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The Two Documents Everyone Should Read to Better Understand the Crisis

Friday, February 27th, 2009

By William K. Black 

As a white-collar criminologist and former financial regulator much of my research studies what causes financial markets to become profoundly dysfunctional. The FBI has been warning of an “epidemic” of mortgage fraud since September 2004. It also reports that lenders initiated 80% of these frauds. When the person that controls a seemingly legitimate business or government agency uses it as a “weapon” to defraud we categorize it as a “control fraud” (”The Organization as ‘Weapon’ in White Collar Crime.” Wheeler & Rothman 1982; The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One. Black 2005). Financial control frauds’ “weapon of choice” is accounting. Control frauds cause greater financial losses than all other forms of property crime — combined. Control fraud epidemics can arise when financial deregulation and desupervision and perverse compensation systems create a “criminogenic environment” (Big Money Crime. Calavita, Pontell & Tillman 1997.)

The FBI correctly identified the epidemic of mortgage control fraud at such an early point that the financial crisis could have been averted had the Bush administration acted with even minimal competence. To understand the crisis we have to focus on how the mortgage fraud epidemic produced widespread accounting fraud.

Don’t ask; don’t tell: book profits, “earn” bonuses and closet your lossesThe first document everyone should read is by S&P, the largest of the rating agencies. The context of the document is that a professional credit rater has told his superiors that he needs to examine the mortgage loan files to evaluate the risk of a complex financial derivative whose risk and market value depend on the credit quality of the nonprime mortgages “underlying” the derivative. A senior manager sends a blistering reply with this forceful punctuation:

Any request for loan level tapes is TOTALLY UNREASONABLE!!! Most investors don’t have it and can’t provide it. [W]e MUST produce a credit estimate. It is your responsibility to provide those credit estimates and your responsibility to devise some method for doing so.

Fraud is the principal credit risk of nonprime mortgage lending. It is impossible to detect fraud without reviewing a sample of the loan files. Paper loan files are bulky, so they are photographed and the images are stored on computer tapes. Unfortunately, “most investors” (the large commercial and investment banks that purchased nonprime loans and pooled them to create financial derivatives) did not review the loan files before purchasing nonprime loans and did not even require the lender to provide loan tapes.

The rating agencies never reviewed samples of loan files before giving AAA ratings to nonprime mortgage financial derivatives. The “AAA” rating is supposed to indicate that there is virtually no credit risk — the risk is equivalent to U.S. government bonds, which finance refers to as “risk-free.” We know that the rating agencies attained their lucrative profits because they gave AAA ratings to nonprime financial derivatives exposed to staggering default risk. A graph of their profits in this era rises like a stairway to heaven. We also know that turning a blind eye to the mortgage fraud epidemic was the only way the rating agencies could hope to attain those profits. If they had reviewed even small samples of nonprime loans they would have had only two choices: (1) rating them as toxic waste, which would have made it impossible to sell the nonprime financial derivatives or (2) documenting that they were committing, and aiding and abetting, accounting control fraud.

Worse, the S&P document demonstrates that the investment and commercial banks that purchased nonprime loans, pooled them to create financial derivatives, and sold them to others engaged in the same willful blindness. They did not review samples of loan files because doing so would have exposed the toxic nature of the assets they were buying and selling. The entire business was premised on a massive lie — that fraudulent, toxic nonprime mortgage loans were virtually risk-free. The lie was so blatant that the banks even pooled loans that were known in the trade as “liar’s loans” and obtained AAA ratings despite FBI warnings that mortgage fraud was “epidemic.” The supposedly most financially sophisticated entities in the world — in the core of their expertise, evaluating credit risk — did not undertake the most basic and essential step to evaluate the most dangerous credit risk. They did not review the loan files. In the short and intermediate-term this optimized their accounting fraud but it was also certain to destroy the corporation if it purchased or retained significant nonprime paper.

Stress this: stress tests are useless against the nonprime problems
What commentators have missed is that the big banks often do not have the vital nonprime loan files now. That means that neither they nor the Treasury know their asset quality. It also means that Geithner’s “stress tests” can’t “test” assets when they don’t have the essential information to “stress.” No files means the vital data are unavailable, which means no meaningful stress tests are possible of the nonprime assets that are causing the greatest losses.

The results were disconcertingA rating agency (Fitch) first reviewed a small sample of nonprime loan files after the secondary market in nonprime loan paper collapsed and nonprime lending virtually ceased. The second document everyone should read is Fitch’s report on what they found.

 

Fitch’s analysts conducted an independent analysis of these files with the benefit of the full origination and servicing files. The result of the analysis was disconcerting at best, as there was the appearance of fraud or misrepresentation in almost every file. 
[F]raud was not only present, but, in most cases, could have been identified with adequate underwriting, quality control and fraud prevention tools prior to the loan funding. Fitch believes that this targeted sampling of files was sufficient to determine that inadequate underwriting controls and, therefore, fraud is a factor in the defaults and losses on recent vintage pools.

 

Fitch also explained why these forms of mortgage fraud cause severe losses.

 

For example, for an origination program that relies on owner occupancy to offset other risk factors, a borrower fraudulently stating its intent to occupy will dramatically alter the probability of the loan defaulting. When this scenario happens with a borrower who purchased the property as a short-term investment, based on the anticipation that the value would increase, the layering of risk is greatly multiplied. If the same borrower also misrepresented his income, and cannot afford to pay the loan unless he successfully sells the property, the loan will almost certainly default and result in a loss, as there is no type of loss mitigation, including modification, which can rectify these issues.

