Introduction to Economic Espionage

"Economic Espionage is the greatest threat to our national security since the Cold War."

-- Louis Freeh, former FBI Director

The largest business crisis in America today is economic espionage. And that's downright criminal.

Last year, economic espionage and theft of trade secrets cost U.S. businesses more than $250 billion, and $1.2 trillion in the last decade. More than 56 percent of the Fortune 1000 admit to having been victimized; and it is more than likely that the other 44 percent are either too reticent to admit it or simply haven't yet discovered that they, too, have been targeted by corporate spies or thieves -- foreign and domestic. Sometimes the thieves are business competitors, sometimes rouge employees seeking to strike out on their own with your hard work, trade secrets and other intellectual property as their personal grubstake. Sometimes the spy works for a foreign nation or foreign-owned entity; and often the culprit is the business associate you trust most.

It's not hard to figure out why economic espionage carried out against U.S. companies is on a steady rise when you consider that the United States spends more money on research and development than all other G-8 countries (Canada, Japan, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia) combined.

Can anything be done to stop economic espionage?

Stop it, no; stem it, yes.

The Economic Espionage Act (EEA) of 1996 was passed by Congress, at the urging of the FBI, in order to put some teeth into otherwise weak and ineffectual laws. The EEA now makes economic espionage a federal offense with stiff prison sentences and fines up to $10 million. But is it enough? Sadly, the answer is, "No." Economic espionage must be fought in the trenches one company at a time, and it is incumbent upon all at-risk companies to take steps to identify and protect important trade secrets and other intellectual property.

Companies must take proactive steps to reduce their risks.

Which companies are at risk? Those that are vulnerable go far beyond just defense contractors, high tech concerns, manufacturing facilities, computer companies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, chemical companies, food companies, or major industrial giants.

In fact, the only thing necessary for economic espionage to flourish is for a company to have at least one employee and/or at least one competitor. Specific industry groups do not matter. And medium-sized companies, who have the largest number of competitors, are most at risk

Lexicon Communications helps companies increase their security and protect their trade secrets, from vulnerability audits to education and training of employees, as well as offering support to victimized companies.

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Economic Espionage is a business crisis.
For more information on
Crisis Management and Crisis Communications,
as well as detailed background on Lexicon,
please visit: www.crisismanagement.com

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Economic Espionage | About Lexicon | Protecting Trade Secrets | Client Services | Education & Training
Sticky Fingers | Economic Espionage Case Updates | Speakers Bureau

We've even outsourced Espionage

Two Silicon Valley Cases Raise Fears of Chinese Espionage

U.S. Agents Try to Tie Alleged Tech Thefts
To Companies Run by Chinese Government

By JOHN R. WILKE
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Federal agents are investigating whether Chinese companies were involved in alleged attempts to steal vital commercial technologies from two Silicon Valley companies.

Authorities see the two cases as part of an emerging pattern of trade-secrets theft aimed at helping Chinese enterprises. In both instances, the alleged thieves were arrested at San Francisco airport as they tried to board flights to China. The technologies at issue include computer-chip designs and software used to find oil and gas, executives of the allegedly targeted U.S. companies and federal officials say.

Investigators haven't found any links in the cases to China's state security apparatus, but they have uncovered ties to other government-controlled entities. Central- and local-government entities own most businesses in China, but they often are autonomous and pursue profits aggressively.

Denials by Chinese Government

A Chinese Embassy official in Washington said there was no central-government involvement in the cases, calling them isolated instances carried out by individuals. "There are several cases like this now in Silicon Valley," the official said. Likewise, a consular spokeswoman in San Francisco called such incidents "personal behavior [that has] nothing to do with the China government."

