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The Dirty Espionage Business

N.Y. Times: U.S. Sanctions Turn Iran’s Oil Industry Into Spy vs Spy.

Most Americans have a Hollywood version of the espionage business. A high-tech game of cyber-espionage and secret well-planned operations but in reality it is an age old game using alcohol, sex, money and shady people.  Same as it ever was.

Whoever is doing the spying, there is little doubt that cloak-and-dagger tactics have buffeted the shrinking Iranian oil trade. Traders say they have been offered all kinds of enticements in exchange for information.

Iraqi National Who’d Lived Whole Life in US Dies Shortly After Being Deported to Iraq

CNN: An Iraqi national who had lived in the US since he was an infant died shortly after being deported to Iraq as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

Jimmy Aldaoud, 41, died from complications of diabetes, his attorney Edward Bajoka told CNN. Aldaoud, who had a long criminal record, was deported in early June to Iraq, where he had no family or contacts and did not speak the language. His body was found Tuesday at an apartment he shared with another Iraqi American deportee.
“He was not able to get insulin in Iraq. That was essentially the cause of his death,” Bajoka said. “This death was completely preventable. It did not have to happen. The death has been devastating to Jimmy’s family and to the community.”

Cop Nation

The government plan to turn us all into snitches.

Whistleblowers help government collect billions in unpaid taxes

WASHINGTON — Whistleblowers who helped the federal government collect $1.4 billion in unpaid taxes last year reaped a record $312 million in reward money thanks to a new law meant encourage tipsters to step forward. And the payouts could go even higher in the years ahead.

For the first time ever, whistleblowers have been granted legal protection against retaliation under a new law that went into effect in July. And the IRS is now required to notify them about the status of their claims no later than 60 days after a status change or upon written request.

The new rules are just the latest in a series of laws meant to encourage whistleblowers to step forward. The record payout, for instance, occurred after the government in 2018 made the formula for determining rewards more generous if the IRS recouped back taxes from delinquent individuals or companies.

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