The EPA and some good news for US.

[sim.-ang.king]

There's crooks everywhere, but I would much rather have the state tell me what to do than some federally sitting in DC, making decisions with a broad brush.

 

[Commercialfarmer]

For those of you who think the epa should be eliminated, I live in and work in a rural/industrial area. If there was no epa I know first hand what these factories would do b/c I've seen them do it, and seen the same people who I told you can't let that be nice run into that Creek that runs straight to the ohio river. I've seen the epa come in and fine them $100'sk. And this is bad stuff in these factories, most of you probably don't have experience with these settings or fully undèstand the damage they could do to everything down wind and down stream. I do believe the epa has gotten to big for example wotus. But they are a nesscary evil, unfortunately.

You are very wrong. No epa does not mean no environmental protection. States are more than capable of protecting their own environments.

KY Cowboy is right. I work in heavy industry. States may be capable of protecting their environment, but that doesn't mean they will when faced with the economic power of heavy industry. Politicians in states are driven by jobs - especially heavy industry jobs. They don't give two shyts about your farm or the fact you can't make food with polluted water and ground.

What is a state?

 

[Ky cowboy]

State or federal epa has it's place, mainly in industry, they don't belong on my farm. But when factories dump **** that made Erin brockovich famous into the streams and say it'll be ok it was only x amount. No it's not ok and someone should rat out employers who are jack asses and care only about the dollar and the bottom line

 

[Rafter S]

I think we can all agree that the environment needs policing to some degree, but the EPA has gotten out of hand (WOTUS for a prime example).

 

[Margonme]

You are very wrong. No epa does not mean no environmental protection. States are more than capable of protecting their own environments.

KY Cowboy is right. I work in heavy industry. States may be capable of protecting their environment, but that doesn't mean they will when faced with the economic power of heavy industry. Politicians in states are driven by jobs - especially heavy industry jobs. They don't give two shyts about your farm or the fact you can't make food with polluted water and ground.

What is a state?

CF. Do you have slurred speech, numbness in your face, or severe headache? If you answer YES to any of those questions you should call 911 immediately.
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If you are just throwing back some of grandpa's sauce, then carry on.

 

[Commercialfarmer]

KY Cowboy is right. I work in heavy industry. States may be capable of protecting their environment, but that doesn't mean they will when faced with the economic power of heavy industry. Politicians in states are driven by jobs - especially heavy industry jobs. They don't give two shyts about your farm or the fact you can't make food with polluted water and ground.

What is a state?

CF. Do you have slurred speech, numbness in your face, or severe headache? If you answer YES to any of those questions you should call 911 immediately.
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If you are just throwing back some of grandpa's sauce, then carry on.

Tired and busy, yes. Sauce, No. I apologize about the delay, but it is a serious question.

Defining the terms that are being used is quite important to being able to discuss the subject.

What is a state? Is it sovereign? If so, in what respects being it is part of the Union of States?

States maintain sovereignty over aspects not designated to the federal union by the Constitution do they not?

Supreme case Alden v. Maine 527 U.S. 706 (1999)

The Constitution's structure and history and this Court's authoritative interpretations make clear that the States' immunity from suit is a fundamental aspect of the sovereignty they enjoyed before the Constitution's ratification and retain today except as altered by the plan of the Convention or certain constitutional Amendments. Under the federal system established by the Constitution, the States retain a "residuary and inviolable sovereignty." The Federalist No. 39, p. 245. They are not relegated to the role of mere provinces or political corporations, but retain the dignity, though not the full authority, of sovereignty. The founding generation considered immunity from private suits central to this dignity. The doctrine that a sovereign could not be sued without its consent was universal in the States when the Constitution was drafted and ratified. In addition, the leading advocates of the Constitution gave explicit assurances during the ratification debates that the Constitution would not strip States of sovereign immunity. This was also the understanding of those state conventions that addressed state sovereign immunity in their ratification documents. When, just five years after the Constitution's adoption, this Court held that Article III authorized a private citizen of another State to sue Georgia without its consent, Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dall. 419, the Eleventh Amendment was ratified. An examination of Chisholm indicates that the case, not the Amendment, deviated from the original understanding, which was to preserve States' traditional immunity from suit. The Amendment's text and history also suggest that Congress acted not to change but to restore the original constitutional design. Finally, the swiftness and near unanimity with which the Amendment was adopted indicate that the Court had not captured the original understanding. This Court's subsequent decisions reflect a settled doctrinal understanding that sovereign immunity derives not from the Eleventh Amendment but from the structure of the original Constitution. Since the Amendment confirmed rather than established sovereign immunity as a constitutional principal, it follows that that immunity's scope is demarcated not by the text of the Amendment alone but by fundamental postulates implicit in the constitutional design.

Oklahoma Constitution:

All political power is inherent in the people; and government
is instituted for their protection, security, and benefit, and to
promote their general welfare; and they have the right to alter
or reform the same whenever the public good may require it:
Provided, such change be not repugnant to the Constitution of the
United State

Which seems to mirror the 10th Amendment of the US Constitution:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

So yes, states do retain sovereign powers and thus the ability to regulate their environment, which must be established prior to making any further claims.

As to whether,

States may be capable of protecting their environment, but that doesn't mean they will when faced with the economic power of heavy industry. Politicians in states are driven by jobs - especially heavy industry jobs. They don't give two shyts about your farm or the fact you can't make food with polluted water and ground.

As noted above, states do have the capability to protect their environment. Who has a stronger desire to protect their local environment, locals that must live there or people thousands of miles away? Obviously local populations do. Where do local populations have the most control? It is a fact that local populations have more control over their state government than they do the federal government. It is up to the people of those states to hold their states accountable, rather they do or not is up to them. If there are corrupt politicians, it is up to the local people to either rid themselves or suffer the consequences. Are you suggesting that there is less potential for corrupt politicians at the federal level? And what are local people to do when the politicians are corrupt and they do not even have a say in their being elected or dismissed?

Secondly in regards to,

They don't give two shyts about your farm or the fact you can't make food with polluted water and ground.

, the beauty of our system is that it is not just a legislative or executive system. Having a judicial branch, it really doesn't matter if policiticians couldn't give 2 shyts about another party damaging my farm. Relief from damages can be sought through the court. Which additionally produces precedence. Matter of fact, a local feed yard that has been in existence for decades and in existence prior to the construction of a near by home was sued over air quality. The situation is not reliant on politicians. The feed yard was held liable for damages from odors to the home owner after expanding their yard. You can bet that anyone upset with an expanding feedyard in Oklahoma will utilize this decision in the future.

 

[Margonme]

CF stated:

Are you suggesting that there is less potential for corrupt politicians at the federal level?

Yes and that applies to regulators also. There is more corruption at lower levels of government and regulators at lower levels of government tend to be less well trained and diligent.

I appreciate your effort. Nevertheless, you have not changed the fact that states have a very poor track record of implementing and enforcing environmental law. It is the sole reason President Nixon created the EPA by executive order in 1970. States were at each other's throats because of the inequity in the protection of shared resources. One of the examples was rivers that are bordered by two states. State A was complaining that State B was not protecting the waters of a boundary river. State A pointed to the fact that their efforts to protect a river was in vain because State B allowed industry to use the river as a sewer. Same issues were occurring with regard to air pollution. Pollutants from State B were being emitted into the air from plants in State B and affecting residents in State A. Since State A had no jurisdiction, there was no remedy.

 

[sim.-ang.king]

CF stated:

Are you suggesting that there is less potential for corrupt politicians at the federal level?

Yes and that applies to regulators also. There is more corruption at lower levels of government and regulators at lower levels of government tend to be less well trained and diligent.

I appreciate your effort. Nevertheless, you have not changed the fact that states have a very poor track record of implementing and enforcing environmental law. It is the sole reason President Nixon created the EPA by executive order in 1970. States were at each other's throats because of the inequity in the protection of shared resources. One of the examples was rivers that are bordered by two states. State A was complaining that State B was not protecting the waters of a boundary river. State A pointed to the fact that their efforts to protect a river was in vain because State B allowed industry to use the river as a sewer. Same issues were occurring with regard to air pollution. Pollutants from State B were being emitted into the air from plants in State B and affecting residents in State A. Since State A had no jurisdiction, there was no remedy.

Probably best that we scrap the idea of having states then, since the federal government knows what's best for us all, and can save us from the evils of this world.

What a sad state of false security have my fellow countrymen fallen into...

 

[greybeard]

Federal regulatory agent to citizen:
"What would you like us to do for you?"

citizen's reply:
"Do what you do best. Find something simple and complicate it."

 

[Dave]

Federal regulatory agent to citizen:
"What would you like us to do for you?"

citizen's reply:
"Do what you do best. Find something simple and complicate it."

I have a Tee shirt that says, "BLM, if it ain't broke we will fix it until it is."

 

[Commercialfarmer]

CF stated:

Are you suggesting that there is less potential for corrupt politicians at the federal level?

Yes and that applies to regulators also. There is more corruption at lower levels of government and regulators at lower levels of government tend to be less well trained and diligent.

Obviously. I think it might be the federal gene that get's expressed upon securing initial employment with the federal government. They stop being mere mortals and the potential for corruption is a thing of the past.

Former Federal Agents Charged With Bitcoin Money Laundering and Wire Fraud

Agents Were Part of Baltimore's Silk Road Task Force

Two former federal agents have been charged with wire fraud, money laundering and related offenses for stealing digital currency during their investigation of the Silk Road, an underground black market that allowed users to conduct illegal transactions over the Internet. The charges are contained in a federal criminal complaint issued on March 25, 2015, in the Northern District of California and unsealed today.

Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag of the Northern District of California, Special Agent in Charge David J. Johnson of the FBI's San Francisco Division, Special Agent in Charge José M. Martinez of the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation's (IRS-CI) San Francisco Division, Special Agent in Charge Michael P. Tompkins of the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General Washington Field Office and Special Agent in Charge Lori Hazenstab of the Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General in Washington D.C. made the announcement.

