Tag Archives: Justice

Climate Solutions, Earth and Ecology, Economics, Esoteric, Observation, Sustainable Energy

The Earthly Frontier: Building a Sustainable Future at Home

Solar Power: Harnessing Our Local Star

The pioneering spirit driving Elon Musk’s SpaceX to prepare for life on Mars is captivating, but a compelling alternative suggests we should use this same spirit to heal and nurture our home planet.

The sun, our local star, is central to this Earth-centric vision. According to NASA, Earth receives approximately 174 petawatts of incoming solar radiation in the upper atmosphere.

By efficiently harnessing just a fraction of this energy, we could significantly reduce our dependence on environmentally harmful fossil fuels.

Over the past decade, the cost of solar power has dramatically decreased and, with improvements in energy storage, (like Tesla’s Powerwall units, for example), solar energy is becoming a reliable, 24/7 power source.

Ephemeralization: Doing More with Less

However, the shift towards sustainable living extends beyond changing our energy source. This is where the principles of R. Buckminster Fuller, a visionary architect, systems theorist, author, designer, and inventor, come into play.

Fuller proposed the concept of “doing more with less,” forecasting a future where technological advancements lead to “ephemeralization,” a scenario in which we could fulfill everyone’s needs using fewer resources. This notion could help pave the way for a more environmentally sustainable world that also addresses issues of scarcity and inequality.

Building Efficiency: Embracing Integrative Design

Our journey towards a sustainable future is complemented by the principles of “integrative design,” a concept championed by Amory Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute.

Lovins’ approach focuses on a holistic systems design where individual components work together in synergy, maximizing energy and resource efficiency.

This concept applies prominently to building efficiency, an area where Lovins has made significant contributions. By considering elements such as orientation, insulation, window placement, and ventilation, buildings can be designed to maintain comfortable temperatures with minimal active heating or cooling.

This “passive house” approach dramatically reduces energy consumption, making buildings part of the climate solution rather than a source of the problem.

Lovins’ approach also applies to manufacturing and industry, which, together, account for over 40% of total U.S. energy consumption.

By redesigning industrial processes to minimize waste, utilize waste heat, and prioritize energy-efficient equipment, Lovins argues that industries can dramatically reduce their energy use without sacrificing output or quality.

Taken to the furthest logical conclusion, the principles of integrative design could revolutionize how we conceive of energy use across all sectors.

Circular Economy and Soil Regeneration: Emulating Nature’s Cycle

To create a genuinely sustainable society, we need to redefine our economic systems and our relationship with the land. Our shift must be from a linear economic model—where we extract, use, and discard resources—to a circular one that mimics nature’s endless cycles of growth, decay, and renewal.

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has been instrumental in leading efforts to establish an economy that is restorative and regenerative by design.

A key part of this shift involves regenerating our agricultural systems. Soil health is vital for maintaining biodiversity, water quality, and carbon sequestration.

Regenerative agriculture, including practices like cover cropping, no-till farming, and composting, can restore soil health and enhance its capacity to absorb carbon from the atmosphere.

According to the Rodale Institute, if current farmlands globally shifted to regenerative organic practices, it could sequester more than 100% of current annual CO2 emissions. Transitioning towards such practices could significantly mitigate climate change and rejuvenate our food systems.

Economic Justice: Power to All

An Earth-centric future also calls for economic justice. In a world powered by the sun, where resources are used wisely, waste is minimized, and the soil is restored, basic needs—such as healthcare, education, and equal opportunity—could be universally provided.

Establishing these rights is not just about altruism—it’s about creating a society where every individual can fully contribute to the collective good.

Mars Can Wait, But Can Earth?

The dream of a city on Mars is undoubtedly inspiring, but we must not overlook the opportunities beneath our feet. Our planet is not merely a stepping stone to the stars; it is a star in its own right.

Mars can wait, but can the Earth? With the elements for a sustainable revolution already within our grasp, it’s up to us to weave them together, creating a future that embraces both sustainability and economic justice.

The Long Road to an Earthly Future

The real odyssey, the true journey that demands our audacity and pioneering spirit, lies not in the red sands of a distant planet or under the shadows of unfamiliar stars. Instead, it unravels here, beneath the azure sky and upon the rich, verdant expanses of our home, Earth.

This journey may be long and fraught with challenges. The road toward a sustainable, just, and abundant future will require us to reassess our values, reinvent our systems, and redefine our relationship with the environment.

It calls for us to weave together principles of ephemeralization, integrative design, circular economy, soil regeneration, and economic justice into the fabric of our societies.

Yet, even as we embark on this formidable quest, we should remember that the destination is not merely a point in the future. It is a process, a continuous evolution that offers us countless opportunities for growth, learning, and reinvention.

Every step we take towards this envisioned future—whether it’s a solar panel installed, a passive house built, or a plot of land regenerated—brings us closer to realizing our potential as a species.

Unlike the cold, alien landscapes of Mars, the Earth provides us with a setting that is intimately familiar yet brimming with untapped potential.

We have the knowledge, the technology, and the means. All we need now is the collective will to channel our exploratory spirit inward, to heal, nurture, and transform the world we already have.

So let the red planet wait. For now, we have an extraordinary world under our feet, a world that we are yet to fully comprehend and appreciate.

Our gaze should not be fixed on distant celestial bodies, but on the potential lying dormant in our societies and within ourselves. The future of humanity is not just out there in the cosmos, but also right here, on the third rock from the Sun. The Earth and its promise of a sustainable and equitable future, is real, and attainable.

Books, Climate Solutions, Earth Day

These Books take a Hard look how Climate Change & Capitalism Clash

Video

Above: Photo Collage / Lynxotic / Simon & Schuster

Naomi Klein’s new book is third in a venerated series on problems we face as a species

As the disasters mount and more and more are definitively linked to man-made climate change and global warming, millions around the globe recognize the need for solutions. More and more the solutions arise, only to be blocked or derailed by the same phenomena: corrupt governments beholden to status quo power and short-sighted corporate greed.

This dynamic; available solutions being actively opposed by business and governments that answer to those powerful corporate entities, even as they mount massive multi-million dollar ad campaigns to “green-wash” their image and try to appear aligned with the very solutions they violently oppose is nearly all pervasive.

Meanwhile, as the problems continue to grow, it has become clear that we, that is to say humanity and its future survivors, are not just fighting a battle against the problem itself, the rapidly deteriorating climate caused by Carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary greenhouse gas emitted through human activities, but even more so a political battle is underway which pits an entire entrenched, unequal and corrupt system (regardless of ideology) against the very issue that needs to be tackled in order for our species to survive.

Without solving the problem of Capitalism’s built-in bias toward profit at any cost, any solution to the climate crisis will be stopped or hindered before it can take root and make enough impact to give us a chance against the looming disasters.

Recently Greta Thunberg posted a statement that governments were literally doing nothing, while at the same time preaching and advertising their “commitment” to solving the problem.

Naomi Klein represents a voice, a top selling author, that has stayed focused on this specific aspect of the challenge for decades. The documentary based on her best-selling book “This Changes Everything” (trailer below) is now a classic and zeros in on the monumental importance of this problem, and how the political and economic systems of the world will require massive and immediate change if we are to survive.

This is not about the tired tropes of Socialism vs Capitalism vs Communism and so on, but rather about the specific corruption and suicidal deception that threatens us all, as fake dedication to solving the problem is paraded simultaneously with efforts that double-down on protecting the homicidal status quo of greed and destruction.

Now, with the Biden administration touting its green status and the green new deal, there must be accountability and more than just words and slogans. The new book shown below is an in-depth look at just what needs to happen to confront the political gridlock and the tendency for real solutions to be blocked or destroyed in the crib.

On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal

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Naomi has been at the forefront reporting on the many ways the economy has waged war one planet and people for over 20 years.

