Is There a Future for Gitmo?

For the Obama administration when it comes to terrorists or enemy combatants, the title of the playbook is ‘Let Some Other Country Handle It’.

Guantánamo parole board OKs release of Osama bin Laden bodyguard

Majid Ahmed at Guantánamo in a photo from his 2008 prison profile provided to McClatchy Newspapers by WikiLeaks.

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba

MiamiHerald: The national security parole board, in just a month, has approved a former Osama bin Laden bodyguard for release to another country as the Pentagon-run panel works on accelerating reviews.

The board has six more hearings scheduled into May — two of them so-called “forever prisoners” like the man whose approval to go was disclosed Friday and four of them who were at one time considered candidates for war-crimes trial.

In the latest decision, the board recommended release of Yemeni Majid Ahmed, 35, to an Arabic-speaking country with security precautions. An intelligence assessment concluded that he was recruited to join the Taliban at age 18 or 19 and became a bin Laden bodyguard at 21, a month before the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

The decision to approve the release of Ahmed means that, of Guantánamo’s 91 captives, 35 are approved for transfer, 10 are in war crimes proceeding and the rest are either forever prisoners or candidates for war crimes trial.

The board said Ahmed “has been relatively compliant during his time at Guantánamo, although he has been largely uncooperative with interrogators.” The intelligence profile said he “still harbors anti-U.S. sentiments and holds conservative Islamic views that may make transfer and reintegration to many countries difficult.”

The board’s three-paragraph statement disclosing Ahmed’s approval for transfer, dated Feb. 18, recommended release to resettlement in an Arabic-speaking country, “with appropriate security assurances.” It was available on the Pentagon’s parole board website Saturday, a month after his Jan. 19 hearing. Full story here.

*** What will a new U.S. president do on the war on terror and will there be an approval for capturing future terrorists?

What to do if U.S. begins capturing more suspected terrorists?

MilitaryTimes: WASHINGTON — President  Obama has refused to send any suspected terrorists captured overseas to the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. But if the U.S. starts seizing more militants in expanded military operations, where will they go, who will hold them and where will they be tried?

Those are questions that worry legal experts, lawmakers and others as U.S. special operations forces deploy in larger numbers to Iraq, Syria and, maybe soon, Libya, with the Islamic State group and affiliated organizations in their sights.

Throughout Obama’s presidency, suspects have been killed in drone strikes or raids, or captured and interrogated, sometimes aboard Navy ships. After that, they are either prosecuted in U.S. courts and military commissions or handed over to other nations.

This policy has been enough, experts say — at least for now.

“If you’re going to be doing counterterrorism operations that bring in detainees, you have to think through what you are going to do with them,” said Phillip Carter, former deputy assistant defense secretary for detainee policy. “If the U.S. is going to conduct large-scale combat operations or large-scale special ops and bring in more detainees, it needs a different solution.”

Rebecca Ingber, an associate law professor at Boston University who follows the issue, warns that if the U.S. engaged in a full ground war in Syria, “chances are there would need to be detention facilities of some kind in the vicinity.”

Obama has not sent a single suspected terrorist to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where many have been detained for years without being charged or tried — something the president says is a “recruitment tool” for militant extremists.

He is to report to Congress this month on how he wants to close Guantanamo and possibly transfer some of the remaining detainees to the United States. That report also is supposed to address the question of future detainees.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., believes that the absence of a long-term detention and interrogation facility for foreign terrorist suspects represents a “major shortcoming in U.S. national security policy.”

Republican candidates who want to succeed Obama are telling voters that they would keep Guantanamo open.

“Law enforcement is about gathering evidence to take someone to trial, and convict them,” said Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. “Anti-terrorism is about finding out information to prevent a future attack so the same tactics do not apply. … But, here’s the bigger problem with all this: We’re not interrogating anybody right now.”

That’s not true, said Frazier Thompson, director of the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group. The tight-lipped team of interrogators from the FBI, Defense Department, the CIA and other intelligence agencies gleans intelligence from top suspected terrorists in the U.S. and overseas.

“We were created to interrogate high-value terrorists and we are interrogating high-value terrorists,” Thompson said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Since it was established in 2009, that team has been deployed 34 times, Thompson said, adding that other government agencies conduct independent interrogations as well. “We are designed to deploy on the highest-value terrorist. We are not going out to interrogate everybody,” he said.

Thompson would not disclose details of the cases his team has worked or speculate on whether he expects more interrogation requests as the battle against IS heats up.

“If there is a surge, I’m ready to go. If there’s not, I’m still ready to go,” Thompson said.

The U.S. has deployed about 200 new special operations forces to Iraq, and they are preparing to work with the Iraqis to begin going after IS fighters and commanders, “killing or capturing them wherever we find them, along with other key targets,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter said.

Brett McGurk, special presidential envoy for the global coalition to counter IS, told Congress this month that in the final six months of 2015, 90 senior to midlevel leaders were killed, including the IS leader’s key deputies: Haji Mutazz, the top leader in Iraq, and Abu Sayyaf, the IS oil minister and financier.

Sayyaf was killed in a raid to rescue American hostage Kayla Mueller; his wife, known as Umm Sayyaf, was captured.

Her case illustrates how the Obama administration is prosecuting some terrorist suspects in federal courts or military commissions or leaving them in the custody of other nations.

Umm Sayyaf, a 25-year-old Iraqi, is being held in Iraq and facing prosecution by authorities there. She also was charged Feb. 9 in U.S. federal court with holding Mueller and contributing to her death in February 2015.

Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who investigated and supervised international terrorism cases, including the U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa and the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen the 1990s, said sending suspected terrorists through the American criminal justice system works. He said the courts are more effective than military commissions used at Guantanamo that have been slow in trying detainees who violate the laws of war.

“The current practice of investigating and prosecuting terror suspects has proved incredibly effective,” Soufan said, noting that since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, only seven people have been tried and convicted under military commissions. “During that same time period, hundreds of terrorists have been convicted in federal courts and almost all are still in jail.”

But it’s hard to evaluate the effectiveness of the system.

The Justice Department declined to provide the number of foreign terrorist suspects who have been prosecuted or the number handed over to other countries, or their status. Lawmakers, including Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., have asked the Defense Department for the numbers.

Reports on how other countries handle the suspects are classified.

Raha Wala, senior counsel at Human Rights First, also is concerned about detention operations abroad.

“The government needs to be more transparent to the American people — and to the world — about who it is transferring overseas, and what procedures are in place to make sure we are not transferring individuals into situations where human rights will be abused,” he said.

U.S. refugee agency put Central American kids at risk

The problem was identified by the GAO in 2012.

Even more terrifying is this report:

PROPOSED REFUGEE ADMISSIONS

FOR

FISCAL YEAR 2015

REPORT TO THE CONGRESS

 

U.S. refugee agency put Central American kids at risk, GAO report says

WashingtonPost: The government agency tasked with placing thousands of Central American children into communities while they await immigration court decisions has no system for tracking the children, does not keep complete case files and has allowed contractors to operate with little oversight, according to a report released Monday by the Government Accountability Office.

“Based on the findings in this report, it’s no wonder that we are hearing of children being mistreated or simply falling off the grid once they are turned over to sponsors,” said Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa). “The Obama administration isn’t adequately monitoring the grantees or sponsors whom we are entrusting to provide basic care for unaccompanied children.”

Three senators — Grassley, Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) — asked the GAO in October to review policies of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement. The agency provides shelter for unaccompanied minors fleeing violence in Central America and identifies sponsors to care for them while they await hearings in immigration courts. More than 125,000 unaccompanied minors from Central America have been caught at the U.S.-Mexico border since 2011. The 64-page report is being released one day before the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hear testimony from Obama administration officials about their handling of the children.

“Their records are incomplete, they are not appropriately checking in on the facilities that house the children, and they don’t even have a dedicated system to follow up on the children once they’ve been placed with sponsors,” Grassley said.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, has come under criticism in recent weeks for its handling of a number of cases involving unaccompanied minors.

Advocates for unaccompanied minors say that the refu­gee office was overwhelmed by the surge of children crossing the border in 2014 but that the system is a much better alternative than longer detention for vulnerable children.

On Jan. 28, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations issued a report focusing on cases in which Central American children were victims of abuse by their sponsors, including one case where the agency released several Guatemalan teenagers to labor traffickers who forced them to work long hours at an Ohio egg farm for as little as $2 a day.

“We agree with the GAO’s recommendations, which is why we’ve already implemented some of them and are in the process of implementing the rest,” said Andrea Helling, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services. “This is part of the process of improving the program to care for the children who come into our custody.”

The GAO found that children’s case files were often incomplete, making it difficult for investigators to determine whether they had received proper care such as group counseling and clinical services. Investigators reviewed 27 randomly selected children’s case files. None of them contained all of the required documents.

The report also criticized the agency’s oversight of nonprofit groups that it pays to operate shelters for the children and locate sponsors. In 2014, the agency implemented a new monitoring process, requiring site visits every two years. However, investigators found that the agency didn’t complete the site visits in 2014 and 2015. In 2014, agency staff members visited 12 of 133 sites. By August 2015, they visited 22 of 140 sites.

These monitoring visits revealed several problems at the nonprofit-run shelters. At one site, agency workers discovered that the facility didn’t give children the proper amount of medication, leading them to accidentally overdose.

Helling said the Office of Refugee Resettlement is aware of the issues and has hired additional staff and implemented new policies to ensure that all site visits are completed in fiscal 2016.

 

Once children are released to sponsors, the agency has no system for tracking their whereabouts, according to the report. Some children, including those who have been identified as trafficking victims, are supposed to receive services such as mental- health care. In fiscal 2014, only 9.5 percent of children released by the agency received these services. The agency has established a call center for children who want to report problems with their sponsors and requires its caseworkers to call all children and sponsors after the children are placed.

Grassley sharply criticized the lack of follow-up for released children.

“Beyond the risks to the children created by these shortcomings, our communities are left to cope with the crime and violence from gang members and other delinquents who are not identified or tracked because of HHS’s haphazard and porous practices,” he said.

Helling said the agency is looking at ways to expand post-release services for children, adding that “the overwhelming majority of these children are fleeing violence and chaos, not looking to create it.”

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who co-chaired the Jan. 28 Senate hearing about problems within the agency, said he will testify at Tuesday’s hearing.

“I’m pleased the Judiciary Committee is following up on the subcommittee’s bipartisan investigation,” he said. “The administration must be held accountable for turning young children over to traffickers and criminals.”

Jennifer Podkul, a migrant rights expert at the Women’s Refugee Commission, said: “Overall, we’re incredibly happy that ORR is the agency that’s been designated to release the kids. What happened when there were incredible numbers was that it showed the strain and the weaknesses in the system. It was like a magnifying glass on the system.”

Joint Chiefs, ‘NO’ on Closing Gitmo

Obama tweets: I’m going to Cuba

BI: President Barack Obama announced Thursday on Twitter that he was going to Cuba next month, which will be the first time a sitting president has visited the country since 1928.

The US recently restored diplomatic relations with the communist country after a 54-year break.

“14 months ago, I announced that we would begin normalizing relations with Cuba — and we’ve already made significant progress,” Obama tweeted.

In subsequent tweets, he said:

Our flag flies over our Embassy in Havana once again. More Americans are traveling to Cuba than at any time in the last 50 years. We still have differences with the Cuban government that I will raise directly. America will always stand for human rights around the world. Next month, I’ll travel to Cuba to advance our progress and efforts that can improve the lives of the Cuban people.

Obama also tweeted a link to a post on the website Medium that explained the thinking behind his trip.

Ben Rhodes, a national security adviser to Obama, wrote that the president would “have the opportunity to meet with President [Raúl] Castro, and with Cuban civil society and people from different walks of life” on the trip.

“Yes, we have a complicated and difficult history,” Rhodes wrote. “But we need not be defined by it. Indeed, the extraordinary success of the Cuban-American community demonstrates that when we engage Cuba, it is not simply foreign policy  —  for many Americans, it’s family.”

JW: As President Obama frees droves of terrorists—including five Yemenis this week—from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo news reports confirm that a Gitmo alum who once led a Taliban unit has established the first Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) base in Afghanistan.

His name is Mullah Abdul Rauf and international and domestic media reports say he’s operating in Helmand province, actively recruiting fighters for ISIS. Citing local sources, a British newspaper writes that Rauf set up a base and is offering good wages to anyone willing to fight for the Islamic State. Rauf was a corps commander during the Taliban’s 1996-2001 rule of Afghanistan, according to intelligence reports. After getting captured by U.S. forces, he was sent to Gitmo in southeast Cuba but was released in 2007. More here.

