Slashdot Mirror
Investor Lawsuit Blames NSA For $12B Loss In IBM Value
Jah-Wren Ryel writes "IBM Corp has been sued by the Louisiana Sheriffs' Pension & Relief Fund which accused it of concealing how its ties to what became a major U.S. spying scandal reduced business in China and ultimately caused its market value to plunge more than $12 billion." While anyone can file a lawsuit, being sued by an institutional investor is a little different than being sued by John Q. Disgruntled.
when this would happen. You just had to know that someone would go after them for this. I wonder how it will hold up in court. The bigger question I have is what else will be found during discovery
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Subject/citizen, you should not be concerned about your rights when it comes to security and law enforcement. But, we need legal remedy for business decisions that impact our nice retirement funds. Yeah...
i dont think you understand the underlying problem. American companies CANT say no to the government, because they get shutdown. dont you remember lavabit? he did say no to the NSA, and then they started prosecuting him for not giving them the information they wanted. it isnt really a matter of capitalism. as long as there is no oversight on things like the NSA, there will always be abuse. as long as there is no oversight on the NSA, companies cant really ever deny them access.
I feel like the NSA and the rest of the intelligence apparatuses have gotten to a point where the security of this nation trumps any man made law. If this nation is of and for the people, who the hell is the NSA working for?
I can't see how anyone is surprised here.
Would you purchase anything made by USA companies now if you want your data secure and safe?
I gave up starting a cloud storage busines for companies hosting apps/storage because there is no way to claim you have a secure and safe storage system when the goon squad can come in with grenades and machine guns and blow the place up looking for any sort of activity they feel is not "legal".
Secondly, the whole idea that companies outsource I.T. operations to reduce cost can't be made any more with any western institution. The result?
About 40 people I was going to hire to start this business won't see the light of day.
This is not just me either. In the investment circles I follow lots of people are leaving or simply shelving plans for any sort of real I.T. services expansion in the USA.
Those companies that are left and do hosting, Amazon, Google, Microsoft are doing so only because they already share all of their clients data with the NSA/CIA and are permitted to exist as a result.
The whoel thing is fascist and there is no competition under those sorts of conditions.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
IBM stock price (and market cap) dropped only 6.4 percent. This is just one more stupid shareholder lawsuit, some lawyers trying to make money when a company's stop price drops. It's nice that /. can contribute to the hype.
1: Pot calling Kettle Black; The Sheriffs actively participated in illegal wiretaps and clandestine domestic operations and were even trained by the federal agencies on how to handle protests and riots. See: Katrina. They knew damn well who IBM was in bed with.
2: Predatory Societies always grow until they run out of livestock, then they turn on each other. A predator knows no other skill, and their skill can't make bread. They know what they are doing is immoral and they're doing it anyway because it's the only thing they know how to do.
3: We're about to find if NSA Gag letters are permissible in court, and indemnify executive management from failing to disclose them on 8-k and 10-k filings...
4: A rotten corrupt government doesn't produce pension funds for police; it STEALS your pension irregardless of who you are or who you work for then they try to pump and dump, crash and buy, cajole, mind-fuck and carrot and stick an ever greater percentage of the economy and people's lives under their control for whatever demented reason all while dangling numbers on a piece of paper in-front of your face. Now that you're riled up, as elected officials ya'll should start putting banksters and financial wizards in jail and properly protecting the productive side of the economy who pays your paycheck from the unproductive, self-destructive side. Your pension is gone, ya might as well ruin the lives of the people who stole it and have some dignity when you're a 70 year old mall cop.
5: IBM is now a mostly Indian company that produces services and products nobody wants; the only companies that stick with them are their institutional partners and even THEY are leaving them behind due to financial necessity. You can only sell so many computers and services with 50-150% markup because "there's magic inside we can't describe". Their days of coasting along on reputation are nearing a very abrupt end.
They don't always shut down the company.
Sometimes they just arrest the COB/CEO. You don't really imagine there was zero connection between Joe Nacchio of Qwest refusing to give NSA customer records without a court order (this back in 2001) and his being arrested and jailed for insider trading, do you?
(He may have engaged in some questionable trades but nothing that other corporate execs have done without getting hit with such severe penalties.)
