Monthly Archives: May 2015

Nepali State to Seize All Relief Funds from Bank Accounts

Posted on by

“After the money grab led to a public outcry, Nepali state actor Narayan Malego claimed that the seizure was justified, promising that the Nepali bureaucracy will ensure that ‘benevolent donations are not misused and the rights of victims are protected.’  But The Economist reports that after speaking to politicians, journalists and activists all across Nepal, they found the state apparatus there to be ‘marked by systematic fraud, [with] the financing of political networks [benefiting] powerful local figures and, indirectly, criminal gangs.’ And as for the ‘rights of victims,’ The Jackson Sun reports that the Nepali state has already been blocking the delivery of aid items by holding up the goods in airports.”

http://cointelegraph.com/news/114158/nepali-state-to-seize-all-relief-funds-from-bank-accounts

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Iceland Readies Law to Stop Currency Shock Before New Regime

Posted on by

“Iceland plans to create a set of laws to protect the island’s financial stability as it moves closer to removing capital controls that are blocking almost $6 billion in assets from exiting its markets.  The country has already implemented a number of ‘prudential rules’ and is working on others, including giving regulators the power to stop ‘excessive’ capital inflows and to limit foreign-currency borrowing.  Iceland imposed capital controls following the $85 billion default of Kaupthing Bank hf, Glitnir Bank hf and LBI hf in 2008. The banking crisis sent Iceland’s currency into a tailspin and forced the government to seek a $4.6 billion bailout led by the International Monetary Fund.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-28/iceland-prepares-laws-to-stop-krona-shock-when-controls-unwound

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Bill Gross: German bunds are ‘the short of a lifetime’

Posted on by

“Traders have been piling into the nation’s debt ever since European Central Bank President Mario Draghi announced his intention to commence U.S.-style quantitative easing, a debt-buying program aimed at keeping yields low and goosing the financial markets with liquidity.  ‘It’s just a question of when,’ Gross said during an interview on CNBC’s ‘Power Lunch.’ ‘It’s certainly a trade that doesn’t cost you anything in the short term, because it doesn’t yield anything and it has the ultimate potential of a 10 or 15 percent (return) over a one- or two-year period of time.'”

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102605761

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Bond Damage Tally: $430 Billion Lost as Slump Put in Perspective

Posted on by

“Global bond markets have lost about $430 billion since the start of last week as investors ponder the end of a six-year rally that sent yields to record lows.  Traders returning from Europe’s May Day holidays sent yields surging across the continent as tensions between Greece and its creditors worsened, adding to the anxiety. Yields began the climb last week as prominent bond investors from Jeffrey Gundlach to Bill Gross questioned the viability of negative yields with the European Central Bank’s stimulus measures appearing to put an end to the risk of deflation.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-05/bond-damage-tally-340-billion-lost-as-slump-put-in-perspective

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Why Did It Take a Sex Scandal to Topple the DEA Chief?

Posted on by

“DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart is stepping down. She’s been at the agency for 35 years, and her tenure since taking over in 2007 has been marked by a series of abuses, failures and missteps. In fact, the proximate cause for Leonhart’s exit is the eminently more headline-ready case of DEA agents having sex parties with prostitutes. Despite years of issues, the salacious, sexy headline is what pushed Leonhart out, whereas the systemic failures over the last decade received even less sanction than those agents’ seven-to-10-day suspensions. It’s not that the outrage in this case is misplaced—it’s that it’s a day late and a trillion dollars short.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/why-did-it-take-a-sex-scandal-to-topple-the-dea-chief/391182/

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Federal officials stole $1M in bitcoins from Silk Road while investigating it

Posted on by

“The Secret Service agent, Shaun Bridges, allegedly stole $800,000 worth of virtual currency, according to the complaint, and kept his stash in the exchange known as Mt. Gox. The DEA official, Carl Force, was ‘the lead undercover agent in communication’ with Roberts — a role that gave him the power to extort. Using a series of private, fictitious accounts, Force allegedly told Roberts he would bury evidence related to the case if Roberts paid him $250,000. In another instance, Roberts allegedly paid Force $100,000 in bitcoins after Force, using one of his anonymous accounts, offered up information related to the federal investigation.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/03/30/doj-these-federal-officials-stole-bitcoins-from-silk-road-while-investigating-silk-road/

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

DEA ‘Cold Consent’ Encounters Constitute Federal Stop-and-Frisk

Posted on by

“In a cold consent encounter, a person is stopped if an agent thinks that person’s behavior fits a drug courier profile. Or an agent can stop a person cold ‘based on no particular behavior,’ according to the Inspector General report. The agent then asks the people they have stopped for consent to question them and sometimes to search their possessions as well. By gaining consent, law enforcement officers can bypass the need for a warrant.  While many people who believe they have nothing to hide may–inadvisably–consent to a police search, they may not be familiar with federal civil asset forfeiture laws, which give federal agents wide latitude to seize property, especially cash, without charging anyone.”

http://www.cato.org/blog/dea-cold-consent-encounters-constitute-federal-stop-frisk

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

No DEA agents fired for Colombia prostitute parties: internal report

Posted on by

“An internal Drug Enforcement Administration report showed the agency gave its agents a mere slap on the wrist for purchasing the services of Colombian prostitutes, sometimes with taxpayer money and sometimes as they let local police watch their weapons and personal property.  A summary of the internal report shows the DEA doled out punishments to 10 of its agents, which ranged from a letter of caution to a two-week suspension. None of the agents who participated in the parties was fired.  In one instance, money to pay prostitutes at a farewell party for a high-ranking DEA official was included in an ‘operational budget’ that used government funds for the party, the report said.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/14/none-dea-agents-who-partied-prostitutes-were-fired/?page=all

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Government Now Tracking Millions of U.S. Cars

Posted on by

“A license-plate tracking system originally conceived to combat drug traffickers along the U.S.-Mexican border has drastically expanded to encompass millions of vehicles across the United States, according to official documents.  Law enforcement officials have tapped a database of vehicle movements, including times, dates and in some cases, images of drivers snapped by roadside traffic cameras, the Wall Street Journal reports.  The Drug Enforcement Agency established the program to monitor and impound cars used by drug traffickers along the US-Mexico border, but documents suggest that the program has expanded for a range of investigations unrelated to drug trafficking cases.”

http://time.com/3683826/license-tracking-cars-government/

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Feds no longer need a warrant to search your phone location records

Posted on by

“In a reversal of a decision from last year, the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled today that the government does not need a warrant to search wireless carriers’ cellphone records.  Instead, the court ruled, the government must only meet the standard for records obtainable under the Stored Communications Act, which requires that the government ‘offers specific and articulable facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe’ the records ‘are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation.’  The court ruled that there was no reasonable expectation of privacy toward the records and that the records were not obtained by what constitutes a ‘search’.”

http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/5/8555465/phone-records-location-warrant-court-ruling-reversal

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet