you can force upon a group like this. Their main complaint is that they can't get the money out to pay their bills... something that is of a concern. You can easily exchange Bitcoins for Liberty Reserve Dollars, but getting your money out from LR Dollars isn't easy either and that seems to be the main sticking point.
Bitcoins certainly isn't ready to process tens of thousands of dollars in daily throughput to and from federal reserve notes... at least yet. There are some volunteers and interested parties trying to get that going, but it isn't there yet, and you certainly can't buy bitcoins with PayPal or a credit card at the moment unless you personally know somebody with a stack of bitcoins willing to sell them in a direct exchange.
About the only thing bitcoins are good for at the moment is to trade Dollars for Russian Rubles and the other way around. It works pretty good that way and I got at least a couple of Rubles via Bitcoin. You can also indirectly trade both currencies for Japanese Yen, although that market is still quite slow as there aren't many in Japan trading bitcoins at the moment. Somebody selling pounds might be a potential market that currently isn't being met either.
On a side note, I came to realize that there's no true alternative to US based credit card companies.
I'll be ditching my Mastercard soon. However, there are no real alternatives. Here in Europe there's the German EC debit card but it is only accepted in Germany, Switzerland and neighbouring regions.
This situation is actually more concerning than Oracle becoming arseholes over Java. Most likely, the US government can influence payments globally.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Ah right, sorry, I didn't mean "use BitCoin to send Wikileaks money". I meant to support it as a general statement against the existing banking system, the problems of which the Wikileaks fiasco happens to have clearly exposed but would have been problematic anyway.
It sure doesn't help. Neither does the overall level of apathy and lack of awareness of current events beyond the heavily filtered TV news sources.
The real killer, IMHO, is that we're so physically isolated by the oceans that relatively few Americans visit other developed countries to see how other people live. When I first spent a few months in western Europe, I felt like those Soviet soldiers in WW2 that Stalin subsequently purged because they had seen how well people lived in the West, contrary to Soviet propaganda.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
When I bought a house, with an FHA loan, I was informed that the loans are only "temporarily" run through FHA and that it'd be sold to a bank within 3 months.
When I found out BofA bought my home loan, I cringed. They're nothing but assholes, the crap I went through when they bought out MBNA and acquired my main credit card was unbelievable.
They recently started fucking around with the interest rates (fortunately the one on the house payment is fixed!) on cards, and they tried to stick an $80 "security" monthly payment to my escrow when, the month after paying yearly property tax, the escrow went a few cents under $50.
Yeah. "Bank of America" needs to get their asses kicked.
Suing a bank over something only they have records for? Good luck! Especially in the US where your chance to get your right mostly depends on how deep your pockets are. And you're standing against someone whose pockets are residing in the Grand Canyon.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You don't need Wikileaks or /. comments to see obvious evidence of fraud, corruption and criminal activity by BofA and all of the other big banks.
Municipal bond bid-rigging
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-24/bankers-rigging-municipal-contract-bids-admit-to-lying-to-cover-up-tracks.html
Failing to transfer mortgage notes into MBS trusts . . . but not keeping them on the balance sheets either? Hmmmmm.
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2010/11/countrywide-routinely-failed-to-send-key-docs-to-mbs-trustees.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EconomistsView+(Economist's+View+(EconomistsView))
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-02/bofa-drags-balance-sheet-confidence-backward-commentary-by-jonathan-weil.html
These are great because a senior BofA executive testified under oath that BofA routinely never trasnferred mortgage notes to the mortgage trusts when they were sold as "Mortgage Backed Securities" i.e. they were really "Nothing Backed Securities"
Now, the funny part is that BofA is Disavowing the testimony of its own executive.
http://www.bankinvestmentconsultant.com/news/bofa-mortgage-2670073-1.html?zkPrintable=1&nopagination=1
If you need any further evidence of fradu and corruption, "4closurefraud.com" also has a mountain of dirt and evidence of fraud, forgery and corruption bu BofA and the other the big banks.
Anyone still doing business with these scumbags is either completely apathetic to the idea of "voting with your dollars" as a form of social activism, or just a fool.
Well I'd be pulling out 20 figures! But it'd be in Zimbabwean dollars, so I don't think it'd help.
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
You'll notice that the US Government didn't really do *too* much to Assange after his prior leaks. Hell, he already leaked before and they didn't "shut 'em down". On the other hand, they shut the hell out of dozens of domains that pirates trademarked purses and stuff last month. If they can do that, why can't they do the same for something that supposedly "puts national security and lives at risk"? Right, because it doesn't and it didn't.
However, THIS time, he warns that he has pretty dire information about financial institutions and THEN shit suddenly hits the fan. The clear point here being that it's the FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS that are putting the screws to him.
That's my point. If BoA has been engaged in these shenanigans so long and their customers didn't leave them, what is so different about this Wikileaks thing that should worry BoA that anybody would actually go to the effort of closing their account? People are lazy.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
BTW, I happen to agree and think that supporting Bitcoin is going to be one way to end the cartel control over the world's banking system. Bitcoins are certainly going to be something significant to start using if Dollars and Euros start to go hyperinflationary on us.
