http://www.forfeituresupport.com/

Forfeiture Support Associates (FSA) brings together two proven service providers—MPRI, an L-3 Communications Company, and AECOM Government Services (AECOM-GSI). FSA’s management approach leverages the resources and experience of MPRI and AECOM-GSI for a single purpose—continuous high-quality service delivery in a variety of labor catergories. Our core business focus is in providing key staffing support for Department of Justice (DOJ) agencies and offices, other Federal Law Enforcement prosecutorial venues, and the Federal Law Enforcement community in general. Our largest customers include the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), United States Marshals Service (USMS), Executive Office of the United States Attorney (EOUSA), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).

Business Division 1 – DOJ Asset Forfeiture Support

FSA’s primary business is generated from our Department of Justice (DOJ) Asset Forfeiture contract. This long-term contract provides the Federal Law Enforcement community with a wide variety of support, in 30+ labor categories. This contract vehicle has been in existence for decades and is administered by the Asset Forfeiture Management Staff (AFMS) at DOJ. Currently the contract provides nearly 1500 ordered positions in over 450 Federal Law Enforcement office locations throughout the United States, Puerto Rico and Guam. Click here for more information

Business Division 2 – GSA Schedule Support

FSA is currently in the process of becoming a GSA schedules contractor. Within the very near future FSA will be able to offer our Government customers the alternative of ordering our services directly from one of several GSA schedules.

Click here for more information

Business Division 3 – Commercial Support Contracts

FSA’s main business focus is in providing high quality labor support services to the Federal Law Enforcement community, or to other entities/companies that also provide like services. The FSA Commercial Services Division manages and supports all FSA business contract activities with US commercial companies.

Click here for more information

I wonder what their slogan is. “Helping the government steal your shit.”? “The paper pushers making sure your things end up in the forfeiture’s hands.”? Or something directed toward their clients? “Making sure they can’t get it back!” “Who wants a new gold watch?”

I wonder who’s buddy owns this company or it’s an ex DEA/FBI agent.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/…

Lawrence Lessig, a respected Law Professor from Stanford University told an audience at this years Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference in Half Moon Bay, California, that “There’s going to be an i-9/11 event” which will act as a catalyst for a radical reworking of the law pertaining to the internet.

There’s going to be an i-9/11 event. Which doesn’t necessarily mean an Al Qaeda attack, it means an event where the instability or the insecurity of the internet becomes manifest during a malicious event which then inspires the government into a response. You’ve got to remember that after 9/11 the government drew up the Patriot Act within 20 days and it was passed.

The Patriot Act is huge and I remember someone asking a Justice Department official how did they write such a large statute so quickly, and of course the answer was that it has been sitting in the drawers of the Justice Department for the last 20 years waiting for the event where they would pull it out.

Of course, the Patriot Act is filled with all sorts of insanity about changing the way civil rights are protected, or not protected in this instance. So I was having dinner with Richard Clarke and I asked him if there is an equivalent, is there an i-Patriot Act just sitting waiting for some substantial event as an excuse to radically change the way the internet works. He said “of course there is”.

Skip to 4:30:

Lessig is the founder of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society. He is founding board member of Creative Commons and is a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and of the Software Freedom Law Center. He is best known as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications.

Anyone who doesn’t think the Internet as we know it can be controlled by the government is missing the obvious. The telecoms, which own all the major hubs and backbones, are in bed with the government. They now have immunity from instances where they work with the government to spy on subjects. They work with the NSA to tap major internet hubs with machines able to do realtime analysis of all traffic passing through it. The government even provides them with monopoly status in many parts of the country isolating them from competition. Just like all large corporations which are regulated… they are in bed with the corporatists running the government.

http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/…

The Internal Revenue Service is taking the unprecedented step of seeking Swiss bank records in search of what it suspects could be up to $20 billion worth of assets hidden by U.S. taxpayers.

Justice Department lawyers said late Monday that they had filed court documents in Miami asking a judge to allow the IRS to get information from the banking giant UBS. U.S. investigators are seeking permission for the first time to serve what are called “John Doe” summons to obtain information about possible tax fraud against taxpayers whose identities are not known.

Information stemming from a guilty plea by a former UBS banker last week in Miami suggests the Zurich-based bank had “undeclared” accounts of U.S. taxpayers estimated at about $20 billion. U.S. tax laws require any accounts abroad worth more than $10,000 to be reported — and penalties call for up to half of the amount in a hidden account to be forfeited.

The U.S. government is trying to cooperate with the Swiss government and the bank, Deputy Assistant Attorney General John DiCicco said. But he added, “We are prepared to seek enforcement if that process is not successful.”

Enforcement? What the hell does that mean? World court or troops? It’s sad the latter is the first I think of.

http://news.yahoo.com/…

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Tuesday allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices, but the White House threatened to veto the measure.The bill would subject OPEC oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela, to the same antitrust laws that U.S. companies must follow.

The measure passed in a 324-84 vote, a big enough margin to override a presidential veto.

The legislation also creates a Justice Department task force to aggressively investigate gasoline price gouging and energy market manipulation.

“This bill guarantees that oil prices will reflect supply and demand economic rules, instead of wildly speculative and perhaps illegal activities,” said Democratic Rep. Steve Kagen of Wisconsin, who sponsored the legislation.

The lawmaker said Americans “are at the mercy” of OPEC for how much they pay for gasoline, which this week hit a record average of $3.79 a gallon.

The White House opposes the bill, saying that targeting OPEC investment in the United States as a source for damage awards “would likely spur retaliatory action against American interests in those countries and lead to a reduction in oil available to U.S. refiners.”

The administration said less oil going to refineries would limit available gasoline supplies and raise fuel prices.

