from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- Big Brother Carnivore Replaced by Childsaver by Tim May WASHINGTON, D.C. (Routers) -- FBI Director Louis Freeh announced today that the Federal Bureau of Investigation takes the criticism of its wiretapping computer sniffer Carnivore "very seriously." In a hastily-called press conference, he acknowledged that the FBI had "underestimated the importance of the Constitution to the citizen-units." "We are withdrawing Carnivore at this time," he said to an assembled audience of journalists, activists, and visiting death squad officials from South America. "Simply put, we expected citizen-units to simply shrug off our latest surveillance measures. That, and the name. Apparently we insulted the vegetarian and vegan contingent," he joked. Director Freeh announced that while Carnivore was being withdrawn, the FBI would go ahead with deployment of a much more powerful system called "Childsaver." "Childsaver is our next-generation "first mover advantage" product," said Freeh, adopting the FBI's new dotcom-friendly jargon. "Childsaver is a best-of-breed product. It gives us a powerful edge in the surveillance space, and we think our investors will be happy." Childsaver, as Director Freeh explained it, will require suppliers of browsers and mail programs to install the Childsaver plug-in in every program shipped. "Childsaver will allow the legitimate needs of law enforcement by enabling lawful surveillance orders to be carried out swiftly and undetectably." When asked by a reporter if Carnivore had always been intended as a sacrifice move, to be abandoned and replaced by the better-sounding Childsaver, Director Freeh referred all such questions to the Ministry of Truth. Money Laundering Another Stanley Firm Goes Bankrupt Is Judge Schmidt a Cleanup Man for Government Spooks? by James Norman New York-Yet another Jack Stanley firm has gone into bankruptcy, just days after final resolution July 28 of his latest multi-billion-dollar Chapter 11 reorganization. This time creditors are also going after Stanley himself and his lawyers, claiming fraud, theft and money laundering. TransAmerican Natural Gas (TANG), Stanley's former flagship and now a private holding company, filed for Chapter 11 protection Aug 8 in Corpus Christi, Texas. That is where Federal Bankruptcy Judge Richard Schmidt recently oversaw the quick 11-month restructuring of Stanley's publicly-traded TransTexas Gas and liquidation of two other of his private holding companies: TransAmerican Energy and TransAmerican Refining. Combined, they had some $3.5-bil of liabilities, including $1.5-bil of inter-company debt. Creditors got about 25 cts on the dollar. TANG lost its controlling stake in those three companies, but avoided being drawn into their bankruptcy. Bondholder creditors, however, led by First Boston, "gifted" back 20% ownership of surviving E&P arm TransTexas Gas directly to Stanley, who remains TransTexas CEO. The assets left in TANG included an inactive contracting firm used to hire some 5,000 workers for Stanley's refinery project at Norco, Louisiana, now taken over by creditors and renamed Orion Refining. But its main holding was a monster $7.5-bil legal claim against El Paso Energy, Coastal Corp and former Coastal chairman Oscar Wyatt. For more than a decade, Stanley has pursued what he alleges was an El Paso-Coastal "Armageddon" conspiracy to ruin him and grab his South Texas gas fields on the cheap. But that long-pending lawsuit was dismissed in May after a few days of trial in Houston, with El Paso paying an undisclosed settlement sum (ON 5/15). The reason for the voluntary TANG filing now, said Stanley attorney John Nabors of Dallas-based Gardere & Wynne, was to "clean up loose ends" from the other bankruptcies. But Nabors admitted another factor was a July 13 ruling by Harris County Probate Judge Russell Austin in Houston. That verbal decision, an outgrowth of the failed Armageddon lawsuit, would have hit TANG with a $5-mil bill to share its El Paso settlement with a former TANG employee and the widow of another. The two workers, Alton Davis and Vickroy Stone, had agreed in late 1995 to take half of whatever TANG got from the Armageddon suit, up to $5-mil, in return for settling their own claims against TANG. Stone had been TANG's chief financial officer until he was fired in 1988 for, his wife's suit claims, "refusing to falsify documents" in TANG's prior 1983 bankruptcy. Davis quit a year later "when he learned TANG was engaged in illegal activities." In 1989, TANG sued both men and TANG's ex-controller, Richard Bloodgood, and their consulting company, BDS Assoc, claiming theft of trade secrets and violation of confidentiality agreements for aiding the Armageddon conspirators. But BDS counter-sued. Bloodgood got a $275,000 settlement from TANG. And in 1994 Stone and Davis won $8.1-mil on their counter-claims. TANG protested and, as one of her last acts in office after being defeated for re-election, the judge granted TANG a new trial. The new judge then summarily dismissed the BDS case, prompting cash-strapped Stone and Davis to settle for a half of any future TANG recovery from El Paso, up to $5-mil. After theMay Armageddon deal, Nancy Stone went to probate court to collect from TANG, which refused to pay. At a May hearing Nabors confirmed the payout from El Paso was enough to trigger the full $5-mil payment for Stone and Davis. And he averred TANG had more than $10-mil of net worth, so it should not be forced to put the money in escrow with the court as Davis and Stone asked. But he said terms of the Stone-Davis deal had not been fulfilled. That probate case also revealed the El Paso funds had not gone to TANG. Instead, the cash went to Nabors' firm of Gardere & Wynne for fees, with the rest assigned to a new company called Reliant Oil & Gas. Reliant is headed by Donna Drane, an officer of TANG, Stanley's daughter and wife of TransTexas official Alan Drane. Coincidentally, Reliant Energy is the current name for the giant utility that owns Houston Lighting & Power. In 1997 ex-HL&P president Don Sykora was a director of TransTexas, along with two other former HL&P directors. A Reliant Energy spokeswoman said that company had no awareness of Reliant Oil & Gas and had not given permission to use its name. Reliant, according to Louisiana records, was organized in May 1999 by Metarie lawyer Burgess McCranie, a former commissioner of the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District. Among other companies McCranie has organized: Bermuda-based Pan American Refining, headed by New York oil trader Joseph DiMauro. Stanley has confirmed he and DiMauro "do business together," but their firms are not connected. In 1998 DiMauro and four others were hit with civil fraud charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission over a micro-cap company called Visual Cybernetics, whose main operating arm was a tanker unit called Compass Rose Chartering. DiMauro settled the case by agreeing not to violate securities laws or serve as a public director. He was spared having to disgorge "ill-gotten gains" due to his "demonstrated inability to pay," the SEC said. Based on the revelation of Reliant, Davis and Stone asked for a "special master" to examine TANG's books, claiming the diversion was designed to "launder" the money into another Stanley-related company. But before Judge Austin could file a written order, TANG sought Chapter 11 and has asked Judge Schmidt to take over all the probate matters. Nabors said he expects the Stone and Davis claims will be quickly decided in TANG's favor. Indeed, Stone and Davis are not even listed among TANG's top 20 unsecured creditors. Nabors said that is because their claim is disputed. The biggest unsecured claim is $8.4-mil still owed to the family of late Texas wildcatter Hub Finkelstein, who had won a $15-mil judgment against various Stanley companies over unpaid royalties. Platt's Oilgram, August 17, 2000 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. Omnia Bona Bonis, Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. 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