Prosecutors haven't charged any government entity in either of the pending cases, and there is no suggestion the two are connected. But the prosecutors and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents have noticed an increase in industrial spying by individuals associated with Chinese companies. While French and Japanese companies have been implicated in past economic espionage cases, federal officials suspect Chinese entities are now among the worst offenders. Experts say economic espionage of all stripes is on the rise, causing at least $45 billion in annual losses for the 1,000 largest U.S. companies, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey released in 2001.

Federal officials say the problem is especially prevalent in California's Silicon Valley, where stealing a company's crown jewels can be as easy as clicking a computer mouse. "The losses to companies can be astronomical," says federal prosecutor Ross Nadel, who investigates such cases as chief of the San Francisco U.S. attorney's computer-hacking and intellectual-property unit. In addition to the pending criminal cases, Mr. Nadel said many other attempts to steal trade secrets for companies in China and elsewhere have been thwarted by FBI agents during the past two years, though prosecutors were unable to secure indictments in some instances. Prosecutions are hindered when "the victim companies don't come forward to report the crime or don't cooperate with federal officials" to avoid exposing their losses, he said.

HIGH-TECH INSECURITY Recent economic-espionage and trade-secrets cases: Dec. 4, 2002: Fei Ye, 36, and Ming Zhong, 35, indicted for conspiracy to take trade secrets from four Silicon Valley companies to China. Sept. 17: Yan Ming Shan (pictured above), an employee of PetroChina, arrested for unauthorized entry into a computer at seismic-imaging firm 3DGeo Development of Mountain View, Calif. June 19: Jiangyu Zhu, 30, and Kayoko Kimbara, 32, arrested for the theft of trade secrets from Harvard Medical School's Department of Cell Biology while they were research fellows. April 11: Hai Lin, 30, and Kai Xu, 33, former Lucent Technologies scientists, and Yong-Qing Cheng, 37, a consultant, were charged with stealing trade secrets from Lucent for transfer to a joint venture with a Chinese telecommunications firm. May 8, 2001: Takashi Okamoto, 40, and Hiroaki Serizawa, 39, become the first people charged with violating the Economic Espionage Act. The pair allegedly stole genetic materials from the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and transferred them to a Japanese research agency. Source: Justice Department

"From a bottom-line perspective, economic espionage makes great sense -- it's relatively easy, and there's little chance of getting caught or punished," said Steven Fink, president of Lexicon Communications Corp., a Los Angeles firm that advises companies on how to prevent such losses.

In the most recent case, an indictment that was filed in federal court here last month alleged that two California residents conspired to steal secrets from four companies, including Sun Microsystems Inc., NEC Electronics Corp. and Transmeta Corp., the developer of an innovative new laptop computer chip. The men -- Fei Ye, an American citizen living in Cupertino, and Ming Zhong, a Chinese national living as a legal resident in San Jose -- had been arrested at the airport a year earlier, allegedly as they tried to fly to China with trade secrets in their luggage. Their arrests attracted little attention at the time.

Ties to City of Hangzhou?

The indictment alleges the men had ties to a Chinese government technology-development program and the southeast China city of Hangzhou, which is trying to expand its electronics industry. The indictment says the city helped fund a joint venture, Hangzhou Zhingtian Microsystems Co., formed by the men to commercialize the stolen technology. Federal agents found correspondence between the men and officials with the technology program -- formally known as the National High-Technology Research and Development Program of China -- as well as the joint venture's charter. One document, translated by the FBI, said a government "panel of experts" found the venture would have "a positive effect on development of China's integrated-circuit industry" and recommended that "every government department implement and provide energetic support."

People familiar with the matter say investigators are actively studying what role, if any, the city and the technology program played in the alleged conspiracy.

Economic Espionage Act Used

Both men have denied the charges through lawyers, saying the documents in their luggage weren't trade secrets. Hangzhou officials said they had never heard of Hangzhou Zhingtian Microsystems or the two men in the indictment. A supporter of one of the defendants suggested that ethnic bias may have played a role in the investigation, asserting that the men wouldn't have been arrested "if these had been white businessmen flying to Ireland."

