PatrickPretty.com

Tag: national security

  • EDITORIAL: On Club Asteria, FxPowerPro And DisasterClub — And What The U.S. State Department Could Do To Contain The Danger Posed By The Talk Gold Ponzi And Criminals’ Forum And Others Of Its Ilk Worldwide

    Let’s start with the chaos in Egypt this week. Protesters have streamed into the streets to demand that President Hosni Mubarak step down after three decades of autocratic rule. The government initially reacted by shutting down the Internet. As tensions rose, protesters, activists and journalists covering the events were beaten. Some of the protesters were killed.

    When a government shuts down the Internet and starts chilling its people and journalists, it’s for a reason: It does not want the world to witness events, and it wants journalists to know they’ll pay a price for trying to report anything other than the government line to the masses. State-run TV beamed images of tranquility, not images of unrest. When the chaos became impossible to sanitize or ignore, the government blamed events on impure thinkers and their media lackeys, planting the seed that “foreign agendas” were at work.

    It was the cue the loyalists needed to start threatening journalists with death by beheading. Fearing for their safety, the journalists abandoned the immediate turf — but not the story. They started reporting from “undisclosed locations.” The word was still getting out, just not the pictures in the degree desired.

    The immediate events in Egypt, of course, are much more serious than, say, the immediate events at the TalkGold Ponzi scheme and criminals’ forum. Even so, some of the parallels are striking.

    The Egyptian government, for example, is trying to control the message. So is the TalkGold forum, which wants the Ponzi shills and criminals who’ve involved the worldwide masses in one catastrophic fraud scheme after another to know they have a safe haven. TalkGold also wants the critics to know the Mods regard them as naysayers and trolls who can be “banned” without notice, rather like the Mubarak regime regards those muckraking reporters and their “foreign agendas.”

    It won’t work at TalkGold for the same reason it won’t work in Egypt: People still have eyes and ears and the ability to be discerning. There may be only one Tahrir Square in central Cairo to control, but “undisclosed locations,” voices, cell phones, cameras and reporters’ pads and tape recorders are in plentiful supply. They can’t be controlled.

    Egypt’s bid to control the message has resulted in a catastrophic PR problem on top of a political crisis. Meanwhile, TalkGold’s ineptitude, ham-handedness and arrogance has set the stage for its own PR disaster. You can read about it on RealScam.com, which sides with the afflicted masses, not the people who’d afflict the masses.

    While state-run TV in Egypt is airbrushing the dangers of autocratic rule and beaming images of tranquility as the country’s inhabitants try to figure out how they’ll get by for yet-another year on the wages of poverty, TalkGold is airbrushing the economic and security dangers of viral criminality and seeking to tranquilize (and recruit) the masses by using flowery language and even flattery to tell them that opening an account with an offshore payment processor and sending money to any one of hundreds of schemes is their ticket out of the ranks of hopelessness.

    Poster “Ken Russo,” for example, would have the people of Egypt — and the poverty-stricken people of the United States and other countries  — know that the latest “program” he is promoting is one of the “best” he has ever seen.

    One of “Ken Russo’s” current favorites is Club Asteria, which claims to “care” and contends that its “100,000 PLUS MEMBERS CAN’T BE WRONG.” Meanwhile, Club Asteria further claims to “Empower our Members” and to “help expatriates and immigrants to become more successful in their personal and professional lives and enable them to send money home to their loved ones.”

    Tugging at heartstrings, Club Asteria further claims that “[t]hrough our philanthropic efforts we make an immediate difference for struggling individuals, families and communities by focusing on improving nutrition, housing, health care and education.”

    That performing legitimate due diligence on Club Asteria is virtually impossible doesn’t seem to compute with “Ken Russo” and other affiliates. The mere fact the “program” is being promoted on TalkGold is reason enough to avoid it. Any business the company generates from TalkGold likely is radioactive. Club Asteria, for example, could find itself in possession of money that has flowed from fraud scheme to fraud scheme. Even if Club Asteria were legitimate, the fact it is being promoted on TalkGold puts it at one of the principal intersections of crime and fraud.

    About the only good thing about the Internet being down in Egypt this week while its people took to the streets was that “Ken Russo” and his fellow promoters couldn’t sell Club Asteria and other highly questionable “programs” to the disaffected Egyptian masses. (On a side note, one of the companies named in a Forex lawsuit by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission(CFTC)  just days ago announced on TalkGold that the shutdown of the Internet in Egypt had disrupted its ability to interact with Egyptian clients and other clients in the region. A poster purporting to represent FXOpen — under an underlined  heading of “Arabic Live Chat Disruption” — noted that “[o]ur hopes and prayers go out to the Egyptian people.”)