 

The widespread claim that nonprime loan originators that sold their loans caused the crisis because they “had no skin in the game” ignores the fundamental causes. The ultra sophisticated buyers knew the originators had no skin in the game. Neoclassical economics and finance predicts that because they know that the nonprime originators have perverse incentives to sell them toxic loans they will take particular care in their due diligence to detect and block any such sales. They assuredly would never buy assets that the trade openly labeled as fraudulent, after receiving FBI warnings of a fraud epidemic, without the taking exceptional due diligence precautions. The rating agencies’ concerns for their reputations would make them even more cautious. Real markets, however, became perverse — “due diligence” and “private market discipline” became oxymoronic. These two documents are enough to begin to understand:

• the FBI accurately described mortgage fraud as “epidemic” 
• nonprime lenders are overwhelmingly responsible for the epidemic 

   

• the fraud was so endemic that it would have been easy to spot if anyone looked 

   

• the lenders, the banks that created nonprime derivatives, the rating agencies, and the buyers all operated on a “don’t ask; don’t tell” policy 

   

• willful blindness was essential to originate, sell, pool and resell the loans 

   

• willful blindness was the pretext for not posting loss reserves 

   

• both forms of blindness made high (fictional) profits certain when the bubble was expanding rapidly and massive (real) losses certain when it collapsed 

   

• the worse the nonprime loan quality the higher the fees and interest rates, and the faster the growth in nonprime lending and pooling the greater the immediate fictional profits and (eventual) real losses 

   

• the greater the destruction of wealth, the greater the (fictional) profits, bonuses, and stock appreciation 

   

• many of the big banks are deeply insolvent due to severe credit losses 

   

• those big banks and Treasury don’t know how insolvent they are because they didn’t even have the loan files 

   

• a “stress test” can’t remedy the banks’ problem — they do not have the loan files

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EU tells U.S.A: Don’t create new Guantanamo

Friday, February 27th, 2009

By Ingrid Melander

 

The United States must not allow its Bagram military base in Afghanistan to become a new Guantanamo Bay if it wants European Union help to close the prison on Cuba, EU officials said Thursday.

 

In one of his first acts in office, President Barack Obama ordered the closure within one year of Guantanamo Bay, where about 245 people are still detained and which has been widely viewed as a stain on the U.S. human rights record.

 

But Obama has yet to decide what to do about the jail at Bagram, where more than 600 prisoners are held, or whether to continue work on a $60 million prison complex there.

 

Washington wants the EU to help it close Guantanamo by agreeing to accept discharged prisoners who cannot be returned to their own countries for fear of torture.

 

But a confidential EU policy paper, obtained by Reuters, said such help would depend on Washington’s overall anti-terrorism policies, including assurances that Bagram or other camps would not become new Guantanamos.

 

“I would find it very surprising, if the (U.S.) policy remained the same while Guantanamo was closed, to see the EU mobilize itself,” EU anti-terrorism coordinator Gilles de Kerchove told Reuters.

 

The EU policy paper said: “It would not be in conformity with EU fundamental rights policies to simply transfer Guantanamo elsewhere (i.e. in Bagram) without solving the underlying question of the detention of terror suspects for indefinite time and without trial.”

 

U.S. RESPONSIBILITY

 

An EU delegation will travel to Washington in mid-March to discuss the issue. The EU is keen to improve transatlantic ties, damaged by the 2003 war in Iraq, but countries are divided over whether to take in Guantanamo detainees cleared for release.

 

Some like Spain and Portugal have said they are willing to, while others like the Netherlands have said they are not.

 

The bloc’s interior ministers agreed Thursday that it would be up to each country to decide if it accepted former inmates but that they would try to arrange some coordination — at least sharing information on these individuals, Czech Interior Minister Ivan Langer told a news conference.

 

De Kerchove said it would be a long time before EU states got answers from Washington and took any decision.

 

One condition would be for EU states to be supplied with full information — whether classified or not — on any detainee they considered taking in, Langer said.

 

U.S. authorities have cleared several dozen prisoners for release, including 17 members of China’s Muslim Uighur minority. But they have remained at Guantanamo because U.S. officials fear they would be tortured if returned to China.

 

Langer and the EU policy paper said the United States should also take in some of the cleared detainees. “The responsibility of closing Guantanamo is first and foremost that of the United States,” the document said. 

“The former inmates that could be taken in the EU are those who face no judicial charges, can be freed, cannot go back to their country of origin and want to be transferred to Europe.”

 

(Editing by David Brunnstrom and Mark Trevelyan)

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Would You Go to Jail to Protest Torture?

Friday, February 27th, 2009

By Sherwood Ross

Are you ready to go to jail for what you believe? Would you stand up to the Pentagon by engaging in non-violent civil disobedience to protest torture?

Two men of faith who have done so, who have walked the same road of Mohandas Gandhi and Rev. Martin Luther King, are Franciscan Louis Vitale and Jesuit Stephen Kelly. They were 75 and 58, respectively, when they were jailed.

They submitted themselves for arrest in November, 2006, as they knelt in prayer in the driveway at the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and School at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.

Ft. Huachuca has been described as the source of the torture manuals used at the infamous School of the Americas.

Writing about his experience in “Sojourners,” an ecumenical Christian magazine, Father Vitale says he and Father Kelly had “hoped to deliver a letter opposing the teaching of torture” to those in charge and to speak with enlisted personnel about the base’s “illegality and immorality.”

Sadly, for the military as well as for themselves, they were arrested and sentenced by a Tucson, Ariz., magistrate to prison for five months. Both have since been released.

In the Imperial County jail in California, Father Vitale made a discovery, that he had nothing more to fear: “we discover the path of resistance: a vocation that we must follow in the midst of empire to overcome the oppression of our brothers and sisters.”

“I realize this stance in my solitary cell…as the steel doors clang shut, there is freedom to surrender to God and this universe. There is freedom to be open to the creative call of compassion toward our global community.”

Apparently, it was difficult for Father Vitale to acknowledge the reality “that ours is a nation that tortures.” He chastises his country because it “has retracted the binding commitment it made when it signed the 1975 U.N. declaration on torture.”

That Declaration in Article I defines torture as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted by or at the instigation of a public official…”

Father Vitale was disturbed by the photos he saw of torture perpetrated at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, such as “hangings, electric shock, beatings, waterboardings, and other extreme physical and psychological procedures,” procedures he says were “spelled out in memos emanating from the White House.”

