splittist's comments

So the offense is, essentially, not arranging your affairs in a way so as to leave them open to easy scrutiny by the state. With decades of precedent allowing such laws how can strong cryptography possibly be permissible?

Money laundering is old. Money laundering being its own stand-alone crime is recent.

(And part of the modern trend of criminalizing the living of one's life in a way not maximally transparent to the government.)

> I wonder what the deal was with bribes and kickbacks over the selection of the host country for the 2010 World Cup (i.e. South Africa)?

Answering my own question, having now skimmed the indictment, it seems to be the usual suspect taking money paid by the South African federation to the CFU for its support in the bid process - something which seems to be entirely legitimate - for himself (which isn't).

Money laundering is a recent invention as a crime. None of the actions involved are actually criminal in themselves, it's just that they (supposedly) make it harder for the authorities to detect something they might want to be obvious, to assist in the War on Drugs, or tax avoidance, or (more recently) terrorism.

As to "fraud", I actually referred to "wire fraud conspiracy", which is, more or less, once having had some sort of agreement (tacit or otherwise) to do something with a dishonest intention where a telephone was involved in some way or other. Note that you don't actually have to have followed through on that intention for the "crime" to have been committed.

These defendants plead guilty, so the convictions are no doubt correct. And no doubt many millions of bribes were paid. But I think a degree of skepticism about prosecutorial conduct is appropriate no matter what the supposed target of the prosecution.

These are "FIFA Officials" in the same way that the representatives countries send to the UN are "UN Officials", or US Congressfolk are "US Officials". They aren't people who actually do the work at FIFA.

$150 million over 20 years for sports rights in Latin America seems to indicate pretty slim margins. I wonder what the deal was with bribes and kickbacks over the selection of the host country for the 2010 World Cup (i.e. South Africa)?

The defendants who have copped pleas are convicted of the made-up 'crimes' of e.g. "wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and the structuring of financial transactions". http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/nine-fifa-officials-and-five-c...

No doubt terrible things go on among the members and their representatives at FIFA (as they do at the UN). Perhaps someone could explain how to organise an international federation that prevents corruption in its member (i.e. owner) organisations.

OK. I have contemplated the list of Pulitzer Prizes for Beat Reporting(http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Beat-Reporting) as an example, and fail to see anything that doesn't advance the dominant paradigm. If that is what 'public service' means to you then I wonder why we need a whole estate that arrogates such particular privileges to itself.

An independent check on government and power? Where and when has this happened? I know this is the story journolists (sic) tell themselves, but for all of its adoption of a neutral speaking-truth-to-power self-description, the modern practice of reporting is pretty much in lock-step with (one could almost say 'produces and reproduces') the establishment.

For a non-Valley, non-VC, non-swing-for-the-fences (Sand Hill Road cookie cutter) startup, think about where your risks really lie (who is going to sue you; when; why; and for how much). If you have partners, then having someone walk you through all the 'what if things go wrong' stuff may be useful. If it's just you, then you can even postpone incorporation. As for tax - that's a nice problem to have, but it's not one that's going to loom large on day one (or even year one). I would be amazed if it made sense for the median startup to register any trademarks. And if you "need" patents, really drill down on what that "need" is (if it's just a tick-the-box exercise for eventual VC's, then one jurisdiction might be enough; if you need a global patent protection strategy to secure your fundamental business value, you're doing it wrong).

When you do hire a lawyer, get an estimate up front, make clear that you want to know in advance if the bill is getting anywhere near the estimate, and require monthly interim billing if there is something ongoing. If you can fit in some scornful laughter at the idea of billing for photocopying and phone calls, that would be good, too. Many lawyers pay lip-service to the idea of fixed fees for defined projects: think about calling their bluff. And ask about other value-added services they might provide, such as introductions to other clients who might be interesting to know. This will be like pulling teeth, because lawyers are pretty terrible at everything in business except (if you are lucky) the legal stuff.

But they probably do know the legal stuff better than you, so don't try to impose irrelevant constraints, like "I want a one-pager for this".

And "Administartion". But, hey, the jam looks appetizing.

If every issue of CQ has an interview of this calibre and quality it's going to be THE essential subscription for the field.