Carl M. Force, 46, of Baltimore, was a Special Agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and Shaun W. Bridges, 32, of Laurel, Maryland, was a Special Agent with the U.S. Secret Service (USSS). Both were assigned to the Baltimore Silk Road Task Force, which investigated illegal activity in the Silk Road marketplace. Force served as an undercover agent and was tasked with establishing communications with a target of the investigation, Ross Ulbricht, aka "Dread Pirate Roberts." Force is charged with wire fraud, theft of government property, money laundering and conflict of interest. Bridges is charged with wire fraud and money laundering.

According to the complaint, Force was a DEA agent assigned to investigate the Silk Road marketplace. During the investigation, Force engaged in certain authorized undercover operations by, among other things, communicating online with "Dread Pirate Roberts" (Ulbricht), the target of his investigation. The complaint alleges, however, that Force then, without authority, developed additional online personas and engaged in a broad range of illegal activities calculated to bring him personal financial gain. In doing so, the complaint alleges, Force used fake online personas, and engaged in complex Bitcoin transactions to steal from the government and the targets of the investigation. Specifically, Force allegedly solicited and received digital currency as part of the investigation, but failed to report his receipt of the funds, and instead transferred the currency to his personal account. In one such transaction, Force allegedly sold information about the government's investigation to the target of the investigation. The complaint also alleges that Force invested in and worked for a digital currency exchange company while still working for the DEA, and that he directed the company to freeze a customer's account with no legal basis to do so, then transferred the customer's funds to his personal account. Further, Force allegedly sent an unauthorized Justice Department subpoena to an online payment service directing that it unfreeze his personal account.

Bridges allegedly diverted to his personal account over $800,000 in digital currency that he gained control of during the Silk Road investigation. The complaint alleges that Bridges placed the assets into an account at Mt. Gox, the now-defunct digital currency exchange in Japan. He then allegedly wired funds into one of his personal investment accounts in the United States mere days before he sought a $2.1 million seizure warrant for Mt. Gox's accounts.

Bridges self-surrendered today and will appear before Magistrate Judge Maria-Elena James of the Northern District of California at 9:30 a.m. PST this morning. Force was arrested on Friday, March 27, 2015, in Baltimore and will appear before Magistrate Judge Timothy J. Sullivan of the District of Maryland at 2:30 p.m. EST today.

The charges contained in the complaint are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

The case was investigated by the FBI's San Francisco Division, the IRS-CI's San Francisco Division, the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General and the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General in Washington D.C. The Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network also provided assistance with the investigation of this case. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kathryn Haun and William Frentzen of the Northern District of California and Trial Attorney Richard B. Evans of the Criminal Division's Public Integrity Section.

WASHINGTON
The FBI wrongly fired a former special agent based in Sacramento, Calif., who blew the whistle on his colleagues' alleged sexual misconduct, a federal appeals court has ruled

Capping a battle that's quietly raged across hearing rooms, courthouses and Capitol Hill, appellate judges rejected the bureau's charge that led to the 2012 firing of former special agent John C. Parkinson. The ruling effectively means the bureau must rehire Parkinson or pay him.

"It should be appreciated that . . . the penalty of removal, which was predicated on the now-overturned lack of candor charge, cannot be sustained," wrote Judge Richard Linn of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Parkinson's attorneys call the court vindication, in the 35-page majority decision quietly released Monday, relatively uncommon for FBI whistleblowers and potentially meaningful for others who find themselves in the same shoes.

"We are thrilled at this victory," attorney Jesselyn A. Radack, with the watchdog group ExposeFacts, said in an interview Tuesday. "It truly is a rare and historic ruling."

Radack, who joined attorney Kathleen M. McClellan in the case, added that "in general, whistleblowers don't have a great track record in the Federal Circuit." The relatively obscure appellate court often handles patent and other technical cases.

THE LACK OF CANDOR CHARGE . . . IS UNSUPPORTED BY SUBSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
Judge Richard Linn

The Parkinson ruling, though, follows years of claims and counterclaims that started with the salacious.

Parkinson joined the FBI in 1999 and arrived in Sacramento the same year, following initial training. By 2006, he was overseeing the Sacramento Division's Special Operations Group, handling sensitive undercover surveillance operations. The team worked from a clandestine, offsite facility.

"Parkinson's team operated, often with little guidance, in order to determine the whereabouts and patterns of two international terrorism subjects," one supervisor wrote, adding that the investigation required "several months of surveillance."

In a 2008 whistleblowing letter, Parkinson alleged that one Sacramento-based colleague had a "career-long pattern of soliciting sex with prostitutes." This agent, Parkinson alleged, "utilized the FBI's plane to fly at night to Reno, Nevada, for the sole purpose of engaging prostitutes in acts of illicit sex."

Another Sacramento-based colleague, Parkinson alleged, had a "history of viewing Internet pornography, both on government and personal computers during work hours."

"Mr. Parkinson was concerned that (the two colleagues) would defile the furniture by engaging in sexual activity and masturbating on it and watching pornography on the television," his attorneys recounted in a filing with the Merit Systems Protection Board.

An attorney and decorated Marine Corps Reserve lieutenant colonel who had deployed to Iraq in 2004, Parkinson was, in turn, given poor job evaluations and reassigned from his position.

He considered these moves retaliation for his whistleblowing, which came to the attention of Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley and eventually the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General. In time, Parkinson himself was investigated on suspicion of misusing funds involved in building new Sacramento quarters for the Special Operations Group.

"Throughout 2009, and until May 2010, Parkinson was interviewed repeatedly by OIG officials," the appellate court noted.

The FBI ultimately concluded that Parkinson had obstructed investigators through crafting certain documents and conversing with potential witnesses. The bureau also concluded he'd lacked candor in some of his responses.

After the FBI fired him in 2012, Parkinson filed a complaint with the Merit Systems Protection Board. Usually, the board cannot consider complaints from FBI employees. As a member of the military, though, Parkinson enjoys special protections.

Parkinson lost at the Merit Systems Protection Board, enabling him to appeal. The appellate court upheld the obstruction charge but rejected the more serious lack of candor charge, saying that "even assuming that Parkinson failed to be fully forthright, there is no substantial evidence that this failure was done knowingly."

The most stringent penalty for obstruction would be suspension of up to 10 days, noted the appellate court, which also ruled that Parkinson should be able to raise a whistleblower defense if the merit board rehears what remains of the case.

The FBI declined to comment Tuesday.

The next steps could include, in theory, continued administrative hearings, reinstatement or, perhaps, a settlement involving back pay and other benefits for Parkinson, who is currently serving on active duty with the Marine Corps.

"He plans to get the most relief he can out of this decision," Radack said.

One of the agents Parkinson complained about has since retired, Radack said. The other has not, while the Sacramento office leadership has turned over since Parkinson's time.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/crime/a ... rylink=cpy

The IRS refused to fire most of its own employees found to be cheating on their taxes — and in some cases even quickly turned around and promoted them within the year, according to an audit released Wednesday.
In about 60 percent of cases of "willful violations," IRS managers found mitigating circumstances and refused to fire the employees, even though the law calls for that penalty. In some of those cases, the managers didn't even document why they had overridden the penalty, said Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George.
"Given its critical role in federal tax administration, the IRS must ensure that its employees comply with the tax law in order to maintain the public's confidence," Mr. George said. "Willful violation of the law by IRS employees should not be taken lightly, and the IRS commissioner should fully document decisions made to retain employees whom management has proposed be terminated."
From 2004 to 2013, the IRS identified nearly 130,000 suspected cases of tax violations by its own employees and concluded about 10 percent of those were actual violations. Mr. George said the agency did a good job of spotting those issues.
Of those 13,000 cases, 1,580 were deemed to be intentional cheaters, and they were sent to managers for discipline. But in 60 percent of the cases, the managers refused to fire the employees.
Among the abuses were employees who repeatedly failed to file their returns on time, those who intentionally inflated their expenses and those who claimed the stimulus homebuyer's tax credit without buying a home

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Colombia were taking part in alleged sex parties with prostitutes funded by drug cartels years earlier than previously known, U.S. lawmakers said on Tuesday.

Several DEA agents were taking part in these parties in Bogota as early as 2001, said a summary of a DEA report released by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform at a hearing on the misconduct.

"This new internal report describes not one or two isolated incidents, but literally dozens of parties with prostitutes," Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings said at the hearing, where lawmakers grilled DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart.

The hearing came on the heels of a separate March 26 report by the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General that described similar allegations between 2005 and 2008.

That report said 10 agents - an assistant regional director and nine special agents - had alleged sex parties on government-leased property and used taxpayer money to pay for the prostitutes. Three of the agents got money, gifts and weapons from drug cartel members, according to the earlier report.

After investigation, seven of the DEA agents admitted attending the parties and were suspended for between two and 10 days.

"I don't believe that the discipline doled out in those cases is even close to what it should be," said Leonhart in testimony before the committee.

She added that, under U.S. civil service rules, she could not fire, revoke security clearances or recommend penalties for the agents. Two senior officials in the agency were tasked with discipline, she said.

The DEA allegations came in the wake of a prostitution scandal involving Secret Service agents in Cartagena,Colombia, in 2012 that damaged that agency's straitlaced reputation.

In another DEA-related case, Keenya Meshell Banks, a former DEA program manager, pleaded guilty on Tuesday in Maryland to submitting dozens of fake credit card applications for fictitious DEA employees, defrauding the U.S. government of $113,000, the U.S. Justice Department said in a statement.

The Special Inspector General for Tarp Issues a Wakeup Call … Lambasts the Government and the Banks

The government's special inspector general in charge of oversight of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (the "TARP" bank bailouts) – Neil M. Barofsky – wrote a stunning editorial for Bloomberg yesterday, concluding:

Americans should lose faith in their government. They should deplore the captured politicians and regulators who distributed tax dollars to the banks without insisting that they be accountable. The American people should be revolted by a financial system that rewards failure and protects those who drove it to the point of collapse and will undoubtedly do so again.