These tortures have been used in prisons not only in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, but also in prisons to which the U.S. renders prisoners in Syria, Egypt, Morocco, and other countries.

Father Vitale says he and Father Kelly were motivated to protest at Fort Huachuca by the death of Alyssa Peterson, a young U.S. Army interpreter who was trained there.

“After just two sessions in the cages, she objected and refused to participate in the harsh interrogation techniques being used—techniques the Army now refuses to describe and records of which have been destroyed,” Fr. Vitale writes.

“She became distraught and was sent to suicide prevention training, only to commit suicide shortly thereafter,” Father Vitale added.

Father Vitale says he would like to know why Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast of Fort Huachuca, formerly chief of military intelligence in Iraq stationed at Abu Ghraib “has never been reprimanded nor prosecuted for her command failure to prevent it.”

He is also concerned that Brig. Gen. John Custer, who succeeded Fast in charge of Fort Huachuca, allegedly integrated “into standard practice” the techniques elsewhere he learned at Guantanamo.

Father Vitale said when he was in prison he thought about how “Jesus boldly challenged every barrier to the well-being of all, fearlessly breaking the innumerable taboos, customs, and laws that dehumanize, destroy, or diminish human beings, especially the rejected, the feared, the despised. His life and vision has illumined for me the obligation to say ‘no’ to injustice and ‘yes’ to love in action.”

While he sat in jail, Father Vitale said he felt as though he was in the presence of both God and Christ “who gave his life for the healing and well-being of all.” He wrote in Sojourners, “In my small cell, I have a growing awareness of the communion of saints—and the possibility of a world where the vast chasm of violence and injustice enforced by torture and war is bridged and transformed.” How many of the rest of us can say that?

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Britain admits terror suspects given to US

Friday, February 27th, 2009

By LOUISE NOUSRATPOUR

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20,000 banking staff to pay for bosses’ errors

Friday, February 27th, 2009

By PAUL HASTE

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Pentagon moves to impose secrecy on budget talks

Friday, February 27th, 2009

AFP – Senior Pentagon officials have had to promise they will keep the details of the US military budget secret as the Defense Department prepares to make tough cuts on weapons programs, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

In an unprecedented move, Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked top military officers and civilian officials to sign non-disclosure forms in which they agree not to reveal deliberations about the politically charged budget.

“Everybody who’s participating in this process — these are the highest ranking people in this department … were asked to sign an agreement in which they would agree not to speak to any of the matters that they are working on as part of this budget process,” press secretary Geoff Morrell told a news conference.

“This is highly sensitive stuff involving programs costing tens of billions of dollars, employing hundreds of thousands of people and — and go to the heart of national security,” he said.

Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were among those required to sign, and Gates himself signed the form, Morrell said.

“This is to reinforce the message that indeed this is classified material. These are highly secret discussions. And we should remember that, be mindful of it, and honor it,” Morrell said.

News of the bid to impose secrecy came as President Barack Obama prepares to present his budget request to Congress on Thursday.

Gates has warned he plans to take a hard look at expensive weapons programs, which enjoy the backing of powerful defense firms and lawmakers in Congress.

The non-disclosure forms may carry less legal weight than the strict security clearances already governing top officials and officers. But the defense secretary’s step may have been designed more as a symbolic message to curb leaks about sensitive budget negotiations, analysts said.

Gates is “trying to invoke personal loyalty,” said Michael O’Hanlon at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

“Gates is trying to send the message that if you do that (leak) you’re actually hurting me and I’ll take it as a personal affront and I’m personally asking you not to do it,” O’Hanlon told AFP.

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US Combat Missions in Iraq Will Continue After ‘Pullout’

Friday, February 27th, 2009

By Jason Ditz

Just one day after reports came out regarding the Obama Administration’s 19 month withdrawal plan from Iraq, the Pentagon was detailing the enormous number of troops that would remain on the ground after Obama ostensibly fulfills his promise to remove all combat troops, and all the combat they’ll be engaging in.

After the “pullout,” as many as 50,000 troops will remain on the ground, and despite being touted as a withdrawal of combat troops, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell conceded that some would continue to “conduct combat operations,” and Iraq would still be considered a war zone. The rest would be what he described as “enablers.”

President Obama promised a 16-month pullout from Iraq during the campaign, but backed off the promise under pressure from the military. Since then he has spoken of a “responsible military drawdown,” but even as he is set to officially unveil this new plan the question of when the troops will actually be out of Iraq entirely seems like it will remain unanswered.

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Prisoners tortured to death

Friday, February 27th, 2009

By Stephen C. Webster

The American Civil Liberties Union has released previously classified excerpts of a government report on harsh interrogation techniques used in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. These previously unreported pages detail repeated use of “abusive” behavior, even to the point of prisoner deaths.
Prisoners tortured to deathThe documents, obtained by the ACLU under a Freedom of Information Act request, contain a report by Vice Admiral Albert T. Church, who was tapped to conduct a comprehensive review of Defense Department interrogation operations. Church specifically calls out interrogations at Bagram Air base in Afghanistan as “clearly abusive, and clearly not in keeping with any approved interrogation policy or guidance.”

The ACLU’s release comes on the same day as a major FOIA document dump be three other leading human rights groups. Documents which reveal the Pentagon ran secret prisons in Bagram and Iraq, that it cooperated with the CIA’s “ghost detention” program and that Defense personnel delayed a prisoner’s release to avoid bad press.

“In both cases, for example, [prisoners] were handcuffed to fixed objects above their heads in order to keep them awake,” reads the document. “Additionally, interrogations in both incidents involved the use of physical violence, including kicking, beating, and the use of “compliance blows” which involved striking the [prisoners] legs with the [interrogators] knees. In both cases, blunt force trauma to the legs was implicated in the deaths. In one case, a pulmonary embolism developed as a consequence of the blunt force trauma, and in the other case pre-existing coronary artery disease was complicated by the blunt force trauma.”