I happen to think that is a very real possibility, and there is a whole bunch of reasons to start to worry about the next major crash that is going to slam world curencies: naked shorting on precious metal contracts. I've read stories about how there is now about 100x more metal being sold as contracts than physically exists on the Earth in the form of tangible metal you can hold and use. This is way above and beyond any metal backed currencies which also have this problem.
Bank of America is right in the middle of this fiasco, and it may be one of several things to be revealed in the upcoming document dump. It is something that could potentially shut down the U.S. economy as a whole because it is so bad... worse in some ways than the derivative market fiasco and this time American taxpayers are not going to bail these banks out. That card has been played already with those who voted for that package no longer in political power.
When all hell breaks loose, Bitcoin is going to be looking mighty fine.
Systems like BitCoin will become illegal because they allow transferring of money outside of government control. Most governments today are too corrupt to allow citizens free reign with their funds. The excuses are legion: tax evasion, Wars On Everything, money proceeds from general crime etc. So instead of trying to figure out ways to create a taxation system that works and is financially viable (which of course would mean 80-90% reduction in size of most governments), stopping ridiculous religiously-motivated witch-hunts or fighting actual crime as opposed to its symptoms, the governments take the easy (and most profitable to them) way out: ever more Orwellian control of all citizenry.
We see it continuously on every front, but nowhere it is as vicious as in the world of money. OECD governments will terrorize any country that refuses to become their slavishly obedient "partner" in their taxation schemes, they will stop at nothing to eliminate all cash transactions (as cash is mostly untraceable), they drool at the day when every last cent of every last citizen has been accounted for, taxed, tracked and eventually transferred to the personal account of some lawyer, lawyer-cum-politician, bureaucrat paper-pusher or their personal friend business associate.
That is why any e-currencies are all doomed to fail: they are one of the ultimate threats to absolute power of governments over citizenry. E-currencies that have a centralized registry (as does BitCoin) offer a central point of attack and that is how they will be destroyed. Any other attempts will be attacked at the point of conversion to real-world goods and services. And if you do not believe me, you can look up what happened to other, earlier attempts such as e-gold.
I do not believe that a currency not subject to complete government control will become viable until a far-greater-in-scope revolt against the farce that the "democratic" governments have become is successful. And that is an entirely different story.
My personal take is that the Dark Ages of totalitarianism-dressed-up-as-"freedom" are upon us and things will keep getting progressively worse until the day when blood of the lawyers and politicians, their mercenaries and many, many of those yearning for freedom will flow on the streets of the oh-so-smug "democracies" again.
August/2010 A warrant for Assange is issued by the Swedish Prosecution Authority.
August/2010 The law firm of Borgstrom and Bodstrom quickly volunteer to represent the two accusers, Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilen.
Thomas Bodstrom, former Justice Minister, has an interesting background: he came under investigation four times by Sweden's constitutional committee while Justice Minister after arresting members of the Pirate Bay file-sharing operation. He was also instrumental in pushing through the EU’s data retention directive.
And here’s an interesting quote on the attorney Bodstrom:
“Thomas Bodström will be remembered as the minister of justice who flushed the Swedes' civil rights down the head. He wants to eavesdrop on people who aren't even suspected of criminal activity, he wants to monitor all computer traffic, he wants to read all your email, he wants to store your telephone calls, and he wants to remove the prohibition against using the military against civilians.” - Anna Sjödin January 2006
(sgt.d: It’s important to understand that Bodstrom was also responsible for pushing through a harsh warrantless-wiretapping-type legislation in Sweden, extremely similar to what the Bush administration had pushed through in the States. Also, Bodstrom once remarked, while Justice Minister, that he had the right to bug any and every newspaper in the country without first obtaining a court order or warrant.)
[Anna Ardin is, or was, the political secretary and press officer for the Swedish Brotherhood Movement. Also a member: Thomas Bodstrom.
It was the Social Democrat Party that invited Assange to speak on its behalf at an event in Stockholm that month. Ardin had arranged Assange's travel for the event.
At the very beginning of the Assange investigation, and during it, details were illegally leaked to the tabloid, Expressen, owned by the Bonnier family. Attorney Claes Borgström’s two sisters, Annette Kullenberg and Kerstin Vinterhed, both work for Bonnier family newspapers, and Anna Ardin happened to intern at the publication, GT, also owned by the Bonnier family, by way of Expressen.]
November/2010 Par Nuder, former co-cabinet member with Thomas Bodstrom, and former adviser at one time to Bodstrom, is hired as a director at Madeliine Albright’s international lobbyist firm, Albright Stonebridge Group. (Certainly one might suspect Madam Albright having worries about possible leaked State Department cables and how they could reflect upon her.)
November/2010 Thomas Bodstrom travels to USA.
December/2010 Within moments after the announcement that Assange will be granted bail, we hear from the USA Attorney General, Eric Holder (with a background defending corporate assassins and mercenaries), that the American Justice Department will be taking legal action against BP and other companies.