An instant bestseller, On Fire shows Klein at her most prophetic and philosophical, investigating the climate crisis not only as a profound political challenge but also as a spiritual and imaginative one. Delving into topics ranging from the clash between ecological time and our culture of “perpetual now,” to the soaring history of humans changing and evolving rapidly in the face of grave threats, to rising white supremacy and fortressed borders as a form of “climate barbarism,” this is a rousing call to action for a planet on the brink. An expansive, far-ranging exploration that sees the battle for a greener world as indistinguishable from the fight for our lives, On Fire captures the burning urgency of the climate crisis, as well as the fiery energy of a rising political movement demanding a catalytic Green New Deal.

Within this text, you will find her essays, written whilst in the midst of natural disasters, dire warnings of the future that is waiting for us if we do nothing to change. The long-forms essays display both the prophetic and philosophical while also challenging the spiritual and imaginative.

Her writings span events ranging from the smoky skies of the Pacific Northwest, the barren Great Barrier Reef to the post-hurricane Puerto Rico and many other climate crises.

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate

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Author Naomi Klein wants readers to embrace the radical, that there is no longer the option to remain at the status quo. Climate Change isn’t just something to be “fixed” it is a crisis that requires immediate action. Also now a feature documentary.

In her book she exposes climate change deniers, delusions of geoengineers, why mainstream green initiatives have failed thus far and how capitalism will only make things worst.

The most important book yet from the author of the international bestseller The Shock Doctrine, a brilliant explanation of why the climate crisis challenges us to abandon the core “free market” ideology of our time, restructure the global economy.

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

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Klein introduces us to a new term, disaster capitalism, how those who experience catastrophic events (i.e. war/extreme violence or tsunami/ natural, ect) not only had to suffer from the disaster but also were being taken advantage by “rapid-fire corporate makeovers”.

“The Shock Doctrine” shows how economic policies have capitalized on crises, how at the core of disaster capitalism is to use a cataclysmic event to radicalize privatization.

In her groundbreaking reporting, Naomi Klein introduced the term disaster capitalism. Whether covering Baghdad after the U.S. occupation, Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami, or New Orleans post-Katrina, she witnessed something remarkably similar. People still reeling from catastrophe were being hit again, this time with economic shock treatment, losing their land and homes to rapid-fire corporate makeovers. 

The Shock Doctrine retells the story of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman’s free market economic revolution. In contrast to the popular myth of this movement’s peaceful global victory, Klein shows how it has exploited moments of shock and extreme violence in order to implement its economic policies in so many parts of the world from Latin America and Eastern Europe to South Africa, Russia, and Iraq.

Watch Trailer for Documentary: ‘This Changes Everything’

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Books, Lifestyle, News

Best Roe v. Wade Books to Understand the SCOTUS Debate

The 50th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade is approaching, we are also dealing with the likelihood that the Supreme Court is now reconsidering the ruling, as a result, an interest on the issues surrounding abortion and reproductive rights has peaked.  

Reproductive justice, or the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy (in other words the ability to choose whether to have or not have children) has and most likely will always be a hot button issue, one that triggers immediate and intense reactions from both pro-life and pro-choice advocates. 

Understandably so, abortion touches on huge subject matters that can intersect with religious beliefs, what qualifies as life and death in which people tend to have their own very strong opinions. 

Below we have curated a list of 5 books that can help readers interested in educating oneself and understanding more on what is currently happening by looking at the past.  These texts break down legal, political and social foundations regarding abortion. As well as speak to the very real issues surrounding abortion like violence, stigma, politics, race, access to medicine and law.  

We have provided additional information on each book including publisher’s descriptions and where to learn more about each title: 

Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe V. Wade

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Roe v. Wade’s 1973 constitutional guarantee of a woman’s right to choose abortion emerged from a long and remarkable battle to extend Americans’ individual liberties to include a fundamental right to sexual privacy. Only in 1965 had the Supreme Court first begun to protect such intimate personal freedoms by finally invalidating an archaic Connecticut criminal law that had prohibited the use of birth control.