*** The Obama administration is in somewhat of a panic over the most recent development of Ibrahim al Qosi.

FNC: When Ibrahim al Qosi was released from Guantanamo Bay in 2012, a lawyer for the former Usama bin Laden aide said he looked forward to living a life of peace in his native Sudan.

Three years later, Qosi has emerged as a prominent voice of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, appearing in a number of AQAP propaganda videos — including a 50-minute lecture calling for the takeover of Saudi Arabia.

The 56-year-old Qosi delivered a scathing critique of the Saudi monarchy — which appeared online on Feb. 6 — denouncing the Saudi government’s execution of more than 40 “mujahedeen” in January, according to the Long War Journal.

Joint Chiefs Issue Resounding ‘No’ to Obama on Gitmo Closure

Granger – TheBlaze: Just in case it couldn’t be more clear, the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the armed forces of the United States said “no, we won’t help” to the president in a letter regarding his possible use of an executive order to close the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and then bring the remaining detainees to the United States.

Quoting the law, Lt. Gen. William Mayville Jr., the director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote:

“Current law prohibits the use of funds to ‘transfer, release or assist in the transfer or release’ of detainees of Guantanamo Bay to or within the United States, and prohibits the construction, modification or acquisition of any facility within the United States to house any Guantanamo detainee. The Joint Staff will not take any action contrary to those restrictions.”

Sixteen members of the U.S. House of Representatives with military experience had written to the Joint Chiefs regarding the legal question of whether or not they would follow an executive order by President Barack Obama to close Gitmo by relocating the remaining detainees to the U.S.

Getty Images

The president is now alone in his fantasy of bringing detainees to U.S. shores.

Without the cooperation of the military, no physical transfer of Gitmo detainees can take place.

The president said in his end-of-year press conference, “We will wait until Congress has definitively said no to a well-thought-out plan with numbers attached to it before we say anything definitive about my executive authority here.”

Apparently, the Joint Chiefs beat Congress to the punch. There is no authority of the president to move anybody anywhere against the law.

Far from just an opinion, the Joint Chiefs are factually correct in their decision. Unless an order, even coming from the commander in chief, is legal, ethical and moral, the nation’s most responsible generals may not carry it out.

The letter is a first response in what could be a legal argument that could reach the attorney general and/or the Supreme Court.

With the balance of power in the highest court tilting slightly to the left now that conservative Antonin Scalia has passed away and his seat is vacant for the foreseeable future, any decision made by that body in question of the president’s Constitutional authority would probably side with him.

Without reaction to the letter, the Obama administration is surely scrambling for ideas on what next to do.

The really disappointing aspect of Obama’s obsession with closing Gitmo is the fact that he has forgotten the reason for the facility in the first place.

Sept. 11, 2001, is the reason for Gitmo. It is the reason for detaining as many potential sources of important information (that could save many lives) as possible. It is the reason so many lives have been lost and others changed forever.

Why has Obama forsaken the safety and security of the American people by releasing unlawful combatant Islamists who want to kill Americans before the Global War on Terror is won?

Thirty percent of all released Gitmo detainees are known or are suspected of returning to the fight. If that isn’t bad enough, there is NO information on the other 70 percent. Where are they; your neighborhood?

The president’s reckless behavior, from releasing dangerous enemies to wanting to bring others to the U.S. is proof that his priorities are confused. Thankfully, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have just reminded him that even he is bound by law, and they will not help him break it.

Montgomery Granger is a three-times mobilized U.S. Army major (Ret.) and author of “Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay: A Memoir of a Citizen Warrior.” Amazon, Blog, Facebook

Ooops, What Hillary and her Aide did NOT Sign

EXCLUSIVE: Hillary Clinton And Cheryl Mills Did Not Sign Mandatory Agreement to Return Classified Materials

Howley – Breitbart:

Breitbart News has obtained confirmation on State Department letterhead that Hillary Clinton did NOT sign a mandatory OF-109 “Separation Statement” when she left the State Department.

That statement would have required her to affirm that she had returned all classified materials in her possession. Clinton’s top aide Cheryl Mills also avoided signing a separation statement.

