Peter Oborne resigned from the UK Telegraph because it was scandalously holding back negative stories about HSBC, a major advertiser. His plea is an eye opener:
The coverage of HSBC in Britain’s Telegraph is a fraud on its readers. If major newspapers allow corporations to influence their content for fear of losing advertising revenue, democracy itself is in peril.
So much for the illusion of free press.
A friend said this has nothing to do with a science blog. I said, Why not? Science journals are publishing houses too, and worse, their main advertiser is also their biggest subscriber. The journals live where a monopsony meets a monopoly. The largest customer of many science journals are government funded university libraries and academics. The advertisers are often the same organizations. A new Nature journal was even set up this month in partnership with a university. Independence is not just a blurry line out there, it’s deep fog. There is dominant government funding from beginning to end.
The government doesn’t have to heavy hand the journals, as HSBC did. It doesn’t need to be overt at all. In fields like climate research nearly every single employee in the chain of people who send in material, review the material, buy the subscriptions, and pay for advertising are predominantly paid from the public purse. How many of them, do you suppose, would be active critics of big-government and of big-spending policies?
Perhaps the blog model of science publishing is the purest form of publishing — one that only answers to the readers.
I’ve copied some snippets here just to show how deeply this runs at The Telegraph. Peter Oborne’s open letter is worth reading in full. James Delingpole thought so too.
Why I have resigned from the Telegraph
Late last year I set to work on a story about the international banking giant HSBC. Well-known British Muslims had received letters out of the blue from HSBC informing them that their accounts had been closed. No reason was given, and it was made plain that there was no possibility of appeal. “It’s like having your water cut off,” one victim told me.
When I submitted it for publication on the Telegraph website, I was at first told there would be no problem. When it was not published I made enquiries. I was fobbed off with excuses, then told there was a legal problem. When I asked the legal department, the lawyers were unaware of any difficulty. When I pushed the point, an executive took me aside and said that “there is a bit of an issue” with HSBC. Eventually I gave up in despair and offered the article to openDemocracy. It can be read here.
After three months research the Telegraph resolved to publish. Six articles on this subject can now be found online, between 8 and 15 November 2012, although three are not available to view.
Thereafter no fresh reports appeared. Reporters were ordered to destroy all emails, reports and documents related to the HSBC investigation. I have now learnt, in a remarkable departure from normal practice, that at this stage lawyers for the Barclay brothers became closely involved. When I asked the Telegraph why the Barclay brothers were involved, it declined to comment.
This was the pivotal moment. From the start of 2013 onwards stories critical of HSBC were discouraged. HSBC suspended its advertising with the Telegraph. Its account, I have been told by an extremely well informed insider, was extremely valuable. HSBC, as one former Telegraph executive told me, is “the advertiser you literally cannot afford to offend”. HSBC today refused to comment when I asked whether the bank’s decision to stop advertising with the Telegraph was connected in any way with the paper’s investigation into the Jersey accounts.
Winning back the HSBC advertising account became an urgent priority. It was eventually restored after approximately 12 months. Executives say that Murdoch MacLennan was determined not to allow any criticism of the international bank. “He would express concern about headlines even on minor stories,” says one former Telegraph journalist. “Anything that mentioned money-laundering was just banned, even though the bank was on a final warning from the US authorities. This interference was happening on an industrial scale.
“An editorial operation that is clearly influenced by advertising is classic appeasement. Once a very powerful body know they can exert influence they know they can come back and threaten you. It totally changes the relationship you have with them. You know that even if you are robust you won’t be supported and will be undermined.”
There may be other journals that answer predominantly to subscribers (and the subscribers themselves have some independence–perhaps engineering and mining?) Which journals have true independent funding?
Ah, and here’s the funny part for today:
30
Hm,didn’t work… here it goes (sorry!):
Telegraph: Guardian chenged Iraq article to avoid offending Apple.
Isn’t there a saw about pots and kettles?
80
The real irony, is that in the past none of us would have known anything about it. What we see now must be a vast improvement over what used to happen.
So just imagine what it was like before?
160
I don’t need to imagine – I have been there, and done that. I have been in situations where I have had to “have a quiet word”, with somebody, over lunch.