Despite the landmark importance of this crucial struggle, not until now has this legal revolution received the comprehensive treatment it deserves. Roe v. Wade’s origins lie not in the U.S. Supreme Court’s dramatic internal deliberations of 1971-72 or even in the grassroots women’s movement of the late 1960s but, instead, in the 1920s and 1930s efforts to win repeal of the Connecticut birth control law. Those initial attempts failed, but twenty years later Connecticut Planned Parenthood director Estelle Trebert Griswold launched a new crusade against the statute. After one appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court lost by the narrowest of margins in 1961, Griswold and a medical colleague were convicted for providing birth control services in open defiance of the law. When their appeal finally reached the Supreme Court, the justices held that such a fundamental constitutional right to privacy did indeed exist.

That resounding Supreme Court decision in Griswold v. Connecticut opened a previously unimagined constitutional door: the opportunity to argue that a woman’s access to a safe, legal abortion was a fundamental individual right. In 1969, the first abortion rights case was filed in federal court in New York, soon followed by others, including Roe v. Wade in Texas and Doe v. Bolton inGeorgia. After those two challenges were upheld by local federal courts, the U.S. Supreme Court – which so far had confronted the abortion issue on only one occasion – agreed to review both decisions. The comprehensive, once-secret files of former Justices William J. Brennan, William

Before Roe V. Wade: Voices That Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court’s Ruling

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The Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade legalized abortion-but the debate was far from over, continuing to be a political battleground to this day. Bringing to light key voices that illuminate the case and its historical context, Before Roe v. Wade looks back and recaptures how the arguments for and against abortion took shape as claims about the meaning of the Constitution-and about how the nation could best honor its commitment to dignity, liberty, equality, and life.

In this ground-breaking book, Linda Greenhouse, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who covered the Supreme Court for 30 years for The New York Times, and Reva Siegel, a renowned professor at Yale Law School, collect documents illustrating cultural, political, and legal forces that helped shape the Supreme Court’s decision and the meanings it would come to have over time.

A new afterword to the book explores what the history of conflict over abortion in the decade before Roe might reveal about the logic of conflict in the ensuing decades. The entanglement of the political parties in the abortion debate in the period before the Court ruled raises the possibility that Roe itself may not have engendered political polarization around abortion as is commonly supposed, but instead may have been engulfed by it.

Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement Before Roe V. Wade

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On April 16, 1972, ten thousand people gathered in Central Park to protest New York’s liberal abortion law. Emotions ran high, reflecting the nation’s extreme polarization over abortion. Yet the divisions did not fall neatly along partisan or religious lines-the assembled protesters were far
from a bunch of fire-breathing culture warriors. In Defenders of the Unborn, Daniel K. Williams reveals the hidden history of the pro-life movement in America, showing that a cause that many see as reactionary and anti-feminist began as a liberal crusade for human rights. For decades, the media portrayed the pro-life movement as a Catholic cause, but by the time of the Central Park rally, that stereotype was already hopelessly outdated. The kinds of people in attendance at pro-life rallies ranged from white Protestant physicians, to young mothers, to African American
Democratic legislators-even the occasional member of Planned Parenthood. One of New York City’s most vocal pro-life advocates was a liberal Lutheran minister who was best known for his civil rights activism and his protests against the Vietnam War. The language with which pro-lifers championed their
cause was not that of conservative Catholic theology, infused with attacks on contraception and women’s sexual freedom. Rather, they saw themselves as civil rights crusaders, defending the inalienable right to life of a defenseless minority: the unborn fetus. It was because of this grounding in
human rights, Williams argues, that the right-to-life movement gained such momentum in the early 1960s. Indeed, pro-lifers were winning the battle before Roe v. Wade changed the course of history. Through a deep investigation of previously untapped archives, Williams presents the untold story of New Deal-era liberals who forged alliances with a diverse array of activists, Republican and Democrat alike, to fight for what they saw as a human rights cause. Provocative and insightful, Defenders
of the Unborn is a must-read for anyone who craves a deeper understanding of a highly-charged issue.

