BloombergView, ThisAmericanLife and ProPublica (prequel) are running a story on a FED employee, Carmen Segarra, tasked with regulating GoldmanSachs. Segarra attended regular meetings with GoldmanSachs representatives and her fellow regulators. The meetings would often include things like:
For instance, in one meeting a Goldman employee expressed the view that "once clients are wealthy enough certain consumer laws don't apply to them." After that meeting, Segarra turned to a fellow Fed regulator and said how surprised she was by that statement -- to which the regulator replied, "You didn't hear that."
Segarra decided to tape the meetings.
After a confrontation with her boss about not faking a report about the fact that Goldman didn't have a conflict of interest policy, Segarra got fired. She has released 47 hours of the recordings she's made over time. BloombergView concludes:
You sort of knew that the regulators were more or less controlled by the banks. Now you know.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 27 2014, @09:36PM
I'm posting as AC because it is prudent.
I worked in the banking industry for only a decade, but I had regular contact with upper management and the different regulatory agents because I did reporting. Not just the standard OCC stuff but also dealing with the FDIC-insured assets which were part of sales of failed banks.
Whenever the OCC would come down for audits the rank and file would be on high alert and public exchanges between the auditors and the bank execs would be all business. Once we were behind closed doors or offsite things were much different. The ball-busting auditor scowl would disappear. Interactions between upper level regulators and our execs directly were as casual and cordial as old drinking buddies.
It didn't take long to become clear on who was in charge of whom.
As an aside, wow, if Joe Q. Public realized just how sweet some of the failed banks LOAN guarantees(made by the Federal DEPOSIT Insurance CORPORATION) were for the banks who bought them...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 27 2014, @10:42PM
This is not so hard to imagine when one considers that most regulators are hired from the industry and vice-versa.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday September 28 2014, @02:42AM
Regulatory officials seem to come in two types:
Those who exist to preserve your job (and therefore want to preserve the regulated party, so find nothing wrong)
Those who exist to demonstrate they're needed (and therefore want to as nearly destroy the regulated party as they can do while ensuring someone remains to regulate)
To the item at hand, where are the transcripts??
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by richtopia on Saturday September 27 2014, @10:11PM
I hope Carmen escapes relatively unscathed from this, as what she did is in the public good. I'm curious exactly what laws she would have broken. If she is in a single party consent state, I imagine the recordings would be alright (IANAL). And being a federal regulator, most ongoings should be relatively public anyway.
I wish her the best of luck.
(Score: 2) by black6host on Saturday September 27 2014, @10:28PM
IANAL either, but in some circumstances you can use the recordings in court even if it's not a single party consent state. However, you have the uphill battle of proving that breaking the law (recording without consent) was justifiable. I'm sure the feds would argue that nothing being said or done was illegal in which case she may well be screwed.
As always, it doesn't matter if you're right or wrong. It's who has the money or legal firepower. This is going to be a life changer. Good or bad.... We'll have to wait and see.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 27 2014, @10:30PM
> If she is in a single party consent state, I imagine the recordings would be alright (IANAL).
Presumably the recordings were made in Manhattan and New York is a one-party consent state. [dmlp.org]
But, I would be completely unsurprised to learn that she had some sort of confidentiality agreement as a condition of her job because that's how wallstreet rolls. Even if they don't come after her for that, they are going to fuck her life up any way they can. Whistleblowers always get screwed. Anyone who says a whistleblower did it for fame or money just has never done even a single google search on whistleblowing consequences.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Dunbal on Saturday September 27 2014, @11:49PM
Any confidentiality agreement that states you have to keep crimes confidential is null and void.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @12:15AM
> Any confidentiality agreement that states you have to keep crimes confidential is null and void.
That's true for disclosing to the police, but not for talking to the public.
Also not every single minute of those 47 hours documents a crime.