In a press release, the ACLU summarized the documents as detailing, “[An] investigation of two deaths at Bagram. Both detainees were determined to have been killed by pulmonary embolism caused as a result of standing chained in place, sleep depravation and dozens of beatings by guards and possibly interrogators. (Also reveals the use of torture at Guantánamo and American-Afghani prisons in Kabul).

“[An] investigation into the homicide or involuntary manslaughter of detainee Dilar Dababa by U.S. forces in 2003 in Iraq.

“[An] investigation launched after allegations that an Iraqi prisoner was subjected to torture and abuse at ‘The Disco’ (located in the Special Operations Force Compound in Mosul Airfield, Mosul, Iraq). The abuse consisted of filling his jumpsuit with ice, then hosing him down and making him stand for long periods of time, sometimes in front of an air conditioner; forcing him to lay down and drink water until he gagged, vomited or choked, having his head banged against a hot steel plate while hooded and interrogated; being forced to do leg lifts with bags of ice placed on his ankles, and being kicked when he could not do more.

“[An] investigation of allegations of torture and abuse that took place in 2003 at Abu Ghraib. “[And an] investigation that established probable cause to believe that U.S. forces committed homicide in 2003 when they participated in the binding of detainee Abed Mowhoush in a sleeping bag during an interrogation, causing him to die of asphyxiation.”

“A large portion of the torture, maiming, and murder of detainees occurred under authority issued under secret rules of engagement in the Pentagon,” wrote Scott Horton, a contributing editor with Harper’s magazine. “Much of this flowed through Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone, a figure who has so far evaded scrutiny in the torture scandal and now serves as vice president for strategy of QinetiQ North America, a subsidiary of the United Kingdom-based defense contractor QinetiQ. Even the Senate Armed Services Committee review fails to get to the bottom of Dr. Cambone, his interrogations ROEs for special operations units he controlled, and the death, disfigurement and torture of prisoners they handled. This is one of many reasons why a comprehensive investigation with subpoena power is urgently needed. But full airing of the internal investigations already conducted by the Department of Defense is an essential next step.”

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Jack Straw blocks release of cabinet minutes on Iraq

Friday, February 27th, 2009

By Ann Talbot

The UK Justice Secretary Jack Straw has vetoed a ruling made under the Freedom of Information Act instructing the government to release the minutes of two key cabinet meetings on March 13 and 17, 2003, when the decision to go to war against Iraq was discussed.

This is the first time that the government has used its veto to prevent the release of information under the Act, which came into force in 2005.

“It is a necessary decision to protect the public interest in effective cabinet government,” Straw told the House of Commons. He asserted that “to permit the commissioner’s and tribunal’s view of the public interest to prevail would in my judgement risk serious damage to cabinet government; an essential principle of British parliamentary democracy. That eventuality is not in the public interest.”

The request for the minutes was made in December 2006, and the Cabinet Office refused to release them. An appeal hearing of the Information Tribunal opened in November 2008. In January of this year it ruled by a majority that it was in the public interest to release the minutes.

“We have decided that the public interest in maintaining the confidentiality of the formal minutes of two cabinet meetings at which ministers decided to commit forces to military action in Iraq did not, at the time when the Cabinet Office refused a request for disclosure in April 2007, outweigh the public interest in disclosure.”

The minutes of cabinet meetings that decided on such a momentous question as going to war presented, the tribunal concluded, “an exceptional case,” which would not create a precedent. Other cabinet minutes and confidential government papers that are normally kept secret for 30 years before being released to the National Archives would not have been affected by the ruling.

Under these circumstances, Straw’s response underlines the determination of the UK government to keep the process by which it decided to launch a predatory war of aggression entirely secret. Straw has used his veto conscious of the fact that he and other government ministers may yet face war crimes charges for their actions.

It was at the cabinet meeting on March 17 that the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith gave his opinion that the war against Iraq was legal, after maintaining for the previous year that it would be illegal. Initially, Goldsmith did not believe that United Nations resolution 1441 provided an automatic trigger for war and thought that a second resolution would be necessary if the war was to legal.

Goldsmith was not alone in this view. The entire Foreign Office legal team had made it clear to Straw, who was then foreign secretary that without a second resolution the war would be illegal. They appealed to Goldsmith for support, and he gave them no indication that he thought 1441 was an adequate basis for war. According to the journalist John Kampfner, Goldsmith sent Prime Minister Tony Blair a memo in January 2003 in which he expressed his concerns.

Weeks later Goldsmith went to Washington where he met with the US Attorney General John Ashcroft and John Bellinger, senior associate counsel to the president and legal adviser to the National Security Council. On his return from Washington, Goldsmith prepared a 13-page report on the legal case for war. When it was sent to the Chief of Defence Staff Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, he found it equivocal and demanded a more definitive ruling on the legality of the war before he agreed to commit troops.

On March 17 Goldsmith was called to the cabinet to give his view on the legality of the war. According to accounts leaked to the press by those present, he made a brief statement saying that the war was legal. No questions were permitted and Blair moved on to next business. On the same day a statement was made in the Commons.

When the attorney general’s advice was later published, it amounted to one A4 sheet of paper declaring the war legal without a second resolution. It contained no explanation of the legal reasoning behind this dramatic change in Goldsmith’s views.

Guardian journalist Martin Kettle, a long time supporter of Blair, has defended Straw’s decision to veto the disclosure of the minutes of this and the previous meeting. He maintained:

“Cabinet meetings must be confidential. If they were not, ministers would say what they wanted to be published, not what they believe.”

The cynicism is breathtaking. On these grounds, of protecting politicians from any exposure of their own hypocrisy and double-dealing, one could argue against the publication of the proceedings of Parliament in Hansard. What Kettle is claiming is the right of ministers to take decisions on grounds that are concealed from the public and that would not stand up to public scrutiny.

He claims that the publication of the minutes from two cabinet meetings would “have the precisely opposite effect to the one that the supporters of so-called openness affect to support; it would push all important conversations into the margins and the corridors, unminuted and unminutable.”

