Search Results: protection networks

​​After the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991, the oligarchs who rose to power in the former Soviet republics looked to park their illicit money in western democracies, where the rule of law would protect their investments. Once invested in the United States, they favored the Republicans, who focused on the protection of wealth rather than social services. For their part, Republican politicians focused on spreading capitalism rather than democracy, arguing that the two went hand in hand.

The financial deregulation that made the U. S. a good bet for oligarchs to launder money got a boost when, shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks, Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act to address the threat of terrorism. The law took on money laundering and the illicit funding of terrorism, requiring financial institutions to inspect large sums of money passing through them. But the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) exempted many real estate deals from the new regulations.

The United States became one of the money-laundering capitals of the world, with hundreds of billions of dollars laundered in the U. S. every year. Congress addressed this threat in 2021 by including the Corporate Transparency Act in the National Defense Authorization Act. It undercut shell companies and money laundering by requiring the owners of any company that is not otherwise overseen by the federal government (by filing taxes, for example, or through close regulation) to file with FinCEN a report identifying (by name, birth date, address, and an identifying number) each person associated with the company who either owns 25% or more of it or exercised substantial control over it. The measure also increased penalties for money laundering and streamlined cooperation between banks and foreign law enforcement authorities. That act went into effect on January 1, 2024. Now FinCEN has firmed up rules to add anti-money-laundering safeguards to private real estate and private investment.

It was proven many times to be toxic. Just how it was first used in Nazi concentration camp's drinking water says something. While the US environment protection authority considers it hazardous waste, smartasses such as CDC plan to increase water fluoridation even more.
And now with so many scientific studies showing how fluoride lowers IQ, the Fluoride Action Network was urging the Environmental Protection Agency to end water fluoridation, has filed a lawsuit against them, and I hope they will win and end water fluoridation.

Considering the scale and magnitude of modern social networks and that society has changed in ways the founding fathers never envisioned, should the protections granted under the first amendment apply to internet and social media as well seeing as twitter, facebook, google are public companies?