The two men were charged under the rarely used Economic Espionage Act of 1996, which outlaws possession of stolen trade secrets with the intent to benefit a foreign nation. When the law passed, then-FBI Director Louis Freeh called economic espionage the "greatest threat to our national security since the Cold War."

Under the law, trade-secret thieves can be charged with economic espionage even if they act without the direction of a foreign company or government. For example, two Lucent Technologies Inc. employees were indicted in 2001 on federal economic-espionage charges for allegedly stealing the software code of a popular voice- and data-management product called Pathstar. They created a joint venture with China's state-owned phone company, Datang Telecom Technology Co., but prosecutors didn't allege that the company knew in advance that the software was stolen. The case is awaiting trial in New Jersey.

In another case under investigation here, an employee of PetroChina, a state-owned oil company, is alleged to have illegally downloaded the secret design -- or "source code" -- of one of the world's most powerful software tools for locating oil and gas deposits. The employee, a Chinese national named Yan Ming Shan, was training on the software at 3DGeo Development Inc. in Mountain View, Calif., and copied it into his laptop, a federal indictment alleges. He was arrested at San Francisco airport in September and remains in Santa Clara County Jail, on federal charges of fraud and unauthorized computer entry.

While he isn't charged under the economic-espionage act, the FBI is continuing to investigate his actions and could seek a superseding indictment adding new charges, as they have done in other recent cases, law enforcement officials said. Executives of 3DGeo said FBI agents recently subpoenaed the PetroChina employee's e-mails and other evidence.

The defendant has pleaded not guilty through his lawyer, Nick Humy of the federal public defender's office in Santa Clara. An official in PetroChina's Houston office declined to comment, referring inquiries to the company's headquarters in China; officials there didn't respond to inquiries.

Employee Surveillance

A unit of PetroChina sent its employee to the U.S. for training on 3DGeo's seismic-imaging software, which uses proprietary algorithms to sift through seismic data and locate oil deposits. Dimitri Bevc, 3DGeo's co-founder and chairman, said employees "were keeping an eye on" Mr. Shan because two years earlier another PetroChina employee had entered the company's offices on a weekend and entered its computer network without permission.

One day last September, a 3DGeo employee noticed that something was awry with his computer. The employee discovered that Yan Ming Shan had transferred the company's most precious software source code from the network to this employee's computer. Later, the software was discovered on Yan Ming Shan's laptop, prosecutors alleged.

Employees of 3DGeo confronted him about the transferred files in early September. A week later, on Sept. 17, he was arrested at the airport as he prepared to board a plane to China. Later, FBI agents found a program called "Crack" on his laptop, which is used to break passwords and gain unauthorized access to computer networks. They discovered that when a group of company officials from China had visited Yan Ming Shan several weeks earlier, one of them bought him a detachable disk drive capable of storing large amounts of data.

"It could have killed the company" if he had successfully stolen the source code and given it to his employer, said Mihai Popovici, 3DGeo's chief executive. He added, however, that 3DGeo hopes to continue working with PetroChina, which told 3DGeo executives it had no knowledge of any intention by Yan Ming Shan to steal company secrets.

"Companies are under attack and at great risk," said Lexicon's Mr. Fink, author of "Sticky Fingers," a new book about economic espionage. "They need to take steps to protect themselves."

This is not Acceptable

Bush is a FU***** IDIOT (hey, those words came out of one of my doctors mouth first ^^)

America the ____________???? Greedy, spoiled, self centered

I hope in LESS THEN 3 weeks this decision is revoked!
We have all the resources for alternate energy, so why do we keep destroying our land, wildlife and natural beauty- for OIL?
A*******

Feds approve gas drilling plan for Montana

Drilling has boomed over the past decade in neighboring Wyoming

updated 9:20 a.m. ET, Wed., Dec. 31, 2008

BILLINGS, Mont. - The Bush administration has approved a plan that could allow more than 18,000 natural gas wells to be drilled in southeastern Montana over the next two decades.