The more senior you are, the more expensive and better the restaurant. I was senior enough to be able to buy a pub lunch and a couple of pints for a journalist, to encourage him, or her, to write a story in a particular way, and to slightly change the emphasis placed on certain facts, and convince them that some facts were best left unreported – for now.
If I failed at that – as often happened, then one of my superiors would have a three course lunch with the editor, or dinner with someone else, further up the publication chain.
It is the way that, “Business”, gets done in Europe, and the USA, and nobody thinks about it very much. In Britain, having the right contacts, in order to influence “change”, is a benefit that accrues from a British Public School and OxBridge, education. In the US, that would equate to the Ivy League universities, and Australia will have it’s equivalents, that readers could name.
In the end, I gave it up. I have found better uses for my cynicism.
310
Sadly the rot runs deep in journalism today and deferring to advertisers while certainly wrong, does not have consequences as dire as those where truth is sacrificed to the reporter’s ideological leaning. The liberal and Progressive bent of the “news” media is doing far more damage to the world as a whole. Mr. Osborne is correct when he states that the freedoms granted to democracies are protected by a free press.
Let’s continue it further, what is lost when the reporters and contributors are all cheering for the Progressive oligarchy? We get riled up when the lion’s share of the “science” journals publish CAGW myth sans opposing critical thought, but what of the fallout. What does it get used for? The danger is far more basic, by playing the role of factual censor and fabricator, they are actually working to limit or remove the freedoms we all enjoy. They not only blind the public to truth, they replace it with falsehoods which their soul mates in government use to continue their unrelenting assault on our freedoms. The people we have trusted to watch our servants in government have sold us out for bylines touting the lies bought with grants and all the rest of the privilege that comes with “being on the team.” Kowtowing to an advertiser is one thing, what we have now is an entire industry funded by government whose sole purpose is to create “science” which increases government. The press plays its part by suspending its quest for truth while it pushes the ideology the majority of “reporters” embrace. That’s the danger I see.
250
Yes, yes but why does a majority of the populace (a bare majority perhaps, but nevertheless …) believe what the meeja tell them to ?
Winston Churchill: “The most cogent argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter”
130
In the US we’re not a Democracy, we’re supposed to be a Constitutional Republic. The word “democracy” does not appear in ANY of our founding laws and principles. When our pals in government violate the Constitution the press is obligated, via the 1st Amendment, to inform us so that we can exercise the democratic tools to remove the offenders. When the Progressives in the press and educational system are actively lying about not only what government IS doing, but what it’s supposed to do… we get what we have today, looking more and more like a democracy… and democracy does NOT work.
10
Freedom of the press is a myth. If it once existed, then I would love to read those newspapers and articles.
In the USA the press is nothing but a horrid appendage of a grotesque government. It is hard to find worth in either.
180
Images of newspapers are kept online by the various National Archives. Any newspaper prior to 1920 should be OK, and before the turn of the century would be even better. The first thing that hits you, is the lack of photographs – wall to wall words, in two-inch columns. The next thing you notice is the lack of advertising, or only very minimal advertising. Papers had to rely on the cover price, so they had to give their customers the information they needed, like the dates and times when ships were expected to arrive, or planned to depart, and what cargo they were carrying.
It is fascinating stuff.
220
Good suggestion Rereke. I will snoop around in some of the available papers. I want to start in the 1952 presidential election here in the US and then work back to WWII, and so on.
30
Leonard Lane
Have you got any source of old and now digitised news papers like we have with Trove here in Australia.
Very surprisingly there was actually a lot of news from the USA and the UK reported in Australian newspapers even well prior to the 20th century.