Additionally, Clinton never certified that she went through a mandatory security debriefing to learn how to handle classified information. State Department officials, meanwhile, admitted that they “mistakenly” mailed out sensitive information involving the Clinton case.

Citizen researcher Larry Kawa has provided to Breitbart News the most clear-cut evidence to date that Clinton avoided going through mandatory channels to return classified government information.

Clinton failed to sign a separation agreement when she left the State Department, around the time she was required to give back all of her classified materials. Clinton signed a “Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement” on January 22, 2009. This document is known as an SF-312. It is standard for government employees to sign an SF-312 when they begin working in a role that gives them access to classified information. But she was also required to sign an OF-109, or “Separation Statement,” when she left the job.

That OF-109 document would have required her to affirm the following:

I have surrendered to responsible officials all classified or administratively controlled documents and material with which I was charged or which I had in my possession. I am not retaining in my possession, custody, or control, documents or material containing classified or administratively controlled information furnished to me during the course of such employment or developed as a consequence thereof…

But Clinton never signed an OF-109, even though the State Department Foreign Affairs Manual requires all employees to do so. The office of the Speaker of the House and others have been desperately trying to figure out if Clinton signed an OF-109. Now we know.

On September 11, 2015, researcher Larry Kawa received a letter from State Department official Clarence N. Finney Jr. from the Office of Executive Secretariat Staff (S/ES-S). Finney claimed that, “Departing secretaries of state do not complete an OF-109 due to their continued need for a security clearance after their resignation.”

***  Hillary signature

In other words, the State Department claimed that Clinton, as Secretary of State, was exempt from the requirement in the Foreign Affairs Manual. But Kawa was not satisfied.

Kawa wrote to State Department Office of Information Programs and Services director John Hackett on November 19 and asked, “Can you please forward me written documentation that allows for the exemption of the Secretary of State?”

“Mr. Kawa, I do not have this information at hand. I recommend that you submit an additional FOIA request,” Hackett replied. Kawa submitted another FOIA request two days later seeking evidence for the exemption, but his FOIA request was never returned.

The State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual Volume 12 Section 564.4 is crystal clear that all employees must sign a separation agreement and undergo a security debriefing:

a. A security debriefing will be conducted and a separation statement will be completed whenever an employee is terminating employment or is otherwise to be separated for a continuous period of 60 days or more.The debriefing is mandatory to ensure that separating personnel are aware of the requirement to return all classified material and of a continuing responsibility to safeguard their knowledge of any classified information. The separating employee must be advised of the applicable laws on the protection and disclosure of classified information (see 12FAM 557 Exhibit 557.3) before signing Form OF-109, Separation Statement (see 12 FAM 564 Exhibit 564.4).

b. AID’s Office of Security, IG/SEC, will conduct a security debriefing upon the separation of AID employees.

Kawa asked State Department Office of Information Programs and Services litigation and appeals branch chief Brandi Garrett for the “pertinent exemption” that would have allowed Clinton to skip out on signing a separation statement, but Garrett did not provide any evidence to show that Clinton was exempt. 

Cheryl Mills also skipped the exit procedure.

A Separation Statement exists for top Clinton aide Cheryl Mills, and a copy of it was quietly released by the State Department.

You might notice something fairly jarring: the statement was never signed, by Mills or anyone else. It was left blank.

Cheryl Mills, like Clinton, avoided having to affirm that she “surrendered to responsible officials all classified or administratively controlled documents and material with which I was charged or which I had in my possession.”

Unlike Mills, Clinton aide Huma Abedin signed a separation statement and security debriefing acknowledgment in February 2013.

Citizen researcher Larry Kawa found the information during a series of exchanges with State Department officials in which the Department admitted to “mistakenly” mailing out sensitive information on the Clinton case.

On the evening of Friday November 13, 2015, Kawa received an email from Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Martha Grafeld. That same night, he received a voicemail message from State Department information officer John Hackett. Both Grafeld and Hackett told Kawa that he had been mailed sensitive information about Clinton and her aides. Even though Kawa had not received any information, the State Department officials seemed panicked.

They both asked him to return the sensitive information as soon as he gets it in the mail. They also both warned him not to disclose any of the information they thought he’d been sent.

