Asset Protection BLOG - Mark Nestmann

Turn In Your Friends, Neighbors and Family Members …and Earn Generous Informant Commissions

Want to earn some extra cash?

It's easy…just participate in one of the many "paid informant" program run by various U.S. government agencies.

Think your neighbor…or that brother-in-law you don't like—is a tax cheat?  Call the IRS to report the violation, then download IRS Form 211 to claim your reward—up to 15% of the "additional taxes, penalties, and fines collected as a result of the informant’s information."

Not satisfied with 15%?  If information you provide to the Drug Enforcement Administration or other government agency leads to a property forfeiture, you're eligible for a commission up to 25% of the amount recovered.

Not satisfied with 25%?  In numerous cases, informants have negotiated "sweetheart deals" with government agencies to submit information in return for commissions as high as 50% of the assets seized.

Of course, not all informants act for money.  In Iowa, anonymous tipsters can call a toll-free number to report littering.  In New York, "naughty nannies" can be reported.  In Akron, Ohio, people smoking in no-smoking areas are under the informant's spotlight.  And just about every city in the United States has a "Crimestoppers" number you can call anonymously to report your suspicions that your friends, neighbors, or family members are doing something illegal. 

Sometimes when an informant doesn't exist, police make one up.  Last fall, police burst into the Atlanta home of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston.  They didn't bother to knock, since U.S. courts have repeatedly declared that "no-knock" raids don't violate the U.S. Constitution.  But when the officers burst in without warning, Johnston fired at them, and they fired back, 39 times in all, killing her instantly.

It turns out that police obtained the warrant to search Johnston's house by falsely declaring that they had confirmed drug dealing at the house through a confidential informant.  After the shooting, the officers involved planted marijuana in Johnston's home to "prove" that she had been involved in drug sales.  They also tried to persuade the informant whose name they used in the warrant to back up their story. 

Naturally, given the "success" of the informant system, the Bush administration wants to expand it.  In 2004, President Bush instructed the FBI to develop a greater "human intelligence capability."  In response, the FBI came up with a plan in late July to recruit 15,000 additional covert informants, at an estimated initial cost of US$22 million.  Their job?  Reporting to FBI officials anybody who is "suspicious." 

If this sounds familiar, it should.  Back in 2002, the Bush administration unveiled its proposed Terrorism Information and Prevention System, or TIPS, in which millions of Americans would be recruited as domestic informants.  Had the program gone into effect, the United States would have had a higher percentage of citizen informants than the former East Germany did through its infamous Stasi secret police.

One consolation, I suppose, is that the FBI's new informant proposal is far less ambitious than TIPS.  A further consolation is that the FBI has decided not to put domestic spies through the same training courses used by the CIA.  That's a good thing, since U.S. intelligence officers abroad can use bribery, extortion, and other illegal acts to coerce informants into working for them.  This is supposedly illegal in the United States, although if the payment of informant commissions isn't tantamount to bribery, I don't know what is.  (No official word on whether commissions will be available in the FBI's new program, but I'm certain they will be, as it's government policy to permit federal agencies to make their own, ad-hoc deals with informants.)

It's also predictable who the informants will tattle on: anyone whose political views or lifestyle they don't approve of.  We can therefore expect reports to pour in to the FBI of the suspicious activities of animal rights activists, fringe religious groups, or anyone else who seems "different." 

Does that make you feel safer from terrorism or other criminal activity?  It shouldn't, any more than the KGB or the Gestapo made citizens of the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany feel safer.

Copyright © 2007 by Mark Nestmann

Congress Legalizes Warrantless Wiretapping

In December 2005, The New York Times exposed what was possibly the largest governmental violation of federal law since the Nixon-era Watergate scandal.  In a series of articles, it detailed how President Bush had secretly authorized the National Security Agency, America's largest spy agency, to engage in domestic wiretapping and data mining of the telephone calls and e-mails of terrorist suspects, bypassing the legal procedures regulating this activity.

A proper congressional response would have been to indict President Bush and his aides for wholesale violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), violations of which are punishable by a five-year prison sentence. 

But instead, the Bush administration invoked the now familiar "terrorist excuse" to intimidate the U.S. Congress and any federal prosecutor who might have had misgivings about the top-secret program.  Its only concession was to grudgingly agree to submit its requests to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a secret court set up under FISA to review intelligence-related surveillance requests.   

But earlier this year, this court apparently rejected an administration request to conduct untargeted and wide-ranging surveillance of e-mails and telephone calls of suspected terrorists that occur overseas, but that pass through U.S.-based data networks.  In response, after a frantic push by the White House, Congress has eviscerated the FISA statute and legalized the Bush warrantless surveillance initiatives.  President Bush signed the new legislation into law on Sunday, August 5.

While billed as essential to fight the "War on Terror," the "Protect America Act" doesn't limit the NSA's domestic spying efforts to terrorist investigations.  Instead, all that's needed is that "foreign intelligence retrieval" be a "significant purpose" of the surveillance.  The new law places the authority for such surveillance in the hands of the attorney general—not the FISA court. From this point forward, the court's only role will be to review surveillance that's already been conducted, and intervene if the procedures set out in the act haven't been followed.

---

Your Life is an Open Book...If

*You've given out your SSN to anyone in the past 6 months...
*You belong to any church or organization...
*You hold 50% or more of your assets in any U.S. bank...

You're an easy target for unjust lawsuits, asset forfeitures and identity theft.

To learn 109 ways to protect your privacy and property rights - and secure your wealth - using the secrets of the United States Witness Protection Program...click here.

