July 2024 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

MoneyGram Opposes CFPB, NY's 'Futile' Bid To Bolster Case
by Gunnar Larson 30 Jul '24

30 Jul '24

MoneyGram Opposes CFPB, NY's 'Futile' Bid To Bolster Case <https://www.law360.com/compliance/articles/1863180?nl_pk=ab5ce197-c1fb-4d8e…> By Aislinn Keely MoneyGram told a New York federal judge that the state and federal regulators' bid to update their complaint against the remittance service is a "bad faith attempt" to "salvage" a case that should either be transferred to MoneyGram's home district of Texas or tossed entirely. Response attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/compliance/articles/1863180?nl_pk=ab5ce197-c1fb-4d8e…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/compliance/articles/1863180?nl_pk=ab5ce197-c1fb-4d8e…>

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Watchdog Says Zoom Call Doesn't Warrant Nixing $25.3M Deal
by Gunnar Larson 30 Jul '24

30 Jul '24

Watchdog Says Zoom Call Doesn't Warrant Nixing $25.3M Deal <https://www.law360.com/health/articles/1863279?nl_pk=6422bbc2-a823-4be5-9a9…> By Alyssa Aquino The U.S. Government Accountability Office has refused to undo a $25.3 million contract to support the National Institutes of Health, unconvinced that the agency had revealed a bidder's proprietary information during a Zoom call with the eventual contract winner. Decision attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/health/articles/1863279?nl_pk=6422bbc2-a823-4be5-9a9…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/health/articles/1863279?nl_pk=6422bbc2-a823-4be5-9a9…>

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Legalization Org Taps Cannabis Atty As New Treasurer
by Gunnar Larson 30 Jul '24

30 Jul '24

Legalization Org Taps Cannabis Atty As New Treasurer <https://www.law360.com/cannabis/articles/1863355?nl_pk=c844ee6a-f80e-4e60-b…> By Sam Reisman The pro-legalization advocacy organization Marijuana Policy Project announced Monday that a preeminent member of the cannabis bar had been tapped as the group's newest treasurer. Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/cannabis/articles/1863355?nl_pk=c844ee6a-f80e-4e60-b…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/cannabis/articles/1863355?nl_pk=c844ee6a-f80e-4e60-b…>

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Donald Trump Gives a Speech on Not Letting China Win the Crypto Race – Not Realizing China Banned Crypto Mining and Transactions Four Years Ago
by Gunnar Larson 30 Jul '24