Only with this appropriate and justified rage can we hope for the type of reform that will one day break our system free from the corrupting grasp of the megabanks.

See this for background.

This is not the statement of a raving blogger (although some of the best reporters write blogs) or a conspiracy theorist living in his mom's basement (even though some conspiracies are real).

This is the former government official who oversaw the bailouts and interacted with all of the top players.

Richard Abapo Quidilla, 39, of Pico Rivera, California has been sentenced by a federal judge to 5 years, 6 months in a federal prison for the charges of computer fraud, procurement of citizenship unlawfully, and aggravated identity theft. Quidilla was a contractor working for Dell Perot Systems, an IT and business solutions company, and contracted out to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), the administrative wing of the federal immigration system, at the San Diego office. Quidilla was given a user identification code by USCIS to perform his duties as a records custodian that enabled him to access secure federal computer systems and networks. Quidilla would use his access to federal databases to delete personal information such as birthdates, social security numbers, and names from the personal profiles of naturalized citizens and replace them with the information of illegal immigrants, allowing these illegal immigrants to obtain legitimate U.S. passports.

Quidilla admitted to authorities that he had switched the personal information of naturalized citizens with illegal immigrants at least 30 times and charged between $1,300 and $4,100 for his services. At least two illegal immigrants are known to have obtained passports as a result of Quidilla's crimes. Federal agents with a search warrant found in Quidilla's residence found blank certificates of citizenship, an embossing device with the official U.S. seal, citizenship records, and legal permanent residence cards, also known as green cards. Dell Perot Systems company spokesperson Caitlin Carroll made a statement in regards to the case, saying, "Dell had no knowledge of the former employee's criminal behavior prior to his arrest. Dell holds its team members to the highest standards, and has a zero-tolerance policy for unethical behavior." And USCIS spokesperson Christopher Bentley assured the press that such cases are the exception and not the norm, saying, "USCIS demands that our employees maintain the highest level of integrity and professionalism. USCIS has zero tolerance for criminal activity and employee misconduct, and will take appropriate action to pursue illegal or unethical activity by every means at our disposal."

This, however, is not the first time immigration records have been compromised. In 2008, USCIS employees at the Vermont Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate connected an independent computer to an external internet connection at the USCIS center to extract personal information with the intent to commit identity fraud. This newest infraction comes as USCIS is attempting to put a new immigration document automation program online—to the tune of $2.4 billion—that has been flagged by a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report as potentially dangerous due to a lack of security controls. Assistant Inspector General of IT audits for federal agencies, Frank Deffer has called employee access to secure databases the "most prevalent, high-impact areas of concern" in an audit of USCIS computer systems, also saying that "Insiders at USCIS have perpetrated fraud in the past. USCIS insiders are capable of granting legal residency or citizenship status to someone who poses a national security risk to the United States."

Nobody was ordering the special: ribeye steak with mashed potatoes and vegetables. Maybe that's because the night was still young at the Twins Go-Go Lounge. So were the bikini-clad babes tangled around the two brass poles.

The stage was neon lit. The stereo system was firing mortar rounds of hip-hop interspersed with Kid Rock numbers. This was Wednesday night at the place that had been exposed only hours earlier in a Manhattan federal courtroom as a secret Eden for two federal officers.

Once Drug Enforcement Agency employees Glen Glover and David Polos appeared before a judge, the damning charges against them were spelled out: how they both allegedly failed to mention under oath to the federal government that they had any part as owners and managers of this seedy jiggle joint; how they employed women who were not legally permitted to work in the United States; how these women performed sex acts in exchange for money at the club.

One DEA source told The Daily Beast on the condition of anonymity that the incident is a slap in the face for the agency. "It shouldn't have been done, and as an agent I'm pissed," the source said. "Sometimes good people screw up and do stupid things."

Glover worked in IT for the agency. Polos was special agent in charge—until he was sidelined by an inquiry into his side job, operating this lonely white- and red-trimmed establishment next to a used car dealership.

Glover and Polos, who were based primarily out of Manhattan, first drew the Justice Department's attention in 2011, when they were each asked to fill out a form as a formality to maintain their security clearances. Neither of them mentioned that they were running the show at the Twins, a nightclub where lap dances were mere foreplay to the rampant sex. And some of the financial disclosures on the agents' federal forms looked odd to investigators. An $18,000 deposit, for example, was just a "business investment," Glover told authorities. But that amount, authorities say, was directly linked to the hush-hush dealings at the Twins Go-Go Lounge.

And when investigators started digging, they found that the exotic dancing establishment had an even sleazier underbelly: The talent was illegal.

"Most of the dancers were undocumented immigrants from either Brazil or Russia," the complaint states. This was a well-known secret.

"The dancers' status as undocumented immigrants was widely known at the club in part because dancers spoke about it," the court papers add.

One dancer from Brazil was apparently given a chance to work double shifts "in order to pay back the smugglers who arranged for her unlawful entry into the United States," according to the complaint.

The women didn't just pay their bills with dances. The feds evaluated surveillance footage from 2014 that was captured by cameras trained on the various lap dance rooms. Investigators concluded that "there appear to be multiple instances of sexual contact between dancers and patrons, with money exchanged afterwards," the complaint read.

Sometimes that sex got out of hand. In one of the cached texts to Glover, a manager wrote that one dancer's sexual exploits were damaging the furniture: "Can you tell [club member] to stop having sex with [sic] on the chair, it's not built to handle all the added weight she is carrying."

On a Monday morning in January 2014, a fight broke out at the club. Bergen County prosecutor John Molinelli tweeted that at least six people were involved in the brawl, "which spilled out into the parking lot," where one person was said to have hit two others with a vehicle—intentionally. A badly damaged Mazda sedan, its windshield and rearview mirror shattered, was at the scene.

If the DEA agents-turned-strip club owners were trying to keep their antics off the blotter sheets at the local weekly paper, they failed miserably.

Nor were they very good at running the joint. According to the complaint, it seemed that every day a mop head to scrub the condoms off the lap dance room floors went missing; the cooler was on the fritz, which meant warm beers; the cash till was always too low; the help kept forgetting to pick up the sandwiches at Wal-Mart; girls were getting pink-slipped without getting each owner's OK.

Glover was supposed to be the one "in charge of dealing with the dancers," the complaint states. From each girl, he allegedly skimmed $10-$30 per night for the right to kick their heels at Twins Plus.

All the while, he made fun of the dancers behind their backs. In one email exchange, recounted in the complaint, a Twins manager calls out the dark-skinned dancers. "Maybe [the exterminator] can eliminate some of the colored girls," the manager wrote. Glover seemed to go along with the disparaging jab in his emailed response: "You can get rid of all the black girls if you want if you find other ones first."

Glover often operated with an iron fist. According to the complaint, one time he barked at a bouncer for "too aggressively checking the lap dance areas," in order prevent them from becoming back room bacchanals.

Polos was tasked with duties like any other manager. But mostly he liked to glide around the grounds acting like a big shot, the complaint states.

Photo featuring Twins adult night club. (photo: ML Nestel/The Daily Beast)
Photo featuring Twins adult night club. (photo: ML Nestel/The Daily Beast)
And it was widely known around the dimly lit club that both men were DEA agents. Hell, they practically wore it as a badge of honor, with Polos rocking his DEA badge while Glover sported a Kevlar vest.

Polos even tried to pawn himself off as a G-man. "Polos would sometimes claim to others at the club that he worked for the FBI," according to the court papers.

When Glover announced he was coming to the bar with two New Jersey state troopers, however, he made sure his fellow manager would be discreet. "I'm coming with two state troopers they don't know I own the bar," Glover texted. The manager replied: "Copy, I will be brief."

But the DEA duo weren't exactly known for their discretion. Polos routinely made calls and texted with his DEA-issued cellphone to get fellow managers to cover his manager shift at the strip joint.

On June 30, 2011, Polos texted a fellow manager that he was heading to Washington, D.C., and that it was "not looking good in regard to working tonight."

The manager he'd asked to fill in responded: "Your going to jail in DC… What are the charges?" Polos wrote back: "Work related."

The Daily Beast got a firsthand look at Polos and Glover's joint on the night they were taken to court.

From the red and white stucco facade, the Twins felt like an abandoned garage from the outside, with a subpar lit-up marquee in the front. It didn't have many hearts beating inside. Four black lights above turned on anything white or bright.

One girl or sometimes two at a time bounced to the beat in barely there garments of various hues. Others giggled to each other while Kenya, the bartender, kept the eight or so men quaffing. She had just gotten back from Miami and had a lot to say about the massive sundae she'd devoured there.

One man skipped the $5 "loaded fries topped with bacon cheddar and sour cream" and went with wings and barbecue sauce. He managed to convince a striking dancer to sit next to him while he stuffed dollar bills down another's brassiere.

That's how the place seemed to work: A dance, then a clockwise parade of in-your-face flesh between music tracks for single scraps. One girl took a liking to The Daily Beast's new face, saying, "Well, you're a handsome change from most of the guys here. Just look around you."

Most of the guys knew the dancers by name. One regular kept whistling at Kenya to come over to him.

There were two bouncers manning the back room, two burly fellas. One bearded guy wore all black and chatted a lot with the dancers. He held a sheaf of paper that seemed to be important.

The other never really moved aside.

Pentagon employees are using their government credit cards to gamble and pay for escorts, according to an audit report.

Politico reported Wednesday:

A Defense Department audit has found that a significant number of Pentagon employees used their government credit cards to gamble and pay for "adult entertainment" — findings that are expected to lead department officials to issue stern new warnings.

The audit of "Government Travel Charge Transactions" by the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General, which is to be made public in coming weeks, found that both civilian and military employees used the credit cards at casinos and for escort services and other adult activities — particularly in Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

A Pentagon official briefed on some of the findings stressed that the federal government did not necessarily pay the charges; holders of the cards pay their own bills and then submit receipts to be reimbursed for expenses related to their government business.

