REWRITING LAWS & CHANGING HISTORY

Dear Friends,

I am in the process of reviewing and rewriting some laws. I will be submitting them to Legislators so if you have some ideas you want to submit please comment at one of my websites. The comments on site are monitored but I do check them. Most of you know how to reach me so we CAN get this done! I have meetings scheduled in Sacramento so please submit before September 30th.

I really want to help reform CPS - just like most of you do. I don’t want to see more children suffer the way Jennifer or your children did through CPS abuse.This contribution is my way of helping future families and children. Here are my findings:

Discussion: Corruption, Money Laundering, Non-profits, and Political Practices of Elected Officials


THE CALIFORNIA FAIR POLITICAL PRACTICES & POLITICAL REFORM ACT (SECTION 85701), LAUNDERED CONTRIBUTIONS
& LIABILITY FOR VIOLIATION; CRIMINAL AND CIVIL (SECTION 91015), AND THE PATRIOT ACT 2001

Money laundering is the practice of engaging in financial transactions in order to conceal the identity, source, and/or destination of money, and is a main operation of the underground economy.

In the past, the term "money laundering" was applied only to financial transactions related to organized crime. Today its definition is often expanded by government regulators (such as the United States Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) to encompass any financial transaction which generates an asset or a value as the result of an illegal act, which may involve actions such as tax evasion or false accounting. As a result, the illegal activity of money laundering is now recognized as potentially practiced by individuals, small and large businesses, corrupt officials, members of organized crime (such as drug dealers or the Mafia), and even corrupt states, through a complex network of shell companies and trusts based in offshore tax havens. A few examples of money laundering are smurfing or kiting.

The increasing complexity of financial crime, the increasing recognized value of so-called "financial intelligence" (FININT) in combating transnational crime and terrorism, and the speculated impact of capital extracted from the legitimate economy has led to an increased prominence of money laundering in political, economic, and legal debate.

Process

Money laundering is often described as occurring in three stages: Placement, layering, and integration.[3]

1. Placement: refers to the initial point of entry for funds derived from criminal activities.
2. Layering: refers to the creation of complex networks of transactions which attempt to obscure the link between the initial entry point, and the end of the laundering cycle.
3. Integration: refers to the return of funds to the legitimate economy for later extraction.

However, The Anti Money Laundering Network recommends the terms

1. Hide: to reflect the fact that cash is often introduced to the economy via commercial concerns which may knowingly or not knowingly be part of the laundering scheme, and it is these which ultimately prove to be the interface between the criminal and the financial sector
2. Move: clearly explains that the money launderer uses transfers, sales and purchase of assets, and changes the shape and size of the lump of money so as to obfuscate the trail between money and crime or money and criminal.
3. Invest: the criminal spends the money: he/she may invest it in assets, or in his/her lifestyle.

Examples

If a person is making thousands of dollars in small change a week from a business (not unusual for a store owner) and wishes to deposit that money in a bank, it cannot be done without possibly drawing suspicion. In the United States, for example, cash transactions and deposits of more than a certain dollar amount are required to be reported as "significant cash transactions" to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), along with any other suspicious financial activity which is identified as "suspicious activity reports." In other jurisdictions suspicion-based requirements are placed on financial services employees and firms to report suspicious activity to the authorities. Methods to conceal the source are therefore required.

Irregular funding

One method of keeping this small change private would be for an individual to give money to an intermediary who is already legitimately taking in large amounts of cash. The intermediary would then deposit that money into an account, take a premium, and write a check to the individual. Thus, the individual draws no attention to himself, and can deposit his check into a bank account without drawing suspicion. This works well for one-off transactions, but if it occurs on a regular basis then the check deposits themselves will form a paper trail and could raise suspicion.

Captive business

Another method involves establishing a business whose cash inflow cannot be monitored, and funneling the small change into this business and paying taxes on it. All bank employees however are trained to be constantly on the lookout for any transactions which appear to be an attempt to get around the currency reporting requirements. Such shell companies should deal directly with the public, perform some service-related activity as opposed to providing physical goods, and reasonably accept cash as a matter of business. Dealing directly with the public ensures plausible anonymity of source. An example of a legitimate business displaying plausible anonymity of source would be a hairstylist. Since it would be unreasonable for them to keep track of the identity of their customers, a record of their transaction amounts must be ostensibly accepted as prima facie evidence of actual financial activity. Service-related businesses have the advantage of anonymity of resources. A business that sells computers has to account for where it actually got the computers, whereas a plumbing company merely has to account for labor, which can be falsified. Reasonably accepting cash means the business must regularly perform services that total less than $500 on average, since above that amount most people pay with a check, credit card, or other traceable payment method. The company should actually function on a legitimate level. In the plumbing company example, it is perfectly reasonable for a lot of the business to involve only labour (no parts), and for some business to be paid for in cash, but it is unreasonable for all of their business to involve no parts and only cash payment. Therefore the legitimate business will generate a legitimate level of parts usage, as well as enough traceable transactions to mask the illegitimate ones.

