Government Corruption News Articles

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AT&T feted lawmakers at Washington restaurants offering $52 steaks and a $15 “Lobbyist's Libation” made of gin and cucumber puree as the company sought U.S. approval to buy T-Mobile USA. The parties, carrying $1,000 admission charges and aimed at replenishing congressional campaign coffers, were held as the largest U.S. phone company sought regulators' blessing for the $39 billion deal. On Aug. 31, the Justice Department sued to block the transaction, saying it would harm competition. The litigation marks a rare setback for AT&T, long a leading Washington power. The Dallas-based company boosted lobbying spending by 30 percent to $11.7 million in the first six months of 2011 compared with a year earlier, Senate records show. AT&T's political action committee gave $805,500 to federal candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington research group. “The one thing you can say about their losing is that it wasn't for a lack of lobbyists,” Bill Allison, editorial director of the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington-based nonprofit that promotes government transparency, said in an interview. “They left no stone unturned.” AT&T's political action committee, which funnels employees' contributions to lawmakers' campaigns, was the most generous corporate PAC this year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Note: For more on corporate and government corruption from reliable sources, click here and here.

A longtime judge has been ordered to spend nearly three decades in prison for his role in a massive juvenile justice bribery scandal that prompted the state's high court to toss thousands of convictions. Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. was sentenced ... to 28 years in federal prison for taking $1 million in bribes from the builder of a pair of juvenile detention centers in a case that became known as "kids-for-cash." The Pennsylvania Supreme Court tossed about 4,000 convictions issued by Ciavarella between 2003 and 2008, saying he violated the constitutional rights of the juveniles, including the right to legal counsel and the right to intelligently enter a plea. Ciavarella, 61, was tried and convicted of racketeering charges earlier this year. Federal prosecutors accused Ciavarella and a second judge, Michael Conahan, of taking more than $2 million in bribes from the builder of the PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care detention centers and extorting hundreds of thousands of dollars from the facilities' co-owner. Ciavarella, known for his harsh and autocratic courtroom demeanor, filled the beds of the private lockups with children as young as 10, many of them first-time offenders convicted of petty theft and other minor crimes.

Note: For lots more from reliable sources on government and corporate corruption, click here and here.

The Pentagon ... plans to issue a new strategy soon declaring that a computer attack from a foreign nation can be considered an act of war that may result in a military response. The new military strategy ... makes explicit that a cyberattack could be considered equivalent to a more traditional act of war. The policy ... says nothing about how the United States might respond to a cyberattack from a terrorist group or other nonstate actor. Nor does it establish a threshold for what level of cyberattack merits a military response. In the case of a cyberattack, the origin of the attack is almost always unclear, as it was in 2010 when a sophisticated attack was made on Google and its computer servers. Eventually Google concluded that the attack came from China. But American officials never publicly identified the country where it originated, much less whether it was state sanctioned or the action of a group of hackers.

Note: For more on this, see the Wall Street Journal article at this link.

Anonymous, an online hacker group, released a string of e-mails last week that purportedly show mortgage document fraud at Bank of America. Many people yawned. After all, there have been well-documented cases of mortgage fraud and illegal foreclosures, and little has been done to punish Bank of America or any of the banks for their behavior. But just because the federal government has been slow to act on the mortgage crisis doesn't mean that these e-mails are any less valuable. The e-mails are a chain showing requests for Balboa Insurance employees to remove document tracking numbers from the system of record. Balboa Insurance became a division of Bank of America after the bank bought the bankrupt home loan company Countrywide Financial. The idea suggested in the e-mails was to misplace individual documents away from matching loans. This would make it harder for federal auditors to investigate individual loans. It would also make it far more difficult for individual homeowners to dispute or question bank action on their loans - and therefore obtain mortgage modifications or a stay on bank foreclosure. The Anonymous e-mails are serious indeed. They're a snapshot into why the mortgage mess spiraled out of control. While they don't tell the whole story, they point to the need for further investigation and possible action on behalf of the federal government. When people are losing their homes, the banks shouldn't be allowed to get away with deception.

Note: For a treasure trove of reports by major media sources on the collusion between government and banks against the public interest, click here.

