And those of you you believe Internet anonymity is not a grave issue that needs to be addressed, and I'm not talking just the rampant financial fraud we've seen the past 7 years that has come close to destroying the integrity of the Internet as a source for reliable and trustworthy market information, then maybe you should pay heed to the documented fact that Al Qaeda is well-known to use the Internet as a method of communication in aid of the destruction of our civilization. That should give mighty pause.
Nevertheless, as I stated, this is an extremely delicate balancing issue and I don't have all the answers or even one, but it needs to be discussed. For example, in my opinion the Patriot Act went too far. I agree that some of the new measures were long overdue and especially to include financial crimes, but I have read the Act in its entirety and some of the statutes are so broad that they can be applied to a broad range of misdemeanors that I believe was not the intent of the public through its representatives to enact. During the Weimar Republic, history teaches us, during times of great national peril, a number of laws were passed that gave the chief executive certain absolute powers. Adolf Hitler after the failed Putsch and his incarceration quickly realized that for him to succeed he would absolutely need a veneer of legality to enforce his evil agenda, and so his rise to power was at every step enforced through laws that were passed without due reflection, all legal.
Here, without malicious or evil intent, we Americans nevertheless countenanced the internment of hundreds of thousands of our fellow Americans, merely because they were descended from Japanese ancestors, in a series of camps in the Arizona desert, 115-20 degrees there during the day when they arrived to live one family to a tiny room with obviously no air-conditioning. I was watching a program last night on the Discovery channel about our great President FDR - and it was very tough, he was focused above all on winning the war, a Herculean task and we were lucky to have him then, a miracle - but Eleanor was absolutely against it and it turns out she was right, and President Reagan to his credit apologized for that during his first administration. And now we've had the Supreme Court issue a stinging rebuke to certain practices by providing judicial review of those held indefinitely without formal charge, especially American citizens, one case that went all the way to a the Supreme Court, the government argued all along that he was a clear and present danger to the country, and then all of a sudden when the Supreme Court didn't agree completely changed tune and said well he's not that dangerous after all. Thank God for our founders and the Separation of Powers.
Those are of course some extreme examples, we need to be very careful applying the lessons of history so we get it right, this is a delicate balancing act, but in my opinion something must be done about the rampant abuse of the Internet by financial criminals and none too soon, because there is no way the government can control all of it at this stage, as so many of us here have seen, it is just too much. Should honest people be in a position where the truth is completely buried unless they adopt the same tactics as the criminals? Should say someone like me, in aid of a good and right cause establish 50 false aliases to spread the truth? Of course not. So, something needs to be done to protect those who respect the law from those who do not. The principle of caveat emptor you all may recall, when it comes to our stock markets, was revoked by the Exchange Acts of 1933 and 1934, and the Investment Advisers Act of 1940.
And those of you who have been defrauded by online fraud in connection with investment advisers, I strongly encourage you top review the IAA, because legal precedent holds sites like AP's and TP to be investment advisers under the Act, registration regardless, and ANYONE who directly or indirectly exerts control or influence over the IA's, say posters here with an interest, or like Berber and Moor unlicensed stock brokers who bribe them, are under the IAA persons associated with an investment adviser, liable for all damages and to repay all ill-gotten gains - which is why I didn't only bring RICO claims, but also IAA claims. And, for those of you afraid of arbitration, the IAA, if violated, mandates that contracts are revoked, so adios arbitration, those contracts are completely void if they fall under either the IA or IA associate provisions and they violated the IA, directly, or indirectly. |