What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics

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One of the Wall Street Journal‘s Top Ten Books of the YearA leading expert on public bioethics advocates for a new conception of human identity in American law and policy.The natural limits of the human body make us vulnerable and therefore dependent, throughout our lives, on others. Yet American law and policy disregard these stubborn facts, with statutes and judicial decisions that presume people to be autonomous, defined by their capacity to choose. As legal scholar O. Carter Snead points out, this individualistic ideology captures important truths about human freedom, but it also means that we have no obligations to each other unless we actively, voluntarily embrace them. Under such circumstances, the neediest must rely on charitable care. When it is not forthcoming, law and policy cannot adequately respond. What It Means to Be Human makes the case for a new paradigm, one that better represents the gifts and challenges of being human. Inspired by the insights of Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor, Snead proposes a vision of human identity and flourishing that supports those who are profoundly vulnerable and dependent–children, the disabled, and the elderly. To show how such a vision would affect law and policy, he addresses three complex issues in bioethics: abortion, assisted reproductive technology, and end-of-life decisions. Avoiding typical dichotomies of conservative-versus-liberal and secular-versus-religious, Snead recasts debates over these issues and situates them within his framework of embodiment and dependence. He concludes that, if the law is built on premises that reflect the fully lived reality of life, it will provide support for the vulnerable, including the unborn, mothers, families, and those nearing the end of their lives. In this way, he argues, policy can ensure that people have the care they need in order to thrive. In this provocative and consequential book, Snead rethinks how the law represents human experiences so that it might govern more wisely, justly, and humanely.

Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolution of National Policy, 1800-1900a

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“A fascinating book which sets to rest a number of preconceptions on the subject. Easy to read and yet hard-hitting.”–Marlette Rebhorn, Austin Community College

“Should be an eye-opener to those who think that religious objections were at the root of anti-abortion legislation and equally to those who think that abortion has been a matter of life and death.”–Carl N. Degler, Stanford University


“A superb example of the way history can inform a current contentious controversy.”–Journal of American History


“Mohr makes it abundantly clear that Supreme Court decisions of the 1970s were not a modern weakening of moral standards but a return to what Americans believed and practiced a hundred years ago.”–The Christian Century


“An altogether lucid review of American abortion policy in the 19th century.”–Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times


“The history of how abortion came to be banned and how women lost…rights previously thought to be natural and inherent over their own bodies is a fascinating and infuriating one.”–Chicago Tribune

James C. Mohr is the College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of History and the Philip H. Knight Professor of Social Science at the University of Oregon. He is author of Doctors and the Law: Medical Jurisprudence in Nineteenth-Century America and Radical Republicans in the North: State Politics during Reconstruction, both published by Johns Hopkins.

For purchase information on Amazon, check out below:

Abortion in America
Liberty and Sexuality
Before Roe V. Wade
Defenders of the Unborn
What It Means to Be Human

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Observation, Politics

Why Abortion Bans Aren’t Pro-Life: New Video by Robert Reich

Video

As a new Supreme Court appointment looms…

In another great new video Robert Reich talks about the unspoken downsides of Abortion bans and why they are not “Pro-LIfe”. The video is one of many that can be seen on the Inequality Media YouTube channel – which adds at least a new video weekly.

Abortion bans are not pro-life. They’re pro-poverty and pro-inequality.

I’ll tell you what we can do about it in a moment. But first, let me explain how these bans worsen inequalities.

You’ve probably heard of the two abortion cases making their way through the courts. But it’s not just Texas and Mississippi’s new bans. For years, Republican state lawmakers – almost entirely white men – have been chipping away at reproductive freedom: enacting laws that lead to clinic closures, force people to travel hundreds of miles for abortions, and create near-insurmountable barriers for low-income people, especially people of color.

Make no mistake: bans like those in Texas and Mississippi won’t stop abortions. Wealthy people will always have access, but millions of low-income people will be forced to give birth – with dire consequences for both parent and child.