The official said that the employees may have used the government cards for gambling and escort services in order to shield the charges from spouses.

Misuse of government credit cards is a common problem among federal agencies. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) employees racked up $192.2 million in potentially "questionable transactions," sometimes using government cards at bowling alleys and barbershops.

Department of Transportation (DOT) employees have also used their government credit cards for cash advances at casinos and racetracks.

Government watchdog investigations have found that at least two EPA employees who were caught watching porn and sexually harassing female co-workers were also awarded or promoted by the agency.

Furthermore, senior EPA officials largely ignored complaints by 16 women, mostly employees, who accused one official of sexual harassment. Despite these complaints, this employee actually got a promoted.

"If you sexually harass someone it appears you get a promotion," New York Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney said during a House Oversight Committee hearing Thursday on misconduct within the EPA.

"If someone makes a mistake… they are subject to heavy action" by the EPA, said Alabama Rep. Gary Palmer, a Republican. "Yet you have employees that are sexually abusive of women [and children]… yet no one was fired. They were put on paid administrative leave."



"You've protected sexual perverts," Palmer said, adding that the agency was "morally corrupt."

Testifying before the committee, EPA inspector general Arthur Elkins said his staff found that agency employee Peter Jutro "engaged in offensive and inappropriate behavior toward at least 16 women, most of whom were EPA co-workers." Worst of all, Elkins said, is that very senior EPA officials "were made aware of many of these actions and yet did nothing."

Instead of reprimanding Jutro, he was promoted to be Assistant Administrator for the EPA's Office of Homeland Security where he "engaged in such behavior toward an additional six women," Elkins said.

But that's not all. EPA investigator Patrick Sullivan told Congress that the agency gave an employee who was caught viewing pornography at work "several performance awards, which included monetary awards ranging from $600 to $2,000 and a time-off award of 16 hours."

"The employee admitted that — for approximately 2 to 6 hours during his assigned work hours daily, over a period of 'several years' — he had viewed and downloaded pornographic images on EPA computer equipment," Sullivan said. "The employee stated that much of his workday was devoted to organizing the downloaded pornography into saved folders."

The employee was actually caught viewing porn by an IG agent sent to interview him, and didn't even think he was doing anything wrong. The IG's office found 20,000 pron files on the employee's computer, but the government opted not to prosecute the employee.

"On March 24, 2015, the EPA notified the OIG that the agency had proposed removal of the employee," Sullivan said. "On April 22, 2015, the EPA notified the OIG that the employee had retired from federal service."

Republican lawmakers have held hearings over the last two years highlighting cases where EPA employees were caught viewing pornography at work as well as the agency's creation of a Homeland Security arm that has stymied internal investigations.

In 2014, the EPA inspector general's office began investigating allegations into Jutro's alleged sexual harassment. The agency watchdog found that senior level officials had not acted on any of complaints brought forward by 16 women. In one instance, Jutro made unwanted sexual advances toward "a 21-year-old female intern from the Smithsonian Institution."

"The OIG determined that, in addition to his inappropriate behavior toward the intern, from 2004 through July 2014, Jutro engaged in conduct and exchanges considered to be unwelcome with 16 additional females," Sullivan said.

But Jutro was just the tip of the iceberg, according to the inspector general's office. EPA IT specialist Thomas Manning was caught viewing child pornography and trying to delete it. Manning admitted to viewing and holding child pornography — which is a felony.

"On April 13, 2015, Mr. Manning was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison to be followed by 5 years of supervised release," Sullivan said. "He was also ordered to pay restitution to identified victims in addition to a fine of $12,500."

Another EPA employee that worked in the Office of the Administrator was caught viewing porn in April 2014 on a government computer "during work hours by a child who happened to be visiting during the EPA's 'Bring Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day.'"

"The OIG immediately initiated an investigation into the violation of misuse of government time and resources," Sullivan said, adding that the employee was put on administrative leave in May 2014.

"[T]he employee admitted that he viewed pornography at work between 1 to 4 hours per day," Sullivan added. "In addition, he stated that approximately 30 to 40 percent of the data stored on his external electronic media devices contained pornography. Approximately 3,500 pornographic images were recovered from the employee's laptop and external media."

It wasn't until a year later that the employee "had been proposed for removal" by the EPA.

EPA Acting Deputy Administrator Stanley Meiburg was there to defend the agency's record, saying that "employees who engage in serious misconduct are not representative of the broader workforce."


Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2015/04/30/epa-e ... z4XPSXj64D

Andrew Huszar: Confessions of a Quantitative Easer
We went on a bond-buying spree that was supposed to help Main Street. Instead, it was a feast for Wall Street.
By ANDREW HUSZAR
Nov. 11, 2013 7:00 p.m. ET
I can only say: I'm sorry, America. As a former Federal Reserve official, I was responsible for executing the centerpiece program of the Fed's first plunge into the bond-buying experiment known as quantitative easing. The central bank continues to spin QE as a tool for helping Main Street. But I've come to recognize the program for what it really is: the greatest backdoor Wall Street bailout of all time.

Systemic Corruption at the FBI

The Washington Post reports:

The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000.Of 28 examiners with the FBI Laboratory's microscopic hair comparison unit, 26 overstated forensic matches in ways that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent of the 268 trials reviewed so far …

The cases include those of 32 defendants sentenced to death. Of those, 14 have been executed or died in prison, the groups said under an agreement with the government to release results after the review of the first 200 convictions.

FBI corruption has led to other innocent deaths. And a U.S. Congressional committee admitted that – as part of its "Cointelpro" campaign – the FBI used many provocateurs in the 1950s through 1970s to carry out violent acts and falsely blame them on political activists.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is the sheriff of the financial industry, looking for crimes such as Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme, but a new government report obtained by ABC News has concluded that some senior employees spent hours on the agency's computers looking at sites such as naughty.com, skankwire and youporn as the financial crisis was unfolding.

"These guys in the middle of a financial crisis are spending their time looking at prurient material on the Internet," said Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland and former director of the Office of Economics at the U.S. International Trade Commission.

"It's reckless, and indicates a contempt for the taxpayer and the taxpayer's interest in monitoring financial markets," Morici said.

The investigation, which was conducted by the SEC's internal watchdog at the request of Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, found 31 serious offenders during the past two and a half years. That's less than 1 percent of the agency's 3,500 employees but 17 of the alleged offenders were senior SEC officers whose salaries ranged from $100,000 to $222,000 per year.
The SEC would not comment on any specific cases, but said it takes inappropriate use of government resources seriously and deals with abuses on a case-by-case basis.

Some of the big offenders are still on the job, according to sources.

Eight Hours a Day Spent on Porn Sites

One senior attorney at SEC headquarters in Washington spent up to eight hours a day accessing Internet porn, according to the report, which has yet to be released. When he filled all the space on his government computer with pornographic images, he downloaded more to CDs and DVDs that accumulated in boxes in his offices.

An SEC accountant attempted to access porn websites 1,800 times in a two-week period and had 600 pornographic images on her computer hard drive.

Another SEC accountant used his SEC-issued computer to upload his own sexually explicit videos onto porn websites he joined.

And another SEC accountant attempted to access porn sites 16,000 times in a single month.

In one case, the report noted, an employee tried hundreds of times to access pornographic sites and was denied access. When he used a flash drive, he successfully bypassed the filter to visit a "significant number" of porn sites.

The employee also said he deliberately disabled a filter in Google to access inappropriate sites. After management informed him that he would lose his job, the employee resigned.

A similar SEC report for October 2008 to March 2009 said that a regional supervisor in Los Angeles accessed and attempted to access pornographic and sexually explicit Web sites up to twice a day from his SEC computer during work hours.

Porn Problem Began as Economy Collapsed

The report concluded that most of the cases began in 2008, just as the financial system began to collapse, and the problem hasn't stopped.

The most recent case cited in the report occurred four weeks ago.

"Trust me, these guys are addicts," said Mike Leahy, author of the book "Porn Nation."

"This isn't going to end until you know someone really puts a stop to it."

Days into Donald Trump's administration, heads are finally beginning to roll at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Two notoriously corrupt employees in Puerto Rico were fired this week, indicating that more may be on the way.

One is the hospital's CEO, DeWayne Hamlin, who offered an employee $305,000 to quit after she played a role in exposing his drug arrest.

"Mr. DeWayne Hamlin was removed from federal service effective January 20, 2017," the VA said. Jan. 20 was Inauguration Day.

Under former Secretary of Veterans Affairs Bob McDonald, the agency ignored years of evidence about shoddy work ethic, theft and whistleblower retaliation. The VA finally began a months-long investigative proceeding last year, after an outside agency, the Office of Special Counsel, prodded VA leadership.

Even as it knew of the problems, McDonald tapped Hamlin to mold other VA employees in his image, having him serve as a "coach" at the Leaders Shaping Leaders training session in September. McDonald said the training is the number-one way to shape the agency's culture.

Paperwork reviewed by The Daily Caller News Foundation shows that bosses openly told Rosayma Lopez that she was being fired for refusing to fabricate a reason to fire another employee, Joseph Colon, after he exposed that Hamlin had been arrested at 3 a.m. in Florida on suspicion of drunk driving while in possession of pills for which he had no prescription. Diversion of opiates from VA facilities is a major issue. After ethics officials blocked that firing, he attempted to pay her to quit using $305,000 of taxpayer money, which would have been the largest settlement in recent VA history. She refused the money.

Also in September, Leah Bradley, the VA's general counsel under McDonald, told Congress that Hamlin's attempts to get rid of Rosayma Lopez were not retaliation, even though the investigation was ongoing, she did not cite any evidence, and ultimately the evidence apparently concluded otherwise.