---

While "foreign intelligence retrieval" might appear at first glance to be an acceptable rationale for warrantless surveillance, this definition encompasses far more than listening in on suspected terrorists.  For instance, in the past, the NSA has conducted surveillance of foreign companies engaged in high-tech research.  The results of this surveillance have been passed on to politically connected U.S. companies.  Under the Protect America Act, this type of surveillance can now presumably be conducted without a warrant. 

Nor does the act restrict its application to overseas telephone communications that pass through U.S. data networks.  For instance, if a U.S. person makes or receives a telephone call to London, Zurich, Tokyo, or anywhere else in the world, the NSA can listen in without a warrant if the target of the surveillance is overseas.  Indeed, the wording of the law would appear to legitimize the wholesale data mining of such telephone calls, targeting only those that contain "trigger words" tied to foreign intelligence for review by a human analyst.

That's just the beginning.  U.S. telecommunications companies may be compelled to comply with warrantless instructions to give the NSA or other spy agencies direct access to the fiber optic cables that carry most international phone conversations.  We're supposed to trust the government not to carry out unauthorized surveillance of the conversations carried on these switches.

The only silver lining in this act is that it expires in 180 days.  We can only hope that Congress comes to its senses in the next six months to reinstitute the minimal protections that existed under the old FISA statute, rather than eviscerate it completely.

In the meantime, you should assume that every phone call you make internationally is being monitored, legally or illegally.  If you need privacy in your international communications, use encrypted e-mail—not the telephone.  PGP (http://www.pgp.com) is effective for this purpose. 

Copyright © 2007 by Mark Nestmann

Catch Mike Burnick on CNBC

“U.S. and European Investment banks are saddled with nearly $500 billion in leveraged loans that they can’t peddle to investors…”

To watch Our Global Markets Analyst, Mike Burnick chat up the subject with Maria Bartiromo, click here.

If You Oppose the War in Iraq, You Could Lose Your Property

On July 17, President Bush signed a little-known executive order that gives him the kind of legal authority tyrants like Hitler and Stalin used to keep their populations in utter subjection. It essentially outlaws all opposition to the Bush administration's Iraq war policy.

If you breach this order's draconian provisions, you could lose your property.  All your property: your house, your car, your retirement account, your bank accounts, and anything else the government can get its hands on.  Indeed, the government can render you homeless—all based on a secret determination by the Treasury Department that you have no right to contest in court.

The order authorizes the Treasury Department to confiscate the assets of anyone connected to the Iraq insurgency.  Not just the assets directly connected to the insurgency, but “all property and interests in property.” It also authorizes confiscating the property of anyone who indirectly threatens the peace or stability of Iraq, or who undermines efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform.

If you oppose the Iraq war, support an organization opposed to the Iraq war, or oppose any aspect of the reconstruction effort in Iraq, you could lose everything. Even contributing to a charity that is involved in direct relief efforts for Iraqi refugees could trigger forfeiture of your property, because the executive order expressly prohibits donations of "food, clothing, and medicine intended to be used to relieve human suffering."  There is no requirement that you even have to know that your assistance is going to a banned person or group before your assets are confiscated!

Certainly, political protest against the Iraq war could be construed as "threatening peace and stability" in Iraq.  Opposing the corrupt Iraqi operations of companies like Haliburton, which have ripped off U.S. taxpayers for billions of dollars in botched and bloated reconstruction contracts, could undoubtedly be viewed as undermining the country's "economic reconstruction." 

---

58 Wealth-Saving, Money-Making And Life-Changing Reasons To Become A Member Of The Sovereign Society

Reason #6: Make Profits Overseas - free from foreign taxes
Reason #16: Greater real estate investment opportunities throughout the world
Reason #32: Hold as many as 15 different currencies

Click here to learn more...

---

Anti-war groups such as the "Raging Grannies," which are already under FBI surveillance would appear to be squarely in the sights of the order.  So would anyone who contributes to this organization, or who becomes a member of it.  Certainly, any politician who opposes the Bush policy in Iraq could have his or her assets seized.

How can this authority be legal—or constitutional? 

For more than 200 years, U.S. courts have given the president almost unlimited executive authority in wartime.  More recently, this authority has been expanded to encompass times of declared emergencies. 

The United States has been under a declared state of national emergency since shortly after Sept. 11, 2001.  And, under the authority of an obscure law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the president may exercise controls over international economic transactions during any period of declared national emergency.  The law also authorizes property confiscation in what is essentially a supercharged version of civil forfeiture.

In an IEEPA civil forfeiture, such as those that may occur under the new executive order, you have no right to a court hearing.  Instead, to contest the forfeiture, you must appeal to the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).  The decisions of OFAC, which can be and are often based on secret evidence that can't be disclosed due to national security concerns, can't be appealed. 

You might think, rightly, that this procedure is unconstitutional.  However, the Supreme Court disagrees.  In 2004, it refused to review a lower court decision upholding this draconian procedure.

Will the Treasury Department begin confiscating the property of the Raging Grannies, the Red Cross—or Barack Obama, for that matter—once this order comes into effect August 17?  Probably not—but it could.  That's a frightening prospect, and one that is almost guaranteed to place a chilling effect on critics of the Bush administration's Iraq policy. 

Now that the government has ended any semblance of obedience to the U.S. Constitution, it's more important than ever to establish your offshore nest egg.  It's unlikely that most foreign countries would cooperate in the enforcement of civil forfeitures under this executive order, particularly if they target otherwise lawful activities or charitable contributions, and occur without any accompanying criminal proceeding.  That means assets you have overseas—particularly in an asset protected form such as an offshore trust or offshore variable annuity—may well survive an IEEPA civil forfeiture order.   

Click here to learn more about "government by emergency"—and how you can protect your privacy and wealth from those who want to take it away—even the government.

Copyright © 2007 by Mark Nestmann