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Congress Is Trying To Expand The Patriot Act (rare.us)
An anonymous reader writes: The house is scheduled to vote in an hour or so on expanding provisions of the patriot act, allowing massive financial information sharing to include dozens of new offenses ("specified unlawful activities"), including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The house bill is H.R. 5606. My quick read is that this essentially lets FEDGOV expand massive semi-secret databases of financial transactions without a warrant while protecting banks from liability for helping them. In 5 years from 2002-2007, for example, with a smaller ability this led to 35,000 suspects but there were only 21 search warrants. Call your representative. Rare.us reports: "The proposed bill, H.R. 5606, expands Section 314 of the Patriot Act to cover non-terrorism or money laundering related investigations. Critics claim that the bill is a threat to the privacy of innocent Americans and is being rammed through Congress without debate. Section 314 encourages law enforcement to share information with financial institutions on money laundering and terrorism. It also encourages financial institutions to share information with each other." The report says the House Liberty Caucus, led by Congressman Justin Amash (R-Mich.), opposes the bill, claiming that Treasury Department regulations will compromise the privacy of Americans as it will all but mandate financial institutions to share information with the government. The caucus also opposes the bill because it is being brought to the floor under a suspension of the rules, and is not being considered under "regular order." The bill's sponsor, Congressman Robert Pittenger (R-NC) described HR 5606 as an attempt "to stop the flow of illicit dollars to criminals and terror organizations."
Unfortunately, in this case, Republicans and Democrats wear the same stripes.
What they're doing is called 'overcriminalization' - an effect of people NOT breaking the current laws enough to continue making a profit incarcerating law-abiding people.
More at the (I know... I know..) Heritage Foundation:
http://www.heritage.org/issues...
http://www.heritage.org/issues/legal/overcriminalization
No sig for you! Come back one year!
While now is a dubious time to load up on bitcoin (markets are shakey, looks like a price drop is incoming), it may be a good idea to start factoring it into your portfolio for future semi-anonymous payments.
Regardless what people say, you can have some form of anonyminity with bitcoin. It will require the use of a tumbler, but if you don't mind spending $100 on EC2 instances you can create your own very easily or use a decentralized mixing service like coinjoin.
I'm not saying move your life savings to bitcoin, that would be beyond stupid. But having 5% in bitcoin holdings may prove to be helpful if a modified version of this bill is passed in the future
How do you turn bitcoin back into cash or gold without a paper trail?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
"civil judgment under this subsection" Civil judgment means the case has been adjudicated in criminal or civil court proceedings before any penalties as imposed. This allows an individual to contest the charges in court. However, this new bill is part of the Patriot Act. The government has tried to use provisions in the Patriot Act twice to prosecute a defendant. In both cases the judge threw out the governments case on constitutional grounds. The government has never attempted to use the Patriot Act since then because of fear that the entire Patriot Act could be declared unconstitutional. There's a reason the government is fighting so hard to keep the residents of Gitmo out of the US court system. Congress can pass any law they want using in-house council to vet the legality of the proposed law which is mostly a rubber stamp process. To challenge the law requires someone to actually be charged under the law and then the law can be challenged in court. Then the process of vetting the law can be moved up the judicial ladder usually ending up in the Supreme Court when constitutional issues are involved. If the government passes an unconstitutional law but never uses it against anyone it becomes meaningless. If you want to complain about something that actually matters try wrapping your head around the powers that the IRS has had for a long time. The government can access the IRS databases anytime they want without a warrant of any type. The IRS also has the ability to seize assets, levy fines, and even put people in jail for tax fraud.
Imagine you are a Jewish Gypsy living in 1932 Berlin, (two tickets to the camp)
What is the trigger event for you to make an move to another country ASAP ?
What are you taking with you and are willing to delay your move for ?
How do you chose where to go ?
if the USA has ceased to be "by the people,for the people" and now is run by the 1%ers (not the bikers !) what year is it ?
1929, 1933, 1936, 1939 ?
This is my opinion based on what little I know and understand of the rumors and lies Thanks, Randal
Want to bet? I've lived in Costa Rica and Panama for the past 30 years. I have no illusions that the US has its finger in EVERY pie. If a foreign bank wants to do business in or with the US, it is going to be forced to play by the rules. PERIOD. It's how the US operates. Do as we say, or we pull your aid package, we cancel our trade agreement, we withhold those millions we were going to give you to help fight the "war on drugs" etc, etc etc. Only major players like Russia or China are tough enough to keep the Americans out of their financial data - but then they're mining it themselves. Hell even Switzerland, Cyprus or the Caymans aren't sacred anymore.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.