Foreign investment in U.S. oil infrastructure has declined in the last decade. But the state-owned oil companies of several OPEC nations are owners of U.S. refineries, and those investments could be affected if the legislation becomes law, said Arlington, Virginia-based FBR Capital Markets Corp.

The bill also requires the Government Accountability Office to carryout a study on the effects of prior oil company mergers on energy prices.

The Senate would still have to approve the House measure.

The Senate previously approved similar legislation as part of a broad energy bill. However, the OPEC-suing provision was removed after White House opposition in order to get the underlying energy legislation signed into law.

Speculation is an essential knowledge source for the market. Just like any other source it’s important for the market to function optimally. The speculation is wild because some group of jackasses in Congress and the executive branch of the USA government are waging wars on people who did us no harm. Because they are screwing up the value of the currency and attempting to carve the path for future energy sources. No bill can guarantee prices. They will likely cause shortages like the late 1970’s. As Mises said when the government interferes and screws things up… they know nothing else but to continue to interfere and to screw up.

I’m not sure how the hell they can enforce anything like this, I’ve not read the bill yet, but this sounds to me to be a declaration or war or at least an aggressive act.

If the government wants prices to drop stop the intervention. Leave the market alone. Leave the people and governments of the oil producing nations alone. Leave domestic energy production alone. Let them build refineries, let them drill for new oil sources, let them build nuke plants. Then will the costs normalize.

http://arstechnica.com/…

The US last week released its 2007 wiretapping stats, and they show that such surveillance is up a full 20 percent over the year before. The number of non-secret wiretaps is higher than it has ever been in the last decade, and not a single application was denied in all of 2007. If you’re concerned about privacy, though, the report makes clear that you’re statistically unlikely to be targeted unless you use a cell phone to run drugs. Murder might also earn you a wiretap, but apart from that, the authorities don’t seem to use wiretaps in all but unusual cases.

2,208 wiretaps were requested last year, up from 1,839 the year before, and the vast majority of them were run by state authorities; only 457 wiretaps were executed by the feds. No applications for wiretap were denied, but this is hardly uncommon. Since 1997, some 15,000 wiretaps have been made, but only four applications were rejected in that entire time.

When we look at the prevalence of wiretaps, two trends stand out. One is that taps are almost exclusively used on “portable devices,” including digital pagers and portable phones. In fact, 94 percent of all taps authorized last year were for such devices. The second trend is that most wiretaps are used in narcotics cases. 81 percent of all taps were for drug-related crime, with murder and assault coming in a distant second (6 percent).

Wiretaps apparently have something in common with shopping at bulk retailers; when you buy more items at once, the price goes down. The cost per intercept has been dropping since 2003, when it peaked at $62,164. In 2007, that number had fallen to $48,477 per investigation. While that still sounds pricey, the report notes that drug intercepts have often been used to make big busts. One set of 2007 wiretaps in Morris County, New Jersey led to the arrest of 105 people; another, in New York, scooped up 51 people, 48 of whom were later convicted. Another 57-day wiretap in California led to the seizure of 40 pounds of methamphetamine, four kilograms of cocaine, and $700,000 in cash.Of course, those are just regular warrants. The Justice Department also released information this week on secret warrants issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. These numbers are also rising, and have been going up since 2001; the increase is a dramatic one. In 2001, the Court approved only 1,012 applications, but approved 2,370 last year.

I’m glad the government is getting a better rate at which to waste our money on rights infringement. Is it likely that these larger drug busts got guys who were actually harming people? Yes, but those people should be arrested for that harm and not providing a drug to another individual in a completely consensual act. This war on drugs is a war on the public. It’s a negative sum game. A drug addiction is a personal problem, a family problem, a community problem. It’s a medical problem. It should be treated as such. In the least I’d like to see some consistency. Alcohol and tobacco are the precursor to far more harm then marijuana or LSD.

And as for the privacy invasion. Wasn’t all this FISA enhancement requested for terrorism? Why are we catching NY governors paying for sex and people selling goods?

Feds to collect DNA from every person they arrest

The government plans to begin collecting DNA samples from anyone arrested by a federal law enforcement agency - a move intended to prevent violent crime but which also is raising concerns about the privacy of innocent people.Using authority granted by Congress, the government also plans to collect DNA samples from foreigners who are detained, whether they have been charged or not. The DNA would be collected through a cheek swab, Justice Department spokesman Erik Ablin said Wednesday. That would be a departure from current practice, which limits DNA collection to convicted felons.

4th Amendment? Psh… doesn’t mean anything. Why should you worry about being secure in your person unless you are a criminal?

Expanding the DNA database, known as CODIS, raises civil liberties questions about the potential for misuse of such personal information, such as family ties and genetic conditions.

Na… the government would never use a central database for illegitimate means. Like collecting guns or people of a particular ethnicity. Why should you worry about your biometric data being collected unless you’re a criminal?

Ablin said the DNA collection would be subject to the same privacy laws applied to current DNA sampling. That means none of it would be used for identifying genetic traits, diseases or disorders.

Because the government never disobeys it’s own laws.

“Now innocent people’s DNA will be put into this huge CODIS database, and it will be very difficult for them to get it out if they are not charged or convicted of a crime,” McCurdy said.

If a person is arrested but not convicted, he or she can ask the Justice Department to destroy the sample.

Again, what’s the problem if you aren’t a criminal. The government does nothing but good with this data. If you really don’t want it in the DB I’m sure you can just ask the FBI officers nicely not to swab your mouth or just go through the procedures to remove it when it’s clear you are not a threat. Like after your death. It’s not like they will make any mistakes or take it for dumb reasons. Only those arrested will be asked. Obviously if you have been arrested you’re a trouble maker. I’m sure the procedure to correct any rare mistakes or those who really really want to get off the list will be simple and painless.