The other person fired recently is a woman who took part in an armed robbery, then kept her job while she was in jail, and continued to work in the hospital's security office while wearing an ankle bracelet.
After TheDCNF broke the story, administrators told Congress it wasn't true and Elizabeth Rivera Rivera had been fired, before backtracking and claiming that it was impossible to fire employees for off-duty crimes.

Outside lawyers ridiculed this explanation, and spokesmen at the time would not say why she wasn't simply fired for missing work because she was in jail.

She was suddenly fired Tuesday for misconduct, including being absent without leave and failing to disclose other arrests on her job application, which her background check apparently did not catch.

The hospital has numerous other felons on staff in positions where that background is relevant, and the hospital has simply ignored questions about why. The precedent set this week may suggest that their backgrounds may finally be considered by the VA.

Among them, Tito Santiago Martinez, a human resources official in charge of hiring and disciplining at the facility, is a convicted sex offender who said "there's no children in [the hospital], so they figure I could not harm anyone here." The employees union uses his status as leverage to keep rank-and-file employees who run into trouble with the law on the job.

Braxton Linton is a high-level manager in charge of buying prosthetics such as hearing aids, often with government-issued credit cards. He was hired just weeks after release from federal prison for stealing $70,000 using credit card info he lifted from his previous employer. He also been arrested on drug charges while working for the VA, and it is unclear whether he disclosed those arrests to his employer.

Past criminal behavior has been shown to be a predictor of future conduct. In 2011 the hospital also hired a man who had a criminal record for illegal firearms in 2007. Last year he was killed in a shootout suspected to be related to drug dealing. He was carrying his own illegal gun again, but didn't manage to fire first.

Lopez was only one of several employees who provided evidence that Hamlin had punished them for not covering for his misconduct. Within days of his taking over the hospital, his deputy said he had wrongfully billed taxpayers for moving expenses. He forced the deputy out.

Records also suggest Hamlin was often missing from the hospital.

In December, Sen. Jeff Flake introduced a bill requiring the VA to stop hiring felons, and to fire the ones that already work there. The American Federation of Government Employees union has refused to say publicly whether it opposes the bill.

During the Obama administration, eleven sex offenders listed the Detroit VA hospital alone as their work address; some of them were fugitives wanted by local police, but the VA cited employee privacy.

Rapists and kidnappers also work at nearby hospitals. An Ohio VA employee, Antoine Hall, was convicted of creating pornography depicting a 13-year old in 2014. Hall is wearing a VA badge around his neck in the sex offender registry picture, meaning he was still going to work after being sentenced, and even received a bonus in 2015.

Ralph Wood was convicted of child molesting in 2006 and sentenced to five years in prison, with three years suspended. He was released in 2008 and almost immediately began working at the Indianapolis VA hospital as a clerk. David Allison was convicted of child molesting in 2007 and began working in "medical support assistance" in 2010. His five-year prison term was suspended, but he was likely still on probation.



Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2017/01/24/days- ... z4XPIPkpji

An employee at the Environmental Protection Agency allegedly downloaded over 7,000 files of pornography on a government computer and watched them two to six hours per day, the agency's investigative unit revealed Wednesday.

"When an OIG special agent arrived at this employee's work space to conduct an interview, the special agent witnessed the employee actively viewing pornography on his government-issued computer," Allan Williams, deputy assistant inspector general for investigations at the EPA, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

"Subsequently, the employee confessed to spending, on average, between two and six hours per day viewing pornography while at work," he added.

The improper conduct emerged as a result of a broader investigation into the agency following the 2013 conviction of senior EPA official John Beale, who falsely claimed to have been working for the CIA and defrauded the agency out of almost $900,000 in pay and benefits.

The employee's identity has not yet been released pending an ongoing Justice Department investigation, but he is still on the government's payroll earning about $120,000 per year.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) expressed outrage at EPA Deputy Administrator Bob Perciasepe during the Wednesday hearing, demanding to know why the employee hasn't been terminated yet.

"Fire him! What's the question?" Chaffetz said.

"We need to wait for the inspector general's report. I don't know if they're going to send him a criminal notice," Perciasepe responded.

Committee Chair Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said he would provide Perciasepe with a list of some of the websites the employee visited, although it would not be made public.

"Somebody viewing pornographic sites should be terminated and not be given bonuses," Issa said

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. misled the public about the financial weakness of Bank of America and other early recipients of the government's $700 billion Wall Street bailout, creating "unrealistic expectations" about the companies and damaging the program's credibility, according to a report by the program's independent watchdog.
The federal government last October loaned Bank of America and eight other "healthy" financial institutions a total of $125 billion - the initial payout from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP - in an attempt to avoid a series of major bank collapses that would push the sputtering economy into a free fall or depression.
The rationale for giving money to stable banks and not failing ones, regulators said, was that such institutions would be better able to lend money and thus unfreeze tight credit markets - a major factor in last year's Wall Street losses.
But an audit released Monday by TARP Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky says senior government officials and Wall Street regulators, including Mr. Bernanke and Mr. Paulson, had "affirmative concerns" that several of the nine institutions were financially shaky

While former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan defiantly defended his record this week before the panel investigating the financial crisis, one admission that went largely unnoticed was his acknowledgment of the existence of fraud.

During his tenure atop the Fed, Greenspan didn't believe in it, according to published reports. As Michael Greenberger, former director of trading and markets at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission where he served under current Financial Crisis Inquiry Commissioner Brooksley Born, put it in a PBS "Frontline" interview:

"When I went to work with [Born] and she was telling me, 'This is what you're up against,' she told me that she had had this lunch with Alan Greenspan, and he had said to her probably that she and he were going to have a disagreement about something, and the subject was fraud. And he didn't believe that fraud was something that needed to be enforced or was something that regulators should worry about, and he assumed she probably did. And of course she did. I've never met a financial regulator who didn't feel that fraud was part of their mission, but that was her introduction to Alan Greenspan."

This week, in response to a question from Financial Crisis Inquiry Commissioner Heather Murren, who asked Greenspan whether subprime lenders should now be supervised by the Federal Reserve, Greenspan said:

"Well, first of all, remember you have to distinguish between supervision and enforcement. A lot of the problems which we had in the independent issuers of subprime and other such mortgages, the basic problem there is that, if you don't have enforcement, and a lot of that stuff was just plain fraud, you're not coming to grips with the issue."

In a paper on the financial crisis he presented last month at the Brookings Institution in Washington, Greenspan did not mention the word "fraud", in any of its forms, even once in the 66-page presentation.

His prepared remarks this week, though, mentioned it three times.

"t is one thing to promulgate rules, and quite another to successfully implement them. Rules to prevent fraud and embezzlement have failed as often as not. Parenthetically, in the years ahead, we will need far greater levels of enforcement against misrepresentation and fraud than has been the practice for decades," he told the investigatory panel.

Greenspan also called for "enhanced" enforcement against "misrepresentation and fraud" going forward as one desired part of the government's arsenal in trying to avoid future crises in which taxpayers are forced to bail out private companies.

In addition to his acknowledgment of fraud, Greenspan also provided a back-handed endorsement of the proposed consumer financial protection agency. The proposed agency, designed to protect borrowers from predatory lenders, has been the subject of intense political debate in the fight to reform the financial system.

Some members of Congress want to keep consumer protection authority with federal bank regulators, or give those regulators power to keep overzealous consumer protectors at bay. A proposal by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) would place the unit inside the Fed.

But the Fed isn't equipped to handle it, Greenspan testified this week.

"The Federal Reserve, remember, is not an enforcement agency," he told the panel. "It would require a very significant set of revisions with respect to how our supervision and examination force...

"Remember, what the Federal Reserve examiners are are largely experts in examining concentration of assets, bookkeeping — a whole set of issues that relate to how banks work and how banks work in an effective manner.

"It's not a group that can ferret out embezzlement, fraud, misrepresentation — and indeed, when we get such examples, what we tend to do is recognize that we don't have the facilities."

 

[Commercialfarmer]

I apologize for the multiple posts, we are only allowed something like 60,000 characters per post.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A whistleblower who repeatedly warned the Securities and Exchange Commission that Bernard Madoff was perpetrating a massive investment fraud testified Wednesday that the regulatory agency that oversees financial markets is inept, "financially illiterate" and far too cozy with the financial titans it is supposed to be regulating.

"The SEC is also captive to the industry it regulates and it is afraid of bringing big cases against the largest most powerful firms," said Harry Markopolos, an independent financial fraud investigator. "Cleary the SEC was afraid of Mr. Madoff."

Markopolos began contacting the SEC at the beginning of the decade to warn that Madoff was a fraud. He sent detailed memos, listing dozens of red flags, laying out a road map of instructions for SEC investigators to follow, even listing contacts and phone numbers of Wall Street experts whom he said would confirm his findings. But, Markopolos' whistle-blowing effort got nowhere.

"I gift wrapped and delivered the largest Ponzi scheme in history to them and some how they couldn't be bothered to conduct a thorough and proper investigation because they were too busy on matters of higher priority," Markopolos told the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises.

Agency squabbles
After at first receiving an encouraging reception from the SEC's Boston Bureau Chief, Edward Manion, Markopolos said the New York SEC office, which supervised Boston, blocked a further investigation.

"In 2000 Mr. Manion warned me that relations between the New York and Boston regional offices was about as warm and friendly as the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry and that New York does not like to receive tips from Boston," Markopolos testified.

Markopolos said it took him five minutes to conclude that Madoff was a fraud after looking at his reported investment performance, and four hours of actual number-crunching analysis to confirm his suspicions.

Bernard Madoff, who is now under 24-hour house arrest at his Upper East Side luxury apartment, faces one charge of securities fraud for allegedly running a scheme that cost investors around the globe tens of billions of dollars. The single criminal count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Madoff estimated the investment loss at $50 billion, according to the criminal complaint.

Markopolos initiated his investigation after one of his bosses at his former employer, Rampart Investment Management, asked him to replicate Madoff's investment strategy.

