Mainstream News

Justice seeking to block Bernanke testimony

"The government is trying to block questioning of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in a lawsuit by the former head of American International Group Inc. The Justice Department told a federal appeals court Friday that high-ranking officials should not have to testify except in extraordinary circumstances. Former AIG CEO Hank Greenberg sued the government over the $182 billion bailout of the insurance giant that has since been repaid. It is rare for a Fed chairman to be questioned in a lawsuit, but Judge Thomas Wheeler ruled that Bernanke has firsthand knowledge of the bailout and should undergo questioning." Continue reading →

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Gold Investors Seek Alpine Haven in Swiss Army Bunkers

"At Pro Aurum, movement and vibration detectors add protection to the former Zuercher Kantonalbank branch in Kilchberg, a lakeside suburb of Zurich. Cameras hang from the ceiling to film employees as they fulfill orders from customers who can store valuables in one of the 700 safe deposit boxes or buy up to 100,000 francs ($107,000) of gold with cash over the counter without proof of funds such as a bank statement. About half of Buchwalder’s customers are Swiss, with Europeans making up most of the remaining clients. Pro Aurum, which also has units in Austria and Germany, trades 'over a billion francs' of gold per year." Continue reading →

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Prospectors pan Indiana creeks in quest for gold

"In the shallow streams and creek beds of Brown County, a new gold rush is going on. Outdoorsy types have taken to the water in search of flakes of natural gold left behind millions of years ago. No one is hitting the mother lode or striking it rich. But for modern-day Indiana prospectors, panning for gold is a chance to be outside, gather with like-minded friends and experience the thrill of finding buried treasure. Dozens of members of the Gold Prospectors Association of America gathered in the bends of Salt Creek, hunched over the water. Some of them used hand-held pans to sift through the bed of the stream." Continue reading →

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Decoding Bitcoin

"Chances are you have never used a Bitcoin, but you’ve probably heard of it. The virtual currency is popping up more and more in the news and the government has been showing an increased interest in the subject. For instance, the top Democrat and Republican on the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee this week told federal financial regulators and law enforcement officials to explain how they are keeping tabs on 'virtual' currencies, including the $1.2 billion market for Bitcoins. So what, errr, is a Bitcoin? What follows is guide to understanding the currency, why it’s used and why the government is paying attention." Continue reading →

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NSA abuses contradict Obama and congressional claims of oversight

"Government officials from President Obama on down have insisted the nation's surveillance programs are subject to layers of oversight. 'I am comfortable that the program currently is not being abused,' Mr. Obama said in a press conference last week, when he announced new efforts at increasing transparency. 'Part of the reason they're not abused is because these checks are in place.' However, the latest revelation that the NSA violated privacy rules thousands of times, as documented in an internal report -- an internal report withheld from at least one leader in Congress responsible for oversight -- proves they were wrong." Continue reading →

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N.S.A. Calls Violations of Privacy ‘Minuscule’

"The top National Security Agency official charged with making sure analysts comply with rules protecting the privacy of Americans pushed back on Friday against reports that the N.S.A. had frequently violated privacy rules, after the publication of a leaked internal audit showing that there had been 2,776 such 'incidents' in a one-year period. Mr. DeLong, speaking to reporters on a conference call, also argued that the overwhelming majority of the violations were unintentional human or technical errors and that the existence of the report showed that the agency’s efforts to detect and correct violations of the rules were robust." Continue reading →

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Nearly Every Major Federal Agency Has Reduced Projected Furloughs

"When sequestration was about to kick in, the Obama administration began a nearly across-the-board campaign to discuss the devastating impact the automatic cuts would have on agency operations. Furloughs, combined with hiring freezes, would disrupt the proper functioning of government, agency chiefs said, as fewer employees working fewer hours could not accomplish the same amount as a fully staffed workforce. While many federal agencies have in fact moved forward with furloughs, most major departments have reduced furlough days, or eliminated them altogether." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNearly Every Major Federal Agency Has Reduced Projected Furloughs

How Laura Poitras Helped Snowden Spill His Secrets

"By late winter, Poitras decided that the stranger with whom she was communicating was credible. There were none of the provocations that she would expect from a government agent — no requests for information about the people she was in touch with, no questions about what she was working on. Snowden told her early on that she would need to work with someone else, and that she should reach out to Greenwald. She was unaware that Snowden had already tried to contact Greenwald, and Greenwald would not realize until he met Snowden in Hong Kong that this was the person who had contacted him more than six months earlier." Continue reading →

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Concern over NSA privacy violations unites Democrats and Republicans, poll finds

"A July Washington Post-ABC News poll — before the latest disclosures reported by The Post — found fully 70 percent of Democrats and 77 percent of Republicans said the NSA’s phone and Internet surveillance program intrudes on some Americans’ privacy rights. What’s more, Democrats and Republicans who did see intrusions were about equally likely to say they were 'not justified:' 51 and 52 percent respectively. Nearly six in 10 political independents who saw intrusions said they are unjustified. There was less partisan agreement in 2006, when news about the George W. Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program broke." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingConcern over NSA privacy violations unites Democrats and Republicans, poll finds