And it was because Australia was connected to the world’s then cable communication system at Darwin and then by the extraordinary feat of building a phone line across some of the harshest deserts and country in the world, the 3200 km long Overland Telegraph from Darwin to Adelaide;
The dates for Australia’s connection to the cable system and the beginnings of current overseas news via the cable below;
***************
Submarine cables to the world[edit]
1872 – Port Darwin: The first connection from Australia to the world by submarine cable was the above-mentioned Java to Port Darwin link. In short time the cable failed and was finally restored to service with connection again to England in October 1872, a four month break in service. The cable had been initially brought ashore at Darwin in November 1871, with Australia’s first international telecommunications message being received on 19 November.[7][8]
1876 – The first Australia to New Zealand telegraph link was opened[2]
1889 – The third international link arrived at Broome, Western Australia from Batavia (Jakarta) in 1889[2]
1891 – Brisbane was linked to New Caledonia in 1891[2]
1901 – a link via the Cocos-Keeling Islands arrived in Perth in 1901.[2] This was part of the around the globe route known as the ‘Red Route’ and was traversed wholly British controlled territory
1902 – A telegraph cable across the Pacific between Canada and Australia (landing at Brisbane) via Fiji and Norfolk Island was completed in October 1902[9]
*************
If you know the approximate date of an emajor event then it may just possibly be found in the old Australian newspaper overseas reports via Trove
30
Source for the above dates Wikipedia; History of telegraphy in Australia
10
“Any newspaper prior to 1920 should be OK”
A bit naive. Even in the nineteenth century newspapers were bound by the ideology of their owners as well as pushing up salres by sensationalism. And it was in 1930 that Humbert Wolfe (drawing on years of experience) published:
You cannot hope
to bribe or twist,
thank God! the
British journalist.
But, seeing what
the man will do
unbribed, there’s
no occasion to.
Years of experience have taught me that the only things you ca trust in a newspaper are the comic strips.
60
Leonard , I agree but something is annoying me is if you go to google for news it seems to me that all the news comes from Fairfax sources including Hallams absurd piece from the SMH about TC Marcia (AGW means that cyclones will move south ) that stayed on top of google news all day long.
something is wrong here , either google is corrupt or corruptible.
Does any one know how to get unfiltered news from the net??
40
That is difficult. I think nothing on TV is either fair or unbiased. AM radio is much better, at least you can usually get both sides. After that, to get the truth, I guess searching for the blogs that seem to give you the best information. It is pretty clear which climate changes are above board, it is a bit harder in news and politics, but take a few hours and shop around on the blogs. Sorry, that is the best way I know to get unfiltered news.
10
You can find other “search engines” on the net and use G’ to do it.
10
How you perceive what’s corrupted news content is entirely subjective to your personal beliefs political, religion, outlook etc.. where one person that has a look at Joanne’s blog will be impressed by the counter views another will be upset by the apparent misinformation and lies, I’ve personally recommended this blog to people over the years and have received feedback from delighted to horrified at what they read.
Honestly I believe that from personal experience most people dislike any confrontation including political debate which what this pseudo scientific ruckus has become, this avoidance of debate is working beautifully in favor of the CAGW proponents much to the detriment of the truth, nowadays you never discuss in mixed company Politics-Religion-Sex-Climate.
20
Don’t use Google, there are alternatives.
10
Well I am very unimpressed by Ask.com which seems to come standard with Windows 8. What do you recommend?. How do I get rid of Ask.
30
A bit hard, Ask, tends to leave behind lots of bits…go to http://www.revouninstallerpro.com you can download the program and use it for free for 30 days. Does a wonderful job at removing Ask.
Search engine I like https://ixquick.com/ The other advantage is they dont collect your details so you dont get “Customized Adds” like you do with all the others. Bing is even worse then Ask…dont go there!!!
20
People died for free press and western freedoms. I came out from behind the iron curtain only to discover more colour newspapers with more subtle and hence more perfidious distortion of the reality. At least under communism you knew the enemy. Over here almost everyone in the public is the enemy and for what, some measly $ 200,000 or less. People,s souls were always for sale and today is no different.
100
The blogosphere is the new free press.
190
But only as long as it may last. There are not that many switches, that need to be flipped.
170
Indeed, and I briefly read last week something about the UN taking over the internet from the US. I didn’t understand what they were saying, so am unsure exactly what it is. But the UN, the ultimate unaccountable bureaucracy scares the hell out of me.
210
Today’s Internet originally began as a USA university computer communication system called APRANET which was originally proposed in 1967 and became operational in September of 1969 with UCLA being the first node point.
Internet Society ; Brief History of the Internet
Internet;
[ quoted ]
The idea of open-architecture networking was first introduced by Kahn shortly after having arrived at DARPA in 1972. This work was originally part of the packet radio program, but subsequently became a separate program in its own right. At the time, the program was called “Internetting”.