The U.S. Supreme Court let stand a ruling that drug companies can pay rivals to delay production of generic drugs without violating federal antitrust laws. The justices refused to review a federal appeals court ruling that upheld the dismissal of a legal challenge to a deal between Bayer AG and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd's Barr Laboratories. Bayer paid Barr to prevent it from bringing to market a version of the antibiotic drug Cipro. The deal, involving Bayer's 1997 settlement of patent litigation with Barr, was challenged by a number of pharmacies, which appealed to the Supreme Court. More than 30 states and various consumer groups supported the appeal. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has opposed such deals, saying they violate antitrust law and cost consumers an estimated $3.5 billion a year in higher prescription drug prices. It has supported legislation pending in Congress to prohibit such settlements, which it says have increased in recent years. The New York-based appeals court, in its ruling last year, cited its similar 2005 decision involving the drug Tamoxifen, used to treat breast cancer, infertility and other conditions. The Supreme Court declined to review that case. In the Cipro case, the Supreme Court rejected the appeal by the pharmacies without comment.

Note: For lots more from reliable sources on government and corporate corruption, click here and here.

Authorities in Japan have begun excavating the former site of a medical school that may contain the remains of victims of the country's wartime biological warfare programme. The school has links to Unit 731, a branch of the imperial Japanese army that conducted lethal experiments on prisoners as part of efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction. The Japanese government has previously acknowledged the unit's existence but refused to discuss its activities, despite testimony from former members and growing documentary evidence. Unit 731, based in Harbin in northern China, conducted experiments on tens of thousands of mostly Chinese and Korean prisoners, and a small number of Allied prisoners of war. Some historians estimate up to 250,000 people were subjected to experiments. According to historical accounts, male and female prisoners, named "logs" by their torturers, were subjected to vivisection without anaesthesia after they had been deliberately infected with diseases such as typhus and cholera. Some had limbs amputated or organs removed. Leading members of the unit were secretly granted immunity from prosecution in return for giving US occupation forces access to years of biological warfare research. Some went on to occupy prestigious positions in the pharmaceutical industry, health ministry and academia.

Note: The US granted immunity to both German and Japanese researchers involved in highly cruel medical experiments which tortured and murdered victims in order to perfect mind control and more. For powerful documentation on this, see our two-page summary available here, and lots more at this link.

An FBI employee shared confidential information with his girlfriend, who was a news reporter, then later threatened to release a sex tape the two had made. A supervisor watched pornographic videos in his office during work hours while "satisfying himself." And an employee in a "leadership position" misused a government database to check on two friends who were exotic dancers and allowed them into an FBI office after hours. These are among confidential summaries of FBI disciplinary reports obtained by CNN, which describe misconduct by agency supervisors, agents and other employees over the last three years. The reports, compiled by the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility, are e-mailed quarterly to FBI employees, but are not released to the public. And despite the bureau's very strict screening procedure for all prospective employees, the FBI confirms that about 325 to 350 employees a year receive some kind of discipline, ranging from a reprimand to suspension. About 30 employees each year are fired. "We do have a no-tolerance policy," FBI Assistant Director Candice Will told CNN. "We don't tolerate our employees engaging in misconduct. We expect them to behave pursuant to the standards of conduct imposed on all FBI employees." However, the internal summaries show that even with serious misconduct, employees can keep their job (names and locations of the employees are not listed in the reports).

Note: For an abundance of revealing media articles on corruption in the intelligence agencies, click here.

Consumer Watchdog, an advocacy group largely focused in recent years on Google's privacy practices, has called [for] a congressional investigation into the Internet giant's "cozy" relationship with U.S. President Barack Obama's administration. In a letter sent [on January 24], Consumer Watchdog asked Representative Darrell Issa, the new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, to investigate the relationship between Google and several government agencies. "We believe Google has inappropriately benefited from close ties to the administration," the letter said. "It should not get special treatment and access because of a special relationship with the administration." Consumer Watchdog's latest complaints about the relationship of Google and the Obama administration are outlined in a 32-page report [which] questions Google's relationship with the U.S. National Security Agency and calls for the company to be more open about what consumer information it shares with the spy agency.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the man accused of trying to blow up an airplane over metro Detroit on Christmas Day 2009, appeared in federal court [on January 25]. A trial date has now been set. A couple of the passengers [who] showed up at court ... had an interesting theory about what really happened. "The U.S. government escorted them through security without a passport and, we believe, gave him an intentionally defective bomb," said Kurt Haskell. It's a startling allegation from two local attorneys [who] were on-board the 2009 Christmas Day flight to Detroit when Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to blow up a bomb hidden in his underwear. Kurt and Lori Haskell think the U.S. government was behind the whole thing. "It was intentional that it went this far to further the war on terror, to get body scanners in the airports, to increase the TSA's budget, to renew the Patriot Act and whatever other reasons you want to list," Kurt Haskell told FOX 2. The Haskells say in Amsterdam before boarding the flight to Detroit, they witnessed Abdulmutallab arguing with a ticket agent at the gate because he didn't have a passport when a man in a tan suit with an American accent intervened. They next saw Abdulmutallab on-board the plane when they saw fire and people screaming.

