Another notable whistleblower

In the December 27, 2010 edition of The Nation (available online only to subscribers), we learn of Martin Woods, who was an expert at spotting dirty money flowing through banking systems. In 2005 he took a job with Wachovia Bank. He was in for a rude awakening when, in 2006, during the Lebanon war, his superiors reprimanded him for trying to freeze in account used by Hezbollah. That same year, he identified suspicious transactions relating to Mexican currency exchanges--deposits of travelers checks “with sequential numbers for large amounts of money--more than any innocent person would need--with inadequate or no identity information on them, and what seemed to a trained eye to be dubious signatures.” Instead of being commended, his superiors at Wachovia Bank told him to “stop asking questions and to cease blocking suspicious transactions.” As the article points out, it turns out that his suspicions were entirely correct based upon the seizure of 5.7 tons of cocaine by the Mexican military. This year, the Justice Department charged Wachovia with the largest violation of the Bank Secrecy Act in US history, fining the bank $160 million. Shortly thereafter, Wells Fargo purchased Wachovia during the 2008 crash for $12.7 billion, thanks to a $25 billion handout of US taxpayer money. What happened to Martin Woods? The bank charged him with professional misconduct in 2008. He received “a stinging reprimand [claiming] that his actions could expose the bank to potential regulatory jeopardy and even large fines.” In December, 2008, Woods sued Wachovia for harassment and detrimental treatment, and the bank settled in 2009 for an amount which was undisclosed. For these reasons, I'm adding Martin Woods to my private Whistle-Blower Hall of Fame, along with Bradley Manning and Bradley Birkenfeld.

Continue ReadingAnother notable whistleblower

Good without God, believers and otherwise

At Daylight Atheism, Ebonmuse has posted on the struggles of non-believers to put their simple messages in public places that invite traditional religious messages. Examples are these inflammatory messages: "Millions of Americans are Good without God," and "Don't Believe in God? You Are Not Alone." In another recent post, Ebonmuse points out that many Americans lie about going to church. The actual numbers of people who attend church regularly are much lower than self-reports. His analysis includes strategies for severing the alleged link between religiosity and morality. These are two of the highly relevant posts that you'll find at Daylight Atheism, an excellent site that explores religion and atheism.

Continue ReadingGood without God, believers and otherwise

Beware Little Brother

Paranoia waxes and wanes in this country, but let's set aside the propensity for some media personalities of late to fan the "they're out to get you" flames. Even with the ubiquitous presence of Youtube videos from cell phone cameras and more heightening the sensitivity of everyone not a celebrity to the truth that someone is always watching, I'll submit that few are aware of this surreptitious encroachment on our privacy... Eva Galperin, at the Electronic Frontier Foundation writes in a commentary entitled "What is Traitorware?":

Your digital camera may embed metadata into photographs with the camera's serial number or your location. Your printer may be incorporating a secret code on every page it prints which could be used to identify the printer and potentially the person who used it. If Apple puts a particularly creepy patent it has recently applied for into use, you can look forward to a day when your iPhone may record your voice, take a picture of your location, record your heartbeat, and send that information back to the mothership.
I am a dinosaur when it comes to coding. I used to be able to reverse engineer programs to figure out how they worked - for fun or to learn a neat method, not for malicious purposes; it's like taking apart a laser pointer or a DVD player...just a curiosity. But today's software and hardware have too many hooks into other libraries, chips and Skynets. I have an iPhone to which I accede an agreement to 47+ pages of terms in order to use the only resource for loading applications (that would be the ever frustratingly inept coding known as iTunes) unless I want to jailbreak it. Uh, not today. And for that, plus my microwave, camera, and who knows what else, I yield my privacy.

Continue ReadingBeware Little Brother

What 2010 Meant

The Lame Duck Congress has ended the year with a Marathon of Epic Legislation.  I can't help being impressed.  Obama said he wanted Congress to do with Don't Ask Don't Tell, to repeal it legislatively, and not have it end up as a court-mandated order.  I can understand this, especially given the rightward shift of the judiciary.  But the way in which he went about it seemed doomed and certainly angered a lot of people who thought he was breaking a campaign promise.  (The puzzling lunacy of his own justice department challenging a court-led effort must have looked like one more instance of Obama backing off from what he'd said he was going to do.)  I am a bit astonished that he got his way. A great deal of the apparent confusion over Obama's actions could stem from his seeming insistence that Congress do the heavy lifting for much of his agenda.  And while there's a lot to be said for going this route, what's troubling is his failure to effectively use the bully pulpit in his own causes.  And the fact that he has fallen short on much.   It would be, perhaps, reassuring to think that his strategy is something well-considered, that things the public knows little about will come to fruition by, say, his second term. (Will he have a second term?  Unless Republicans can front someone with more brains and less novelty than a Sarah Palin and more weight than a Mitt Romney, probably.  I have seen no one among the GOP ranks who looks even remotely electable.  The thing that might snuff Obama's chances would be a challenge from the Democrats themselves, but that would require a show of conviction the party has been unwilling overall to muster.) The Crash of 2008 caused a panic of identity.  Unemployment had been creeping upward prior to that due to a number of factors, not least of which is the chronic outsourcing that has become, hand-in-glove, as derided a practice as CEO compensation packages and "golden parachutes," and just as protected in practice by a persistent nostalgia that refuses to consider practical solutions that might result in actual interventions in the way we do business.  No one wants the jobs to go overseas but no one wants to impose protectionist policies on companies that outsource.  Just as no one likes the fact that top management is absurdly paid for jobs apparently done better 40 years ago by people drawing a tenth the amount, but no one wants to impose corrective policies that might curtail what amounts to corporate pillage.  It is the nostalgia for an America everyone believes once existed that functioned by the good will of its custodians and did not require laws to force people to do the morally right thing.  After a couple decades of hearing the refrain "You can't legislate morality" it has finally sunk in but for the wrong segment of social practice. [More . . . ]

Continue ReadingWhat 2010 Meant