    And even as the Egyptian government is inciting violence against journalists — to the degree that the U.S. Department of State issued a special statement on the matter — the TalkGold forum is banning posters who speak ill of Ponzi and fraud schemes that are gathering untold sums of money, channeling cash to some of the darkest corners of the Internet and keeping people in financial bondage.

    Here is an idea for the Department of State and Secretary Hillary Clinton: Warn Americans — and other peoples of the world — about sites such as TalkGold. Mention them at a Congressional hearing. Instruct U.S. diplomats the world over to inform their host governments about the security and economic dangers posed by TalkGold and a sea of similar sites. Tell elected officials that the State Department is serious about monitoring sites that are keeping people in human bondage by spreading financial misery globally. Define Talk Gold as a global pariah, an enterprise without a state that would be proud to claim it. Inform the world regularly that the only form of diplomacy on TalkGold is robbery without a gun.

    TalkGold has been named repeatedly in court filings that identify it as a place from which fraud schemes are openly pushed. The ink on recent CFTC lawsuits that identify two of TalkGold’s paid Forex advertisers as the purveyors of unregistered offerings targeted at U.S. citizens is barely dry, and yet the unabashed cheerleading continues.

    The alleged AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme, which also was pushed from TalkGold, gathered at least $110 million. It caught the attention of the U.S. Secret Service and resulted in civil and criminal probes that could put people in prison for decades, and yet the unabashed cheerleading continues.

    All the autosurfs prominently touted on TalkGold are just recycled forms of ASD, which itself allegedly was a recycled form of 12DailyPro, which the SEC smashed five years ago this month.

    It’s the same thing with Pathway To Prosperity, yet-another alleged scheme promoted on TalkGold that gathered tens of millions of dollars and could put people in jail for decades. All of the HYIPs promoted on TalkGold are just recycled forms of Pathway to Prosperity, which was busted by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and Legisi, which was busted by the SEC after the U.S. Secret Service infiltrated its operations by using an undercover operative. The state of Michigan also used an undercover operative in the Legisi probe.

    The best way to deal with TalkGold and similar sites is to tell the world that they promote global criminality and rank illicit profits above human rights and common human decency.

    Like Egypt in its current state, TalkGold is not about freedom — financial or political. It is about the institutionalization of corruption. If TalkGold were an oncological hospital, its doctors would be cheerleading for the cancer to spread and its nurses would be rooting for the highest death rate because intervening to cure the disease and comfort the afflicted would be bad for institutional and personal profits.

    A purported Forex program known as FxPowerPro currently has a 20-page thread on TalkGold. Among other things, FxPowerPro is claiming that “YOUR STABILITY IS OUR PURPOSE.” Its website appears to come from an editable script kit used by hundreds of sites globally, and it says it will accept any sum between $5 and $20,000. FxPowerPro proudly displays a link the the TalkGold forum.

    A few days ago an eagle-eyed PP Blog reader passed along some information about yet-another incongruous program known as “Disaster Club.” Disaster Club appears to be a new wrinkle on cash-gifting schemes. It purports to arrange member-to-member “grants,” asking visitors if they’d like to turn a “One-Time $100 into $17,700.”

    Bizarrely, Disaster Club uses a presentation by which it names four hypothetical members: “Job,” and “Cain, Abel and Eve.”

    “After joining the Club you will receive the name of your assigned member, and each week on Monday you are to send a grant in the amount shown in the grant schedule directly to that assigned member,” Disaster Club says.

    “Should you join the Club between Tuesday and Sunday, send your grant as soon as you receive your assigned name, do not wait until Monday,” Disaster Club coaxes. “Every grant thereafter will be sent according to the Monday schedule. To create a cash explosion from your home three members will each be given your name to send their $100 grants to ($100 X 3 = $300) and each stage you will keep the stated amount shown from the amount you received from the 3 members $100 + $100 + $100 = $300 you keep $50. Then according to the grant schedule shown, you are to send your grant directly to the same member (Job), and the same three members (Cain, Abel and Eve) will each send their grants directly to you.”

    Disaster Club purports to be headquartered in Florida and claims to be a “club that allows like minded members to pool their resources together to help the hurting and homeless victims of any Disaster in any State, or even help others anywhere in the world.”