Note: For lots more powerful, verifiable information that this key incident was manipulated by powerful outsiders, click here.

The Drug Enforcement Administration has been transformed into a global intelligence organization with a reach that extends far beyond narcotics, and an eavesdropping operation so expansive it has to fend off foreign politicians who want to use it against their political enemies, according to secret diplomatic cables. The cables, from the cache obtained by WikiLeaks [offer glimpses of drug agents] in places where it can be hard to tell the politicians from the traffickers, and where drug rings are themselves mini-states whose wealth and violence permit them to run roughshod over struggling governments. Officials of the D.E.A. and the State Department declined to discuss what they said was information that should never have been made public. The D.E.A. now has 87 offices in 63 countries and close partnerships with governments that keep the [CIA] at arm’s length. Created in 1973, the D.E.A. has steadily built its international turf. Since the 2001 terrorist attacks, the agency’s leaders have cited what they describe as an expanding nexus between drugs and terrorism in further building its overseas presence.

Note: Isn't it odd that this report fails to mention the recent revelation in The New York Times itself that the American accused of masterminding the Mumbai attacks, David C. Headley, was a DEA agent while attending a "terrorism training camp" in Pakistan in the years before the attacks?

The Food and Drug Administration has wrapped up three days of hearings and public comment on the effort by AquaBounty Technologies, a Massachusetts company, to sell salmon genetically engineered to grow twice as fast as normal salmon. But the meetings ended without an FDA decision on whether the company can move ahead with sales. USA TODAY's Elizabeth Weise [answers questions about the issue]: Q: What are the issues? A: There are really two: Are these fish safe to eat, and are they safe for the environment? FDA staff, in a report released earlier this month, found the genetically engineered (or GE) salmon to be as safe to eat as normal salmon. But several members of the agency's Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee felt that the tests for food safety could have included more data and encouraged the agency to request more from the company. Q: What's the environmental issue? A: Some scientists and environmental groups worry that if these fast-growing salmon escaped into the ocean, they might out-compete native salmon populations for both food and mates. As almost all wild Atlantic salmon are endangered, anything that could harm them is of concern.

Note: For lots more from reliable sources on corporate and government corruption, click here and here. For a highly-informative overview of the threats posesd to health and the environment by genetically modified foods, click here.

Israel’s undercover operations here, including missions to steal U.S. secrets, are hardly a secret at the FBI, CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies. From time to time, in fact, the FBI has called Israeli officials on the carpet to complain about a particularly brazen effort to collect classified or other sensitive information, in particular U.S. technical and industrial secrets. The most notorious operation employed Jonathan Pollard, the naval intelligence analyst convicted in 1987 and sentenced to life in prison for stealing tens of thousands of classified documents for Israel. One of Israel’s major interests, of course, is keeping track of Muslims who might be allied with Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, or Iran-backed Hezbollah, based in Lebanon. As tensions with Iran escalate, according to former CIA officer Philip Giraldi, “Israeli agents have become more aggressive in targeting Muslims living in the United States as well as in operating against critics. There have been a number of cases reported to the FBI about Mossad officers who have approached leaders in Arab-American communities and have falsely represented themselves as ‘U.S. intelligence,’ ” Giraldi wrote recently in American Conservative magazine. “Because few Muslims would assist an Israeli, this is done to increase the likelihood that the target will cooperate. It’s referred to as a ‘false flag’ operation.”

Note: For an excellent overview of "false-flag" operations, click here.