Plus it ain't a crime until a judge rules that it is.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Grishnakh on Saturday September 27 2014, @11:02PM
Obama is probably going to have her assassinated for making him and his banking buddies look bad. I expect her to have a car "accident" soon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @09:50AM
If she doesn't get an accident then I don't know in what case this can happen. Maybe the media coverage is already too strong and that's what saves her. In any case these people probably want to make her life hell, and that's the sensible if sociopathic thing to do, to deters other would be whistleblowers.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday September 28 2014, @01:59PM
If those people make her life a hell media can scrutinize those events. Otoh, media itself is bought and owned by corporations that are in bed with various partners.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday September 27 2014, @11:14PM
If the meetings happened in New York or New Jersey, recording conversations is legal if one person knows it's being recorded, and since she knew, it's legal. Also, you'd have a hard time arguing that these activities, which are also subject to the FOIA, are somehow not allowed to be made public.
You can pretty well guarantee that she's just ended her career, not because of any legal trouble but because she's now effectively blacklisted by potential employers. You can also be quite sure that the Department of "Justice" is busy looking for something to go after her about.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 27 2014, @10:43PM
It seems like too big of coincidence that this is the week that the US Attorney General, Eric Holder, decided to resign. He is the architect of the "too big to jail" doctrine that ultimately has let the banksters like Gold Mansacks and HSBC get away with abject criminality for a fee. [boingboing.net] I'm thinking he must have known this story was coming out and that it would demolish his decades long career of appeasement.
(Score: 1) by http on Saturday September 27 2014, @11:02PM
Doubtful. If this were the case, we would only learn of Segarra via a shallow grave a few years from now.
As a non-american, I must ask - why is Washington, DC not yet burned to the ground? What will it take, videos of your congresscritters racing to see who can drown a litter of Scottish Fold kittens by hand the fastest?
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Saturday September 27 2014, @11:22PM
One important factor: The folks in DC also control the most powerful military force to have ever existed on the face of the Earth, capable of blowing up the entire planet thousands of times over. That's a major change since the Canadians torched the place in 1814.
Also, it's unclear how much of a difference that would really make - the important power structures aren't based in Washington D.C., but in New York City.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @12:29AM
Despite the number of stories posted at this site, http (1920) also seems to have missed how the POLICE forces in the USA are the handservants of the elites.
They exist to protect PROPERTY and, if you don't have enough of that to meet the required threshold, you are simply an animated target available for use as a firearms practice dummy.
I don't see the jackboots changing their allegiance before they start drawing their pensions.
Now, they do get their weaponry from the Pentagon shortly after it's not shiny enough for those folks any more.
...and the 99.9 percent who get their "information" from lamestream media won't ever be aware of any of the malfeasance associated with DC's revolving door.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 29 2014, @01:30AM
Soldiers' loyalty is to the constitution, not the people giving orders.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday September 29 2014, @01:46PM
An angry mob trying to torch the White House or Capitol building or the Pentagon would probably be seen by most soldiers as an attack on constitutional government, because that's exactly what it would be.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Sunday September 28 2014, @01:00AM
I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the noise of my bread and circuses.
(Score: 1) by mckwant on Sunday September 28 2014, @03:18AM
More subtly phrased, a better question might be: What's it going to take?
As an American who's spent time overseas, Americans en masse don't care about international issues. So while there's outrage to be had regarding our actions in Iran/Iraq, Afghanistan, among others, it's irrelevant to the population as a whole.
But even on domestic issues, we don't seem to care. I thought surely Sandy Hook would've made the nation either reconsider gun control, or make our schools armed camps. I support one approach, but if it augments my kids' safety at school, I'll accept the other. Neither happened.
And that's the tip of the iceberg. Abortion, Education, state services v. taxation, environment, regulation/free market. They've all had significant pivot points in the last few years, and nothing's going anywhere.
Personally, I suspect the problem lies in whether the United States is viable as a concept. Can one governmental institution represent the interests of such a varied population? If we apply a European scale to the US, it could be 3-7 sovereign nations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @05:10AM
People care, they just don't care enough.