****Corrupt politicians and lobbyists also launder money by setting up personal non-profits to move money between trusted organizations, so that donations from inappropriate sources may be illegally used for personal gain.

Legal considerations

Many jurisdictions adopt a list of specific predicate crimes for money laundering prosecutions as a "self launderer" (the UK has an "all-crimes" regime). In addition, AML/CFT laws typically have other offences such as "tipping off," "willful blindness," not reporting suspicious activity, and conscious facilitation of a money launderer/terrorist financier to move his/her monies.

American legislation

The Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 requires banks to report cash transactions of $10,000.01 or more. The Money Laundering Control Act of 1986 further defined money laundering as a federal crime. The USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 expanded the scope of prior laws to more types of financial institutions, added a focus on terrorist financing, and specified that financial institutions take specific actions to "know your customer" (KYC).

In the United States, Federal law provides (in part): "Whoever . . . knowing[ly] conducts or attempts to conduct . . . a financial transaction which in fact involves the proceeds of specified unlawful activity . . . with the intent to promote the carrying on of specified unlawful activity . . . shall be sentenced to a fine of not more than $500,000 or twice the value of the property involved in the transaction, whichever is greater, or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both."[5]

While money laundering typically involves the flow of "dirty money" (criminal proceeds) into a "clean" bank account or negotiable instrument, terrorist financing frequently involves the reverse flow: apparently clean funds converted to "dirty" purposes. A hawala may launder drug proceeds and help fund a terrorist, netting the incoming and outgoing funds with only occasional small net settlement transactions.

PATRIOT ACT:
http://www.fincen.gov/news_room/rp/files/356report.pdf

THE POLITICAL REFORM ACT 2008:
http://www.fppc.ca.gov/Act/Act08.pdf

PROPOSITION 34
http://www.smartvoter.org/2000/11/07/ca/state/prop/34/

PROPOSITION 208: (REPEALED SECTION 91015)
http://www.calvoter.org/voter/elections/archive/96gen/props/208.html

YES FOLKS WE VOTED 208 IN AND NOW ELECTED OFFICIALS ARE ABLE TO SET UP NON-PROFITS UNDER THE NAME OF CHILDREN CHARITIES.

PROP 34 PROHIBITED LOBBYISTS FROM MAKING AND ARRANGING CONTRIBUTIONS TO THOSE THEY INFLUENCE. UNDER PROP 208 ELECTED OFFICIALS CAN RECEIVE AND ESTABLISH THEIR OWN CAMPAIGN FINANCE LIMITS.

WHAT THIS MEANS:

THERE IS CURRENTLY NO PENALTY UNDER SECTION 91015 FOR THOSE ELECTED OFFICIALS WHO SET UP CHARITIES OR NON PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS TO THOSE THEY INFLUENCE. THIS IS WHY WE HAVE SO MUCH CORRUPTION ON BOTH THE JUDICIAL AND LEGISLATIVE LEVELS. SINCE 1996 208 HAS REPEALED PROP 34. IN MY OPINION I BELIEVE THAT SOME OF THESE FUNDS ARE BEING MISAPPROPIATED FOR SOME POLITICIANS HAVE NON PROFITS SET UP FOR CHILDREN. IT SEEMS THIS WOULD BE A DIRECT CONFLICT OF INTEREST WITHIN THE SEPARATION OF STATE.

§ 85701. Laundered Contributions.
Any candidate or committee that receives a
contribution in violation of Section 84301 shall pay to
the General Fund of the state the amount of the
contribution.

History: Added by Proposition 208 of the November 1996
Statewide General Election. (Formerly titled “Receipt of Laundered
Contributions”); repealed and added by Stats. 2000, Ch. 102
[Proposition 34 of the November Statewide General Election].
References at the time of publication (see page 3):
Opinions: In re Pelham (2001) 15 FPPC Ops. 1

§ 91015. Liability for Violations; Criminal and
Civil. [Repealed]
History: Added by Stats. 1984, Ch. 670; repealed by
Proposition 208 of the November 1996 Statewide General Election.

THE POLITICAL REFORM ACT 2008:
http://www.fppc.ca.gov/Act/Act08.pdf

DISCLOSURE:
I am not a political expert. Nor do I claim to be. I'm actually pretty stupid when it comes to Politics for I've never voted in my life. However, after careful review of the current Political Reform Act and associated laws I feel it is time to revise proposition 208; reinstating Prop 34 by amending S. 223 which is was considered on March 28, 2007. Supporters include of this bill can be found at:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-223

Kathleen Dearinger, Project CPS Reform
www.myspace.com/osoluckyme
www.youtube.com/osoluckyme
www.cpscorruption.blogspot.com
http://projectcpsreform.50webs.com (working on in spare time)