This was precisely what the Blair government was already doing by the time it launched its war against Iraq. The Butler Committee, which Blair himself appointed to cover up the failure to discover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, warned Blair against the practice of “sofa government.” In the run up to the Iraq war too many decisions had been taken in unminuted, informal meetings, outside the official structures, the committee found. This group of hand-picked parliamentarians and security professionals recognized that the government could not maintain the facade of parliamentary rule if it ignored procedures established over generations to ensure the formalities of democracy.

Kettle proceeds to undermine his own argument for confidentiality by declaring, “Even if the minutes had been published, they would not have told the critics what they want to know. Cabinet minutes name the minister who introduces a discussion, but they do not give details of who then said what.”

If that is the case there is no reason to suppose that ministers would be inhibited from candidly expressing their views in cabinet meetings even if all the minutes of every cabinet meeting were routinely made available to the public.

Kettle cannot forbear to crow. The details of who said what, he writes:

“…remain in the cabinet secretary’s notebooks, which were not covered by the information tribunal’s decision and which the applicants claimed (a claim I doubt) never to want to see. So the minutes would not find the man with the smoking gun, even if there were one.”

So what is all the fuss about? Straw has resorted to the unprecedented measure of a veto to protect documents that are supposedly worthless to anyone wanting to prove that the government had launched an illegal war.

If it is indeed the case that there was such a lack of discussion in cabinet, this would itself be a telling piece of evidence. It would mean that, faced with the decision of whether to launch a war, which the majority of expert opinion said was illegal, Labour ministers did not care to probe the reasoning behind a brief opinion from the attorney general that stood in stark contrast to the view he had expressed over the previous year.

Every minister and civil servant in the cabinet room would have laid themselves open to war crimes charges by failing to query what the attorney general was telling them on March 17. So conscious of this threat were Elizabeth Wilmshurst, of the Foreign Office legal team, and Robin Cook, the leader of the House of Commons, that they resigned rather than be implicated in the government’s action.

In any event no one can now say for certain what was said at the two meetings because the record, both the cabinet minutes and the cabinet secretary’s notebooks, which should both be made public, instead remain secret.

Equally conscious of what is involved in Straw’s suppression of the cabinet minutes is the Tory opposition. They were uncharacteristically acquiescent when Straw made his announcement to the Commons. Dominic Grieve, the opposition spokesman, made a few token criticisms for the sake of appearances before admitting that Straw was right to veto the release of the minutes.

There has been a closing of ranks in Parliament and the media, because the British political elite want to draw a line under Iraq, the millions of dead and maimed, and move on. Reiterating uncritically the very justification for war employed by Blair, Kettle insisted in the Guardian, “What part of the decision to go to war in Iraq do the critics not understand? The war was a decision taken by Tony Blair, his ministers and officials, and backed by the cabinet and the House of Commons. It was taken because Blair wanted to be in lockstep with the Americans, and because he believed that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would be good for Iraq and would prevent Iraqi use of weapons of mass destruction. Blair was wrong. But we know that. At some stage, we need to stop scratching the itch.”

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How Credit Unions Survived the Crash - Casino Capitalism

Friday, February 27th, 2009

CounterPunch 

While the reckless giant banks are shattering like an over-heated glacier day by day, the nation’s credit unions are a relative island of calm largely apart from the vortex of casino capitalism.

Eighty five million Americans belong to credit unions which are not-for-profit cooperatives owned by their members who are depositors and borrowers. Your neighborhood or workplace credit union did not invest in these notorious speculative derivatives nor did they offer people “teaser rates” to sign on for a home mortgage they could not afford.

Ninety one percent of the 8,000 credit unions are reporting greater overall growth in mortgage lending than any other kinds of consumer loans they are extending. They are federally insured by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) for up to $250,000 per account, such as the FDIC does for depositors in commercial banks.

They are well-capitalized because of regulation and because they do not have an incentive to go for high-risk, highly leveraged speculation to increase stock values and the value of the bosses? stock options as do the commercial banks.

Credit Unions have no shareholders nor stock nor stock options; they are responsible to their owner-members who are their customers.

There are even some special low-income credit unions, though not nearly enough to stimulate economic activities in these communities and to provide “banking” services in areas where poor people can’t afford or are not provided services by commercial banks.

According to Mike Schenk, an economist with the Credit Union National Association, there is another reason why credit unions avoided the mortgage debacle that is consuming the big banks.

Credit Unions, Schenk says, are “portfolio lenders. That means they hold in their portfolios most of the loans they originate instead of selling them to investors, so they care about the financial performance of those loans.”

Mr. Schenk allowed that with the deepening recession, credit unions are not making as much surplus and “their asset quality has deteriorated a bit. But that’s the beauty of the credit union model. Credit unions can live with those conditions without suffering dire consequences,” he asserted.

His use of the word “model” is instructive. In recent decades, credit unions sometimes leaned toward commercial bank practices instead of strict cooperative principles. They developed a penchant for mergers into larger and larger credit unions. Some even toyed with converting out of the cooperative model into the shareholder model the way insurance and bank mutuals have done.

The cooperative model, whether in finance, food, housing or any other sector of the economy,does best when the owner-cooperators are active in the general operations and directions of their co-op. Passive owners allow managers to stray or contemplate straying from cooperative practices.

The one area that is now spelling some trouble for retail cooperatives comes from the so-called “corporate credit unions”, a terrible nomenclature, which were established to provide liquidity for the retail credit unions. These large wholesale credit unions are not exactly infused with the cooperative philosophy. Some of them gravitate toward the corporate banking model. They invested in those risky mortgage securities with the money from the retail credit unions. These “toxic assets” have fallen $14 billion among the 28 corporate credit unions involved.

So the National Credit Union Administration is expanding its lending programs to these corporate credit unions to a maximum capacity of $41.5 billion. NCUA also wants to have retail credit unions qualified for the TARP rescue program just to provide a level playing field with the commercial banks.

Becoming more like investment banks the wholesale credit unions wanted to attract, with ever higher riskier yields, more of the retail credit union deposits. This set the stage for the one major blemish of imprudence on the credit union subeconomy.