And, FWIW, for school shootings, I think their apathy is warranted.
They are rare enough and make up such a small percentage of firearms deaths that on their own they don't meaningfully inform the debate. A lot more children die accidental from drownings than die from school shootings. It looks like the number of children who die in school shootings is typically less than the number who die from being left in a hot car. (27 dead from heat in 2014 so far, [ggweather.com] and 19 dead from school shootings in 2014 so far [wikipedia.org])
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday September 28 2014, @02:19PM
"What's it going to take?"
Something that deteriorates the function of the system from within until point of unsustainable operation (collapse). If all enemies are kept at bay then only internal failure might bring it down. And with a sense of control people in power may loose perspective or stop paying attention and being thoughtfully assertive.
Historical example, Soviet union and its Kremlin, Arabic world post-1400 century when religious clergy took control, China until 1700 when mismanagement seems to have set in, Roman empire etc..
It's not really about being powerful and having most guns. It's perhaps mostly about being able to set the agenda and direct the streams of wealth.
(Score: 2) by bziman on Sunday September 28 2014, @03:14PM
Wait I'm confused. Do you want revolution? Or do you want stronger gun control laws? The existing unconstitutional gun laws already guarantee that the government at all levels is armed with"military grade" arms that cannot be matched by civilian arms. Why so you think the public rolls over and does what it's told? Why do you think the big money than sells the arms and controls the government act with complete impunity? Hmm?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday September 28 2014, @08:58PM
One factor is the greying of the population. Violent actions and emotions are typically exhibited by males between 14 and 28. The proportion of that segment of the population has been decreasing over the last several decades. This makes tyranical actions safer for the henchmen. The folk at the very top are strongly protected.
As a result, the government has less to fear when it acts in an illegally autocratic manner. I didn't name any particular country, did I? Well, this is true wherever the conditions are met. It's not the only factor, but it's a big one.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Sunday September 28 2014, @05:45AM
The two party system ensures that voters are not able to hold government accountable by working within the system. For Americans to challenge the system itself they would have to be 1) informed 2) organized. The corporate media makes sure they don't become informed. And domestic spying watches for any sign that they may become organized.
(Score: 2) by bziman on Sunday September 28 2014, @03:27PM
"Two party system"
Speaking of being informed, the real problem is we've got the country so polarized that nearly everyone thinks they have to support one party, lest the other, worse party, takes power.
The failure here is that both parties are controlled by the same wealthy elite. Oh and that wealthy elite owns all the military production, but also all the media. You know Fox News is right wing. But "liberal" MSNBC, up until last year was owned by GE, who make military hardware as well as stoves. Now MSNBC belongs to Comcast who are just as evil as as the Fox barons. They broadcast what they do to entertain you and sell ads. Neither would ever show you anything that might convince you to shake up the status quo.
That's probably why Ron Paul got next to no press in the last two elections. He might have changed something.
We really have a one party system. How else could a "liberal" like Obama keep Gitmo open and continue to wage war after war in the middle east. It's like the Bush presidency never ended.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday September 28 2014, @09:06PM
No. The design of the voting system is such that only two parties are significant. The feature that does it is "plurality wins". This means that if there are three parties, one party can win with 33.33333334% of the vote. So if one party is even marginally weaker than the other two there's no sense in voting for it except as a protest. As a result the two major parties have each attempted to horrify nearly half of the population, so that the people who are horrified won't chance their horror getting elected. This has lead to such things as birth control becoming major election issues. Token differences between the major parties ensure that major issues can be identical. Also, of course, they lie a lot.
There are solutions to this. Instant Runoff Voting is a popular example. IIUC, however, Australia is currently proving that it's no panacea.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Sunday September 28 2014, @05:31PM
For exactly the same reason Brussels hasn't been burned to the ground. We're no better on average, we could even be worse (after all it's a race to the bottom).