[ / ]
Consequently for the entire life of the Internet the various protocol committees, the committees that derive the protocols that enable the internet to function in the all encompassing manner it has done for the last 35 years are controlled by the ICANN corporation under contract to the US government and consequently is located in the USA..
Google; internet protocol controllers for list of all the various bodies that set the protocols for internet operation;
Fortunately under the USA’s Freedom of Speech culture and it’s sense of responsibility towards the rest of the global peoples, the USA has always maintained that the internet where the various Internet protocol committees are based should always be free of political and nationalistic based interference.
And it has remained like this under the USA’s tutelage for over a third of a century.
Moving the internet control to the UN would immediately bring immense political pressures plus green and other nasty power hungry NGO’s, censorious individuals and corporations and nations, the whole bloody gamut of the most corrupt of the corrupt UN into force on the way in which the internet would be controlled and run,
Probably to the exclusive benefit of the least ethical, moral and most psychotic group that could seize control of that truly marvelous global communication system that is less than half a human life time old but already has become the biggest advance to human development since Johannes Gutenberg’s inventing of printing press which opened the gates of knowledge from a few elite to anybody who could read the printed and written word.
The consequent explosion of knowledge and information led directly to the Industrial revolution and to where today we can comfortably feed and support over 7 billions of humans on this planet and I can sit here, find this information in minutes and create a post that if they wanted to, can be read by over half the world’s 7.2 billions of peoples within seconds of my making this post to Jo’s blog..
40
I agree with you to a Point. The internet can be controlled if it’s your standard home connection. Go to something a bit more sophisticated like a Tor Browser and it will be very very hard to find out what you are doing on the internet….Similar systems have been used by a lot of dissenters in totalitarian Countries quite successfully.
30
It’s a classic catch 22, the internet quickly became easily accessible to so many due to it’s electronic connectivity however the same connection is much easy to undo compared to closing down private media publications or Tv/radio outlets.
It’s imperative to maintain internet freedoms if a counter point want’s to be heard, of course those that don’t want it heard will fiercely fight for control of the most effective form of global communication ever known.
Having said that, though people have had access to the internet for over 20 years they still vote in the worst governments and believe an atmospheric trace gas can destroy the planet, too much time watching ‘Youtube fails’ has led to the failure to see the real enemy in front of them due to the overbearing attraction of trivial things that will eventually make their freedom trivial also.
40
It seems that way bemused with the majority of the MSM these days obsessed with CAGW, even though it doesn’t exist, a bit like Santa & the Tooth Fairy (apologies to Ollie – my 6 year old grandson).
60
The MSM is also obsessed with promoting the ban on GM crops in much the same way as it demonises CAGW, as well as conservative politics.
The MSM either went to the same school of deceit or has a common coach. O’Bama is a classic example by getting the MSM to promote his recent appeal to fund his case against “deniers.”
30
The blogosphere is full of censorship. It’s like another World where the law no longer applies.
50
But without the blogosphere, all that would inform (using that term loosely) would be the MSM.
50
Sadly the free blogosphere may not last long. In the electronic world anyone can be investigated. In Orwell,s 1984 the terrifying future did not have the internet, only TV and radio and agents to enforce the control (which was exactly what communism was). Today you don,t to have the agents. You have the computers that can tell when and how you self-incriminated yourself. This nightmare already started in China were access to the internet can be controlled. Wasn’t bin laden more free when he decided not use computers, phones etc. and hence eluded the state for such a long time?
What we talk about is stored somewhere and this can be quite easily used in future trials. If you die before your children will be guilty by association. A paradise for the dictators. Adolf and Joseph would love to live with such tools at their disposals. Removing or adding people by Photoshop would have been easy compared to the clumsy attempts in the 1930-ties.
20
Gotta love the proof reading over at SKS.
Half way down the page we have a story entitled.
“Missing Arctic warming does contribute to the hiatus, but it is only one piece in the puzzle.” (so even Cooke has had to recognise the pause now)
Then a little lower down.
“A fresh look at the watery side of Earth’s climate shows ‘unabated planetary warming”
Nothing like having 2 bob each way on your stories I guess. Might suck in a whole new type of idiot to read your site.
Well it got me for starters 😀
90
I wouldn’t call you a new type of idiot.