There are very contemporary lessons to be learned from the successes of the credit union model such as being responsive to consumer loan needs and down to earth with their portfolios. Yet in all the massive media coverage of the Wall Street barons and their lethal financial escapades, crimes and frauds, little is being written about how the regulation, philosophy and behavior of the credit unions largely escaped this catastrophe.

There is, moreover, a lesson for retail credit unions. Beware and avoid the seepage or supremacy of the corporate financial model which, in its present degraded overly complex and abstract form, has become what one prosecutor called “lying, cheating and stealing” in fancy clothing.

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate and three-time presidential candidate.

***

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090225_getting_warmer/

Getting Warmer

By Robert Scheer Truthdig: Freb 24, 2009

We are lucky to have Barack Obama as president. I write that even though I believe the content of his Tuesday evening speech deserved no more than a B+ / A-, for its failure to seriously address the origins of the banking crisis and for only hinting at the severe military budget cuts required to get close to his goal of reducing the federal deficit by the end of his first term.

But first the positives, which were stunning, and I am not referring only to his superb delivery, which thankfully is logical and informed and inspires without pandering. The one truly memorable, historically significant line-unfortunately desperately needed because of the shameful actions of his predecessor-was: “. I can stand here tonight and say without exception or equivocation that the United States does not torture.”

That simple declarative sentence justifies my vote for the man, no matter my disagreements with him. It is recognition of the essential vitality of a free society as defined by our Founders through the protections they wrote into the Constitution and which George W. Bush so casually demolished. As Obama put it, “. living our values doesn’t make us weaker, it makes us safer and it makes us stronger.”

Another gift of this speech is the reassertion that government exists to redress our grievances rather than exacerbate them. His is a bold reincarnation of the wisdom of Franklin Delano Roosevelt that the Democratic Party had all but abandoned. Obama’s insistence that government rather than just the “free market” should set needed priorities is refreshing and important, particularly in light of his emphasizing the changes needed in education, health care and energy efficiency-the three areas that a short-term view of economic growth systematically neglected since the New Deal.

So, he was great, and when I was just listening to the speech, I was quite enthralled, as were those around me. But on reading his remarks, I have questions.

Speaking of the financial crisis, he observed, quite correctly, “. it is only by understanding how we arrived at this moment that we’ll be able to lift ourselves out of this predicament.” Then he went on to observe, “Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market.” Leave aside that his top economic advisers, particularly Lawrence Summers, were responsible for that gutting. Maybe they have reformed and will now do the right thing.

But the right thing begins with a recognition that it was deregulation, specifically the ending of all statutory regulation of the “hybrid instruments” that allowed for the exotic financial products that have turned so toxic. Just read the language of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which Summers as treasury secretary pushed and which he got then lame-duck President Bill Clinton to sign.

When Obama stated “I ask Congress to move quickly on legislation that will finally reform our outdated regulatory system,” he missed the point. The system is not outdated; it is a get-out-of-jail-free card for Wall Street bandits. Unless we return to the New Deal-created rules that separated the activities of banks, stockbrokers and insurance companies and put them under tight regulation, we are doomed to a repeat of this meltdown.

The other problem with the speech is that while Obama made some fleeting references to getting rid of Cold War-era weapons and did promise an end to the Iraq disaster, he once again left open the door to the United States being trapped in an even more treacherous quagmire in Afghanistan.

At some point, if he is to make good on his promise to cut the deficit by half within four years, he will have to confront the military-industrial complex, which now obtains much larger annual budget allocations than when President Dwight Eisenhower issued his famous warning.

Currently, military spending makes up 60 percent of the federal government’s discretionary budget. Let me offer one example of why the president must begin to turn swords into plowshares if we are to have a sound economy. That example concerns his bold call for spending $15 billion a year on the entire program to develop alternative sources of energy. Sounds like a lot of money, but it isn’t when one considers that an almost equal amount, $14 billion, for Virginia-class submarines-worthless in fighting landlocked terrorists-was pushed through the Congress in the month before Obama took office.

The critical test for Obama will be to break that incestuous circle of influence, particularly the clout of the bankers and the war profiteers and the other top lobbies that pay off both parties, and put the public interest first.

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate and three-time presidential candidate.

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NEW: RINF original cartoon

Thursday, February 26th, 2009


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Facebook backtracks on TOS; Privacy changes still coming later

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

By Larry Dignan 

Facebook has reverted to its old terms of service after a backlash from users.

Over the weekend a ruckus ensued after it was discovered that Facebook changed two sentences to its terms of service. Originally, Facebook allowed users to delete all of their uploaded content and walk away with only archived copies left behind. That clause disappeared meaning that Facebook could continue to use your content after you quit.

Enter the hubbub. Groups against Facebook surfaced (on Facebook of course). Privacy advocates screamed. The problem: Facebook tweaked its terms without any heads up and gave itself broad rights over user content.

Facebook retreated a day later.

In a blog post, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg said:

A couple of weeks ago, we revised our terms of use hoping to clarify some parts for our users. Over the past couple of days, we received a lot of questions and comments about the changes and what they mean for people and their information. Based on this feedback, we have decided to return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues that people have raised.

Many of us at Facebook spent most of today discussing how best to move forward. One approach would have been to quickly amend the new terms with new language to clarify our positions further. Another approach was simply to revert to our old terms while we begin working on our next version. As we thought through this, we reached out to respected organizations to get their input.

Going forward, we’ve decided to take a new approach towards developing our terms. We concluded that returning to our previous terms was the right thing for now.

The key words there are “for now.”

Zuckerberg said that the next version of the TOS will have a “substantial revision.” However, users will have a say in the crafting of the privacy policy.

Overall, this approach is better. Facebook has to give users a heads up on privacy changes. While we’re pondering a new TOS and privacy changes here’s what needs to happen everywhere:

• Privacy policies need to be written in English;
• Privacy policies need a nutrition label of sorts so I know what’s going on at a glance;
• Users need to realize they have very little privacy rights in the first place;
• But users should be given a heads up to privacy policy changes and be allowed to opt out in a certain window.