A federal district court judge revoked the government’s approval of genetically engineered sugar beets [on August 13], saying that the Agriculture Department had not adequately assessed the environmental consequences before approving them for commercial cultivation. The decision, by Judge Jeffrey S. White of Federal District Court in San Francisco, appears to effectively ban the planting of the genetically modified sugar beets, which make up about 95 percent of the crop, until the Agriculture Department prepares an environmental impact statement and approves the crop again, a process that might take a couple of years. Beets supply about half the nation’s sugar, with the rest coming from sugar cane. Sugar beet growers sold the 2007-8 crop for about $1.335 billion, according to government data. The decision came in a lawsuit organized by the Center for Food Safety, a Washington advocacy group that opposes biotech crops. In his order ... the judge granted the plaintiffs’ request to formally vacate the approval of the beets. That would bar farmers from growing them outside of a field trial. Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety, said the ruling was another sign the Agriculture Department was not doing its job. “This is regulation by litigation,” he said.

Note: For a highly-informative survey of the dangers of genetically-modified foods, click here.

For seven years, Thomas A. Drake was a senior executive at the nation's largest intelligence organization with an ambition to change its insular culture. He had access to classified programs that purported to help the National Security Agency tackle its toughest challenges. Today, he wears a blue T-shirt and answers questions about iPhones at an Apple store in the Washington area. He is awaiting trial in a criminal media leak case that could send him to prison for 35 years. In his years at the NSA, Drake grew disillusioned, then indignant, about what he saw as waste, mismanagement and a willingness to compromise Americans' privacy without enhancing security. He first tried the sanctioned methods -- going to his superiors, inspectors general, Congress. Finally, in frustration, he turned to the "nuclear option": leaking to the media. Drake, 53, may pay a high price for going nuclear. In April he was indicted, accused of mishandling classified information and obstructing justice. His supporters consider him a patriotic whistleblower targeted by an Obama administration bent on sealing leaks and on having something to show for an investigation that spans two presidencies. What led Drake to this point, friends and others say, is a belief that his actions were justified if they forced such a powerful and secretive agency to be held accountable. "He tried to have his concerns heard and nobody really wanted to listen," said Nina Ginsberg, an attorney.

Note: On June 9, 2011, all ten original charges against Thomas A Drake were dropped and he was not incarcerated, yet it is cases like this that keep people like Edward Snowden from making his case in US courts.

The Army has dropped the Vietnam-era name "psychological operations" for its branch in charge of trying to change minds behind enemy lines, acknowledging the term can sound ominous. The Defense Department picked a more neutral moniker: "Military Information Support Operations," or MISO. Fort Bragg is home to the 4th Psychological Operations Group, the Army's only active duty psychological operations unit. Psychological operations soldiers are trained at the post. The change was driven from the top, by Pentagon policymakers working for Defense Secretary Robert Gates. It reflects unease with the Cold War echoes of the old terminology, and the implication that the work involved subterfuge. Psychological operations have been cast as spooky in movies and books over the years portraying the soldiers as master manipulators. The 2009 movie "The Men Who Stare at Goats," staring George Clooney, was about an army unit that trains psychic spies, based on Jon Ronson's nonfiction account of the U.S. military's hush-hush research into psychic warfare and espionage.

Note: For more on psychological operations and mind control, click here.

The former chief executive of a British chemical company faces the prospect of extradition to the US after the firm admitted million-dollar bribes to officials to sell toxic fuel additives to Iraq. Paul Jennings, until last year chief executive of the Octel chemical works ... and his predecessor, Dennis Kerrison, exported tonnes of tetra ethyl lead (TEL), to Iraq. TEL is banned from cars in western countries because of links with brain damage to children. Iraq is believed to be the only country that still adds lead to petrol. The company recently admitted that, in a deliberate policy to maximise profits, executives from Octel – which since changed its name to Innospec – bribed officials in Iraq and Indonesia with millions of dollars to carry on using TEL, despite its health hazards. Senior Iraqi oil ministry officials are accused of taking British bribes throughout the UK-US occupation, up until 2008. US prosecutors say multi-million dollar bribes to Iraq were agreed in 2001-3, when Kerrison was chief executive. A decade ago, Octel decided to remain the world's only manufacturer of TEL for cars, after it was banned in the US and Europe. They used high profits from non-western countries to diversify into other products and to pay back investors, mainly US hedge funds run by Connecticut billionaire Jeffrey Gendell. According to prosecutors, the strategy included the corrupt blocking of health campaigns.