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday September 29 2014, @01:47AM
Holder is stepping down as part of a dog and pony show to save face for Democrats with the upcoming elections looming.
This has nothing to do with it. Had this happened only a year ago Holder would have laughed and flipped you all the bird when this story broke.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Grishnakh on Saturday September 27 2014, @11:06PM
It's yet another big failure for Obama. When is Congress going to impeach him for his crimes WRT the banksters?
(Score: 2) by mrchew1982 on Sunday September 28 2014, @12:17AM
This has been going on a lot longer than the current administration, and probably even longer than the last. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if this pre-dated Carter. It does fall upon the current administration to clean things up, but given past performance I'm not going to hold my breath.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @12:42AM
it started before 1913
(Score: 2) by velex on Sunday September 28 2014, @01:43AM
This. Why the hell blame Obama or Bush the Younger? Why the hell even blame Reagan or Carter?
The reality of it would probably make the conspiracies in Evangelion seem simple. The only difference is that this world doesn't have metaphysical mumbo jumbo. It's possible to fight it.
Oh wait, the person posting this is a sweet transvestite from transsexual, transylvania. Burn the TG! She's obviously a communist who wants to destroy family values and turn your sons into homosexuals!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 29 2014, @01:34AM
Because he's a nigger, and if that's not bad enough, everyone on Fox News is always saying to.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @02:29AM
See the link already provided. Holder started pushing "to big too fail" while working in the Clinton DOJ and the Bush Whitehouse jumped in with both feet.
You can say "this is the way of the world" but that is precisely the kind of defeatism that enables "too big to fail" in the first place.
During the 80's the savings and loan scandal saw over 1,100 prosecutions, the mortgage scandal saw 0 prosecutions.
We can and we have done better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 27 2014, @11:24PM
No. Holder has been on the job longer than he personally intended to be, or so it's been said. He's still on the job until his successor is picked.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @12:19AM
Yeah... you don't know how the game is played. He would have only resigned effective immediately if he were personally in danger of being indicted, that's clearly not the case here. As for "on the job too long" that's as weak second to "wants to spend more time with his family" for "I'm getting out to save face."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @02:24AM
As if Holder was the decider when it came to letting bank execs skate. You don't know how the game is played. Holder is a tool of the President, and he's been a huge tool, stooping as low as to justifying the extrajudicial killing of Americans. The President and both parties are tools of big business and the banks, and are absolutely convinced of "too big to fail" and "too big to jail". Substitute "big business and the banks" with "the Bilderberg Group" if you want to sex it up. AG Holder is not leaving because of these tapes. He's leaving because he's a broken man. Unable to do much of anything effective on civil rights, while absolutely crushing civil liberties for the Obushma administration.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @02:33AM
> As if Holder was the decider when it came to letting bank execs skate.
See the link provided, Holder is the origin of "to big too jail" a policy he started promoting while working for the Clinton DOJ.
> You don't know how the game is played. Holder is a tool of the President,
Resigning lets him be the cut-out between the scandal and the president. That is how the game is played.
> He's leaving because he's a broken man.
lol
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @09:05AM
>Clinton DoJ
It's all on Bernanke, Obama, and the one/two parties.
>scandal
Like this will affect Obama's approval rating or the midterms at all. Unless there's something much juicier that hasn't been released, no.
>lol
You'll be laughing again when Holder sticks his Fast and Furious weapon in his mouth and sentences himself to extrajudicial suicide.
(Score: 1) by Jiro on Sunday September 28 2014, @08:08AM
Imagine everything you say in private was made public. Every offhand quip which wasn't meant seriously, but which could be interpreted by someone as being so. Every private reference that sounds bad when taking out of context. It would be easy to accuse of bad things, in a way which you couldn't possibly disprove without leaving some doubt that just maybe the bad interpretation of one line of what you said out of those dozens of hours of speech is the correct one.