70
Rereke Whakaaro:
Behave yourself!
40
Sorry … being flippant.
20
I have broad shoulders and you have a keen sense of humour.
I did giggle, but then being an idiot I probably would 😉
20
The Telegraph and most print journals are in their death throes, most of them still appealing to only niche audiences. Lots of censorship for agenda reasons, too. The Guardian in Britain is one of the worst, but Scientific American and Slate magazine in the U.S. the same, all of them censoring me when I share data in a civil way, posting something like, “For the actual data see this NOAA graph….”
Even on the Globalwarming blog of my national, liberal church, the adminsitrator first called me a denier and afterwards censored all my posts that followed my initial post about the”good news” of little or no global temperature rise this century.
80
In my eyes journalism has sunk well below prostitution. I stay away from them as you never know what you can catch.
70
You must begin to point out to your church the anti people effects of AGW action, the excess deaths in winter due to fuel poverty, the use of food for fuel, the diversion of billions away from medicine and aid for the poor, to solar panels and windmills that are never going to power the lives of 7 Billion people. The fact that a return to preindustrial 270 PPM CO2 and the temperatures of the little ice age is completely unsustainable (would cause a global famine) should also be noted.
Churches have a moral code, when the moral code gets misdirected away from people it should be reset by people like yourself that know what the priorities are.
Note to the POPE, are you reading this? consider the absolute immorality of your support of the diversion of sufficient money to END WORLD HUNGER into soothing the fears of a few misinformed greenies. You are tearing apart the church with your blatant support for what is simply a political narrative.
20
A study of women’s magazines in the US showed that those which accepted cigarette advertising never had articles about health risks of smoking compared to those which did not accept the ads. Also, it is common practice to place ads next to related articles–no doubt by chance.
Of course, these are not science journals, but it shows that money talks (duh).
40
Joanne, I have ‘been around’ and ‘active’ for more years than I care to admit, so that may help you to grasp how pleased I am to read your material as you expose a portion of the current crop of lies the public are being fed.
In 1986, Ivor Benson, South African journalist (finally turned independent) wrote to a group of Australians:
One message of encouragement I can send from Britain is that we are seeing more signs of an awakening to the realities of modern power politics than might have been expected. In other words, we are seeing a great widening of the credibility gap — the gap between what the politicians and the media say and what people can be persuaded to believe. What is more, there are a few newspapers here, which can be described as soundly conservative even if they cannot be as bold in their utterances as we are. One example will have to suffice. The other day the London Daily Mail carried a story under a heading across the two centre pages to this effect: “TISSUE OF LIES ON THE BBC”. The power-centralising scoundrels are not having it all their own way.
In a word, there are many signs today of an irrepressible, resurgent spiritual vitality in the West to remind us that we have not been, and are not, fighting in vain.
For myself, I would sum up the situation by an observation from that 2000-year old book, the New Testament:
The love of, that is, the preference for money, in terms of personal advancement – above all other considerations – is the root of all kinds of evil.
170
RTCC: Big debate
Should journalists be climate campaigners?
Some green groups say the climate situation is *so* serious media outlets have to start aggressively raising levels of public knowledge on the issue.
We ran two articles on it this week – one from RTCC editor Ed King, the other from former Daily Telegraph environment correspondent Louise Gray.
Please let us know what you think – either via email or on twitter @RTCCclimatenews
40
Tried to publish this comment on Louise Gray blog and of course was not published or still waiting for the moderation 3 hours later?
“10% co2 rise and no global warming in the last 18 years or so and we have still discussion about this? I am a geologist that does palaeoclimate reconstructions for breakfast and you tell me that there is a danger? We are living on a co2 starved planets with the current co2 lower than during the entire 4.6bln year earth history. But you did not know that because you are an environmental expert on the last 40 years.”
70
Take note everybody on this website – what Dariusz says is 100% correct. The majority of geos see CAGW as a sham and as I repeatedly keep saying only one entity can stop this “UN driven beast” in its tracks – the Sun – we must have faith in the “Solar Physicists”, many of whom are predicting a GM/LIA within the next decade – only this natural “GC Event” will silence the beast, once and forever – in the movie “The Omen” (1976) the beast had the number 666, well with the “CAGW Beast”, it has the number 21 (yes Agenda 21).