The decision by C. Stephen Allred, assistant secretary for land and minerals management at the Department of Interior, would allow companies to proceed with plans to drill on more than 1.5 million acres of federal land in Montana's remote Powder River Basin.

Drilling in the basin has boomed over the past decade across the border in neighboring Wyoming. The heady pace of development pumped tens of millions of dollars into local communities — but also depleted water supplies and battered populations of game animals including sage grouse.

Story continues below ↓

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Tuesday's approval of the Montana development plan followed a three year delay caused by drilling opponents. Conservation groups and the Northern Cheyenne tribe won a court order temporarily blocking drilling in2005, over worries it could foul water supplies and harm wildlife.

Worries over water
The Powder River Basin holds a type of natural gas known as coal-bed methane, which companies can extract only after pumping vast quantities of water from underground aquifers that trap the gas. That's the same water ranchers in the arid region depend on to irrigate fields and fill stock ponds.

Bureau of Land Management officials say their latest plan would phase in drilling, meaning it could be halted if environmental problems arose. Agency spokesman Greg Albright said an industry shutdown could come long before all 18,000 predicted wells were drilled.

"If our monitoring shows we're getting into impacts that aren't acceptable, we're going to start making changes right now," he said. "We're not going to wait until we reach some number of wells."

Beth Kaeding with the Northern Plains Resource Council — a plaintiff in the 2005 lawsuit — said her group wants "to see that coal-bed methane development is done right" under the new plan.

She said the group had not yet seen Allred's decision and could not comment on it directly. And she declined to say if another lawsuit would be filed seeking to block the latest BLM plan.

Predicting the End of America

By ANDREW OSBORN

I was kind of hoping to be out of here before something like this "might happen"

Since the USA is destroying natural resources to find oil...well as a young and immature country, it is likely to crash and burn.

I can see based on History alone, america could be destroyed like all other countries who have learned from their mistakes- america has not....yet.

MOSCOW -- For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. (very close)

For most of that time, he admits, few took his argument -- that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S. -- very seriously.

Now he's found an eager audience: Russian state media.

Igor Panarin

In recent weeks, he's been interviewed as much as twice a day about his predictions. "It's a record," says Prof. Panarin. "But I think the attention is going to grow even stronger."

Prof. Panarin, 50 years old, is not a fringe figure. A former KGB analyst, he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry's academy for future diplomats. He is invited to Kremlin receptions, lectures students, publishes books, and appears in the media as an expert on U.S.-Russia relations.

But it's his bleak forecast for the U.S. that is music to the ears of the Kremlin, which in recent years has blamed Washington for everything from instability in the Middle East to the global financial crisis. Mr. Panarin's views also fit neatly with the Kremlin's narrative that Russia is returning to its rightful place on the world stage after the weakness of the1990s, when many feared that the country would go economically and politically bankrupt and break into separate territories.

A polite and cheerful man with a buzz cut, Mr. Panarin insists he does not dislike Americans. But he warns that the outlook for them is dire.

"There's a 55-45% chance right now that disintegration will occur," he says. "One could rejoice in that process," he adds, poker-faced. "But if we're talking reasonably, it's not the best scenario -- for Russia." Though Russia would become more powerful on the global stage, he says, its economy would suffer because it currently depends heavily on the dollar and on trade with the U.S.

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces -- with Alaska reverting to Russian control.

In addition to increasing coverage in state media, which are tightly controlled by the Kremlin, Mr. Panarin's ideas are now being widely discussed among local experts. He presented his theory at a recent roundtable discussion at the Foreign Ministry. The country's top international relations school has hosted him as a keynote speaker. During an appearance on the state TV channel Rossiya, the station cut between his comments and TV footage of lines at soup kitchens and crowds of homeless people in the U.S. The professor has also been featured on the Kremlin's English-language propaganda channel, Russia Today.