    The “opportunity” does not appear to have its own thread at TalkGold yet, but there are plenty of disasters already waiting there for its readers. Just don’t expect to get a warm reception if you have a “foreign agenda” — you know, like those muckraking enemies of the Mubarak regime in Egypt.

    Although it’s not likely you’ll be threatened with beheading at TalkGold, you might get deleted if you tangle with “Ken Russo” and others and challenge readers to use their heads for something other than a hat rack.

    There is nothing decent about Talk Gold and its cancer-spreading cousins worldwide. Only the broadest public-awareness campaign can succeed against the threats they pose to the governments of the world and billions of Internet users globally — and the U.S. State Department could make a difference by describing the criminal forums as places from which human rights are set up to be trampled 24/7/365.

    Any true diplomat from any country worldwide who spent so much as 15 minutes on TalkGold could see the danger to countries, governments and citizens worldwide. The world’s diplomatic corps are uniquely positioned to do something the world’s law-enforcement corps cannot do: be at all places at all times.

    A sustained effort by the world’s diplomats to identify and monitor the fraud sites — and openly share the information with the people of the world — could go a long way toward containing a plague that only will mushroom into a catastrophe if left alone.

  • POLL RESULT: Readers Say Ponzi Schemes Pose National-Security Threat; Did Surf and HYIP Advocates See Poll As PR Threat?

    By better than a two-to-one margin, readers of the PatrickPretty.com Blog have concluded that Ponzi schemes pose a threat to national security, according to the results of a poll.

    The poll, which began on Jan. 13 and concluded this morning, was unscientific. Still, the results suggest readers are concerned that the criminality associated with Ponzi schemes affects more than individual victims and has broader societal implications beyond the obvious threat to the financial security of investors.

    Sixty-seven percent of the Blog’s readers who participated in the poll said Ponzi schemes pose a threat to national security. Meanwhile, 33 percent said Ponzi schemes do not pose such a threat. A total of 79 readers answered the question. There were 53 “Yes” votes cast, and 26 “No” votes.

    In the poll’s opening hours, those who said Ponzi schemes posed a national-security threat outnumbered those with the opposing view by a margin of nine-to-one. The margin narrowed quickly with a burst of “No” votes, eventually settling in a range that incorporated the poll’s final result. Relatively few votes were cast during the final week of the poll, and the results during the final week generally reflected the overall result: for every two “Yes” votes cast, there was one “No” vote.

    That was not always the case. “Yes” voters surged to an early lead, holding a 90 percent majority. That lead, however, was pared back by short, consecutive bursts of “No” votes. More than one surge of three or four consecutive “No” votes occurred in rapid succession.

    Readers who said Ponzi schemes posed a threat to national security comprised a significant majority throughout the poll, always holding at least 64 percent of the vote. After the opening surge, the majority’s lead never was seriously threatened.

    There are indications, however, of shenanigans to affect the outcome of the poll. These indications do not rise to the level of proof, but are worth noting.

    Because the Blog’s audience includes readers who identify themselves as advocates for autosurf Ponzi schemes and say the government’s efforts to control them are unfair and ill-advised, it is possible that a minor effort was made to organize like-minded voters to cast “No” votes — i.e., to say Ponzi schemes do not pose a threat to national security.

    Advocacy for Ponzi schemes largely is nonexistent outside the corrupt, insular world of autosurf and HYIP Ponzi schemes. Promoters of such schemes sometimes are called “leaders,” and they receive commissions for recruiting participants into the schemes. There also is a culture of “insiders” in such schemes. The “insiders” are people who gain disproportionate shares of revenue created by the schemes through private dealings. The “insiders” also include people who receive compensation not necessarily because of what they do, but who they know.

    Both the “leaders” and “insiders” — along with autosurf/HYIP downline members sometimes known as the “cheerleaders” — have been known to organize efforts to squelch autosurf and HYIP critics.

    Based on voting patterns in the poll, it is possible — though not certain — that leaders, insiders and cheerleaders made an effort to recruit “No” votes in a bloc. The reason it cannot be ruled out is “No” votes were cast in short, consecutive bursts but were almost nonexistent during the opening hours of the poll.

    This possible anomaly occurred even though autosurf and HYIP advocates monitor the PP Blog closely and routinely condemn it.

    After the early, commanding lead of “Yes” voters, “No” voters cut into the lead with short bursts of three or four consecutive “No” votes that were not offset by “Yes” votes.