50
What newspapers rarely present,
From skeptics,would not make a dent,
In the long warmist columns,
Which as fraction of volumes,
Is about 97%.
120
Interesting
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-21/ecologist-snowy-mountains-conservation-suffering-brumbies/6162804
So where is the MSM questioning all of this? Amazing that ‘Someone’s ABC’ even posted this.
50
I checked out HSBC when I was living in Dubai as the Commonwealth bank didn’t have a branch there. I figured that if I joined the HSBC in Australia I could access my account in the Dubai branch – wrong! – each HSBC branch is a separate franchise and they are not connected.
20
Jim’s Banking.
50
handjive posted 3 links re the Big Debate on RTCC – one word was missing at all 3 links: Greenpeace:
12 Feb: Energydesk Greenpeace: Energydesk Live: Climate reporting debate with Jon Snow
by Zachary Davies Boren
VIDEO: Energydesk Live: Energy & Climate Reporting Panel Discussion (1 hr 3 mins)
On February 11th, at notorious London media hangout The Frontline Club, Energydesk held a debate on the following question:
“Do journalists have a responsibility to campaign on climate change within their reporting?”
Somehow we ended up with an anecdote from Jon Snow about the time he and UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon wore polar bear trousers…
Here’s introducing the panellists you’ll see in the video. (From left to right)
Li Shuo, energy analyst at Greenpeace China
Tom Chivers, senior writer at Buzzfeed UK
Jon Snow, anchor for Channel 4 (and the discussion’s chair)
Zoe Williams, columnist at The Guardian
Tom Clarke, science editor for Channel 4
Here were some of the night’s highlights (in tweets)…
http://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2015/02/12/energydesk-live-energy-climate-reporting-panel-jon-snow/
Greenpeace Energydesk: Who We Are
Damian Kahya, Editor, Ex-BBC business and energy reporter
Christine Ottery, Deputy Editor, Worked for Guardian & New Scientist
Zachary Davies Boren, Reporter, Writes for The Independent
http://energydesk.greenpeace.org/about/
& Louise Gray moves from Tele to RTCC, while Leo Hickman moves from Guardian to WWF to Carbon Brief, & so it goes.
btw i couldn’t bear to watch the Debate but, if u do, just know it is blank til about 12 mins 9 secs.
00
btw RTCC’s Media Partner’s (see bottom of Louise Gray’s article linked by handjive) includes UNFCCC, Guardian, UNCCD. also –
Responding to Climate Change – Sponsors
includes European Investment Bank
http://www.rtcc.org/sponsors/
Ed King’s RTCC piece has 30+ comments, most of them highly critical.
Dariusz couldn’t get a comment on Louise’s piece, but the few who did include:
Tom Burke, Chairman, E3G –
19 Jan: Foreign & Commonwealth Office: FOI Release: FOI release: FCO and E3G
at UN climate change conferences
FOI ref 0903-14 gives a list of projects completed with FCO funding where
E3G has been involved directly and indirectly at UN climate change
conferences.
(download 2 documents)
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/foi-release-fco-and-e3g-at-un-climate-change-conferences
and Megan Rowling of CAGW-infested Thomson Reuters Foundation. Megan even has the cheek to utilise the “polar bear” meme!