-- Alastair
There is no real business opportunity for US or European companies in China. If your business is major infrastructure or major industry you will experience a decline in business once sufficient experience and technology has been transferred to Chinese partners. Ex GE moves some jet engine manufacturing to China to sell to Chinese airlines while the Chinese government is simultaneously releasing its 10 year plan to replace foreign designed aviation components with domestically "designed" components.
The NSA is a convenient public excuse for China doing what it had planned to do all along.
I was unaware that it is against US law for a US Federal agency tasked with intercepting communications of non-Americans to spy on China.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
NSA has been acting as the boot forever stomping on the human face. This kind of behavior can be stopped by Obama (he's further up the NSA's chain of command, but still in the chain of command) but he hasn't done so. I can only guess that he's a force behind illegal NSA activity to which he'll still claim he "didn't know" about, just as he's claimed ignorance on the ACA website, or NSA surveillance on European allies. He's still culpable for the NSA's illegal activity, will he claim he didn't know that he has broken his oath to uphold and defend the US Constitution?
I don't think the problem here is that IBM worked with the NSA. Problem is that as a shareholder IBM should have said something more about it and keep shareholders informed about the risks towards the share price. At minimum IBM should have stated it is working closely with US government organisations in electronic surveillance programs, which may cause loss of business if political environment changes.
i dont think you understand the underlying problem. American companies CANT say no to the government, because they get shutdown. dont you remember lavabit? he did say no to the NSA, and then they started prosecuting him for not giving them the information they wanted.
You've kind of scrambled the history there.
Companies do say no to the government all the time unless the government has the actual right or power to make a demand. In Lavabit's case, Lavabit was defying a court order that only became necessary when they didn't meet a much more limited request from the FBI, which the FBI has the power to make. And it was Lavabit's choice to do that - both the defiance, and the shutdown. Lavabit's owner had a bad business model predicated on making promises he couldn't legally keep and stay out of jail or in business. That was a failure waiting to happen.
In a way I find it ironic that so many people here defend Lavabit given the large number of complaints you see on Slashdot about corporations breaking the law, owning the government, etc. At the end of the day, Lavabit was just another corporation that wasn't willing to obey the law.
You can make a reasonable argument that the government has too much power in this regard, but that is a different discussion.
as long as there is no oversight on things like the NSA, there will always be abuse. as long as there is no oversight on the NSA, companies cant really ever deny them access.
You must have missed some discussions. The NSA has oversight, and lacks the power to issue warrants or court orders itself. Even when it obtains a warrant or court order those warrants and court orders can be challenged in court.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
"I was unaware that it is against US law for a US Federal agency tasked with intercepting communications of non-Americans to spy on China."
It isn't. But it *IS* illegal (despite their claims otherwise) to spy on Americans in the process of spying on China. UNLESS they can SHOW some kind of probable cause to believe that American is involved in spying.
That's what the FICA Court rules say, and that's what EFF has been saying all along.
And they haven't just been spying on a few Americans... they've been spying on everybody they had the ability to spy on... regardless of any even pretended connections to espionage. And that is CLEARLY illegal. It's not even a matter of debate.
They may as well be suing the NSA, considering what would come out in discovery if this lawsuit is allowed to proceed. Or rather, what won't come out, in the interest of "national security."
Your paranoia does not extend to established business, which have the option to fight back but choose not to.
Oh how I pine for the day when I believed that shit. We were such a more innocent populace, weren't we? Go look up MKULTRA to start, and follow the Wikipedia links from there for a few hours. CEOs of companies, deans of universities, directors of hospitals, they were all in on it and that was the 1950s.
You think that sort of thing isn't going on now? The "option to fight back," oh good heavens, someone catch me before I pass out from laughter.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
He sounds like the crazy person who two years ago claimed that the government is tracking all of our emails and phone calls. He probably also believes Vince Foster didn't shoot himself in the back of the head and then drive to that park. That's what's so aggravating about this NSA stuff - it shows that sometimes crazy conspiracy theories are true.
