Yearly Archives: 2013

PGP inventor and Silent Circle co-founder Phil Zimmermann on the surveillance society

"Right now Moore’s Law is being accelerated in a specific direction by policy pressures. The policy pressure of creating more surveillance as response to the 9/11 attacks. We have to work harder to push back on policies that 9/11 brought us. It is time to re-examine the Patriot Act and re-examine everything. We need engineers and technologists to guide technology in the right direction and not optimize for surveillance. I would like to see a pushback, both on the technology and policy fronts. The engineers tend to be more aware of these problems and they need to be politically aware of the dangers of developing tools of surveillance." Continue reading →

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Steve Gibson: The Lesson of Lavabit

"I am impressed that Ladar chose to shutdown his service rather than continue to promise something that he now unequivocally knew was no longer secure in the face of law enforcement’s quasi-legal incursions. It would have probably been better if he hadn’t attempted to offer security that was beyond his ability to provide. During my weekly Security Now! podcast with Leo Laporte, we use the acronym 'TNO' (Trust No One) to refer to any system where readily available cryptographic technology is properly employed in such a fashion that it is not necessary to trust the behavior of any third party." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSteve Gibson: The Lesson of Lavabit

Has your life been stolen from you by the IRS?

"This stupid witch hunt which people inside the U.S. think is going after the uber rich 'off shoring' in 'tax havens' has done more to harm low and middle income 'targets' than anything I’ve seen them do down there in a long time. The comment by President Obama last week that they are paying to fix their infrastructure by 'repatriating taxes' is a LIE, it’s NOT 'taxes' It is fines and fees and penalties on paperwork nobody ever heard of outside the U.S. for the most part and they know it. If it were taxes it would even come close to being enough, as according to American Citizens Abroad, 82% of expats would owe zero taxes." Continue reading →

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Will Europe pay the price for one-sided U.S. financial information demands?

"For example, under a law recently approved by the parliament of the United Kingdom (the first country to sign an IGA), HM Revenue & Customs commits explicitly to impose the American FATCA law on British institutions. The costs of regulatory implementation by HMRC would fall on British taxpayers. In turn, UK financial institutions (and their customers) would bear hundreds of millions of pounds in costs for collecting the information for transfer to the IRS. The direct revenue benefit to the Exchequer? Zero. What is the U.S. obligated to provide in return? Nothing, as it happens. The IGAs have no clear status in American law." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWill Europe pay the price for one-sided U.S. financial information demands?

The Devolution of Financial Privacy

"It’s been no secret that China views FATCA very unfavorably and negotiations towards compliance are going nowhere. It seems unlikely that the US would hit China with the 30% withholding tax for non-compliance. With China holding roughly $1.2 trillion in US Treasuries, it’s not as if it lacks its own leverage over the US government. This leaves the FATCA juggernaut stuck in a Sino-US standoff. It appears the US will have to either make serious concessions to win China over or back down on the 30% non-compliance tax. Should China stand its ground and not compromise on FATCA, it would punch a massive hole in global compliance." Continue reading →

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Stop-and-Frisk: How Government Creates Problems, Then Makes Them Worse

"Ask yourself why after so many decades of apparent failure — drugs are plentiful, accessible, and inexpensive — prohibition persists, as if spending more taxpayer dollars or coming up with some new law-enforcement gimmick will bring success. Maybe prohibition has not failed at all. Maybe the purpose is simply to spend the money and expand law enforcement. Maybe all the moralizing is simply a ruse. And maybe what Thomas Paine said about wars also applies to the war on drugs: 'a bystander, not blinded by prejudice nor warped by interest, would declare that taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that wars were raised to carry on taxes.'" Continue reading →

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Texas Police Hit Organic Farm With Massive SWAT Raid

"Members of the local police raiding party had a search warrant for marijuana plants, which they failed to find at the Garden of Eden farm. The real reason for the law enforcement exercise appears to have been code enforcement. The police seized '17 blackberry bushes, 15 okra plants, 14 tomatillo plants ... native grasses and sunflowers,' after holding residents inside at gunpoint for at least a half-hour, property owner Shellie Smith said in a statement. The raid lasted about 10 hours, she said. She said the police didn't produce a warrant until two hours after the raid began, and officers shielded their name tags so they couldn't be identified." Continue reading →

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Bill Bonner: Thank You, TSA, NSA, FBI, and CIA!

"Respect for authority is cyclical. And presently, the authorities are enjoying an upswing. People look to them to get things they can’t get on their own. Health care paid for by someone else… a retirement they can’t afford… and foolish pride they don’t deserve. U.S. troops patrol the streets of towns we never heard of… American drones wipe out families we never met… the NSA listens in on the world’s conversations… Yes, thanks to the NSA, TSA, CIA, IRS, FBI, and Pentagon, no sparrow can fall anywhere in the world without it setting off alarms in America’s command centers." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBill Bonner: Thank You, TSA, NSA, FBI, and CIA!

Romanian princess indicted in northwestern U.S. cockfighting ring

"John W. Walker is a former sheriff’s deputy and the group faces charges ranging from conspiracy to violate the federal Animal Welfare Act to illegal gambling. Irina Walker is the middle daughter of Romania’s King Michael I and Queen Anne. She is fifth in line for the throne of that country. She was born in Switzerland. King Michael abdicated the throne in 1947, but the family still owns a quartet of castles in the former Soviet-occupied country. Prosecutors say that the farm where the fights took place is subject to federal forfeiture because it was used for a criminal enterprise. Irina and John Walker each face years of prison time and millions of dollars in fines." Continue reading →

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Zurich unveils ‘sex boxes’ for prostitutes

"The city of Zurich on Thursday unveiled a sex drive-in which local authorities say will enable them to keep closer tabs on prostitution, a year after voters backed the plan. Due to be opened officially in a ceremony on August 26th, the nine so-called 'sex boxes' are located in a former industrial zone in the west of the metropolis, the city said. With over 1.8 million people, the Zurich conurbation makes up almost a quarter of Switzerland's population, and the city itself has long been home to a red-light district. Work on the new site cost 2.1 million francs ($2.2 million), below the voter-approved budget, while running costs are expected to be around 700,000 francs a year." Continue reading →

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