    Because “No” votes also surged in short, consecutive bursts after we published stories that mentioned Ponzi links to terrorism and murder, it is possible — though not certain — that leaders, insiders and cheerleaders sought to affect the outcome of the poll because they perceived it as a PR threat to their autosurf and HYIP schemes.

    We cannot say conclusively, however, that shenanigans occurred. Even so, the pattern is worth noting because of previous bids across the autosurf and HYIP universes to silence critics, squash legitimate discussion of autosurf and HYIP schemes and position regulators and law-enforcement entities as jack-booted thugs, Nazis, enemies of Constitutional law and even terrorists.

    Even if there were no efforts to line up “No” votes, more than two-thirds of PP Blog readers — a substantial majority — said Ponzi schemes pose a threat to national security. If there were efforts to line up “No” votes, the majority of “Yes” votes could be even higher.

  • EDITORIAL: The Real Meaning Of ‘Treason’

    Stewart David Nozette was arrested by the FBI yesterday for attempted espionage. Though Nozette was not formally charged with the Constitutional crime of treason — the only crime specifically described in the Constitution — the crime of espionage is viewed by the public as an act of treason against the United States because selling secrets can be viewed as a form of “levying War” against the country or giving “Aid and Comfort” to an enemy.

    Officials said Nozette accepted $11,000 in cash — with the inference more would follow — and used manila envelopes to pack up secrets. He asked for payment and delivered the secrets to, of all places, a U.S. Post Office.

    Nozette wanted his payments to be kept below $10,000 to keep the prying eyes of government away, prosecutors said. In the first two transactions, Nozette allegedly sold out his country for the price of a used car.

    Nozette thought he had been recruited by the Mossad, Israel’s spy agency. In reality, he had been targeted in an FBI sting because the government had gotten the idea he just might be willing to sell out the United States to a foreign government or entity for a fee. Prosecutors said he had left the United States in January with two computer thumb drives. Inspectors could not find the drives when he returned.

    The government of Israel was not involved in wrongdoing, authorities said.

    A thumb drive was left at the Post Office in September by Nozette, when he thought he was doing business with the Mossad, prosecutors said.

    Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s office led by Acting U.S. Attorney Channing Phillips in the District of Columbia are assisting in the case, which will be heard in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The same court is the venue from which the the civil-forfeiture case against tens of millions of dollars seized from AdSurfDaily Inc. in an international Ponzi scheme probe is being prosecuted.

    The Nozette case demonstrates that grave matters of national security come to the attention of prosecutors in Phillips’ office and judges in the district. Sometimes the matters include elements of international intrigue, as the Nozette case again demonstrates.

    Judge Rosemary Collyer, the judge in the ASD case, presided over an extremely complex case involving former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, once National Security Adviser to President Richard M. Nixon. The case dated back to the early 1970s and involved the complicated issue of “sovereign immunity.”

    How complex were the legal issues in the case? Collyer’s own words provide a glimpse:

    “This lawsuit challenges covert actions allegedly directed by high-level United States officials in connection with an attempted coup in Chile in 1970 designed to prevent the election of Dr. Salvadore Allende as Chile’s first Socialist President,” Collyer wrote in 2004.

    “General René Schneider, then Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army, opposed military intervention in the electoral process,” she continued. “As a result, the United States allegedly plotted with Chilean nationals to neutralize him. General Schneider was shot during a failed kidnap[p]ing attempt on October 22, 1970, and died from his wounds a few days later. Two of General Schneider’s children and his Personal Representative, suing on behalf of his estate, seek to hold the United States and Henry A. Kissinger, former Assistant for National Security Affairs to President Richard M. Nixon, responsible for the General’s death.”

    In a ruling dismissing the case, Collyer said Kissinger could not be held responsible for the death, even if the assertions against Kissinger and the U.S. government were true.

    “The plaintiffs’ claims present a non-justiciable political question on foreign policy
    decisions undertaken by the Executive Branch in 1970,” Collyer said. “[T]he Court finds that Dr. Kissinger was properly certified as acting within the scope of his employment vis-a-vis the relevant events. The United States will be substituted for him as the sole defendant. With this substitution, the amended complaint is barred by the doctrine of sovereign immunity.”

    Whether or not one agrees with the ruling, one must agree that Collyer was tasked with the responsibility to reduce extremely complex issues of both law and U.S. foreign policy to their essence — and view them in the framework of Constitutionality. No critic interested in fair or logical debate would dismiss her as an intellectual lightweight.