Audio of Hackett’s voice mail message, reviewed by Breitbart News, referred to information that was “mistakenly” sent out:

Mr. Kawa, this is John Hackett with the Department of State. Area code [redacted]. The documents we recently mailed you relating to your FOIA request, um, these documents were mistakenly mailed to you without proper processing. They may contain, um, information that is exempt from public disclosure including Social Security numbers. We ask that you not distribute or disseminate these documents. We’ll be sending you an email to ask you to return these documents. Um, also we’ll be sending you a link where these documents that have been properly processed may be found. We regret any inconvenience. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to give me a call. Thanks a lot. Bye now.

Grafeld wrote:

I am writing to follow up on a phone call you received today.  In that call, our staff informed you that documents you recently received in the mail from the Department of State were mistakenly mailed to you without proper processing, as they include information that is exempt from disclosure, potentially including Social Security numbers.  The Department asked that you not distribute or disseminate these documents or copies of these documents.  Substitute documents that have been properly processed are posted at:  https://foia.state.gov/Search/Results.aspx?collection=HRC_NDAS.

We will forward to you a prepaid envelope to return to us the documents that were mistakenly sent and any copies you may have made. This return will be at no cost to you.

As you may know, many states have enacted privacy laws that prohibit the disclosure of the Social Security number of another person. With that in mind, we appreciate your safeguarding the Social Security numbers on the documents mistakenly sent to you.

We regret any inconvenience that this may cause you and appreciate your cooperation.

Clinton’s lack of an OF-109 is especially relevant in light of her SF-312, a sworn agreement in 2009 that she made to return all classified materials “upon the conclusion of my employment”:

7…I agree that I shall return all classified materials which have, or may come into my possession or for which I am responsible because of such access: (a) upon demand by an authorized representative of the United States Government; (b) upon the conclusion of my employment or other relationship with the Department or Agency that last granted me a security clearance or that provided me access to classified information; or (c) upon the conclusion of my employment or other relationship that requires access to classified information. If I do not return such materials upon request, I understand that this may be a violation of Sections 793 and/or 1924, Title 18, United States Code, a United States criminal law.

But Clinton did not return her private server, with classified information on it, when she left the State Department in January 2013. She only gave her private server to an inter-agency task force led by the FBI in August 2015, more than two years after her employment with the State Department came to an end.

Thus, Clinton violated her sworn SF-312 statement and could have violated the Title 18 sections cited in the agreement: Section 793, on “Gathering, transmitting, or losing defense information,” and Section 1924, on “Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material.” If she is convicted of violating either of those sections, she could face prison time.

Clinton did not sign the second line on the bottom of the SF-312 document, the “Security Debriefing Acknowledgment.” The signature line was left blank. Thus, Clinton did not certify that she was debriefed on her security obligations regarding classified information.

The Hillary Clinton campaign and the State Department did not return requests for comment for this report.

 

The Feds Borrowing Your Retirement

Here’s Why (And How) The Government Will “Borrow” Your Retirement Savings

Submitted by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

Zerohedge: According to financial research firm ICI, total retirement assets in the Land of the Free now exceed $23 trillion.

$7.3 trillion of that is held in Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs).

That’s an appetizing figure, especially for a government that just passed $19 trillion in debt and is in pressing need of new funding sources.

Even when you account for all federal assets (like national parks and aircraft carriers), the government’s “net financial position” according to its own accounting is negative $17.7 trillion.

And that number doesn’t include unfunded Social Security entitlements, which the government estimates is another $42 trillion.

The US national debt has increased by roughly $1 trillion annually over the past several years.

The Federal Reserve has conjured an astonishing amount of money out of thin air in order to buy a big chunk of that debt.

But even the Fed has limitations. According to its own weekly financial statement, the Fed’s solvency is at precariously low levels (with a capital base of just 0.8% of assets).

And on a mark-to-market basis, the Fed is already insolvent. So it’s foolish to think they can continue to print money forever and bail out the government without consequence.

The Chinese (and other foreigners) own a big slice of US debt as well.

But it’s just as foolish to expect them to continue bailing out America, especially when they have such large economic problems at home.

US taxpayers own the largest share of the debt, mostly through various trust funds of Social Security and Medicare.

But again, given the $42 trillion funding gap in these programs, it’s mathematically impossible for Social Security to continue funding the national debt.