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Facebook now owns your content - forever

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

By Verity Burns

Facebook has updated its terms of service this month, claiming rights to all content uploaded to the site, even after you delete your account.

Previously, the terms had read that Facebook’s rights to to any original content you upload expired after you closed your account. This important little paragraph has now been deleted.

The terms were officially updated on 4 February, however the changes have only just come to light after a blog site highlighted them in an article that has sent the news worldwide.

The change has caused outrage among users and non-user alike, with many people feeling they should have been alerted to the changes before they went ahead.

However, Mark Zuckerberg has been quick to respond to the controversy on the Facebook blog under the title “On Facebook, People Own and Control Their Information”.

Zuckerberg offered a simple example to show why the terms of service had to change.

“When a person shares something like a message with a friend, two copies of that information are created—one in the person’s sent messages box and the other in their friend’s inbox. Even if the person deactivates their account, their friend still has a copy of that message.

“We think this is the right way for Facebook to work, and it is consistent with how other services like email work. One of the reasons we updated our terms was to make this more clear”.

Zuckerberg added: “Trust us, we’re not doing this to profit from you, it’s so we are legally protected as we enable you to share content with other users and services”.

Do you trust Facebook? Let us know what you think about the new changes in the comments section.

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Police will not be prosecuted for Jean Charles de Menezes killing

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

By Paul Bond

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced Friday that no police officer would face trial for the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes. The CPS had reviewed the case following the open verdict given in December by an inquest jury, who rejected the police account of events. De Menezes’s family has announced that they will sue Scotland Yard for damages.

Jean Charles de Menezes, a young Brazilian electrician, was shot dead on July 22, 2005, two weeks after the July 7 bombings in London that killed 56 people. He was mistaken for one of the failed July 21 bombers and was trailed from his flat by anti-terror officers. They then burst onto a London underground train, pinned Jean Charles down and shot him seven times in the head at point-blank range.

In the immediate wake of the killing there was a flood of media reports suggesting that de Menezes was a known terror suspect whose behaviour had been suspicious. It was reported that he was wearing a bulky jacket that might have concealed a bomb, and that when challenged by the police at Stockwell station he had leaped the ticket barriers and run onto the train.

This version of events was revealed to be entirely false. In fact the police had not even clearly identified him as the man they thought they were following, Hussain Osman. He was not wearing bulky clothing, and did not vault the ticket barrier at Stockwell station to evade capture or otherwise. He had, rather, picked up a free newspaper and walked down to the platform before taking a seat on the train. Eyewitnesses said that he was not challenged or warned by the police before being held down and killed.

There were rapid moves to cover up details of the case and ensure that no one was held responsible. Investigations by the Independent Police Complaints Commission established nothing. One year after the killing, the CPS ruled out prosecuting any of the officers involved on the grounds that there was “insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction.” Instead they brought charges against the Metropolitan Police under the Health and Safety at Work Act for failing to provide for de Menezes’s “health, safety and welfare.”

This prosecution explicitly ruled out consideration of the legality of the killing and heard no evidence from officers or witnesses. It served to prevent a closer examination of “Operation Kratos,” the shoot-to-kill policy adopted previously as part of the “war on terror.”

Kratos gives Scotland Yard authority to deploy armed squads and, if necessary, to deliver a “critical head shot” to suspected bombers. As emerged during last year’s inquest, police were prepared to take the “critical shot” without the immediate authority of a senior officer “because of the structures that were in place.” In other words, that authority was already laid down at a higher level.

Although the police appealed against the Health and Safety prosecution, it was little more than a slap on the wrist, as any resultant fines would be borne by the taxpayer. The police were fined £175,000 in 2007, and the CPS resisted calls from the family for a full investigation.

Last year’s three-month inquest was held under pressure from de Menezes’s family, but the coroner, Sir Michael Wright, laid down restrictions. It was, he insisted, a fact-finding inquest, which could not return a verdict inconsistent with the Health and Safety prosecution. Blanket anonymity was granted to police officers wherever requested.

Even with these safeguards, the inquest was revealing of the police operation. Eyewitnesses rejected the police version of events on the train, insisting that de Menezes received no warning and that firearms officers did not identify themselves.

Firearms officers admitted that they wrote their statements after conferring among themselves, and after they knew they had shot the wrong person. No CCTV evidence was supposedly available for Stockwell station, nor was any video surveillance evidence available for de Menezes’s flat. No audio recordings of communication between officers were provided, nor were any records of the briefings given to firearms and surveillance officers. Doubts were also cast on the surveillance log, when it was revealed that an officer had removed a line from his notes which contradicted police claims that Menezes posed a threat.

Wright attempted to limit the damage as far as possible. He told jurors that he would not allow a verdict of unlawful killing. He supported the argument of the police legal teams that the evidence would only support a lawful killing or open verdict. He also accepted their demand that the scope of the jury’s narrative be limited to a set of specific questions to which they could answer only yes, no, or cannot decide. The family’s lawyers noted that the questions were framed in a “highly offensive: and prejudicial way. They included the suggestion that de Menezes might have been in some way to blame for his death because “his innocent behaviour…may have aroused officers’ suspicions.”

Wright dismissed the family’s lawyers arguments that there was sufficient evidence to permit consideration of an unlawful killing (murder) verdict in respect of the two policemen who shot de Menezes, and an unlawful killing (gross negligence, manslaughter) verdict in respect of former commander Cressida Dick, presently deputy assistant commissioner, and two other commanders. Wright appealed to the precedent of the Health and Safety trial, which concluded that Dick bore “no personal culpability.”

Lawyer Gareth Peirce pointed out that the family had highlighted “25 serious and catastrophic failures” on Dick’s part alone. Wright rejected requests that the jury be given a “comprehensive” set of questions and allowed to write a “meaningful” narrative in their own words.