Mr. Panarin's apocalyptic vision "reflects a very pronounced degree of anti-Americanism in Russia today," says Vladimir Pozner, a prominent TV journalist in Russia. "It's much stronger than it was in the Soviet Union."

Mr. Pozner and other Russian commentators and experts on the U.S. dismiss Mr. Panarin's predictions. "Crazy ideas are not usually discussed by serious people," says Sergei Rogov, director of the government-run Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies, who thinks Mr. Panarin's theories don't hold water.

Mr. Panarin's résumé includes many years in the Soviet KGB, an experience shared by other top Russian officials. His office, in downtown Moscow, shows his national pride, with pennants on the wall bearing the emblem of the FSB, the KGB's successor agency. It is also full of statuettes of eagles; a double-headed eagle was the symbol of czarist Russia.

The professor says he began his career in the KGB in 1976. In post-Soviet Russia, he got a doctorate in political science, studied U.S. economics, and worked for FAPSI, then the Russian equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency. He says he did strategy forecasts for then-President Boris Yeltsin, adding that the details are "classified."

In September 1998, he attended a conference in Linz, Austria, devoted to information warfare, the use of data to get an edge over a rival. It was there, in front of 400 fellow delegates, that he first presented his theory about the collapse of the U.S. in 2010.

"When I pushed the button on my computer and the map of the United States disintegrated, hundreds of people cried out in surprise," he remembers. He says most in the audience were skeptical. "They didn't believe me."

At the end of the presentation, he says many delegates asked him to autograph copies of the map showing a dismembered U.S.

He based the forecast on classified data supplied to him by FAPSI analysts, he says. He predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in.

California will form the nucleus of what he calls "The Californian Republic," and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of "The Texas Republic," a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an "Atlantic America" that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls "The Central North American Republic." Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia.

"It would be reasonable for Russia to lay claim to Alaska; it was part of the Russian Empire for a long time." A framed satellite image of the Bering Strait that separates Alaska from Russia like a thread hangs from his office wall. "It's not there for no reason," he says with a sly grin.

Interest in his forecast revived this fall when he published an article in Izvestia, one of Russia's biggest national dailies. In it, he reiterated his theory, called U.S. foreign debt "a pyramid scheme," and predicted China and Russia would usurp Washington's role as a global financial regulator.

Americans hope President-elect Barack Obama "can work miracles," he wrote. "But when spring comes, it will be clear that there are no miracles."

The article prompted a question about the White House's reaction to Prof. Panarin's forecast at a December news conference. "I'll have to decline to comment," spokeswoman Dana Perino said amid much laughter.

For Prof. Panarin, Ms. Perino's response was significant. "The way the answer was phrased was an indication that my views are being listened to very carefully," he says.

The professor says he's convinced that people are taking his theory more seriously. People like him have forecast similar cataclysms before, he says, and been right. He cites French political scientist Emmanuel Todd. Mr. Todd is famous for having rightly forecast the demise of the Soviet Union -- 15 years beforehand. "When he forecast the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1976, people laughed at him," says Prof. Panarin.

This enrages me so much; tempting me to use skillfully mastered tactics to bring it to an end.
This has been my sole gripe with this woman who otherwise amused us during an "election"
potential veep? OMDB-,

Watch our new video on Palin’s terrible wolf-killing plans and find out how you can help stop them. Warning: Contains disturbing images. You Can Help Stop the Killing... Please watch our video, help us stop aerial killing of wolves, prevent this brutal practice from spreading to areas like Greater Yellowstone and help other wildlife with your tax-deductible, year-end contribution of... $5 $10 $50 Another Amount

Dear Kathy,

Sarah Palin is planning what could be the bloodiest aerial wolf killing season yet in Alaska.