00
as for Carbon Brief, which is CAGW central since Reuters disappeared Point Carbon into their Research and Forecasts for Energy section, (similar to how Bloomberg disappared their Sustainability section, which is now a Science+Energy section), it’s worth reading/re-reading Barry Woods’ WUWT piece, including his additional info in the comments:
2011: WUWT: Barry Woods: The Carbon Brief – The European rapid response team
It is a project of the Energy and Strategy Centre, funded and supported by
the European Climate Foundation (ECF)…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/18/the-carbon-brief-the-european-rapid-response-team/
00
re Tele being soft on HSBC. i like Oborne, but he must know “too big to fail/jail” banks have supporters everywhere. some of the critics of the Tele’s position are playing politics, as there is an election in May:
21 Feb: Guardian: Dan Roberts: Loretta Lynch confirmation as attorney general dogged by HSBC scandal
Opposition to Barack Obama’s nominee for US attorney general over her handling of the HSBC scandal is growing in Congress after she admitted deciding not to prosecute the bank for money laundering offences without hearing from key regulators or a separate investigation into tax secrecy…
“These decisions by the [Department of Justice] and Ms Lynch’s office raise troubling questions about whether pertinent information of public concern regarding HSBC was ‘swept under the rug’, if justice was served, and why HSBC was given special treatment that allowed it to walk away from such serious offences unscathed,” Vitter writes in a letter to current attorney general Eric Holder…
Lynch has confirmed she was not aware of the damning tax allegations against the bank when negotiating a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) over it facilitating money laundering by Mexican drug cartels and helping clients evade US sanctions…
“She could have looked it up on Wikipedia,” said Bart Naylor, an expert at Public Citizen. “She oversees 340 attorneys; at least somebody should have been thinking about this and put it on Google alerts,” he added…
Naylor also criticised Lynch’s apparent lack of scepticism over HSBC’s arguments that a criminal prosecution would have jeopardised financial stability.
“We know that HSBC made the case that to bring stiffer penalties would lead to financial tsunamis, but I thought the DoJ would have considered how genuine those concerns were with people who ought to know,” he said.
“From a policy perspective, that’s the most troubling aspect of this: that people not expert in this made an otherwise momentous policy that this bank was too big to jail.”…
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/feb/20/loretta-lynch-confirmation-attorney-general-hsbc-scandal
14 Feb: Guardian: Paul Lewis: Republicans seize on HSBC scandal to hold up Loretta Lynch’s confirmation
Lynch’s deal with HSBC sparked outrage on Capitol Hill two years ago, as Republicans and Democrats railed against a settlement they said let the bank off the hook by avoiding criminal charges against the bank or its executives…
“Reports of these serious violations of US law are nearly five years old, yet no criminal charges have ever been brought against HSBC for the alleged tax evasion scheme under your leadership of the eastern district of New York,” the senator states in his submission to Lynch…
Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senator who was most vocal in her opposition to the 2012 settlement with HSBC, also called on prosecutors to “come down hard” on the bank if the leaked data shows it colluded with US tax evaders. However, neither senator mentioned Lynch, amid concern on the Democratic side that the HSBC revelations could derail Lynch’s confirmation…
Jeff Merkley, a Democratic senator from Oregon, also called for tough action against HSBC over tax evasion, while steering clear of any reference to Lynch…
***Lynch has enough support among Republican senators to expect a smooth confirmation as the top US law enforcement official, whenever the vote is held…
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/13/republicans-loretta-lynch-hsbc-revelations
***sadly, this is probably true.
the source, not credited at the Guardian (which belatedly covered the story anyway):
10 Feb: WND: Drew Zahn: Explosive: Stunning backstory inside HSBC scandal
Big-money bankers tried to shut news site down to stop it
VIDEO: WND senior staff writer Jerome Corsi explains how WND first exposed HSBC’s massive money laundering scheme, the fallout from the explosive discovery and the role Loretta Lynch played in the emerging Obama administration scandal:
In a report by WND senior staff writer Jerome Corsi dated Feb. 1, 2012, it was first revealed that John Cruz, a former employee of HSBC in New York, delivered to WND some 1,000 pages of customer account records he claimed were evidence of an international money-laundering scheme involving hundreds of billions of dollars by the global banking giant.
Cruz, the former vice president and senior business relationships manager for HSBC on Long Island, had pulled the documents from the HSBC computer system before he was fired, allegedly for “poor performance,” though Cruz contends he was let go because senior management didn’t want to him to pursue his personal investigation into the bank’s wrongdoing…
http://www.wnd.com/2015/02/emerging-obama-scandal-1st-found-by-wnd-in-2012/#!
10
The truth is on the street. There can be no control to guarantee the truth, the very control is wrong. The truth is among the people, with all their crazy ideas clashing. There can be no rules to the truth, every person we think is a quack or crazy must have a say because the quack may be thinking the same of the other people. There is a fight for the truth in public on the internet. But the government have a million laws to protect us from what experts decide is false. control how we think. Laws should be taken away so we have to rely on personal decisions and trusted friends to tell us who to trust., the less laws the more war for the truth. There is no good people to trust with this task. We are all good or bad as you decide.
00