Pregnant people in Texas now have to travel an average of 247 miles to get an abortion. Who but the wealthy can afford this? Only one third of the lowest paid workers receive paid sick days, while 95% of the highest paid do. Taking just one unpaid day off from a low-wage job can mean sacrificing groceries, electricity, or gas.

These restrictions worsen inequality, and have lifelong effects.

One study found that being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term makes it nearly 4 times more likely that parent and child will live below the poverty line. They’re also less likely to have full-time work, and more likely to have public assistance four years later. Decades of research confirm that abortion access improves education, employment, and earnings — and the differences are especially large for Black people.

It’s not just economics. Restricting abortion puts people’s health at risk. Researchers found that abortion legalization in the 1970s reduced deaths among Black mothers by 30 to 40 percent.

The Supreme Court’s right-wing majority is poised to gut or even overturn Roe v. Wade. If they do, 21 states already have laws that will go into effect to severely restrict or outright ban all abortions immediately – threatening the livelihoods and health of millions of low-income Americans.

Congress must codify Roe v. Wade into federal law — now — by passing the Women’s Health Protection Act. It’s already been passed in the House but is being blocked in the Senate by – you guessed it – a Republican filibuster.

Let’s be clear: there is nothing “pro-life” about forced pregnancy and forced birth. The freedom to choose when, how, and with whom you start a family should not be dictated by your income or where you live. Congress must act to protect reproductive now, freedom before it’s too late.

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Business, Finance, Observation

How a ProPublica Reporter Learned Scammers’ Secret Sauce

Above: Photo Collage / Lynxotic / Adobe Stock

When the federal government enacted the CARES Act in March 2020, it boosted jobless aid and expanded the benefits to include people who weren’t typically covered, like gig workers. The legislation was designed to cushion workers against the massive blow of a partial economic shutdown during the pandemic.

Originally published by ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

But if you haven’t already buried your memories of last year, you probably remember how difficult it was to get those unemployment benefits.

Horror stories circulated about people waiting on hold for weeks, trying to get the money they needed to stay afloat. Maybe you remember spending long hours on the phone or the computer yourself. Delays in unemployment benefits heightened feelings of uncertainty that characterized much of 2020, and made the experience of losing your job even more frightening.

But as Cezary Podkul reported for ProPublica this week, this expansion of benefits also attracted fraudsters from all over the world who sought to cash in on the CARES Act. In hindsight, the millions of phony unemployment insurance claims were a large part of what clogged states’ overtaxed computer systems, delaying payments to unemployed Americans filing legitimate claims.

We don’t have a full accounting yet of how much the fraud will end up costing taxpayers. The federal government says it will be at least tens of billions of dollars, but some experts fear it may end up in the hundreds of billions. And on the micro level, every stolen identity fraudsters use to cash in belongs to a real person. If that person tried to file for unemployment themselves, it could take months for them to convince state agencies they were a real person and receive necessary support.

We talked with Cezary about how he discovered the alternate universe of stolen identities and pseudonymous fraudsters selling how-to kits for scamming state unemployment agencies on the dark web. Here’s an inside look at a massive fraud wave.

I was really curious how you went about finding these online forums where scammers were swapping their trade secrets.

So I started off by reaching out to cybersecurity firms and asking them, “Hey, where are fraudsters trading tips and advice and talking about how to do this?” That pointed me to Telegram [an online messaging app]. I got the names of a few Telegram channels where this was happening, and I started looking at those. And then from there I did my own research and found lots and lots of additional ones; it certainly wasn’t hard, because there’s just so many of them.

Did you have a strategy worked out for how you would reach out to scammers?

To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect, because I have never been to any of these forums. I realized that they’re open, public forums. I’m sure there’s some that are private, or invitation-only. But the ones that we wrote about in our story, anyone who wants to view them or access them can enter them as if you were entering a public square in a city.

There was a big learning experience involved in this in the sense that there was a lot of unfamiliar language to me. It wasn’t as if you could just jump in and know exactly what’s being said. You had to see a lot of the traffic and read a lot of messages before you learned what certain acronyms were.