As he dug deeper, Markopolos said he began to fear for his life, convinced that Russian mobsters and Latin American drug cartels were Madoff clients. When he tried to deliver an investigative file to former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, Markopolos said he wore gloves to ensure his fingerprints would not be on the documents.

Markopolos said the SEC is in need of a major overhaul. Senior managers should be replaced, lawyers should be separated from financial investigators, and the agency should hire employees who have years of Wall Street experience, he said.

"You want reverse age discrimination. Hire the old foxes to police the henhouse," he said.

Senior SEC staff directors told the Committee they are dedicated to protecting investors and cracking down on fraud.

"We assure the Subcommittee that the Commission and its staff take the alleged Madoff fraud very seriously. The losses incurred by investors as the result of Mr. Madoff's alleged fraud are tragic, and we appreciate the impact of those losses on the lives of investors," SEC Director of Enforcement Linda Chatman Thomsen said in a statement.

Markopolos said he intends to turn in a "mini-Madoff" who has engaged in a $1-billion financial fraud tomorrow when he meets with the SEC's Inspector General David Kotz.

Kotz, who is studying the SEC's failure to respond to Markopolos' warnings about Madoff, confirmed to CNN that on Thursday he is scheduled to meet with Markopolos.

An internal investigation of the Transportation Security Administration revealed security failures at dozens of the nation's busiest airports, where undercover investigators were able to smuggle mock explosives or banned weapons through checkpoints in 95 percent of trials, ABC News has learned.

The series of tests were conducted by Homeland Security Red Teams who pose as passengers, setting out to beat the system.

According to officials briefed on the results of a recent Homeland Security Inspector General's report, TSA agents failed 67 out of 70 tests, with Red Team members repeatedly able to get potential weapons through checkpoints.

In one test an undercover agent was stopped after setting off an alarm at a magnetometer, but TSA screeners failed to detect a fake explosive device that was taped to his back during a follow-on pat down.

Officials would not divulge the exact time period of the testing other than to say it concluded recently.

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Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson was apparently so frustrated by the findings he sought a detailed briefing on them last week at TSA headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, according to sources. U.S. officials insisted changes have already been made at airports to address vulnerabilities identified by the latest tests.

"Upon learning the initial findings of the Office of Inspector General's report, Secretary Johnson immediately directed TSA to implement a series of actions, several of which are now in place, to address the issues raised in the report," the DHS said in a written statement to ABC News.

Homeland security officials insist that security at the nation's airports is strong – that there are layers of security including bomb sniffing dogs and other technologies seen and unseen. But the officials that ABC News spoke to admit these were disappointing results.

This is not the first time the TSA has had trouble spotting Red Team agents. A similar episode played out in 2013, when an undercover investigator with a fake bomb hidden on his body passed through a metal detector, went through a pat-down at New Jersey's Newark Liberty Airport, and was never caught.

At the time, the TSA said Red Team tests occurred weekly all over the United States and were meant to "push the boundaries of our people, processes, and technology."

"We know that the adversary innovates and we have to push ourselves to capacity in order to remain one step ahead," a TSA official wrote on the agency's blog in March 2013. "[O]ur testers often make these covert tests as difficult as possible."

In a 2013 hearing on Capitol Hill, then-TSA administrator John Pistole, described the Red Team as "super terrorists," who know precisely which weaknesses to exploit.

"[Testers] know exactly what our protocols are. They can create and devise and conceal items that … not even the best terrorists would be able to do," Pistole told lawmakers at a House hearing.

More recently, the DHS inspector general's office concluded a series of undercover tests targeting checked baggage screening at airports across the country.

That review found "vulnerabilities" throughout the system, attributing them to human error and technological failures, according to a three-paragraph summary of the review released in September.

In addition, the review determined that despite spending $540 million for checked baggage screening equipment and another $11 million for training since a previous review in 2009, the TSA failed to make any noticeable improvements in that time.

The man at the center of a fraud scandal at the Treasury Department has been allowed to quietly quit and retire from his job as a government regulator, despite allegations that he allowed a bank to falsify financial records and amidst outcries from investigators who say the case shows how cozy government regulators have become with the banks and savings and loans they are supposed to be checking on.

Darrel Dochow, the West Coast regional director at the Office of Thrift Supervision who investigators say allowed IndyMac to backdate its deposits to hide its ill health, quit last Friday. Prior to his leaving, Dochow was removed from his position but remained on the government payroll while the Inspector General's Office investigates the allegations against him.

VIDEO: IndyMac Backdated Financial DocsPlay
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Treasury Department Inspector General Eric Thorson announced in November his office would probe how Dochow allowed the IndyMac bank to essentially cook its books, making it appear in government filings that the bank had more deposits than it really did. But Thorson's aides now say IndyMac wasn't the only institution to get such cozy assistance from the official who should have been the cop on the beat.
Investigators say Dochow, who reportedly earned $230,000 a year, allowed IndyMac to register an $18 million capital injection it received in May in a report describing the bank's financial condition in the end of March.

"They [IndyMac] were able to maintain their well-capitalized threshold and continue to use broker deposits to make loans," said Marla Freedman, an assistant Inspector General at Treasury. "Basically, while the institution was having financial difficulty, it kept the public from knowing earlier than it otherwise should have or would have."

In at least one instance, investigators say, banking regulators actually approached the bank with the suggestion of falsifying deposit dates to satisfy banking rules – even if it disguised the bank's health to the public.

The federal government took over IndyMac in July, after the bank's stock price plummeted to just pennies a share when it was revealed the bank had financial troubles due to defaulted mortgages and subprime loans, costing taxpayers over $9 billion.

Critics Point to Cozy Relationship Between Banks and Regulators

In order to backdate the filings, IndyMac sought and received permission from Dochow, according to Freedman.

"That struck us as very unusual," said Freedman. "Typically transactions are to be recorded in the period in which they occur, not afterwards. So it was very unusual."

One former regulator says Dochow's actions illustrate the cozy relationship between banks and government regulators.

"He did nothing to protect taxpayers in losses," former federal bank regulator William Black told ABC News. "Instead of correcting it [Dochow] made it worse by increasing the accounting fraud."

Meanwhile, IndyMac customers who lost their savings have launched their own website and are demanding answers from the government. They were further infuriated after learning Dochow was also the regulator in 1989 who oversaw the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan, a scandal that sent its CEO Charles Keating to prison.

"He's the person that claimed that he looked into Charles Keating's eyes and knew that Charles Keating was a good guy and therefore ignored all of the professional staff that told him that Keating was a fraud, and he produced the worst failure of the Savings and Loan Crisis at $3.4 billion. Now he's managed more than triple that," said Black, now an economics professor at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, Missouri.

Following the Lincoln scandal, Dochow was demoted and placed into a relatively obscure office, but later, inexplicably was brought back into the Office of Thrift Supervision.

Dochow declined to answer questions from ABC News.

IndyMac Customers Furious

After Ronnie Lopez was killed in Iraq, his mother Elaine invested the life insurance proceeds at IndyMac. She lost $37,000 of it.

While Dochow could end up losing his job, neither he nor his colleagues are expected to go to prison.

"This is criminal with the small 'c'," said Black. "No one within the regulatory ranks may go to jail, but they have done the worst possible disservice to the taxpayers of America."

Former TSA Agent: Groping Scandal Is Business as Usual
Jason Edward Harrington
Apr 15, 2015
IDEAS
Jason Edward Harrington is a former TSA agent.
The recent story of two Transportation Security Administration screeners at Denver International Airport manipulating full-body scanners in order to grope men's crotches is disturbing, but it came as no surprise to me.
Over the course of my six years with the TSA, the leveraging of rules and surveillance tools to abuse passengers was a daily checkpoint occurrence. Has the TSA screener searching your luggage suddenly decided to share with you the finer points of official bag-search procedure just as your final boarding call is being announced? There's a good chance that he or she just doesn't like you. Or in some cases, as we've seen, it may be that the screener finds you attractive and wants to use the TSA rules as an excuse to get his or her hands on you.

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Amid all the jokes in comment sections, it's easy to forget that the groping of these dozen or more male passengers by two conspiring TSA screeners is sexual assault, plain and simple. And while it's easy to focus all the blame on the two unsavory screeners who are now no longer with the agency, perhaps the bigger issue here is a systemic one: There are far too many federal hands on people's private parts in airports.
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Donald Trump Will Continue Targeting Suspected American Terrorists Overseas
(The TSA agents involved have been fired, and a spokesman for the agency has said: "All allegations of misconduct are thoroughly investigated by the agency. And when substantiated, employees are held accountable.")
What most people don't realize is that the full-body scanners the two agents used to assault those passengers — the scanners that millions of people pass through each day — are practically useless. The TSA, in its rush to replace the controversial "nude" radiation scanners that they phased out in 2013, swapped out one poorly functioning line of machines for another. The current millimeter wave scanners, with their outrageous false-positive rates, regularly cause unnecessary pat-downs: The agent running his or her hands over you after you pass through the scanner is almost never doing it for a good reason.