Already this winter, aerial gunners in Alaska have slaughtered at least 47 wolves. More wolves were killed this past November than in any November in the past five years. And, under Governor Palin’s out-of-control wolf-killing program, nearly 600 more wolves could die before this year’s season is finished.

Wolves are dying right now, and we need your help to stop the killing.

Please watch our new video

and make a year-end tax-deductible contribution of $5

, $10

, $50

or whatever you can afford

will help us end aerial killing of wolves and protect other imperiled wildlife.

With new leadership in Washington and unprecedented awareness about Governor’s Palin’s senseless killing programs, we’re now in a better position to stop this terrible, needless practice and save wolves.

With your support, we will…

• Forcefully oppose efforts by Governor Palin and her Board of Game to arbitrarily kill even more wolves just to boost game populations for out-of-state hunting interests;
• Shine the national spotlight on Governor Palin’s brutal wolf-killing programs and pressure her to end them;
• Work with the incoming Obama/Biden Administration to close the loophole in the Federal Airborne Hunting Act that Governor Palin is exploiting to continue Alaska’s unfounded aerial wolf killing programs; and
• Build support in Congress for the reintroduction and passage of the Protect America’s Wildlife Act (PAW), federal legislation to end aerial killing of wolves once and for all.

We need to raise $150,000 before December 31st to launch our new campaign in January to stop Palin’s planned wolf slaughter. Will you help?

Please make a year-end tax-deductible contribution of $5

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or whatever amount you can afford

today to help support these and other efforts to save wolves and other wildlife, and we’ll put your year-end tax-deductible contribution to work right away.

With your help, I know we can succeed. Together, we were able to stop Governor Palin’s ghastly $150 bounty for the severed paws of slaughtered wolves, block Palin’s stealth campaign to stifle the voice of Alaska’s citizens on wildlife issues and spotlight Palin’s support for aerial killing and other anti-wildlife policies in the national media.

And, with the help of caring people like you, our sister organization Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund was able to help stop Palin from becoming our next Vice President and spreading her anti-wildlife politics across the country.

We can win, but we can’t do it without you. Please make a tax-deductible contribution of whatever you can today to help us save wolves.

With Gratitude,

Rodger Schlickeisen President Defenders of Wildlife

P.S. Make a secure tax-deductible donation online today

or call 1-800-385-9712 to donate over the phone.

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Kennedy says 9/11, Obama led her to public service.

He (Barack Obama) touched a service nerve is many of US-
I would serve him as commander in chief, even now.
I have an agenda or two- Truth and Justice-.

Caroline Kennedy and I could share notes about common ground. How to survive a dead family. I think we'd have a bit more to talk about-

She would be my very first pick to succeed Hillary- actually, Obama made me like her (Hillary) too.
He asked us, (who were part of the campaign) to write her and thank her when he won the dem.
ticket . I wondered if he would have us write McCain as well.

My concern is Mrs. Schlossberg's (Castle-berg?) private life will cease to exist and she will become part of an entity that needs serious re-org.
I think if anyone can do it, Obama can pull a team to do so.

AP – Caroline Kennedy responds during an interview, Friday, Dec. 26, 2008 in New York. Ms. Kennedy is one …

• Slideshow: Caroline Kennedy
• Play Video Barack Obama Video: White House responds to violence in Gaza AP
• Play Video Barack Obama Video: Handling the Handoff ABC News

NEW YORK – With the wind of her family's legacy at her back, Caroline Kennedy says her quest for a Senate seat has been a long time in the making.

In her first sit-down interview since she emerged as a Senate hopeful, the 51-year-old daughter of President John F. Kennedy told The Associated Press that she has always pondered jumping into politics, but waited for the right moment.

"I am an unconventional choice. I understand that. I haven't pursued the traditional path. But I think that in our public life today, we're starting to see there are many ways into public life and public service," she said.

A wife, a mother of three, a lawyer, a best-selling author and an education activist, Kennedy said she can envision herself as a senator a decade from now after making her children her top priority for the last two decades.

