The Morning Roar: NY Announces New Bitcoin Regulations, Amazon Fire TV Could Monitor And Record Conversations, FedEx Indicted For Shipping Drugs For Online Pharmacies
Do you have a case of the Mondays? If banging your head off the desk doesn’t fix your mood, perhaps The Morning Roar will do the trick!NY Announces New Bitcoin RegulationsThe Bitcoin community was dealt a blow this past week when the chief crony superintendent of financial rigging services in New York announced proposed regulations for virtual currency companies operating in the state. Of course the regulations are being advertised as a means to protect the people by way of setting rules for consumer protection, prevention of money laundering, and cybersecurity.From the The Daily Dot:
If you want to start a virtual currency exchange or operate an online wallet service in the state of New York, you're going to need a BitLicense, but if you just want to buy or sell a pizza with virtual money, it's still possible to do so without first getting government approval.Applying for a BitLicense involves disclosing personal and financial information for top company officials, undergoing a background check, paying a fee, and providing details about the structure and business goals of the company. If the regulators see any shady behavior, licenses can be either suspended or revoked entirely following a hearing.The proposal also introduces capital requirements, which are rules that nearly all financial institutions are required to follow requiring them to have a certain amount of cash (or other assets) on hand to ensure that a market downturn or bad business decision doesn't suddenly sink the whole company and its customers’ investments with it. The minimum amount of capital each virtual currency financial firm will be required to carry will be determined by regulators on a case-by-case basis.
The prerequisites required to secure a BitLicense deal another blow to the claims of Bitcoin advocates that the currency will provide the benefit of anonymous transactions. This will deter some from using the currency, but a far more crippling aspect of the draft regulations are the introduction of capital requirements that will be determined by regulators on a case-by-case basis.Robert Wenzel of EPJ had an astute observation on how the regulators' ability to determine capital requirements provides those friendly with state officials a huge advantage.
If capital requirements are determined on a "case-by-case basis," then firms that are friendly to government regulators will have much lower capital requirements than others. Providing them with a huge edge. But more, as I have pointed out here at EPJ numerous times, the low transaction fee that Bitcoin offers versus Mastercard and Visa is largely because of the fact that up until now, Bitcoin has not been required to keep reserves against its transactions, as MC and V do because of government chargeback regulations.
Amazon Fire TV Could Monitor And Record ConversationsI love Amazon, but an article from Natural News has me questioning their intentions. Mike Adams of Natural News wrote an article questioning if Amazon could be distributing the perfect spying device in their Amazon Fire TV.Adams' points out that Amazon has a contract to build a new $600 million cloud computing infrastructure for the CIA. He then identifies several aspects of the Fire TV that could make it the perfect surveillance device for in home spying on American citizens.There is no way to power off the Fire TV. It does not have an off button, but instead is designed to go into sleep mode after 30 minutes. Adam’s points out the potentially misleading use of using the word “designed.” It may be designed to go to sleep, but that doesn’t mean it necessarily will go to sleep.The Fire TV is also linked to your identity. Adam’s claims that when the Fire TV device is powered on it already knows who you are and links automatically to your library of video purchases. I would be curious to know if the device is able to be restored to factory settings if in fact the original owner decides to sell the product.The most creepy feature of the Fire TV is: It listens to your voice and uploads the audio to Amazon servers. Adam’s describes how the process works:
When you click the search button, your voice is recorded and uploaded to Amazon.com servers where it is analyzed by Amazon cloud computing applications -- the same kind of thing Amazon is building for the CIA -- in order to return search matches to your local TV screen.Now, I fully realize that most Americans are too gullible and naive to believe their audio recordings get uploaded to Amazon.com servers, so I'm going to quote CNET.com here which published an article earlier this year entitled: "How to delete your Fire TV voice recordings - Amazon stores your recordings on its servers to improve accuracy of voice searches. Here's how you can delete that data."As this article openly states, "To improve the service and the voice results, however, Amazon records and stores the voice samples associated with your account to its servers."It goes on to warn readers that "there is no way to opt-out of Amazon's voice storage."
There you have it folks. A fully equipped spying device is being shipped to homes all over the country. And the company distributing these devices also happens to be working hand in glove with the CIA.There may be no way to protect yourself from being one software update away from turning your Fire TV into a full-fledged 24/7 spying device. Unplugging the device when not using it would greatly reduce the risk of being spied upon and should become standard practice for those that value in home privacy.FedEx Indicted For Shipping Drugs For Online PharmaciesBusiness Week reports:
The operator of the world’s largest (FDX:US) cargo airline was charged by the U.S. with 15 counts of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and misbranded drugs and drug trafficking that carry a potential fine of twice the gains from the conduct, alleged to be at least $820 million for it and co-conspirators. The company, while denying the allegations, said today in a regulatory filing that conviction could be “material.”Yesterday’s indictment in San Francisco federal court comes more than a year after United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS:US) agreed to forfeit $40 million in payments it received from illicit online pharmacies under a non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. Justice Department.The criminal case is an unprecedented escalation of a federal crackdown on organizations and individuals to combat prescription drug abuse, said Larry Cote, an attorney and ex-associate chief counsel at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.“Targeting a company that’s two, three steps removed from the actual doctor-patient, pharmacy-patient relationship is unprecedented,” said Cote, who advises companies in the drug supply chain on compliance matters.
With the legalization of marijuana inevitable, it appears the feds are heightening their focus on the distribution of illegal prescription drugs. Prior to the most recent indictment of FedEx, United Parcel Service Inc. agreed to forfeit $40 Million in payments received from illicit online pharmacies, Walgreen Co. agreed to pay $80 million in fines for failure to report suspicious drug orders in FL, and CVC Caremark Corp. agreed to pay $78 million in 2010 to settle claims that some CA and NV stores allowed criminals to buy cold medications used to make methamphetamine.The DEA claims that everyone in the supply chain should be responsible for the distribution of illicit prescription drugs, but they exclude the pharmaceutical companies that develop and manufacture the drugs from their shakedown bonanza.The Feds' intention with these policies is not to protect the consumer, but to protect domestic pharmaceutical companies and prevent Americans from procuring less expensive drugs from foreign soil. The unintended consequence associated with federal government intervention in the case of FedEx could result in price increases to ship packages for all customers. If FedEx is forced to be held culpable for the contents of the packages they ship, the customer will bear the burden associated with the cost of this unnecessary activity.All types of drugs can have harmful effects. It doesn’t matter if drugs are categorized as "streets drugs", prescription drugs, or even legal drugs. Legal drugs such as alcohol, tobacco, or caffeine can be even more damaging than black market “street drugs.” In a more free society, all drugs would be legal and thus their price would be determined by the market. This isn’t to say that drug abuse would be eliminated, but it would at the very least eliminate the individual rights violations brought on by initiatives like the Drug War.Read The Morning Roar every weekday Monday-Friday!The Lions of Liberty are on Twitter, Facebook & Google+Receive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon!