Note: For lots more from major media sources on corporate corruption, click here.

Police forces in charge of security at the G20 summit in Toronto have been granted special powers for the duration of the summit. The new powers took effect [on June 21] and apply along the border of the G20 security fence that encircles a portion of the downtown core. This area — the so-called red zone — includes the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, where delegates will meet. Under the new regulations, anyone who comes within five metres of the security area is obliged to give police their name and state the purpose of their visit on request. Anyone who fails to provide identification or explain why they are near the security zone can be searched and arrested. The new powers are designed specifically for the G20, CBC's Colin Butler reported Friday. Ontario's cabinet quietly passed the new rules on June 2 without legislature debate. Civil liberties groups are concerned about the new regulations. Anyone who refuses to identify themselves or refuses to provide a reason for their visit can be fined up to $500 and face up to two months in jail. The regulation also says that if someone has a dispute with an officer and it goes to court "the police officer's statement under oath is considered conclusive evidence under the act."

The bio-tech company Monsanto can sell genetically modified seeds before safety tests on them are completed, the US Supreme Court has ruled. A lower court had barred the sale of the modified alfalfa seeds until an environmental impact study could be carried out. But seven of the nine Supreme Court Justices decided that ruling was unconstitutional. The seed is modified to be resistant to Monsanto's brand of weedkiller. The US is the world's largest producer of alfalfa, a grass-like plant used as animal feed. It is the fourth most valuable crop grown in the country. Environmentalists had argued that there might be a risk of cross-pollination between genetically modified plants and neighbouring crops. They also argued over-use of the company's weedkiller Roundup, the chemical treatment the alfalfa is modified to be resistant to, could cause pollution of ground water and lead to resistant "super-weeds".

Note: For a powerful summary of the dangers of genetically-modified organisms, click here.

The Securities and Exchange Commission suspected Texas financier R. Allen Stanford of running a Ponzi scheme as early as 1997 but took more than a decade to pursue him seriously. The report by the SEC's inspector general says SEC examiners concluded four times between 1997 and 2004 that Mr. Stanford's businesses were fraudulent, but each time decided not to go further. It singles out the former head of the SEC's enforcement office in Fort Worth, Texas, accusing him of repeatedly quashing Stanford probes and then trying to represent Mr. Stanford as a lawyer in private practice. The former SEC official, Spencer Barasch, is now a partner at law firm Andrews Kurth LLP. The inspector general referred Mr. Barasch for possible disbarment from practicing law. Mr. Stanford was indicted last June and accused of orchestrating a Ponzi scheme that swindled investors out of $7 billion. SEC Inspector General David Kotz's report suggests the agency's mistakes in the Stanford case were in part the result of a culture that favored easily resolved cases over messier ones. Cases such as the alleged Stanford fraud weren't considered "quick-hit" and "slam-dunk," and examiners were discouraged from pursuing them, Mr. Kotz found.

Note: For many more examples from major media sources of the astonishing performance of the SEC in the runup to the Wall Street crisis, click here.

Succumbing to the politics of fear during the 2008 campaign, Congress seriously diluted the First and Fourth Amendment rights of Americans by changing the 1978 law that governs electronic surveillance. In addition to supplying retroactive approval for President George W. Bush�s warrantless wiretapping, the FISA Amendments Act vastly expanded the government�s ability to eavesdrop without warrants in the future. It gave the National Security Agency authority to monitor the international phone calls and e-mail messages of Americans who are not engaged in criminal activity and pose no threat to national security. The measure weakened judicial supervision of how these powers are exercised, making abuse far more likely. An important case being argued [April 16] in New York City will help determine the extent of the damage. At issue is a constitutional challenge to the 2008 law filed on behalf of human rights, labor, legal, and news media organizations whose work requires sensitive telephone and e-mail communication with people abroad. Embracing the Bush administration�s approach, the Obama administration has sought to block the suit, contending that the plaintiffs lack the requisite �standing� to bring the challenge because they cannot show with certainty that they have been spied on. (Of course, any attempt to prove spying would likely be met by a flimsy claim of state secrecy.)

Note: For lots more from reliable sources on government threats to civil liberties, click here.

Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.