30 Jul '24

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2024/07/donald-trump-gives-a-speech-on-not-l… By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 30, 2024 ~ President Donald Trump Tells Fox News that Americans Would End Up Poor Without His Brain in the White House Then President Donald Trump Tells Fox News that Americans Would End Up Poor Without His Brain in the White House (2018 Screen Shot) Last Saturday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump delivered a speech at the 2024 Bitcoin Conference in Nashville, Tennessee. Throughout the speech, Trump pushed the idea that the United States “cannot let China dominate” in the race to innovate with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. At 46 minutes and 10 seconds (46:10) on this CSPAN video of the Trump speech, you can hear Trump say this to the audience: “America will become the world’s undisputed bitcoin mining powerhouse. You’ll be a bitcoin mining powerhouse. You will not have to move your family to China. We will not be moving to China. As we implement these reforms, Bitcoin and crypto will grow our economy, cement American financial dominance and strengthen our entire country, long into the future….” Trump, as well as his speechwriter, are apparently unaware that in September of 2021, ten Chinese agencies, including the PBOC, the central bank of China, banned crypto mining and crypto transactions in that country, following a May 2021 ban on financial institutions engaging in crypto transactions. Trump being unaware that China figured out ahead of the U.S. that crypto posed a national security and financial stability threat to the country added to the speciousness of his remarks. At one point, Trump compared the crypto venture capitalists at the conference to “modern-day Edisons and Wright brothers and Carnegies and Henry Fords,” ignoring the mounting evidence from thousands of scientists that both crypto and blockchain are a sham in terms of a useful technology and pose a grave threat to heating the planet from their mining operations. In January 2022, Senator Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats in Congress investigated the inherent dangers between crypto, energy usage and the heating of the planet. A press statement summarized their concerns as follows: “Bitcoin is the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, and the United States’ share of Bitcoin mining increased from 4% in August 2019 to 35% in July 2021. This share of mining is growing even more rapidly after China’s crackdown on crypto-mining, which left 500,000 mining operations looking for new locations. This could push North America to represent over 40% of the total global computing power dedicated to mining Bitcoin. As more cryptomining operations proliferate in the United States, the extraordinary energy use raises alarms about massive carbon emissions and the impacts of this energy consumption on consumer energy prices. A recent study estimated that cryptomining in upstate New York raised annual electric bills by about $165 million for small businesses and $79 million for consumers.” According to a report published by the United Nations University and Earth’s Future journal, “during the 2020–2021 period, the global Bitcoin mining network consumed 173.42 Terawatt hours of electricity. This means that if Bitcoin were a country, its energy consumption would have ranked 27th in the world, ahead of a country like Pakistan, with a population of over 230 million people. The resulting carbon footprint was equivalent to that of burning 84 billion pounds of coal or operating 190 natural gas-fired power plants. To offset this footprint, 3.9 billion trees should be planted, covering an area almost equal to the area of the Netherlands, Switzerland, or Denmark or 7% of the Amazon rainforest.” The report also found this: “The UN scientists report that Bitcoin mining heavily relies on fossil energy sources, with coal accounting for 45% of Bitcoin’s energy supply mix, followed by natural gas (21%). Hydropower, a renewable energy source with significant water and environmental impacts, is the most important renewable source of energy of the Bitcoin mining network, satisfying 16% of its electricity demand. Nuclear energy has a considerable share of 9% in Bitcoin’s energy supply mix, whereas renewables such as solar and wind only provide 2% and 5% of the total electricity used by Bitcoin.” Bitcoin mining involves massive banks of computers being used to solve complex math problems which have no practical use to society. The incentive to build these crypto “mines” and solve the math problems is simply to get rewarded with the payment of Bitcoins. Any rational person would have to seriously question if the fossil fuels industry is behind this insane business model. In July 2019, NYU Professor and economist Nouriel Roubini summed up his findings on crypto like this: “Crypto currencies are not even currencies. They’re a joke…The price of Bitcoin has fallen in a week by how much – 30 percent. It goes up 20 percent one day, collapses the next. It is not a means of payment, nobody, not even this blockchain conference, accepts Bitcoin for paying for conference fees cause you can do only five transactions per second with Bitcoin. With the Visa system you can do 25,000 transactions per second…Crypto’s nonsense. It’s a failure. Nobody’s using it for any transactions. It’s trading one sh*tcoin for another sh*tcoin. That’s the entire trading or currency in the space where’s there’s price manipulation, spoofing, wash trading, pump and dumping, frontrunning. It’s just a big criminal scam and nothing else.” Trump wasn’t always a fan of crypto or Bitcoin. In 2019, he posted the Tweet below, calling crypto “based on thin air.” That previous assessment was in line with 1600 scientists and technology experts who sent a letter on June 1, 2022 to the leadership of key U.S. Senate and House Committees. In the letter, they wrote this: “We strongly disagree with the narrative—peddled by those with a financial stake in the crypto-asset industry—that these technologies represent a positive financial innovation and are in any way suited to solving the financial problems facing ordinary Americans… “As software engineers and technologists with deep expertise in our fields, we dispute the claims made in recent years about the novelty and potential of blockchain technology. Blockchain technology cannot, and will not, have transaction reversal or data privacy mechanisms because they are antithetical to its base design. Financial technologies that serve the public must always have mechanisms for fraud mitigation and allow a human-in-the-loop to reverse transactions; blockchain permits neither.” The letter links to an article from Bruce Schneier, a Security Technologist who teaches at the Harvard Kennedy School. The article appeared at Wired on February 6, 2019 under the headline: “There’s No Good Reason to Trust Blockchain Technology.” The article makes the following salient points: “What blockchain does is shift some of the trust in people and institutions to trust in technology. You need to trust the cryptography, the protocols, the software, the computers and the network. And you need to trust them absolutely, because they’re often single points of failure. “When that trust turns out to be misplaced, there is no recourse. If your bitcoin exchange gets hacked, you lose all of your money. If your bitcoin wallet gets hacked, you lose all of your money. If you forget your login credentials, you lose all of your money. If there’s a bug in the code of your smart contract, you lose all of your money. If someone successfully hacks the blockchain security, you lose all of your money. In many ways, trusting technology is harder than trusting people. Would you rather trust a human legal system or the details of some computer code you don’t have the expertise to audit?” Sam Bankman-Fried subsequently built on the above analysis by proving that trusting either the people involved in crypto or its technology can be extremely hazardous to your wealth.

