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New Bills Target Profiteering, Public Corruption
Bad news for war profiteers and corrupt politicians.
Today, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced a bill, simply called The War Profiteering Prevention Act of 2007, targeting fraud by government contractors supporting the occupation of Iraq and the response to Hurricane Katrina. Such profiteering would be a felony under Leahy's legislation, punishable by up to 20 years in prison and fines of $1 million or twice the gross profits of the profiteering. The bill would also clarify U.S. courts' jurisdiction to handle cases of profiteering which occur overseas.
To make it a muck-fighting twofer, Leahy also joined Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) to introduce a bill aimed at strengthening public corruption investigations. The proposal would extend the statute of limitations for many offenses, allow federal investigators to use wiretaps when chasing state and local officials defrauding the federal government, and would boost the FBI's public integrity budget by $100 million over four years.
Comments (17)
CowPunk wrote on January 5, 2007 12:29 AM:I would think they could make the Act retroactive, too. The precedent has been set.
seamus wrote on January 5, 2007 12:57 AM:Interesting....very interesting indeed.
~seamus
jimbo92107 wrote on January 5, 2007 3:53 AM:Stop me from weeping...could this nightmare of Republican corruption possibly, finally be coming to an end?
dataguy wrote on January 5, 2007 10:32 AM:A great day, just great.
I love this guy.
I would change only one thing - I would make the penalty for serious war profiteering to be the death penalty. Why should we treat some scumbag at Halliburton who makes money by delivering incorrect equipment any different from Osama bin Laden?
Daniel wrote on January 5, 2007 11:04 AM:Wow!!! I am utterly and completely speechless. Oh wait, I just remembered the video "Iraq for sale" and the empty trucks being transported needlessly along the most dangerous roads in iraq with fuel being billed to the government. This is too good to be true
Eduardo wrote on January 5, 2007 5:23 PM:I've just seen Mr Leahy's photograph, which shows that he's been around for quite some time, and I wonder if it isn´t that he´s more near the harp than the guitar that´s made him see what he was blind about for so many years
Anonymous wrote on January 6, 2007 5:39 PM:Awesome! I love it and yeah make this retroactive.
Walter wrote on January 6, 2007 11:02 PM:If I were in the business of helping people in disaster situations by delivering scarce goods I would be looking for a new job. I don't know what will happen to the people who live in disaster arias if this bill is passed. I guess it will be harder for them.
Chabuka wrote on January 6, 2007 11:08 PM:Remember the infamous response to the Honorable Patrick Leahy on the Senate floor from old dead-eye Dick (stright from the Dark Side )...well Mr. Leahy you have my permission to make the V.P. eat his words...go get 'em!!
frances wrote on January 7, 2007 7:00 PM:I am pretty sure there is existing legislation and laws against war profiteering introduced during WWII. Roosevelt put them in place; I believe they carry the death penality.
Is this new proposed legislation a way to get around the death penality clause of the existing laws??
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Hal wrote on May 30, 2007 7:48 AM:How about the energy company officials being the first to be prosecuted under this law - let's charge them when they post their next monster earnings report.