When Wright ruled out a verdict of unlawful killing, members of de Menezes’s family instructed their legal team to cease participating in the inquest and to challenge the decision through legal review. The family protested in the courtroom, wearing t-shirts saying, “Your Legal Right To Decide” and “Unlawful Killing Verdict.” A gagging order was placed on the press and family to prevent them from publicising the legal challenge and the protest, while Wright gave “the wholly misleading impression that the family’s legal counsel were in agreement with his decisions.” Wright rejected requests to adjourn the inquest pending pursuit of the judicial review and proceeded with his summing up. He also issued the list of questions to the jury, effectively ensuring that the challenge could not succeed.

The jury’s verdict was still the most damaging outcome to the Metropolitan Police, given these restrictions. By an eight-to-two majority they presented an open verdict, thereby rejecting the police claims that this was a lawful killing. They rejected claims by the officers that de Menezes had been warned, and criticised the police operation. Harriet Wistrich, the family’s lawyer, called for the prosecution of officers for perjury.

Because of this, the CPS was forced reluctantly to review the inquest evidence. Stephen O’Doherty, a reviewing lawyer, acknowledged that the jury had not accepted the accounts from the two officers who killed de Menezes, identified at the inquest as C2 and C12, and that their evidence had been inconsistent.

O’Doherty said that he considered whether C2 and C12 had acted in self-defence, as it had been claimed that de Menezes stood and moved towards the officers when they entered the train. O’Doherty also considered whether they lied to the inquest about what was said and done prior to the shooting. He concluded that “although there were some inconsistencies in what the officers said…there were also inconsistencies in what passengers had said,” and that “in the confusion of what occurred on the day, a jury could not be sure that any officer had deliberately given a false account of events.”

This is a further attempt to exonerate the police, as the inquest had heard that officers had written up statements after discussions. The misleading written statements by police officers are here made equivalent to the recollections of eyewitnesses not heard publicly before. As the jury indicated, they were pretty sure that officers had given false accounts. They rejected C12’s claim that he had shouted “armed police” prior to firing and disputed police claims that de Menezes approached the officers.

Further, O’Doherty said that he had reconsidered the question of culpability of officers in the police management team and that, “There was no fresh evidence which caused me to change my original decision that there was insufficient evidence to do so.”

Jean Charles de Menezes’s cousin, Vivian Figuierdo, told the press, “We condemn the CPS decision and reject the logic of their argument. The inquest put the truth out there for all the public to see, but the authorities want us to forget the truth to stop us getting justice. But we will never forget.”

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Afghanistan: Annual report (2008) - protection of civilians in armed conflict

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

KABUL AND GENEVA – 17 FEBRUARY 2009 – The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) today publishes its report on the situation of civilians in armed conflict in 2008. This report, compiled by UNAMA’s Human Rights Unit draws on extensive, independent, and impartial monitoring and investigation of incidents involving the loss of life or injury to civilians in conflict zones. The analysis is geared to identifying trends as well as measures needed to pre-empt the loss of life and to enhance the protection of civilians in Afghanistan.

In 2008, UNAMA recorded a total of 2,118 civilian casualties. The growing death toll, which represents an increase of almost 40 percent on the 1,523 civilian deaths recorded in 2007, is of great concern to the United Nations. This disquieting pattern demands that the parties to the conflict take all necessary measures to avoid the killing of civilians.

The majority of civilian casualties – 872 (41 percent) – occurred in the south of the country, which saw heavy fighting in several provinces. High casualty figures have also been recorded in the south-east (20 percent), east (13 percent), central (13 percent) and western (9 percent) regions. Fifty-five percent (1,160) of the overall death toll was attributed to anti-government elements (AGEs) and 828 (39 percent) to Afghan security and international military forces (pro-government forces).

The armed opposition was responsible for 1,160 civilian deaths; this represents an increase of 65 percent over 2007 figures. The vast majority – 85 percent – of those killed by anti-government elements died as a result of suicide and improvised explosive devises.

2008 saw a distinct pattern of attacks by the armed opposition, in crowded residential and other such areas with apparent disregard for the extensive damage they cause to civilians. Insurgents have also persisted with an intimidation campaign that includes the summary execution of individuals perceived to be associated with, or supportive of, the Government and its allies. Victims include teachers; students; doctors and health workers; tribal elders; civilian government employees; former police and military personnel; and labourers involved in public-interest construction work. Schools, particularly those for girls, have come under increasing attack thereby depriving thousands of students, especially girls, of their right of access to education.

Air-strikes were responsible for the largest percentage – 64 percent – of civilian deaths attributed to pro-government forces in 2008. Night-time raids, which sometimes result in death and injury to civilians, are of continuing concern and are widely resented in many communities.

38 aid workers (almost all from non-governmental organisations) were killed in 2008. This is double the number for 2007. A further 147 were abducted. By the end of 2008, “humanitarian space” had shrunk considerably. Large parts of the south, south-west, south-east, east, and central regions of Afghanistan are now classified as an “extreme risk, hostile environment” for humanitarian operations.

As the conflict intensifies, civilians bear the brunt of the fighting. In addition to the sharp increase in civilian deaths, vulnerable groups are also suffering in terms of destruction of vital infrastructure, loss of income and earning opportunities, and deterioration of access to essential services.

The United Nations remains deeply concerned at the high cost that the armed conflict is having on civilians. While pro-government forces have instituted a number of changes to tactical directives, more needs to be done to avoid the loss of innocent lives. Afghans are, rightly, calling for greater accountability as well as precautionary measures to safeguard the lives of civilians.

The United Nations calls on all parties to the conflict, the government of Afghanistan, and the international community to take action to ensure that obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law are observed and that the impact of the conflict on civilians is minimised.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

- A full copy of the report in English can be found at www.unama-afg.org

- Pashto and Dari versions of the executive summary of the report can also be found at www.unama-afg.org

- Journalists should also refer to the Annual Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the Situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan published on 16 February 2009. The Report can be found at: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/10session/A.HRC.10.23. pdf

- For more information media should contact Nilab Mobarez (Pashto, Dari and English) on 0797 662 503 or Dan McNorton (English) on 0700 250 358.

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