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NJ Judge Behind Daniel's Law Expands Efforts To Help
by Gunnar Larson 30 Jul '24

30 Jul '24

NJ Judge Behind Daniel's Law Expands Efforts To Help <https://www.law360.com/mergersacquisitions/articles/1860585?nl_pk=a34c25b5-…> By Carla Baranauckas Four years after her son's murder spurred a New Jersey judge's determination to bring about monumental advances in judicial security, positive change is reaching another sector of the court community. Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/mergersacquisitions/articles/1860585?nl_pk=a34c25b5-…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/mergersacquisitions/articles/1860585?nl_pk=a34c25b5-…>

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NYC Prof And Purported Dissident A Chinese Spy, Jury Hears
by Gunnar Larson 30 Jul '24

30 Jul '24

NYC Prof And Purported Dissident A Chinese Spy, Jury Hears <https://www.law360.com/cybersecurity-privacy/articles/1863412?nl_pk=3dfd2fd…> By Stewart Bishop A New York academic and author secretly acted as an agent of the Chinese government in the United States, a prosecutor told jurors on Monday, betraying pro-democracy activists by feeding information to China's intelligence service. Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/cybersecurity-privacy/articles/1863412?nl_pk=3dfd2fd…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/cybersecurity-privacy/articles/1863412?nl_pk=3dfd2fd…>

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The New York Fed Has Contracted Out Key Functions to JPMorgan Chase; We Filed a FOIA and Got These Strange Invoices
by Gunnar Larson 30 Jul '24

30 Jul '24

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2024/07/the-new-york-fed-has-contracted-out-… By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 29, 2024 ~ The New York Fed, which has bank examiners engaged in supervising JPMorgan Chase, has also repeatedly provided bailout funds to JPMorgan Chase; was supervising JPMorgan Chase when it lost $6.2 billion of deposits from its federally-insured bank by gambling in derivatives on its London trading desk; allowed JPMorgan Chase’s Chairman and CEO, Jamie Dimon, to previously sit on the New York Fed’s Board of Directors, even as he faced the $6.2 billion derivatives trading scandal; and the New York Fed has exclusively used JPMorgan Chase to hold, as custodian, more than $2.3 trillion of the Federal Reserve’s Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) for the past 15-1/2 years – despite JPMorgan Chase admitting to five felony counts brought by the criminal division of the U.S. Department of Justice during that time. If there was an admitted felon in your neighborhood, would that be your first choice for a house sitter? During the financial crisis of 2008, in an effort to restore liquidity to seized up markets, the Fed announced it planned to buy $500 billion of MBS that was backed by government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae. That was the first of what would become Quantitative Easing (QE) to infinity at the Fed. The Fed’s MBS holdings have grown from the planned $500 billion to $2.3 trillion as of last Wednesday. In a typical move, the Federal Reserve outsourced its MBS buying program to the New York Fed, which, in turn, farmed out one critical leg of the program (custodianship of the MBS) to the very Wall Street megabank that had corrupted a significant part of the MBS market: JPMorgan Chase. A little more than a month after the Fed’s 2008 MBS announcement, on December 31, 2008, the New York Fed signed a contract with JPMorgan Chase to be the sole custodian of the securities it bought under the MBS program. That contract with JPMorgan Chase was amended on April 1, 2010; April 26, 2011; April 17, 2014 and again on January 30, 2017. (As of today, the original contract and its amendments are available at the New York Fed’s website. Should those documents vanish, we have archived the same documents on our website here.) This spring, Wall Street On Parade became curious as to just how much JPMorgan Chase was reaping in revenues from serving as a vendor to the New York Fed. On April 18, via email, we filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the New York Fed, asking for the following: “Please provide copies of invoices that the New York Fed received from JPMorgan Chase (or any of its subsidiaries such as Chase Bank or JPMorgan Securities) during the 2023 calendar year. “We are particularly interested in invoices for custodial and cash management services related to MBS securities held in custody by JPMorgan Chase for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.” While the Federal Reserve Board of Governors is a federal agency and subject to FOIA, the 12 regional Fed banks are considered private corporations, not legally subject to FOIA. The New York Fed, however, regularly states that it “complies with the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act” in providing documents to the public. Under FOIA, Wall Street On Parade was entitled to a response in 20 business days. Since these invoices should have been easily obtainable in the Accounts Payable department of the New York Fed, and we were asking only for those from last year, 20 business days seemed to us like an adequate response time. Instead, on May 16 we received an email from the New York Fed telling us they needed more time and were planning to provide us the documents on July 1. When July 1 came around, the New York Fed told us the new projected date was July 12. When July 12 arrived, we were told to expect the invoices on or before July 26. On that date, we received a cover letter and 158 documents – with the amounts that JPMorgan Chase had billed to the New York Fed redacted behind blocks of black ink. Stalling on FOIA requests and providing journalists with useless information has become a favorite sport at both the Federal Reserve and the New York Fed. (See also: Reporters Who Ask Tough Questions at Fed Press Conferences Have a Habit of Being Disappeared from the Room.) Despite blacking out the very information we had requested – how much JPMorgan Chase had billed to the New York Fed in one year – after making us wait almost three months, we were able, nonetheless, to make some interesting findings from the sanitized documents. Per the invoice graphic above from the documents, covering the billing period of January 1, 2023 through January 31, 2023, JPMorgan Chase appears to be billing for a lot more than just providing custodianship of the MBS assets. There are menu tabs for the following services billed: “Custody Fee,” “Transaction Fee,” “Cash Management Fee,” “Security Lending Fees,” “Benefit Payment Fees,” “Other Fees,” and “Other Expenses.” Equally of note, there does not appear to be any significant documentation provided to the New York Fed to support how these fees were calculated. Another curiosity is that the New York Fed allows invoices from JPMorgan Chase to go unpaid for more than two months in multiple cases. (See the invoice below as one sample.) JPMorgan Chase Overdue Invoice to Fed And raising our eyebrows were invoices that we did not know existed. These are the invoices toward the end of the document that are marked as “Tri-Party Collateral Management Fees.” We’ll be reporting on that aspect of these invoices later this week. We will also be filing a formal complaint with the Federal Reserve Inspector General over how this FOIA request was handled, involving the largest federally-insured bank in the United States and its perpetually blind-folded supervisor, the New York Fed. Related Articles: The New York Fed Has Quietly Staffed Up a Second Trading Floor Near the S&P 500 Futures Market in Chicago These Are the Banks that Own the New York Fed and Its Money Button Is the New York Fed Too Deeply Conflicted to Regulate Wall Street? Former New York Fed Pres Bill Dudley Calls This the First Banking Crisis Since 2008; Charts Show It’s the Third New York Fed Stuns with New Report: At Year End Its Trading Desk Owned 38 Percent of All 10-30 Year U.S. Treasuries