For example, what does it mean for a state to be “lit”? It’s paying out state claims.

At one point, I came across a message in one of the forums that actually had a dictionary, which was super helpful. That was kind of like the Rosetta Stone, and once I came across the dictionary I could translate a lot of this stuff into plain language.

You quote one scammer’s response in the article that’s just two eye roll emojis. I was so curious what question you asked that prompted that response.

Yeah, the eye roll emoji! So that was the user who we cite in the story named “VerifiedFraud.” He was the admin for one of these channels where there was something like 1,300 participants, and he posted what’s called a “sauce.” Sauce, in the language of these forums, is the secret sauce for filing fake unemployment insurance claims in a particular state. He gave away a free sauce to his channel participants. And I asked him about that: Hey, tell me about the sauce. I noticed that you put it on your forum for participants along with the “new month prayer” wishing them luck.

When I messaged him about that I got the eye roll.

And I guess you told him you were a journalist?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. With all the people that I was contacting, I made it abundantly clear: “Hey, I’m a reporter, I’m writing a story about this. I noticed you said this or that and I wanted to talk to you more about it.” You know, “Tell me more about your ‘Fraud Bible.’ Does it work?”

Did you ever try a sauce to see if it worked? Or send it to a state agency?

No. As a journalist, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t doing anything illegal.

I did send a bunch of these sauces — the ones that name specific states that were publicly available — to the states. I sent them to Pennsylvania, New York and California, and I asked them for comments. The states declined to comment on the specifics of whether they worked or anything like that. But they did say generally that they’re aware of them, that they’re monitoring these types of messages with their law enforcement partners.

You have this quote from a scammer in the article: “Virtually all these wealthy entrepreneurs you see around 90% of them started with something illegal to make enough money to run their business.” It seems like some of these people consider themselves businesspeople, and they put some work into this. How different is what they’re doing from working an actual job?

There’s probably some people for whom this has become a full-time endeavor, where this is the main way they’re trying to make money right now because of the opportunity that has been opened up.

But there’s certainly people for whom they might have a day job doing something else. For example, one case involved a Nigerian national who ran an online shoe store. He was also accused of participating in a scheme to defraud states of unemployment insurance funds. And I think the total in that case was something like $489,000 across 15 states. [He’s pleaded not guilty to charges in the case.]

So there’s certainly people who do other things, but there’s others who I’m sure have made this sort of their full-time path. I think it does kind of run the gamut.

Did you get a sense of what percentage of people were working from outside the United States?

There’s no way to tell what percentage. But in reading the messages in these Telegram channels, I definitely got the feel that this was a very international crowd, because you do see messages from people, for example, looking to meet up to do deals in Lagos, Nigeria.

The statistic that really put a period on this for me came from one of the cybersecurity firms that we talked with. They said that one state they work with saw unemployment insurance applications coming from nearly 170 countries around the world.

So these are supposedly state residents applying for unemployment insurance, but when you trace the internet traffic, you see this application is coming from … gosh, they had countries all over the world. It was like the United Nations.

Normal people trying to get unemployment checks in the middle of the pandemic were really struggling, waiting on the line for days at a time and getting disconnected when they were trying to get their unemployment checks. Did you get any sense of if and how fraudsters were better at getting unemployment checks than real humans?

One of the things that I think maybe hasn’t been talked about as much is the interplay between this huge wave of fraudulent claims that we saw and legitimate claimants. Because the information technology on which states are running their unemployment insurance systems is, in many cases, very dated.

Like with North Dakota, they had to actually bring in computer programmers from Latvia ​​to help them run their unemployment insurance computer system last year, because it’s so hard to find anyone who can service the technology. It’s been around for decades.

When you’re dealing with very dated technology, it doesn’t scale well. It can’t handle such huge volumes that we were seeing there during the pandemic. So when you had this huge influx of fraudulent claims, I think it did a few things.