That's the question that will be before the judge and jury - did court orders, NSLs, etc. prohibit IBM from revealing more than they did about ALL of the risky cooperation? It may be that a vague disclosure as suggested by TFA would have hurt the business, and therefore stockholders. It may be that some of the data sharing wasn't covered by gag orders, or maybe all of it was. We don't have the necessary facts to know. You and I haven't seen the gag orders (yet). Maybe the executive's hands were tied , maybe not. We don't yet have sufficient facts to know for sure.
you clearly dont read the monthly posts from google telling everyone how many requests theyve been asked for and how many theyve given. in ALL instances, where there was a warrant issued (by a secret court with no oversight), google gave up information on people.
we should all have a right to disobey court orders and warrants issued from a secret court with no requirements to follow the constitution.
The members of the FISA court are public record, they are judges from other courts that rotate through the FISA court. The function of the FISA court is documented. You seem disinterested in the facts of the matter.
THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE COURT - 2012 Membership
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The NSA may be acting independently but it is not a separate state or nation (yet). The federal, state, tribal, and local governments have a limited immunity in the US, the NSA is a government department, it is not "The" government anymore than the Pentagon itself is.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Also. It's classified government information, where's the risk taking actions? - Where did IBM fail to perform due diligence? Is the pension fund claiming that contracting/cooperating with a duly elected US federal government is a reckless risk to the shareholders investment? Note that doesn't mean I think IBM actions were morally justifiable just that the pension fund is going to have a hell of a time convincing a US court that IBM put shareholders funds at risk by cooperating with the (notorious?) US government.
The US government is quite likely IBM's biggest customer. IBM just has to read out the profit/loss statement from the US government to demonstrate the occasional $12B damage in brand recognition is just "the cost of doing business" with the US government. IBM's lawyers are probably sitting around snorting coke and laughing their arses off at this.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Yes they are claiming that cooperating/contracting to the US government is a reportable risk, even when such reporting would break a court order. They also seem to be claiming that dealing with the US government has obviously "tarnished its reputation".
I can't see how those claims will not be laughed out of a US court, the simple fact is that if you subtract $12B from the revenue IBM has made from the US government, the shareholder has received a consistent and healthy profit from the relationship for at least the past six decades.
Seems to me this is a political law suit, their intention is to make a point, they already know they will lose and have written the whole thing off as "advertising"..
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
we have a duty as american citizens to not follow any laws that are unconstitutional. in the case where the government deems laws constitutional that are not constitutional, we have a duty as americans to revolt and fight back against government oppression.
I can assure you the loss in value has nothing to do with the NSA and everything to do with horrible management. For years their plan to increase profits is to cut American jobs for cheap new hires in emerging countries. At some point we'll actually need to make something to sell when there is no one left to fire...
Psychopaths (1% of the population) generally have very short term outlooks and winning a particular goal whilst completely ignoring all consequences is basically normal behaviour for them. So garnering as much information as possible about everyone possible in order to build up a global extortion database so as to be able to blackmail every possible future politician into puppet like obedience (Uncle Tom Obama the choom gang coward) far outweighed the inevitability of getting exposed with so insane and psychopathic a conspiracy. This was not just the NSA/CIA but a whole range of major US military industrial complex contractors as well as telecoms, so all sorts ramifications will continue to play out for the next decade or so, all as a result of a series of individuals egoistically fulfilling their own perversions and delusion of power, total power, over everyone (really crazy psychopathic stuff, the 1% at their core).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
LOL cold, many NSA/US gov/mil whistleblowers have been in the US court system http://cryptome.org/2013-info/06/whistleblowing/whistleblowing.htm :)
The US gov likes to try color of law, state secrets and really push the need for expensive cleared legal staff to keep the tame US press away.
The US Constitution covers all actions by the NSA domestically and no US "gov" granted US "immunity" laws can legally out pace that
In the end the staff are usually cleared and internal changes are 'made' just to make the cases fail to gain any more domestic traction and US press attention.
Then you had Snowden who did the smart thing and went to the press, escaping the 'internal' US gov legal trap that is domestic whistleblower protections.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
This could get very interesting
I will be TRULY INTERESTING when institutional investors not only sue IBM, but also sue Cisco, Microsoft, Google and all other companies associated with NSA.
We the people, as individuals, have no power over that arrogant NSA - and those corporations, especially Cisco and Microsoft which had been in extra-ordinary friendly term with NSA, must face the same music IBM is facing, for what they have done.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Choose wisely as to what that issue will be, and how you will conduct your protest or revolt. You could end up in the history books as an example of wisdon, courage and character, or foolishness and fail.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell