Eeyore's News and View

Depositors turned away from Stanford banks
ST. JOHN'S, Antigua – Panicky depositors were turned away from Stanford International Bank and some of its Latin American affiliates Wednesday, unable to withdraw their money after U.S. regulators accused Texas financier R. Allen Stanford of perpetrating an $8 billion fraud against his companies' investors.
Some customers arrived in Antigua by private jet and were driven up the lushly landscaped driveway of the bank's headquarters, only to be told that all assets have been frozen pending an investigation by Antiguan banking regulators.
"I don't know what to think. I have my life savings here," said Reinaldo Pinto Ramos, 48, a Venezuelan software firm owner who flew in by chartered plane from Caracas Wednesday with five other investors to check on their accounts. "We're waiting to see some light."
Banking regulators and politicians around the region are scrambling to contain the damage after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil fraud charges against the billionaire on Tuesday. Regional Director Rose Romero of the SEC's Fort Worth office called it a "fraud of shocking magnitude that has spread its tentacles throughout the world."
Specifically, U.S. regulators accused Stanford, two other executives and three of their companies of luring investors with promises of "improbable and unsubstantiated" high returns on certificates of deposit and other investments. They asked a federal judge to freeze all three companies' U.S. assets and to seek the repatriation of any of their assets overseas.
That would include the $7.2 billion managed by the Antigua-based Stanford International Bank, which has affiliates in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. Also frozen were assets of Houston-based Stanford Group Company and Stanford Capital Management.
"The fallout threatens catastrophic and immediate consequences" for the twin-island nation of Antigua and Barbuda, said Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer. It also could rattle the economies of smaller nations throughout the region.
Stanford, 58, has a personal fortune of $2.2 billion, according to Forbes magazine. He owns a home in St. Croix, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and operates his businesses from Houston and Antigua, where his companies and charity have had such a prominent role that the islands' government knighted him in 2006.
SEC spokesman John Nester said the agency does not know where Stanford is. James Sullivan, the U.S. marshal for the Virgin Islands, said agents are monitoring his "extensive holdings" in St. Croix, including a boat he sometimes he docks there, but could not say whether he is currently in the territory. He does not currently face any charges requiring his presence in court.
"As of right now, all we are doing is an ongoing investigation to monitor his holdings, for lack of better term, and we are not actively pursuing him," Sullivan told The Associated Press.
Stanford also has been a major political player in the U.S., where some congressmen quickly announced they would donate his campaign contributions to charity.
The Stanford Financial Group, through its political action committee and employees, has contributed $2.4 million to political candidates, parties and committees in the U.S. since 1989, with nearly two-thirds going to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a group that tracks campaign spending.
Most of that cash flowed during the 2002 election cycle, when Congress was debating a financial services antifraud bill that would have linked the databases of state and federal banking, securities and insurance regulators. The bill ultimately died in the Senate, where the biggest recipients have been Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. ($45,900); Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. ($28,150); Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn. ($27,500); and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas ($19,700). Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas also received $41,375.
Stanford and his wife Susan also donated $931,100 of their own money, with 78 percent going to Democrats, including $4,600 to President Barack Obama's presidential campaign last May 31. Records show $2,300 of that was returned on the same day.
Governments across the region took a variety of actions Wednesday to protect local investors who'd deposited money with Stanford-linked institutions.
Colombia suspended the activities of Stanford International Bank's local brokerage Wednesday to protect "clients and investors." Panama occupied Stanford bank branches following a run on deposits, which its banking agency described as an isolated "consequence of decisions adopted by foreign authorities."
Assets at the bank's four Panama branches, which reportedly held $200 million in deposits at year's end, are held largely in liquid, fixed-income investments that can more easily be converted into cash to cover deposits if necessary, the bank said.
In Venezuela, banking regulator Edgar Hernandez said the government was considering a bank request for help after a $26.5 million run on deposits removed about 12 percent of the holdings at Stanford Bank SA in Caracas.
"We suggested an open intervention" by the government, including the possibility of the government or a state-run bank depositing funds to prop up the bank, Hugo Faria, one of the bank's directors, told The Associated Press.
In Mexico, where the Stanford Fondos unit manages about $50 million for some 3,400 clients, a note posted on a shuttered office door in the capital's wealthy Polanco neighborhood announced that all accounts "are temporarily frozen."
"We don't have any other information at this time, you will be contacted in the future with more details," the note said.
Karina Klinckwort, 38, had rushed to the office Wednesday: "Everything I have is with them, everything that my husband, may he rest in peace, invested is with them."
In Antigua, hundreds of depositors lined up outside the Stanford-controlled Bank of Antigua, many clutching portable radios to listen to financial news.
"People have to come to get their money," said electrician Rasta Kente.
Regional regulators warned that panicking will only make things worse.
"If individuals persist in rushing to the bank in a panic they will precipitate the very situation that we are all trying to avoid," said K. Dwight Venner, governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank.
Virgin Islands Gov. John deJongh said he worries the probe will worsen the U.S. territory's flagging economy, potentially costing jobs and investment in local projects. Stanford had pledged to build an office complex next to St. Croix's airport.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090218/ap_on_bi_ge/cb_antigua_stanford_7

Camera convicted him but raised battle over privacy
By Tim McGlone The Virginian-Pilot © February 15, 2009
Farmers beware: Big Brother may be watching.
Eastern Shore soybean farmer Steve Van- Kesteren learned that the hard way when he was charged with taking two red-tailed hawks, a violation of the federal Migratory Bird Act.
The evidence against him was a video recording showing him dispatching the birds with an ax.
Game wardens had put a hidden camera in a tree, pointed at VanKesteren's soybean fields, after receiving a complaint about protected birds getting caught in predator traps. The wardens had to walk or drive off a road, past a hedgerow, and travel about a quarter mile through one field and past a second hedgerow. VanKesteren said it appears they cut a swath through some brush to get to the tree.
VanKesteren took his case to the second-highest court in the nation, arguing his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches was violated.
While sympathetic, and even concerned about the video intrusion, two federal judges ruled against him, and a panel at the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied his appeal.
"I don't like the installation of a video camera on somebody's property," U.S. District Judge Rebecca B. Smith said during VanKesteren's appeal of the magistrate judge ruling finding him guilty.
"I don't think they can manage my farm from up in Richmond or Washington, D.C., where they come from," he said during a stroll through his fields last week.
"I think I can do a better job than they can," he said.
VanKesteren, 61, is semiretired but still farms much of his 500 acres around his Poplar Cove Road home in Onancock. He tends leased farmland as well, growing wheat and corn as well as soybeans.
He's lived in the same 18th-century house overlooking Onancock Creek his entire life. His father farmed the same lands, growing mainly spinach until he got fed up with Canada geese eating too much of the crop.
In his spare time, Van-Kesteren fishes, hunts and plants grasses, shrubs and trees in an ongoing conservation effort. He said he'd never been in trouble with game wardens before.
He'd been having a particular problem with foxes eating his crops, so he set up cage traps in several spots next to his fields.
In late 2006, someone - VanKesteren doesn't know who - called the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries to report seeing a protected bird caught in a trap on VanKesteren's farmland.
A game warden, technically called a conservation police officer, went to the site and found a cage trap, about 2 feet high, with two caught pigeons. Pigeons are not protected birds.
In January 2007, the officer and special operations agents returned to the farmland, off Acorn Road with no homes in sight, and set up a hidden video camera.
The officers had to walk at least 400 yards across one field to get to a hedgerow where VanKesteren had set some traps. The area where the traps were set isn't visible from the road.
The camera was on for 21 days.
VanKesteren was recorded taking two red-tailed hawks, also known as chickenhawks, from the trap and whacking each in the head with an ax. VanKesteren admits he did it and says he had no choice.
"I didn't want to let them suffer," he said. "When you put a trap out you can catch just about anything."
He said when it was legal years ago to kill hawks he wouldn't do it because they benefit farmers by eating small rodents.
At one point in the video, VanKesteren walks right toward the camera, which was tied to a tree. He said he was probably a foot away and never noticed.
When confronted with the video by state and federal agents, VanKesteren said he caught the hawks inadvertently. He said it was an honest mistake and that he should have taken the birds to a veterinarian or obtained a permit to kill them, which he had done in previous years. (He said he gave up with permits because the bureaucracy became too complicated.)
"The defendant showed no remorse for the killings and asked the agents several times to drop the matter," federal prosecutor Dee Sterling wrote in a court brief, quoting from the earlier testimony of the agents.
An agent testified that the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries regularly uses surveillance cameras when investigating suspicious activity.
"With only five special agents in the Commonwealth of Virginia, it was extremely impractical to conduct live surveillance," Sterling wrote.
VanKesteren fought the case, initially on his own. He argued before a U.S. magistrate judge in Norfolk that the game wardens violated his constitutional rights against unlawful searches by entering his private property and videotaping his activities.
He wondered what would have happened if he 'd been caught on tape urinating near his field. Would he be charged with indecent exposure? What if he were having a romantic interlude in his fields?
After losing at the magistrate level and being ordered to pay a $1,000 fine, VanKesteren hired an attorney and appealed to Smith, the district court judge.
"As noted by other courts, hidden video surveillance invokes images of the 'Orwellian state' and is regarded by society as more egregious than other kinds of intrusions," James Broccoletti, Smith's attorney, wrote in his appeal.
Broccoletti argued the case before Smith in December 2007.
"We have not found any reported cases dealing with the installation of a video camera on private property," he told the judge.
"In open field cases, law enforcement officers are entitled to, and regularly do, go upon private property to conduct their investigations," Sterling responded. "No warrant is required, period."
Judge Smith, though, was clearly concerned.
"Assuming that you are right in that regard, can you still go onto somebody's private property and install a video camera?" Smith asked. "So we are just going to keep it rolling for 24 hours to see if we find something?"
If the camera were on a public street, there wouldn't be any problem, the judge said.
"The concern here is not the walking on, so much as the installation of a continuous running video camera," she said.
In the end, however, she ruled against VanKesteren, citing case law dating back to the 1920s that allows surveillance of open fields without a warrant.
Broccoletti took the case to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in December but lost there too. The court, however, noted its concern as well.
"The idea of a video camera constantly recording activities on one's property is undoubtedly unsettling to some," the court wrote in its ruling issued last month.
"Individuals might engage in any number of intimate activities on their wooded property or open field - from romantic trysts under a moonlit sky to relieving oneself," the court continued. "But the protection of the Fourth Amendment is not predicated upon these subjective beliefs."
The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries defended its use of cameras, stating that it is a common practice in any law enforcement agency.
"I would say law enforcement agencies have used cameras for as long as cameras have been around," said Julia Dixon, media relations coordinator for the agency.
"A lot of this investigative work is done in remote rural areas. It's a tool to help us gather information," she said, adding that she could not recall anyone challenging the practice.
"In general, usually when we have someone who's been charged, that's a very compelling piece of evidence to have. At that point they're not disputing the video," she said.
VanKesteren is considering appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, but that is an expensive venture.
In the meantime, he has removed the cage traps but has a number of foot traps set out to catch foxes and other predators. Birds cannot get caught in them.
"I'll tell you, this opened my eyes about how the government works," VanKesteren said.
He wondered what Thomas Jefferson and George Washington would think.
"What if those people had come to them and said, 'We're going to put you in prison for killing a chickenhawk'? " he asked. "I think they would have started another revolution."
http://hamptonroads.com/2009/02/camera-convicted-him-raised-battle-over-privacy

OKC officer pulls man over for anti-Obama sign on vehicle
An Oklahoma City police officer wrongly pulled over a man last week and confiscated an anti-President Barack Obama sign the man had on his vehicle.
The officer misinterpreted the sign as threatening, said Capt. Steve McCool, of the Oklahoma City Police Department, and took the sign, which read "Abort Obama, not the unborn."
Chip Harrison said he was driving to work when a police car followed him for several miles and then signaled for him to pull over.
''I pulled over, knowing I hadn't done anything wrong," Harrison said in a recent phone interview.
When the officer asked Harrison if he knew why he had been pulled over, Harrison said he did not.
''They said, 'It's because of the sign in your window,'" Harrison said.
''It's not meant to be a threat, it's a statement about abortion," Harrison said.
He said he disagrees with the president's position on abortion.
''I asked the officer, 'Do you know what abort means?'" Harrison said. "He said, 'Yeah, it means to kill.' I said, 'No, it means to remove or terminate.'"
Harrison said his sign was to be interpreted as saying something like: Remove Obama from office, not unborn babies from the womb.
The officers confiscated Harrison's sign and gave him a slip of paper that stated he was part of an investigation.
Harrison said he later received a call from a person who said he was a lieutenant supervisor for the Internal Investigations Department and wanted to know his location and return his sign to him.
According to Harrison, the supervisor said the Secret Service had been contacted on the matter and had told them the sign was not a threat to the president.
Harrison was asked if he would like to file a complaint. He said he was not sure but would take the paperwork, just in case.
But his run-in with the law wasn't over yet.
''The Secret Service called and said they were at my house," Harrison said.
After talking to his attorney, Harrison went home where he met the Secret Service.
''When I was on my way there, the Secret Service called me and said they weren't going to ransack my house or anything ... they just wanted to (walk through the house) and make sure I wasn't a part of any hate groups."
Harrison said he invited the Secret Service agents into the house and they were "very cordial."
''We walked through the house and my wife and 2-year-old were in the house," Harrison said.
He said they interviewed him for about 30 minutes and then left, not finding any evidence Harrison was a threat to the president.
''I'm still in contact with a lawyer right now," Harrison said. "I don't know what I'm going to do."
Harrison said he feels his First Amendment rights were violated.
McCool said the officer who pulled over Harrison misinterpreted the sign.
''We had an officer that his interpretation of the sign was different than what was meant," McCool said. "You've got an officer who had a different thought on what the word 'abort' meant."
McCool said the sign basically meant Obama should be impeached and it was not a threat.
''(The officer) shouldn't have taken the sign," McCool said. "That was (Harrison's) First Amendment right to voice his concern."
McCool said although the sign should not have been confiscated, the situation was made right in the end.
''We always try to do the right thing and in the end we believe we did the right thing by returning the sign," McCool said.
http://www.newsok.com/okc-officer-pulls-man-over-for-anti-obama-sign-on-vehicle/article/3347038?custom_click=headlines_widget

Right now there are four areas in the US that have Whooping Cough outbreaks
18 cases in Idaho, 21 cases in New Jersey, 35 cases in Michigan,8 cases in Maine
Whooping cough outbreak among teens grows in Ada, Elmore counties
The number of cases of pertussis, also known as whooping cough, in Ada and Elmore counties has climbed to 18, most of them associated with high schools.
Seven people have been diagnosed in Ada County, with six of the victims associated with Eagle High School, according to disease investigators at the Central District Health Department.
Eleven more people have been diagnosed in Elmore County, most of them associated with Mountain Home High School.
“The current trend with this disease seems to be its spread in high school populations.” said Nikki Sakata, program manager for communicable disease control at the health department.
“All persons 11 through 64 years of age should have a Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, acellular pertussis) vaccination. Those who have not had that booster should get it.”
The ten year average of pertussis cases in the four counties of the Central District Health Department is about 30 cases per year.
Pertussis is a highly communicable, vaccine-preventable disease that lasts for many weeks and is most dangerous to newborns and infants.
Pertussis starts with cold-like symptoms; sneezing, runny nose, low-grade fever and a mild cough.
Within two weeks, a severe cough can develop with violent coughing spells.
• A coughing person with pertussis may have a hard time catching his or her breath during a coughing spell and make a high-pitched "whooping" sound.
How can pertussis be prevented?
• If you’ve had an undiagnosed cough for 2 or more weeks call your doctor.
• If you’ve been exposed to a case of pertussis call your doctor.
• Make sure that everyone in your family or household has received all of their recommended pertussis immunizations.
• When you cough or sneeze, do it into your sleeve at the bend of your arm.
• Wash your hands frequently and thoroughly.
http://www.idahostatesman.com/235/story/657115.html

Whooping cough outbreak hits again
Cases reported at middle, elementary schools in HunterdonThursday, February 12, 2009 BY MIKE FRASSINELLIStar-Ledger Staff
Just when Hunterdon County health officials hoped they were at the end of one cluster of whooping cough, another outbreak has been discovered at a separate elementary and middle school.
As of yesterday, the county health department had 21 confirmed cases of whooping cough, known formally as pertussis. There also were five probable cases of the contagious disease, and a half-dozen possible cases are under investigation.
Of the first dozen cases, 10 were children at the Clinton Public School and another was a child who came into contact with someone from the Clinton school.
The latest nine cases -- confirmed within the last month -- were children at the elementary and middle school in Union Township. That outbreak also was believed to be started by a youngster who came into contact with someone from the Clinton school.
The number of cases has reached historic proportions in the county.
"At the most, we saw about three confirmed cases in a month," said Karen Alelis, epidemiologist for the health department.
Aside from Hunterdon, there have been no other outbreaks identified in New Jersey this year, said Dawn Thomas, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health. The state typically has a couple hundred cases a year, she said.
Just as they did with the Clinton cases, Hunterdon County health officials were working closely with the nurse at the Union Township school. All of the infected students have been treated with antibiotics and were able to return to school after five days of treatment.
Pertussis is a bacterial infection of the respiratory tract that is usually spread through the air by close, indoor contact with an infected person. It typically is passed by coughing, sneezing or talking.
The infected children had been vaccinated, but the immunity to the vaccine can wane between ages 7 and 9 and there is no licensed vaccine for children in that age group.
Cases reported at middle, elementary schools in Hunterdon
The ages of the children ranged from 7 to 12 in the majority of the local whooping cough cases. In addition to Clinton and Union townships, cases were seen in Three Bridges, Lebanon Borough, Whitehouse and Delaware and Franklin townships.
Pertussis starts with cold-like symptoms and a cough that gets gradually more severe over one to two weeks. Symptoms can include bursts of coughing followed by high-pitch "whoop" noises, loss of breath or vomiting.
Alelis said the county will continue to work with school nurses and local physicians to identify additional cases and make sure they get treated.
"We can't really close out the investigation until we know that we have identified our last case in a particular township," she said.
Cathy Zuercher, a communicable disease nurse with Hunterdon County's health department, said that when she saw the second case from the same school in December, she knew the health department was seeing something out of the ordinary.
"That's when you start to think you are dealing with something a little big bigger," she said. "It's not just an isolated case."
Zuercher said there also has been a greater awareness of the disease locally due to the media attention of the initial pertussis outbreak, the communication between the health department and health providers and the health community's call for people to be tested.
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-12/1234416318237150.xml&coll=1

Whooping cough outbreak in Kalamazoo County
KALAMAZOO COUNTY, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - A whooping cough outbreak has struck Kalamazoo County and its schools.
The Health Department has called it an outbreak because more people just keep getting sick.
Whooping cough is a respiratory infection that is considered highly contagious. It starts out like a common cold, but in one to two weeks, thick mucus develops, causing some violent coughing. It's the kind of coughing you can't control, children with the infection will have trouble breathing, and sometimes people cough so hard they vomit or even crack ribs.
Health officials have told Newschannel 3 that two children are currently sick, one from Nature's Way Preschool, the other from Winchell Elementary.