Just a few weeks ago, the TSA reached an agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union after a flurry of complaints from African-American women whose hair was too-frequently inspected after passing through the scanners. The reason? The scanners single out areas on passengers' bodies for pat-downs for just about anything, from the hair of people with braids or barrettes, to the crotch areas of people whose pants are slightly sagging (usually due to the fact that the TSA makes people remove their belts). The scanners even misidentify perspiration as a potential concealed weapon (have you ever walked into Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in July without a slight perspiration problem?) When I worked the millimeter wave scanners, we averaged false head-area anomalies on what I'd estimate was about 1 out of every 8 passengers.
Perhaps the most disturbing part of the sexual assault of male passengers at Denver International via full-body scanners is that the victims will likely never even know they were assaulted, since so many passengers have their private parts fondled when passing through the scanners, anyway. It's difficult to tell where airport security ends and sexual assault begins these days. Pat-downs of people's sensitive areas should be much rarer than they are at the airport.
The TSA should scale back its use of the ineffective full-body scanners. While there is a need for the capability to detect non-metallic threats on passengers going through checkpoints — especially after the failed Underwear Bomb Plot of 2009 — forcing every passenger to get inside costly, poorly functioning full-body scanners is not the answer. The TSA apologists who claim that 100% full-body scanning is the only way to prevent a terrorist from sneaking non-metallic weapons aboard an airplane haven't given the matter much thought.
Though if the TSA were to do away with the faulty full-body scanners tomorrow and revert back to walk-thru metal detectors, there would still be half a dozen ways a passenger could find his or her crotch being patted down per the TSA's current system, including:
The presence, oftentimes mysterious, of an "SSSS" on a passenger's boarding pass, which prompts enhanced screening, including a full-body pat-down.
The determination by one of the TSA's controversial Behavior Detection Officers that a passenger is acting suspiciously while standing in line.
False alarms on the explosives trace swab that officers use to swipe passengers' hands and luggage.
And of course, there is the elephant in the room of every behind-closed-doors TSA agency meeting: The fact that no technology currently on the TSA checkpoint is capable of detecting an improvised explosive device stashed inside a body cavity. There simply is no way to stop a "butt bomber." The idea of 100% safety that TSA agents try to sell us with their commands to step inside full-body scanners is just an illusion.
Adequate deterrence against a theoretical terrorist with a non-metallic weapon on his person is all the TSA can and need provide at airports. One or two full-body scanners per terminal, through which the occasional passenger could be randomly directed (alongside passengers on watch-lists), would provide that adequate deterrence. The vast majority of the traveling public need not pass through a full-body scanner, and need not be groped at all.

Edward Snowden urges professionals to encrypt client communications
Exclusive: Whistleblower says NSA revelations mean those with duty to protect confidentiality must urgently upgrade security

•
The NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden, has urged lawyers, journalists, doctors, accountants, priests and others with a duty to protect confidentiality to upgrade security in the wake of the spy surveillance revelations.


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Snowden said professionals were failing in their obligations to their clients, sources, patients and parishioners in what he described as a new and challenging world.

"What last year's revelations showed us was irrefutable evidence that unencrypted communications on the internet are no longer safe. Any communications should be encrypted by default," he said.

The response of professional bodies has so far been patchy.

A minister at the Home Office in London, James Brokenshire, said during a Commons debate about a new surveillance bill on Tuesday that a code of practice to protect legal professional privilege and others requiring professional secrecy was under review.

Snowden's plea for the professions to tighten security came during an extensive and revealing interview with the Guardian in Moscow.

The former National Security Agency and CIA computer specialist, wanted by the US under the Espionage Act after leaking tens of thousands of top secret documents, has given only a handful of interviews since seeking temporary asylum in Russia a year ago.


• Said if he ended up in US detention in Guantánamo Bay he could live with it.

• Offered rare glimpses into his daily life in Russia, insisting that, contrary to reports that he is depressed, he is not sad and does not have any regrets. He rejected various conspiracy theories surrounding him, describing as "bullshit" suggestions he is a Russian spy.

• Said that, contrary to a claim he works for a Russian organisation, he was independently secure, living on savings, and money from awards and speeches he has delivered online round the world.

• Made a startling claim that a culture exists within the NSA in which, during surveillance, nude photographs picked up of people in "sexually compromising" situations are routinely passed around.

• Spoke at length about his future, which seems destined to be spent in Russia for the foreseeable future after expressing disappointment over the failure of western European governments to offer him a home.

• Said he was holding out for a jury trial in the US rather a judge-only one, hopeful that it would be hard to find 12 jurors who would convict him if he was charged with an offence to which there was a public interest defence. Negotiations with the US government on a return to his country appear to be stalled.

Snowden, who recognises he is almost certainly kept under surveillance by the Russians and the US, met the Guardian at a hotel within walking distance of Red Square.

The 31-year-old revealed that he works online late into the night; a solitary, digital existence not that dissimilar to his earlier life.

He said he was using part of that time to work on the new focus for his technical skills, designing encryption tools to help professionals such as journalists protect sources and data. He is negotiating foundation funding for the project, a contribution to addressing the problem of professions wanting to protect client or patient data, and in this case journalistic sources.

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"An unfortunate side effect of the development of all these new surveillance technologies is that the work of journalism has become immeasurably harder than it ever has been in the past," Snowden said.

"Journalists have to be particularly conscious about any sort of network signalling, any sort of connection, any sort of licence-plate reading device that they pass on their way to a meeting point, any place they use their credit card, any place they take their phone, any email contact they have with the source because that very first contact, before encrypted communications are established, is enough to give it all away."

Journalists had to ensure they made not a single mistake or they would be placing sources at risk. The same duty applied to other professions, he said, calling for training and new standards "to make sure that we have mechanisms to ensure that the average member of our society can have a reasonable measure of faith in the skills of all the members of these professions."

He added: "If we confess something to our priest inside a church that would be private, but is it any different if we send our pastor a private email confessing a crisis that we have in our life?"

The response of professional bodies in the UK to the challenge varies, ranging from calls for legislative changes to build in protection from snooping, to apparent lack of concern.

Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at Cambridge University, said he shared Snowden's concerns about the vulnerability of the professions to surveillance by spy and law enforcement agencies.

"If you think your HIV status is secret from GCHQ, forget it," he said. "The tools are available to protect data and communications but only if you are important enough for your doctor or lawyer to care."

Timothy Hill, technology policy adviser at the Law Society, which represents UK lawyers, said the profession was concerned.

"Legal professional privilege – the right to consult a legal adviser in confidence – is a long established common law right. Its fundamental role in our legal system needs to be reasserted."

The society is pressing to have existing legislation rewritten to include explicit protection for legal professional privilege from government surveillance.

"There needs to be a debate about the implications of the Snowden revelations for professional privilege in the digital age," Hill said. "It is not happening. This is not being debated in parliament."

He said the society was seeking to strengthen law firms' cybersecurity awareness but that a stronger statutory framework was essential.

Michelle Stanistreet, the National Union of Journalists general secretary, echoed the concerns. "For democracy to function, it needs to have a free press and journalists who are able to do their job without fear or hindrance. But this is becoming increasingly under threat."

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She added: "Last year's revelations show that unencrypted communications can mean that journalists may be unwittingly handing over their contacts, footage or material, against their will."

The General Medical Council provides guidance to UK doctors about protecting information against improper disclosure.

Niall Dickson, the GMC chief executive, said: "Modern communication offers huge benefits for patients in terms of research, access to professionals, as well as speed of care and treatment. But of course it also carries risk, and confidentiality and trust are at the heart of the doctor-patient relationship.

"We recognise that keeping up with advances in technology and its implications for confidentiality are challenging for all healthcare professionals. We do have guidance which explains what doctors need to do if they are concerned about the security of personal information or systems they have been given to use. But in this rapidly changing area, we also need to keep on top of this ourselves, and we do regularly review our guidance to take account of changes in the external environment."

Why bother with boyfriend-vetting sites like ReportYourEx.com when you've got the ginormous spying resources of the NSA at your fingertips?

That seems to have been the thinking of at least one intelligence worker with the US National Security Agency, who, an NSA letter suggests, regularly tapped the agency's now-infamous phone-data collection program to screen people she met at cocktail parties and the like.

The overseas staffer "tasked the telephone number of her foreign-national boyfriend and other foreign nationals and...reviewed the resultant collection," the letter reads, adding later: "The subject asserted that it was her practice to enter foreign national phone numbers she obtained in social settings into the [NSA] system to ensure that she was not talking to 'shady characters.'"

These intriguing, fill-in-the-rest-of-the-narrative-as-you-see-fit details come in a just-published letter from NSA Inspector General George Ellard to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In August, Grassley asked Ellard to provide details on instances documented by the inspector general's office in which NSA personnel "intentionally and willfully abused their surveillance authorities." The request followed media reports of workers with access to NSA surveillance setups spying on their lovers. The practice reportedly has its own spycraft nickname: "LOVEINT," a play on acronyms like SIGINT (for the sort of signals, or communications, intelligence that's handled by the NSA) and HUMINT (for the human intelligence that's carried out by agencies like the CIA).

Grassley's request also followed various other revelations of NSA missteps that have surfaced since June, when former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden leaked a trove of documents that reveal the extent of the shadowy agency's surveillance systems.

One user of the NSA's system queried six e-mail addresses that belonged to his ex, later testifying, as the newly released letter paraphrases it, that "he wanted to practice on the system and had decided to use his former girlfriend's" addresses to do so.
Ellard's response to Grassley opens by saying that "Since 1 January 2003, there have been 12 substantiated instances of intentional misuse of the signals intelligence (SIGINT) authorities" of the NSA. (An internal NSA audit leaked by Snowden showed many other incidents of various types -- an average of seven per day -- though these were, the agency says, mainly inadvertent.) From there, the Ellard letter gives brief rundowns of those dozen cases.

Of the 12 cases, 8 involved snooping on current or past lovers or spouses. One analyst said he queried the number of his foreign-national girlfriend "out of curiosity." Another did the same, he said, because he wanted to see if his main squeeze was "involved with any [local] government officials or other activities that might get [him] in trouble." Another discovered a foreign phone number on her husband's cell phone and queried it to see if he had cheated. "The tasking," the letter says, "resulted in voice collection of her husband." Another queried six e-mail addresses that belonged to his ex, later testifying, as the letter paraphrases it, that "he wanted to practice on the system and had decided to use his former girlfriend's" addresses to do so.

In 5 of the 12 cases, the employee resigned before being disciplined. In 1 instance, the employee retired before being disciplined, and in another the worker retired before the investigation had been finalized. Half the cases were referred to the US Department of Justice (1 of those was declined by the DOJ), and in 2 other instances, records were insufficient to determine if the case had been passed on to the Justice Department. None of the workers were prosecuted.

