Posts tagged access
Identity Thief – Movie Trailer
Feb 24th
Unlimited funds have allowed Diana (McCarthy) to live it up on the outskirts of Miami, where the queen of retail buys whatever strikes her fancy. There’s only one glitch: The ID she’s using to finance these sprees reads “Sandy Bigelow Patterson”….and it belongs to an accounts rep (Bateman) who lives halfway across the U.S. With only one week to hunt down the con artist before his world implodes, the real Sandy Bigelow Patterson heads south to confront the woman with an all-access pass to his life. And as he attempts to bribe, coax and wrangle her the 2,000 miles to Denver, one easy target will discover just how tough it is to get your name back.
Hurricane Sandy Creating Hazardous Ocean Conditions and Increasing Number of Washback Turtles on St. Johns County Beaches Throughout Weekend
Oct 26th
These extreme storm conditions create wrack line by pushing large amounts of sargassum seaweed onto the beach. Juvenile sea turtles, commonly referred to as washbacks, can become trapped in the seaweed, resulting in exhaustion and a need for medical attention. Beach visitors are asked to refrain from making contact with any washback turtles or attempting to return them to the water. Volunteers, coordinated by St. Johns County, known as the “Washback Watchers” will be conducting surveys throughout the weekend to recover washback sea turtles.
Beach visitors are not encouraged to enter the water during this time. In addition, there is a potential for vehicular access to be restricted intermittently throughout the weekend due to the extreme surf and high tides associated with the storm. St. Johns County staff will continually monitor the storm to ensure public safety remains a top priority. Please visit www.noaa.gov for updated weather and sea condition forecasts related to Hurricane Sandy.
Beach visitors who observe a dangerous situation or a marine animal stranded on the beach are asked to call the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Department at 904.824.8304. For information regarding beach conditions or coastal wildlife, please contact St. Johns County Habitat Conservation at 904.209.0331. For more information regarding hurricane preparedness, evacuation zones, and disaster planning, please visit www.sjcemergencymanagement.org.
Vehicular Access to St. Johns County Beaches Intermittently Restricted Due to Residual Hurricane Sandy Impacts
Due to the strength and proximity of Hurricane Sandy and the approaching full moon high tides, vehicular access to St. Johns County beaches may be restricted through Sunday, October 28. A potential for the flooding of vehicle access ramps and the driving lane could require limited access to ensure visitor safety. The beach is open to pedestrians and can be accessed through the off beach parking lots available throughout St. Johns County. Beach visitors are strongly encouraged to remain out of the water during this significant weather event. For preparedness information and Hurricane Sandy situation reports as they become available, please visit the www.sjcemergencymanagement.org. Please call 904.209.0331 for updated information regarding beach access.
Source: City of St. Augustine
Big Oil claims the right to bribe under the First Amendment. Taking the Fifth is more appropriate.
Oct 23rd
In a new lawsuit against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), big energy extractors are pushing for carte blanche in their interactions with foreign governments, making it harder to track whether their deals are padding the coffers of dictators, warlords, or crony capitalists. The United States Chamber of Commerce, American Petroleum Institute, the Independent Petroleum Association of America, and the National Foreign Trade Council filed a lawsuit on October 10, 2012 against a new SEC rule, which requires U.S. oil, mining and gas companies to formally disclose payments made to foreign governments as part of their annual SEC reporting.
This lawsuit is not the only effort underway to make it easier for American corporations working overseas to bribe corrupt government officials. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is also pushing for a radical rollback of a 35 year old anti-bribery statute that has been tripping up U.S. companies abroad.
New SEC Rule Forces Disclosure of Financial Transactions With Foreign Governments
The challenged SEC provision, which aims to bring transparency to U.S. corporate payments to foreign governments abroad in an effort to combat bribery and corruption, was required by Congress in a last minute addition to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill. Some parts of Dodd-Frank have gone into effect while others are still under assault by industry in the lengthy rule-making processes. Senators Dick Lugar (R-Indiana) and Ben Cardin (D-Maryland) authored the provision, which simply requires U.S. corporations to report in their annual SEC filing any payments made to foreign governments.
This legislation is a crucial step in increasing transparency and accountability in countries with a history of government corruption. In many countries, there are often huge discrepancies between what companies might say that they paid the government and what the government said it received. Formal disclosure can serve as a critical tool for activists and citizens fighting corruption and poverty, which is why the measure was backed by groups like Oxfam International and Bono’s ONE campaign.
“The Cardin-Lugar Amendment puts transparency — the key to citizens’ ability to hold their government to account — ahead of corruption. To do otherwise is a losing proposition for the United States and company shareholders,” Lugar said in a statement this week. The SEC worked on the rule for two years with abundant business input.
Lawsuit Alleges Rule too Costly, Violates Corporate Rights
The groups which filed the lawsuit allege that the SEC failed to take into account the rule’s costs and benefits and that it “grossly misinterpreted its statutory mandate” in crafting the rule and has violated corporate “First Amendment” rights.
For supporters, it is difficult to see what is so costly about inserting a few paragraphs into an annual SEC filing. “We are greatly disappointed that the oil industry is trying to use the courts to bully the SEC and push for secrecy in their payments to governments,” said Ian Gary of Oxfam. “We call on companies, such as BP, Exxon, Chevron and Shell, who are hiding behind industry associations to do their dirty work while espousing transparency rhetoric, to disassociate themselves from the lawsuit.”
The attorney heading the challenge to the Dodd-Frank anti-bribery rule is Eugene Scalia, son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Of the six challenges that SEC regulations have faced and lost in federal court of appeals in Washington, DC since the mid 2000s, Eugene Scalia was behind four. He won a case on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce last year on the Dodd-Frank “proxy access rule,” which would have allowed shareholders to play a role in nominating company directors. Scalia also helped win a case in September against the SEC on a rule which would have imposed trading limits on speculators.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce Tries to Gut Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
Efforts to keep bribery under a veil of secrecy go beyond attacks against the SEC transparency rule. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has also been waging a war against the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which was adopted after a rash of bribery scandals of foreign officials was revealed, involving more than 400 U.S. corporations. The law, introduced by Senator William Proxmire (D-Wisconsin), bans companies from bribing foreign officials in order to secure land and retain business deals, and requires public companies to file financial statements and maintain internal controls. The Department of Justice (DOJ) and SEC are responsible for its enforcement and have been stepping up the pace in recent years, dedicating new staff and resources to a crackdown.
Now, the Chamber is actively pushing five amendments to the 1977 law, which would significantly weaken its enforcement mechanisms.
The value of the law was recently highlighted when The New York Times broke the story this spring that Walmex (Wal-Mart in Mexico), executives allegedly covered up millions of dollars in bribes to Mexican officials in an effort to fuel the company’s expansion in the country. Wal-Mart says it spent some $51 million on an internal investigation looking into whether the subsidiary violated the anti-bribery law and the U.S. Justice Department is also investigating.
According to the Chamber’s tax filings, 14 of the group’s 55 board members between 2007 and 2010 “were affiliated with companies that were reportedly under investigation for violations or had settled allegations that they violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.” Chamber member Pfizer recently paid $60 million to the SEC and DOJ to settle claims that its subsidiaries bribed foreign doctors and pubic officials to gain market access for its products in Eastern Europe.
Major American firms frequently embrace transparency as an alternative to mandatory binding regulation. Now transparency is also taking a beating as U.S. firms fight for the right to bribe foreign governments and hide their activities from American shareholders and the citizens of the nations where they do business.