This reality puts the US government in rough spot.

It’s not like government spending is going down anytime soon; it already takes nearly 100% of tax revenue just to pay mandatory entitlements like Social Security, and interest on the debt.

Plus the government itself estimates that the national debt will hit $30 trillion within ten years.

Bottom line, they need more money. Lots of it. And there is perhaps no easier pool of cash to ‘borrow’ than Americans’ retirement savings.

$7.3 trillion in US IRA accounts is too large for them to ignore.

And if you think it’s inconceivable for the government to borrow your retirement savings, just consider the following:

1) Borrowing retirement funds is becoming a popular tactic.

 

Forced loans have been a common tactic of bankrupt governments throughout history.

 

Plus there’s recent precedent all over the world; Hungary, France, Ireland, and Poland are among many governments that have resorted to ‘borrowing’ public and private pension funds.

 

2) The US government has already done this with federal pension funds.

 

During the multiple debt ceiling fiascos since 2011, the Treasury Department resorted to “extraordinary measures” at least twice in order to continue funding the government.

 

What exactly were these extraordinary measures?

 

They dipped into federal retirement funds and borrowed what they needed to tide them over.

 

In fact, the debt ceiling debacles were only resolved because the Treasury Department had fully depleted available retirement funds.

 

3) They’ve been paving the way to borrow your retirement savings for a long time.

 

Two years ago the government launched a new initiative to ‘help Americans save for retirement.’

 

It’s called MyRA. And the idea is for people to invest retirement savings ‘in the safety and security of US government bonds’.

 

Since then they’ve gone on a marketing offensive involving the President, Treasury Secretary, and other prominent politicians.

 

(Most recently Nancy Pelosi published an Op-Ed in the San Francisco Chronicle a few days ago promoting the program.)

 

They’ve also proposed a number of legislative reforms to ‘encourage’ American businesses to sign their employees up for MyRA.

 

Just last week, Congress introduced the “Making Your Retirement Accessible”, or MyRA Act, which would charge a penalty to employers whose workers don’t have a retirement account.

 

The proposed penalty is $100. Per worker. Per day.

 

Imagine a small business with, say, 10 employees who don’t have retirement accounts. The penalty to Uncle Sam would be a whopping $30,000 PER MONTH.

 

There’s a word for this. It’s called extortion.

 

Obviously when facing a $30,000 monthly penalty, an employer will pick the easiest option.

 

Given the absurd amount of government regulation on the rest of the financial industry, MyRA is the fastest choice.

This isn’t about fear or paranoia. It’s about facts.

And the reality is that the government in the Land of the Free is moving in the direction of borrowing more and more of your retirement savings.

If you still remain skeptical, remember that last year the government stole more from its citizens through Civil Asset Forfeiture than thieves in the private sector.

Or that just 45-days ago a new law went into effect authorizing the government to strip you of your passport if they believe in their sole discretion that you owe them too much tax.

No judge. No jury. No trial. They just confiscate your passport.

*** Getting arrested for non-payment of student loans:

US Marshals are arresting people who haven’t paid back student loans

US Marshals in Houston are arresting residents who are behind on their student loans. 

Paul Aker told Fox 26 Houston that he was arrested by seven deputies with automatic weapons—for a $1500 outstanding student loan he recieved back in 1987. 

“I was wondering, ‘Why are you here? I’m home and I haven’t done anything… Why are the Marshals knocking on my door?’ It’s amazing,” he said.

Mr Aker says he was arrested, placed in shackles and taken to the downtown federal courthouse where he was placed in a holding cell for several hours.

Later, he was taken to court for a payment agreement surround by “70 Marshals.” Mr Aker said that he was never read his rights.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” he said.

Representative Gene Green said that it’s troubling to see private debt collectors use US Marshals to go after people who owe student loans.

“There’s bound to be a better way to collect on a student loan debt that is so old,” Mr Green told Fox. “The federal government is now using private debt collectors to go after those who owe student loans.”

A source familiar with the US Marshals in Houston told the news station that anywhere from 1200 to 1500 warrants would be served to those who’ve failed to keep up with their loans.

The average student loan debt for 2015 graduates in the US reached $35,000, according to an analysis by Edvisors, the Wall Street Journal reports.