    Words Mean Things

    The reason for this column is to point out a couple of things: First, that the responsibility of federal prosecutors is to advocate in the interests of the people of the United States. Some of the same people criticizing the ASD prosecutors in excessive fashion — and even extreme fashion — perhaps will be less vocal or not vocal at all in their criticism of Phillips’ office for its role in the prosecution of Nozette.

    It is, after all, an espionage prosecution, and the American public does not take kindly to acts that speak of treason, whether it’s the treason spelled out in the Constitution or the treason inferred from the act of selling government secrets for a fee.

    And this brings us to the use of extreme language by some supporters of ASD — language directed at both the prosecution and Judge Collyer.

    Collyer, a sitting federal judge appointed by a President of the United States and confirmed by the U.S. Senate — and a federal judge who presides over issues of national security and the affairs of state, as the Nixon/Kissinger case demonstrates — was described by an ASD member as “brain dead or taking a payoff” if she ruled against ASD.

    No such comment can be viewed as reasonable.

    Other examples of extreme language directed at Collyer can be found in this court filing by ASD mainstay Curtis Richmond. The filing uses words such as “treason” and phrases such as “Willfully Violated Her Judicial Oath” thus being “Guilty of Perjury of Oath, a Felony.”

    Richmond asserted that Collyer perhaps was guilty of as many as 60 felonies.

    No such language can be viewed as reasonable.

    Prosecutors haven’t fared much better. Dozens of pro se litigants using a pro se template practically screamed their assertions that prosecutors had “failed” to do this and “failed” to do that on matters pertaining to the production of “EVIDENCE” and “WITNESSES” and “VICTIMS” and that the ASD “action was based solely on the OPINIONS of the U. S. Government agents.”

    How reasonable is it to scream in court filings?  The judicial process is designed deliberately to ensure decorum precisely to guarantee that no side gets shouted down and that issues are decided in an atmosphere of dignity.

    Moreover, the record of the ASD case plainly shows that the prosecutors have produced evidence, prior even to introducing evidence at the evidentiary hearing last fall. Eight government exhibits of evidence were included in the August 2008 filing of the complaint. It’s all in the public record — and was in the public record long before the pro se litigants shouted that no “EVIDENCE”  had been produced.

    With respect to the screamed claim that the government relied exclusively on the “OPINIONS” of its agents, the record also plainly shows that even the ASD side agrees with some of those opinions. Here are just two purported “opinions” that both the ASD side and the government side agree on:

    • That ASD advertised that rebates “will” be paid until members received back 125 percent of their “advertising” spend.
    • That the government seized the money from Andy Bowdoin and that the money belonged to Andy Bowdoin, not ASD members.

    Bowdoin officially has held that position since August 2008, just days after the seizure. It is a theme in his court filings. Recently, though, he told ASD members in a conference call that the seized money belonged to them. The claim put him at odds with his own arguments in court, which the prosecution now claims is evidence of his willingness to lie to members he claims to be serving, while also lying to a federal judge.

    With respect to the shouted claim by the pro se litigants that the government “has failed” to produce any “VICTIMS” or “WITNESSES,” the claim is disingenuous to its core. A trial date has not even been scheduled in the case. The evidentiary hearing was exactly that — a hearing, not a trial. The hearing was held at ASD’s request. Collyer granted it in “the interests of justice.” Prosecutors were not required to try their case at the hearing. Nor were they duty-bound to produce their witnesses. It was ASD’s hearing.

    Nozette’s arrest yesterday quickly became an international story. The story will play out in some of the same venues the ASD case is playing out. It will be argued by highly skilled, highly trained prosecutors.  A highly skilled, highly trained federal judge appointed by the President of the United States and approved by the U.S. Senate will preside over the proceeding “in the interests of justice” for all parties, including Nozette.

    There will no reckless claims of judicial treason or of violating a judicial oath or of operating a “Kangaroo Court” — as has been the claim in the ASD case, against both Judge Collyer and her supervising judge, Royce Lamberth.

    The Nozette case is, after all, an espionage case, one in which the public outside the courtroom will discuss the real meaning of the word treason — something some of the ASD supporters should have been doing all along.

    The ASD case is, was and always has been about national security. If you doubt it, ask yourself if you really know who your autosurfing neighbor is — and then ask yourself if you can guarantee that all ASD members were pure as the driven snow and not interested at all in using a vehicle provided by Andy Bowdoin for criminal purposes.