One is it definitely slowed down processing of legitimate claims, because you just end up with backlogs of applications that the states are still struggling to get through because there’s so many people who have applied. There are legitimate claimants mixed in with fraudulent claimants and you have to kind of triage those, and figure out which ones are high-risk, which ones look like they’re very likely to be fraudulent, versus which ones are medium-risk and which ones are low-risk — and you put those through.

The other thing that it spikes is the call volumes. When I asked [Texas officials], why was it so hard for an individual that we profiled in the story to get through to Texas, it was just because they had such a massive call volume. There’s so many people calling the fraud line reporting fraud, there’s so many people calling for help, so many people seeking states’ attention, they just become overwhelmed. That has an impact on legitimate claims.

And then finally, you have legitimate claimants who are collecting unemployment insurance payments, and those payments either stop or are frozen because of suspected fraud. So someone else just stole your identity and used it to file a claim in another state, and all of a sudden you might see your benefits stop, which is what happened to Philip Payton, the individual we profiled in our story.

By flooding the system with so many fake claims, not only did fraudsters, in some cases, get away with pocketing those fraudulent payments, it really caused a lot of hardship for legitimate claimants.

The fraudsters are also probably working with the advantage of being able to send out 40 applications to 40 different states, and if they only get paid by 18 and get stuck in backlogs in the others, it doesn’t cost them very much.

Exactly. It basically comes down to a game of numbers.

Let’s say you go onto a dark web forum and you purchase some stolen identities. You pay $50, $70 for a stolen profile of someone. If you’ve got it, then it makes sense for you to file in all the different states where you think it might pay off, to all the different programs, to all the different government benefits you think that individual might be entitled to. If you don’t, you might be leaving money on the table.

One of the most shocking statistics that I came across, just on a micro level, was in one of the Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General reports. They mentioned that one person used a single Social Security number to file fake unemployment insurance claims in 40 states, and 29 states paid up. They got something like $222,000.

I think we’re now at that point where we’re starting to realize that this has been a huge problem. And to be fair, it wasn’t just unemployment insurance. You’ve seen our coverage of people creating fake farms in places that wouldn’t even have a farm, like farms on beaches or people claiming they had an orange farm in Minnesota, to apply for PPP loans.

I’ll be curious to see if cybersecurity surrounding these leaks that led to IDs and social security numbers getting out are wrapped up in reform bills too.

If I can put in a plug: If anyone knows where all of the leaked data came from, I would love to talk with anyone who’s got information on that.

One of the terms that you see being used on these telegram chat rooms is the word “fullz.” Fullz is slang for the full suite of personally identifiable information like someone’s name, address, Social Security, driver’s license, the whole thing.

If you’re going to be filling out an unemployment insurance claim form in someone’s name, if you just know their name and their address — okay, that’s one thing. But if you have a full suite of information on a person it just makes it so much easier for you to file a claim that has a significantly higher chance of getting through the system.

So one of the questions that I was asking is: Where did all the fullz come from? This is a question that I became obsessed with in the reporting of this project, and I just couldn’t get a good answer to it. So if anyone reading this has a good answer for that, or a good theory, reach out to me and I’ll be more than happy to talk to you.

by Brooke Stephenson  for ProPublica and published via Creative Commons License

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Breaking News, Entertainment, Movies, Videos

Night Stalker hits #3 on Netflix: Series Delves into Mid-eighties Crime Spree

Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer / Netflix 

Streaming started January 13.  This historical limited series is a documentary that follows the young detective Gil Carrillo and legendary homicide investigator Frank Salerno as they work expeditiously to catch the “Night Stalker”. Beneath the sunlit glamour of 1985 LA lurks a relentlessly evil serial killer. In this true-crime story, two detectives won’t rest until they catch Richard Ramirez, who was eventually arrested for his terrible crimes.

A gradual climb up the internal Netflix chart has kicked the limited series up to #3 for the weekend. The quality of the presentation seems to be the draw and the time frame that it deals with – the mid-eighties – has been au du jour of late – with Wonder Woman 1984 and other films that focus on that unique decade and its zeitgeist. Check out the trailer below if you want a taste:

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