[Now we know from those Wikileaked cables (and other past sources, of course), that the US government, British government, and others, have been pressured by the oil companies in their diplomatic activities. We also know that the US government has acted to compromise foreign legal systems. Could this be a situation were the US government is either acting to pressure the UK to allow the Swedish extradition of Assange?
Or the Americans are actually acting on behalf of BP, to appear to be pressuring the UK?]
In the same Olof Palme Centre which houses the offices of the Social Democrat Party, one also finds nearby the offices of the National Endowment for Democracy. (The N.E.D. just happens to be funded by the US government, and was set up by President Reagan in 1983 as a civilian extension to covert activities overseas.)
Closing remarks: Given the above information, together with previous statements by attorneys and bloggers of the erased tweets from An
The other half of the story is this... The banks gave out loans that they knew had very little chance of ever being repaid and then sold those bad loans off to the unwary as fast as they could. Legal does not equal ethical. Remember that, and you'll know why people are so pissed at the banks. If they were in it to make an ethical buck, then they could have still made those loans, kept the risk, then re-mortgaged people who were in trouble at more favorable (to the borrower), but less profitable terms (for the owner of the loan), which would have still made the banks (less) money AND kept people in their homes. Instead, the banks chose to foreclose, as that way they could charge the people they sold the bad loans to for administering the foreclosure, not have to worry about losing the principle or interest on the loans, and leaving borrowers bankrupt and homeless. Sure, the people who took those loans shouldn't have, but if only one party, ie the banks, had done the right thing at any step of the way, everyone could have still come out of this without it having been half as bad as it's been.
They need to die. They're incompetent AND fraudulent. Unfortunately for me they bought my mortgage back in June (something I'm still cranky with TD Bank about). I just got called by them again last night (by a robot) claiming my mortgage is past due. Problem? I paid the mortgage over a week early. But they can't handle that. This is the fifth month in a row they haven't been able to figure out my mortgage is actually paid up in full, and they will (once again) have to admit and apologize to me that they were in error by claiming I was behind on payments... again... I'm calling them again Monday to do this dance again, but first I'm calling my state's Department of Banking and Insurance to file a complaint. This has gone beyond the pale. Then I'm calling them, informing them ONCE AGAIN that they are abject MORONS, and demanding to see proof that they actually hold the promissory note on my mortgage as chances are with this level of incompetence they never actually bothered to get the note when they bought the damn thing, and if they don't have the note they don't own the mortgage and they can kiss my ass.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
That explains why even the libertarains that are forever going on about how they need big guns to overthrow the government go crazy at even the mildest criticism of that government by outsiders. They call for death for leakers but a bed of flowers for those that sold US missiles to Iran with some sort of backdoor Presidential approval.
Bitcoins is a totally retarded idea because the more popular it gets, the more energy has to be needlessly wasted and more CO2 and other pollution pumped out, higher risk of nuclear accidents etc etc 'The production BitCoin network needs your CPU or GPU time to grow stronger' Shouldn't we all be against this?
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Even if the bank succeed in assassinating Julian Assange, WikiLeaks will release the documents to their mainstream press partners.
(Think about it. if he, as the public face of WikiLeaks, causes only a 1% drop in stock valuation, that's still billions of dollars out of the pocket of the banking community. The man's dead. He'll be a martyr, but a very dead one.
[The "rape trial" is obviously an attempt at character assassination. Rape as a crime is NEVER pursued so much as to cause extradition. Once the leak is done with, the charge will be done with...
{Julian Assange may be a prick and an egotistical asshole. For all I know he may even be guilty. Rape charges DON'T happen like that unless somebody with "mui dinero" is calling the shots.
(Think of what YOU could expect if your sister was the victim. Do you see the cops from the local precinct running to another country to capture somebody. Its not even a murder. That's what I'm saying.)}])
Now the question is how scared are these partners.
Do the Guardian, the New York Times and half a dozen other still retain enough editorial integrity not to knuckle under from the shit storm of advertising the banks are going to unleash defending their fictional record and fighting the truth of how nefarious, perfidious, greedy, grasping, manipulative, wanton crazed, depraved and devoid of human sensibility, their actions are.
Banks are definitely not charities.
They aren't even businesses.
They're banks.
They handle money, and money is the root of all evil.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
From the middle of the fifteenth century to the twenty-first, banks have only cared about one thing and one thing only.
POWER!
Mugabe lost it, so the banks cooperated until the Zimbabwean dollar was solely backed by Mugabe's fillings.
The value of the German mark was manipulated after the first world war to the benefit of the Krupp industrial group.
That little debacle resulted in bankrupting the country, theft of all of the funds (a few million marks was a comfortable retirement one month and the face value of the stamp saying the bank had closed your account the next.)
Krupp just happens to make arms so it also led to the second world war.
Why do you think that the federal government and the Federal Reserve are so scared of inflation?
The specter of needing a wheelbarrow full of bills to buy a loaf of bread haunts their memory worse that the great depression.
The Catholic church may have been extreme in its excommunication of money lenders, but that doesn't mean that they weren't right about money being the root of all evil.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.