"This is going to be a multiyear effort to fix this economic crisis. So in order to be effective, I would plan to stay at it," Kennedy said in a wide-ranging interview at the Gee Whiz diner a few blocks north of the World Trade Center site.

Between bites of a grilled cheese and bacon sandwich, Kennedy said the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and her work for Barack Obama's presidential campaign inspired her to act on her public service impulses.

She asked Gov. David Paterson 11 days ago to consider her for the position Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton will give up if she is confirmed as secretary of state.

"He encouraged me. He said he has a lot of qualified candidates," Kennedy said.

More than a half-dozen elected officials are vying for the seat, including New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and several members of Congress. Since word of her interest leaked out in early December, Kennedy has faced sometimes sharp criticism that she cut in line ahead of politicians with more experience and has acted as if she were entitled to it because of her political lineage.

"Anybody who knows me knows I haven't really lived that way. And I think that in my family, I come into this thinking I have to work twice as hard as anybody else. Nobody's entitled to anything, certainly not me," she said.

Yet, she noted that she has good relationships with key people in Washington, including the president-elect.

"And I would love to put that to work," she said. Another of her links is her uncle, Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy.

She said she feels the pull to public service inspired by her father.

"Many people remember that spirit that President Kennedy summoned forth," she said. "Many people look to me as somebody who embodies that sense of possibility. I'm not saying that I am anything like him, I'm just saying there's a spirit that I think I've grown up with that is something that means a tremendous amount to me."

She also credited her mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, with giving her the courage to run.

"I think my mother ... made it clear that you have to live life by your own terms and you have to not worry about what other people think and you have to have the courage to do the unexpected," she said.

"Going into politics is something people have asked me about forever," Kennedy said.

Since Kennedy's name first surfaced as a possible replacement for Clinton, her advisers have shielded her from the media, with the exception of a few brief interviews on a swing through upstate New York and a visit to Harlem with the Rev. Al Sharpton.

Kennedy said Paterson told her he did not want people to appear to be campaigning for the position.

She agreed to sit down for interviews Friday with The Associated Press and NY1 television.

"I was trying to respect the process. It is not a campaign," she said. "It was misinterpreted. If I were to be selected, I understand public servants have to be accessible."

Kennedy said she wished her brother, John F. Kennedy Jr., could see the drama that has developed over her quest for the Senate.

"He would be laughing his head off at seeing what's going on right now," she said.

Kennedy offered no excuses for why she failed to vote in a number of elections since registering in New York City in 1988, including in 1994 when Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan was up for re-election for the seat she hopes to take over.

"I was really surprised and dismayed by my voting record," she said. "I'm glad it's been brought to my attention."

(maybe like me, you were disgusted- the writing HAS been on the wall)

Former New York Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, who urged Paterson last weekend to consider experienced members of Congress for the job, said she was glad to hear Kennedy was willing to "work twice as hard as others."

"I think it's great she understands she will have a tougher time," Ferraro said. "I don't know if she can work twice as hard because having been a member of Congress I know they work 24-7. They already work hard."

___

Associated Press reporter Michael Gormley contributed to this report from Albany.

Internet and Phone Scams Have Gone too Far

It appears America is top of the list when it comes to fraudulent behavior. I heard a friend say once;

Crooked at the top, Crooked at the bottom.

Yep, that pretty much enough said. Its unfortunate the struggling entities who are actually TRYING to do something GOOD are questioned because of the overkill tactics of others who would
take their money and run...I worked with an attorney like that once. I know he did it- and he made my life hell- so why didn't I have him disbarred, which I could have done?

Because what comes around goes around. I don't have to do a thing.

All week long I am getting calls on my cell to get grant money- do I need it- ABSOLUTELY!
Not personally, but for work I'd like to do in a small village in Tanzania, in hopes to make the region, and on a better place for the many poor people who live there.