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Reebok Rips Shoe Rival's 'Underhanded' Conduct In TM Case
by Gunnar Larson 30 Jul '24

30 Jul '24

Reebok Rips Shoe Rival's 'Underhanded' Conduct In TM Case <https://www.law360.com/legalethics/articles/1863103?nl_pk=153d4a8a-6fb9-4a5…> By Chris Villani Reebok asked a Massachusetts federal judge to sanction an Italian shoemaker and strike nearly three dozen witnesses who were disclosed at the last minute in a trademark case, the latest claim by the shoe and apparel giant of "underhanded" tactics. Memorandum attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/legalethics/articles/1863103?nl_pk=153d4a8a-6fb9-4a5…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/legalethics/articles/1863103?nl_pk=153d4a8a-6fb9-4a5…>

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Mich. AG Drops Remaining Case Against Carhartt Heiress Atty
by Gunnar Larson 30 Jul '24

30 Jul '24

Mich. AG Drops Remaining Case Against Carhartt Heiress Atty <https://www.law360.com/legalethics/articles/1863178?nl_pk=153d4a8a-6fb9-4a5…> By Danielle Ferguson Prosecutors will not retry a Michigan attorney they claim stole from his wealthy client, the late Carhartt company heiress Gretchen Valade, and have agreed to toss similar embezzlement charges in a separate case. 2 documents attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/legalethics/articles/1863178?nl_pk=153d4a8a-6fb9-4a5…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/legalethics/articles/1863178?nl_pk=153d4a8a-6fb9-4a5…>

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ABA's 1st Generative AI Opinion Points Attys To Ethical Duties
by Gunnar Larson 30 Jul '24

30 Jul '24

ABA's 1st Generative AI Opinion Points Attys To Ethical Duties <https://www.law360.com/legalethics/articles/1863190?nl_pk=153d4a8a-6fb9-4a5…> By Sarah Martinson The American Bar Association ethics committee published on Monday its first formal opinion on attorney use of generative artificial intelligence tools, saying lawyers should consider their ethical obligations, including those related to model rules on competency, confidentiality and fees. Opinion attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/legalethics/articles/1863190?nl_pk=153d4a8a-6fb9-4a5…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/legalethics/articles/1863190?nl_pk=153d4a8a-6fb9-4a5…>

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