The illness is spread through airborne contamination, and is so contagious that when a student is diagnosed the Health Department comes in and makes sure all students are vaccinated. If they are not, they must be vaccinated, go on antibiotics, or stay out of school for 21 days.
The virus can incubate for 21 days, meaning that getting rid of an outbreak can be a long, painstaking process. Winchell Elementary has had to deal with that process, and too many other schools as well.
Whooping cough is a reminder that a cough could mean nothing, or it could be a matter of life and death, especially for people with infant children.
"It was definitely very scary at first," said Brian Shrader, who's daughter was tested for whooping cough, "it's something you think doesn't happen very much at all anymore, so it was definitely a surprise."
The surprise came when the Shrader family got a letter explaining that a student at their oldest daughter's school, Nature's Way Preschool, was diagnosed with whooping cough, known medically as pertussis.
"We've all been coughing all week, so it was kind of coincidental timing, putting two and two together so we rushed over to get tested," said Shrader.
For the Shraders, the test came back negative, but many parents and kids haven't been so lucky. In the month of January, 13 cases of whooping cough have been confirmed in Kalamazoo County.
Linda Vail Buzas of the Kalamazoo County Health Department, says that's reason for concern.
"We definitely have an outbreak going on," said Buzas, "we've had 35 cases between September and the end of December."
In fact, cases of pertussis have been steadily increasing for several years, and although there are some vague theories, no one is sure why.
"What we're seeing though is children who are immunized, completely immunized, are getting pertussis," said Buzas.
The percentage of immunized children contracting whooping cough is a very small percentage. All of the Shrader children have been immunized, and along with good hygiene, that includes regular hand-washing, that will keep children that much safer.
Whooping cough is a bacterial infection, if it is detected early antibiotics can curb the length and severity of the illness.
http://www.wwmt.com/articles/county_1358546___article.html/kalamazoo_outbreak.html

Another Whooping Cough Outbreak In Maine
AUGUSTA (AP) -- Maine health officials are reporting a whooping cough outbreak in Hancock County.
The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday that there have been eight cases in the Blue Hill and Brooklin areas. The outbreak involves an elementary school, a middle school and a workplace, and the victims range from 9 to 50 years old.
This is the second outbreak of whooping cough. Nearly two weeks ago, another cluster of cases was reported in the Biddeford-Saco area in York County.
Whooping cough, or pertussis, is a highly contagious respiratory infection caused by bacteria that can result in a persistent, severe cough.
http://www.wcsh6.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=99795&catid=2

as i commented in the past it is about time.
Ex-Border Patrol agents convicted in shooting released from prison
By Ramon Bracamontes El Paso Times February 17, 2009
EL PASO - Former U.S. border patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean were released from prison Tuesday, but will remain in a community confinement program until March 20, U.S. Bureau of Prison officials said.
The two agents had been in prison since 2007. President George W. Bush commuted their sentences before he left office.
Traci Billingsley, bureau of prisons spokeswoman, said Tuesday that the two men are out of prison and under the "supervision of the community corrections office for a period of community confinement."
Community confinement means the sentenced person has to spend the last phrase of their sentence either in a halfway house or in home confinement.
Dallas criminal defense lawyer Ed Mason, who represented Compean in his appeal, said Tuesday morning that he had not yet talked to Compean but was awaiting his phone call.
"I think he might be on his way to El Paso," Mason said in a telephone interview. "We haven't been able to talk to him yet."
Billingsley said she could not release where the two agents would spend the last month of their sentence, but it is possible they could spend it at home.
Compean had been in the Elkton Federal Prison in Elkton, Ohio. Ramos was at the Phoenix Federal Prison.
The two former agents were convicted of shooting a drug smuggler and then trying to cover it up. Compean was sentenced to 12 years and Ramos to 11 years in prison. Both agents were found guilty of civil-rights violations and discharging a firearm during the act of a crime, an offense that includes a mandatory 10-year sentence.
http://frc4u.org/phpbb/index.php?topic=208.0;topicseen