Take my idea- my cousin Vinnie will pay you a visit- capiche?

Better yet- I took it off, ^^ ALL of it. :)

Getting back to the issue at hand; I get this email 3-4 times in my spam box. I check it to make sure nothing important gets put there.

Here is a letter I came across today:


Hello friend,

I hope my email meets you well. I am in need of your assistance. My name
is Sgt Perry Rice. I am in the Engineering military unit here in Ba'qubah
in Iraq,we have some amount of funds that we want to move out of the
country.

My partners and I need a good partner someone we can trust. It is oil
money and legal. Basically since we are working for the government we
cannot keep these funds, but we want to transfer and move the funds to
you, so that you can keep it for us in your safe account or an offshore
account. But we are moving it through Diplomatic means, to send it to your
house directly or a bank of your choice using Diplomatic Courier Service.

The most important thing is that can we trust you? Once the funds get to
you, you take your 30% out and keep our own 70%. Your own part of this
deal is to find a safe place where the funds can be sent to. Our own part
is sending it to you.If you are interested i will furnish you with more
details.

But the whole process is simple and we must keep a low profile at all times.

Waiting for your urgent response via my private email:
sgt.perry_rice111@hotmail.com

This business is risk free.

Regards,
Sgt Perry Rice

Now really- this could very likely be happening; The dumb asses in office now have lost a lot of money- even before they spent it, they were LOSING money, literally. Rummy announced it September 10th 3 trillion from the Pentagon, was then brushed aside by a catastrophic event-
highly complicit in and of it self.

Now really- could we get a little integrity going here?

I'd never be a part of the above- the classic american greed- I say with the utmost contempt.
Give the money to Iraq so they can rebuild what american's destroyed.
Unbuckingfelievable.

Madoff in house arrest, SEC under fire

Its unbuckingfelievable the depths people will go for the almighty dollar- (not so mighty)
I'd think the SEC might want to answer a few questions about the matter.

This is what gets me: Seriously…Madoff Investors Want A Bailout?

UM IDFTS. If you didn't figure out you were being snowed, because you have too damn much money to notice FRAUD, you got what you deserved.

Wed Dec 17, 2008 6:00pm EST

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Cheney: Obama Will "Appreciate" Our Expansion Of Power

Oh do you think so? I thought we were planning on charging YOU for murder 1- premeditated, AND torture. Ten to Hundreds thousands of innocent lives-.
.... all starting one quiet day in September, while you were hunkered down in one of the Gov. bunkers giving flight command orders.

Frankly, you can rot in hell- DICK. (sorry, that was not spiritual) and I am not perfect.
This man needs to have justice "IN HIS FACE" for his many vile acts.

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In an interview with Rush Limbaugh (via Politico), Vice President Dick Cheney predicted that the next president will appreciate the way he and George Bush expanded executive power.

"Once they get here and they're faced with the same problems we deal with every day, then they will appreciate some of the things we've put in place," Cheney said.

"We did not exceed our constitutional authority, as some have suggested," Cheney added. "The President believes, I believe very deeply, in a strong executive, and I think that's essential in this day and age. And I think the Obama administration is not likely to cede that authority back to the Congress. I think they'll find that given a challenge they face, they'll need all the authority they can muster."

Cheney went on to express doubt that President Obama would, as he has promised, close Guantanamo Bay.

"Guantanamo has been very, very valuable. And I think they'll discover that trying to close it is a very hard proposition," he said. "They're unlawful combatants. And you if you're not going to have a place to locate them like Guantanamo, then you either have to bring them here to the continental United States and I don't know any member of Congress who's volunteering to have al Qaeda terrorists deposited in his district."

Cheney also expressed grave concerns about the automobile industry.

"We're on the downside of a recession that may be the worst since World War II," he said. "And if the automobile industry goes belly up now, there's a deep concern that that would be a major shock to the system."