This is how things played out for the various rule-breakers who were disciplined:

One "received a one-year letter of reprimand (prohibiting promotions, awards, and within-grade increases) and a 10 day suspension without pay. The subject's pending permanent change-of-station assignment was cancelled, and his provision recommendation was withdrawn."
One "received a reduction in grade, 45 days restriction, 45 days extra duty, and half pay for two months. It was recommended that the subject not be given a security clearance."
One "received a reduction in rank, 45 days extra duty, and half pay for two months. The member's access to classified information was revoked."
One's "database access and access to classified information were suspended."
One "received a written reprimand."
The NSA's phone-call tracking system sucks up metadata -- what numbers were called from what number, how long the calls lasted, and so on. The NSA has made a point of specifying that it does not routinely listen in on Americans' phone calls. Still, some have pointed out that metadata can potentially tell you quite a lot.

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Here's Ellard's letter in full, should you want to dream up further details and construct a cloak-and-dagger melodrama or two (or simply reflect on the powerful pull of jealousy, and curiosity):

NSA letter on LOVEINT and intentional misuse of NSA authority

Treasury Department officials have been cited for soliciting prostitutes, breaking conflict-of-interest rules and accepting gifts from corporate executives, according to the findings of official government investigations.

The revelations of unethical behavior at Treasury are detailed in little-noticed documents posted this month on governmentattic.org, which publishes agency responses to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.



While it is not uncommon for departments within the executive branch to have personnel issues, it is unusual for these types of documents to become public. They provide a rare glimpse of internal probes within the Treasury Department, exposing different episodes of misconduct.

Investigators at the Treasury's Office of Inspector General (OIG), which responds to tips and official referrals from within the department, found that employees had engaged in unethical, and perhaps criminal, conduct.

The emergence of the OIG probe findings come in the wake of embarrassing scandals for the Obama administration at the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Secret Service. Even though the wrongdoing at Treasury is not as far-reaching or as embarrassing as those controversies, it could put the administration on the defensive with less than four months to go before the election.

Some of the OIG's work focused on the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), an agency housed within Treasury that was created by Congress to oversee banking institutions. It also homes in on the now-defunct Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), which recently became part of the OCC as a result of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law.
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Boehner-rakes-in-85m-second-quarter-has-raised-80m-as-speaker" mce_href="http://thehill.com/homenews/house/237973-boehner-rakes-in-85m-second-quarter-has-raised-80m-as-speaker"> • Boehner has raised $80M as Speaker

The identities of the government officials who were investigated are unclear. Their names were redacted from the documents released under FOIA, consistent with FOIA law.

In 2010, an OTS employee "misused" government resources to solicit prostitutes on three separate occasions via Craigslist. While working at the OTS, investigators said, the government staffer "viewed websites offering erotic services on a weekly basis as well as communicating with and arranging meetings with women offering erotic services."

The OIG concluded that the OTS worker had violated government rules on "notoriously disgraceful conduct." The case was referred for criminal prosecution to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, which opted not to prosecute "absent aggravating circumstances such as underage prostitutes or human trafficking." The employee, who was not a political appointee, subsequently retired from the government, according to the documents.

In another finding, the OIG cited an OCC staffer for accepting golf fees and meals from bank executives. The staffer, who had received ethics training, said he believed playing golf with industry officials under the purview of OCC was "a condoned activity."

The golf outings took place on multiple occasions during workweeks when OCC was conducting bank examinations. Many of the greens fees and meals at the golf course were paid for by corporate executives.

The OIG stated the OCC official "violated several regulations covering ethics and the conduct of employees in the performance of their official duties."

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Georgia, however, declined to pursue criminal charges.

OIG found other financial conflicts of interest with the OCC relating to contract bids and the acceptance of improper gifts such as flowers, meals and at least one limousine ride. A separate Treasury official was deemed to have a financial conflict of interest in 2010 when the bank examiner disclosed he had an overdraft protection line of credit loan from a financial institution that was regulated by the OTS.

The documents from OIG also show that a few allegations of unethical conduct were found to be without merit.

Treasury Department officials say the violations are isolated incidents.

"Treasury has a strong ethics policy that we expect all of our employees to follow, and the overwhelming majority of them do. As with any large organization, issues of misconduct occasionally arise. When that happens at Treasury, we act promptly and decisively to address them. The OIG moved aggressively to investigate the isolated instances of misconduct referenced in these documents, most of which were brought to the OIG's attention by bureau management," a Treasury spokesman told The Hill.

The spokesman added that "all six of these isolated cases of misconduct were done by career federal employees."

An OCC spokesman said that "the agency does not comment on individual personnel matters. As your review of the documents will note, many of the investigations were found to be without merit, others are several years old, and some reference referrals made by the OTS, prior to the integration of that agency's responsibility's into the OCC."

Unlike most government entities, the OCC does not receive appropriations from Congress. Its operations are primarily funded from assessments levied on national banks and federal saving associations.

OCC has nearly 4,000 full-time equivalents (FTEs), while Treasury has more than 107,000 FTEs. The OIG report highlights the wrongdoing of a handful of Treasury workers.

The OIG determined that a Treasury employee in the Financial Management Services division used government resources to mail personal bills over an eight-year period.

Another ethics violation in the OIG documents focused on a Treasury Department employee in the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC).

The intoxicated OFAC official attempted to bring prohibited alcoholic beverages into a college football game, and was stopped by law enforcement.

The OFAC official was perceived to be "disorderly and disruptive" and was nearly arrested even after University of North Carolina police noticed the official's badge and credentials. The report said the officers used "restraint because they believed him to be a law enforcement officer." OIG found him to be in "violation of Treasury policy."

Other than the employee who surfed the Internet for prostitutes, it's unclear if the workers whom the OIG investigated are still employed at Treasury.

In an interview with The Hill, Eric Thorson, the inspector general at Treasury, praised senior leaders at the department for supporting the freedom to aggressively investigate allegations. He noted that Treasury is a "fairly large department," suggesting the actions of a few should not tarnish the vast majority of employees who comply with government ethics laws.

"Many organizations have people who do dumb things," he said.

Thorson stressed that the OIG findings are not comparable to GSA's scandal of lavish spending, saying Treasury has a clear track record of not tolerating misconduct. He and other Treasury officials said that the OIG reports show Treasury's systems are working because they have rooted out problems within the department.

 

[Commercialfarmer]

I appreciate your effort. Nevertheless, you have not changed the fact that states have a very poor track record of implementing and enforcing environmental law. It is the sole reason President Nixon created the EPA by executive order in 1970. States were at each other's throats because of the inequity in the protection of shared resources. One of the examples was rivers that are bordered by two states. State A was complaining that State B was not protecting the waters of a boundary river. State A pointed to the fact that their efforts to protect a river was in vain because State B allowed industry to use the river as a sewer. Same issues were occurring with regard to air pollution. Pollutants from State B were being emitted into the air from plants in State B and affecting residents in State A. Since State A had no jurisdiction, there was no remedy.

I do not see where you have disagreed that a State is a lawful government instituted by the people (of a particular geographical location with defined borders) that holds sovereign ALL powers not expressly given to the federal union by the Constitution.

So under the logic spelled out before us, it is your position that a state should loss it's sovereign right to self determination by the people of the state to regulate it's own environment because A. that state has a competing economy with surrounding states, and B. that state shares environmental resources of air and water.

That being so, and the following being factual:

Canada and the United States share natural resources of water and atmosphere. Canada and the United States are competing economies.
The United States and Canada are members of the United Nations.

Using the exact reasoning and requirements of your position, it would only make sense that the United Nations should have regulatory oversight of the environment of Canada and the United States. The United States and Mexico. Mexico and Guatemala. So on and so forth through the entirety of the Americas.

However, not only the Americas. Because we all share the atmosphere and we all share the oceans. And because we all share the oceans, we all share the totality of all fresh water because of water's cyclical nature.

Afghanistan, China, Iran, Great Britain should all be regulated equally. The poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich should be equally yoked because they all share resources and have competing economies. Of course, this will require international monitors. They obviously will be more qualified and trained than national regulators.

If this doesn't make sense on a global scale because these states, and that is what they are- states, have sovereignty in their borders though they share environmental resources of water and atmosphere, then the same logic should be applied to sovereign states in the Union. Hence, the question about defining a state.

If you say that it does make sense on a global scale, then you should welcome the idea of the delegates of China, Iran, and Venezuela thousands of miles away deciding the regulatory requirements of you handling your cows methane production in Kentucky.

Also keeping in tradition and logical sequencing, I now expect this thread to go poof!

 

[Margonme]

CF:

It has been my observation over 33 years of federal civil service that there is more corruption at lower levels of government than at the federal level. I have no empirical data to support that. If you find a credible study that refutes my observation, I will take it into consideration.

It has been my observation that lower levels of government are more  susceptible to bribery, extortion, embezzlement, graft, patronage, nepotism, etc.  Interactions between officials and citizens at lower levels is on a more familiar basis.  IMO that familiarity breeds corruption.

PS: My post that you responded to presented the historical thesis that states have a poor record of implementing and enforcing environmental law. For that reason, the Congress of the United States placed the mantle of environmental protection on the US EPA. I made no other assertions or judgements about states' rights or states' sovereignty.

 

[Dave]

I work for a very small local government agency. There may be more corruption in small government in other parts of the country but I don't see it here. We do some work with a federal agency. What I do see from them is a tremendous amount of waste. And on the grand scale of things they are just a tiny part of the federal government. If that amount waste is scaled up to the size of the federal government it is mind boggling.

 

[Margonme]

It transcends waste. It is gross waste and inefficiency. It carries over into personal life for some. A friend is retired firefighter. When they needed something, there was no effort to be frugal. It wasn't his money, so who cares. Go buy it. That has carried over into his farm practice. He misplaces tools instead of organizing them. When he needs something he cannot find, he goes and buys it again. Same thing with maintenance of his equipment. Who cares, he has that "I will buy a new one mentality." I could never tolerate his bad habits.

As the saying goes, it is easy to spend someone else's money.