Tempting as it may be to say that there should be no expectation of privacy in the course of employment by a company, there's a reason why we have confidentiality agreements and off-the-record statements.
Remember the (disputed) quote by Richelieu: "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." 47 hours is a heck of a lot more than six lines.
(Score: 1) by art guerrilla on Sunday September 28 2014, @08:44AM
here is the nub of a lot of similar issues:
HUMAN BEANS acting as EEE-VIL minions of doom for fictitious legal entities who have MORE rights as 'people', than REAL people do...
these agents of evil take advantage of their (and your) humanity to elicit sympathy, etc for the EEE-VIL they HAVE done in the name of the korporation (but ultimately for their own personal benefit/job)...
we WANT to be 'forgiving' and exculpate EVERYONE from their little bit of eee-vil they do as part of their jobs, but AT SOME POINT, you can NOT forgive the concentration camp guard for herding PEOPLE into gas chambers: AT SOME POINT, these evil minions of doom HAVE TO be held accountable, no bullshit: but i vas only following orders...
at some point, i can NOT forgive the poor eee-vil minions of doom at the SEC/goldman/etc, simply because they are relatively powerless in the workings of the eee-vil korporation they do the bidding of: they are responsible as the agents of the eee-vil korporation they serve...
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Sunday September 28 2014, @09:09AM
I think it might stop me from asking my colleagues to alter minutes, pretend that conversations didn't happen, flat out tell them that I hadn't said things I had, and that perception was more important than reality?
Segarra didn't start recording to try and pick out some out of context quotes - she was recording because she needed evidence for when these things happened. The fact she was fired for objecting to the above seems to show she had a point.
(Score: 1) by Jiro on Sunday September 28 2014, @03:21PM
One man's "pretend that conversations didn't happen" is another man's "don't quote that because people will give it the worst possible interpretation". One man's "pretend I didn't say that" is another man's "pretend I didn't say that, because I really didn't mean it, but if you quote it, it'll sound like I mean it".
Releasing 47 hours is an excuse to let people mine it for out of context quotes. I wonder how many people who like this hated it when climate scientists were quoted talking about using a trick to hide the decline.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @03:31PM
Releasing 47 hours is an excuse to let people mine it for out of context quotes.
And if it were edited down someone else, maybe even yourself, would be claiming that they didn't release the context so its totally unfair to the poor defenseless billionaires that were recorded.
(Score: 1) by Jiro on Sunday September 28 2014, @10:39PM
So that means that he should neither have released 47 hours, nor released smaller segments.
Maybe... he shouldn't have released it at all?
(Though in practice, 5 or 10 minutes woulkd usually be enough context to use it to disprove a lie.)
(Score: 2) by monster on Monday September 29 2014, @04:15PM
Keep in mind that those 47 hours are not from some people talking in a pub, they are from formal meetings between the appointees of a regulatory body and the appointees of one of the regulated banks. Every minute in them should be formal and on topic, introductions and conversation starters aside.
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Friday October 03 2014, @02:15PM
Wait a moment. IF she released 10 second snippets you might possibly question if she was releasing quotes out of context. However, she has released 47 hours of conversation. There should be sufficient information in there to establish context.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday September 30 2014, @01:34PM
If everything I said in private was made public, I think the worst I'd have to worry about is my girlfriend getting a bit upset.
More importantly, these guys were at work, discussing business. Perhaps their conversations should be private because it's the corporate strategy or something, but if they're saying anything that needs to be private for any other reason, then probably shouldn't be working for that company anymore. This isn't a private lounge, it's a business. They should conduct all their business professionally and legally. Full stop. If they were doing that, they wouldn't have a problem with these tapes being released.
Put a video camera over my desk all day and upload it all to YouTube, I don't care. The worst thing I ever do here is posting to Soylent. And maybe picking my nose occasionally. See if CNN cares to cover that.