“President Nixon walks with Saudi King Faisal in Saudi Arabia in June 1974.”
Photo credit: Bloomberg News

Editor’s note:
With FEMA beginning to hold a 4 day drill in the Pacific Northwest to prepare for a 9.0 Cascadia Subduction Zone Earthquake And Tsunami, the article below speaks of a potential economic earthquake and tsunami!

– “The Untold Story Behind Saudi Arabia’s 41-Year U.S. Debt Secret”
“How a legendary bond trader from Salomon Brothers brokered a do-or-die deal that reshaped U.S.-Saudi relations for generations.”

“The goal: neutralize crude oil as an economic weapon and find a way to persuade a hostile kingdom to finance America’s widening deficit with its newfound petrodollar wealth. And according to Parsky, Nixon made clear there was simply no coming back empty-handed. Failure would not only jeopardize America’s financial health but could also give the Soviet Union an opening to make further inroads into the Arab world.”

“The basic framework was strikingly simple. The U.S. would buy oil from Saudi Arabia and provide the kingdom military aid and equipment. In return, the Saudis would plow billions of their petrodollar revenue back into Treasuries and finance America’s spending.”

“Exactly how much of America’s debt Saudi Arabia actually owns is something that matters more now than ever before.”

“While oil’s collapse has deepened concern that Saudi Arabia will need to liquidate its Treasuries to raise cash, a more troubling worry has also emerged: the specter of the kingdom using its outsize position in the world’s most important debt market as a political weapon, much as it did with oil in the 1970s.

In April, Saudi Arabia warned it would start selling as much as $750 billion in Treasuries and other assets if Congress passes a bill allowing the kingdom to be held liable in U.S. courts for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to the New York Times. The threat comes amid a renewed push by presidential candidates and legislators from both the Democratic and Republican parties to declassify a 28-page section of a 2004 U.S. government report that is believed to detail possible Saudi connections to the attacks. The bill, which passed the Senate on May 17, is now in the House of Representatives.”

Saudi Arabia’s Finance Ministry declined to comment on the potential selling of Treasuries in response. The Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency didn’t immediately answer requests for details on the total size of its U.S. government debt holdings.

‘Let’s not assume they’re bluffing’ about threatening to retaliate, said Marc Chandler, the global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman. ‘The Saudis are under a lot of pressure. I’d say that we don’t do ourselves justice if we underestimate our liabilities’ to big holders,” quoting Andrea Wong, Bloomberg News.
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Editor’s Note:
This story now fully explains why every President since Nixon has been meeting regular with the Saudis and why President George W. Bush gave the Bin Laden family permission to fly out of closed U. S. airspace in the wake of 9/11. This is not just about oil, rather U. S. Debt instruments that could be used to again bring America to its knees, though not using oil to do so.


– “FBI Wants to Remove Privacy Protections from its Massive Biometrics Database”
“EFF and 44 Other Organizations Call for More Time to Respond”

“Since 2008, the FBI has been assembling a massive database of biometric information on Americans. This database, called Next Generation Identification (NGI), includes fingerprints, face recognition, iris scans and palm prints—collected not just during arrests, but also from millions of Americans for non-criminal reasons like immigration, background checks, and state licensing requirements. Now the FBI wants to exempt this vast collection of data from basic requirements guaranteed under the federal Privacy Act—and it’s giving you only 21 business days to object.

Today [May 31, 2016], EFF, along with 44 other privacy, civil liberties, and immigrants’ rights organizations, sent a letter to the FBI demanding more time to respond,” quoting Jennifer Lynch, Electronic Frontier Foundation.
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