Investor Lawsuit Blames NSA For $12B Loss In IBM Value 204
Jah-Wren Ryel writes "IBM Corp has been sued by the Louisiana Sheriffs' Pension & Relief Fund which accused it of concealing how its ties to what became a major U.S. spying scandal reduced business in China and ultimately caused its market value to plunge more than $12 billion." While anyone can file a lawsuit, being sued by an institutional investor is a little different than being sued by John Q. Disgruntled.
Let Me Get This Straight (Score:0, Insightful)
Let me get this straight ... the sheriff's pension fund is suing IBM for not disclosing its associations with a clandestine operation being executed by the federal government? Is this the same type of local law enforcement agency that will prosecute an individual or company that exposes a clandestine operation being executed by law enforcement?
I guess money is money, and lawsuits are one of capitalism's tits. Too bad no one told this pension fund that the feds can (and will) pass a law retroactively absolving IBM of any wrongdoing (just like telecommunications companies got).
Oh, the irony (Score:5, Insightful)
Subject/citizen, you should not be concerned about your rights when it comes to security and law enforcement. But, we need legal remedy for business decisions that impact our nice retirement funds. Yeah...
Re:Capitalism Democracy? (Score:5, Insightful)
6.4 percent (Score:5, Insightful)
Fatcat Pensioners. (Score:4, Insightful)
1: Pot calling Kettle Black; The Sheriffs actively participated in illegal wiretaps and clandestine domestic operations and were even trained by the federal agencies on how to handle protests and riots. See: Katrina. They knew damn well who IBM was in bed with.
2: Predatory Societies always grow until they run out of livestock, then they turn on each other. A predator knows no other skill, and their skill can't make bread. They know what they are doing is immoral and they're doing it anyway because it's the only thing they know how to do.
3: We're about to find if NSA Gag letters are permissible in court, and indemnify executive management from failing to disclose them on 8-k and 10-k filings...
4: A rotten corrupt government doesn't produce pension funds for police; it STEALS your pension irregardless of who you are or who you work for then they try to pump and dump, crash and buy, cajole, mind-fuck and carrot and stick an ever greater percentage of the economy and people's lives under their control for whatever demented reason all while dangling numbers on a piece of paper in-front of your face. Now that you're riled up, as elected officials ya'll should start putting banksters and financial wizards in jail and properly protecting the productive side of the economy who pays your paycheck from the unproductive, self-destructive side. Your pension is gone, ya might as well ruin the lives of the people who stole it and have some dignity when you're a 70 year old mall cop.
5: IBM is now a mostly Indian company that produces services and products nobody wants; the only companies that stick with them are their institutional partners and even THEY are leaving them behind due to financial necessity. You can only sell so many computers and services with 50-150% markup because "there's magic inside we can't describe". Their days of coasting along on reputation are nearing a very abrupt end.
There is no opportunity in China ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The NSA is a convenient public excuse for China doing what it had planned to do all along.
Re:I was wondering (Score:4, Insightful)
The bigger question I have is what else will be found during discovery
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Re:6.4 percent (Score:4, Insightful)
In addition, IBM shares recovered almost all their 6.4 percent loss within a month!
You don't understand. That recovery should have been an additional increase from the pre-decline price. These investors should not be even, they should be up 6.4%. Don't you understand that if stocks go down someone did something wrong and needs to be sued?
Re:Capitalism Democracy? (Score:5, Insightful)
NSA has been acting as the boot forever stomping on the human face. This kind of behavior can be stopped by Obama (he's further up the NSA's chain of command, but still in the chain of command) but he hasn't done so. I can only guess that he's a force behind illegal NSA activity to which he'll still claim he "didn't know" about, just as he's claimed ignorance on the ACA website, or NSA surveillance on European allies. He's still culpable for the NSA's illegal activity, will he claim he didn't know that he has broken his oath to uphold and defend the US Constitution?
Re:Let Me Get This Straight (Score:5, Insightful)
"I was unaware that it is against US law for a US Federal agency tasked with intercepting communications of non-Americans to spy on China."
It isn't. But it *IS* illegal (despite their claims otherwise) to spy on Americans in the process of spying on China. UNLESS they can SHOW some kind of probable cause to believe that American is involved in spying.
That's what the FICA Court rules say, and that's what EFF has been saying all along.
And they haven't just been spying on a few Americans... they've been spying on everybody they had the ability to spy on... regardless of any even pretended connections to espionage. And that is CLEARLY illegal. It's not even a matter of debate.
What sucks is that the idiot might be right (Score:4, Insightful)
He sounds like the crazy person who two years ago claimed that the government is tracking all of our emails and phone calls. He probably also believes Vince Foster didn't shoot himself in the back of the head and then drive to that park. That's what's so aggravating about this NSA stuff - it shows that sometimes crazy conspiracy theories are true.
Re:For the sake of national security (Score:5, Insightful)
...and it's not doing so, which is why the Snowdens and Mannings who hide within, ready to spill the beans and grind them into flavorful Bochinche coffee, should have the nation's support, respect, and honor.
Re:6.4 percent (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately for the investor, the NSA would have ordered IBM not to reveal that information. IBM's obligations to investors don't trump it's obligation to obey the law, even when the law is wrong-headed. And good luck suing the NSA.
Re:Capitalism Democracy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Capitalism Democracy? (Score:4, Insightful)
As an employee of IBM.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I can assure you the loss in value has nothing to do with the NSA and everything to do with horrible management. For years their plan to increase profits is to cut American jobs for cheap new hires in emerging countries. At some point we'll actually need to make something to sell when there is no one left to fire...
Re:upper class are the stockholders who were hurt (Score:4, Insightful)
Psychopaths (1% of the population) generally have very short term outlooks and winning a particular goal whilst completely ignoring all consequences is basically normal behaviour for them. So garnering as much information as possible about everyone possible in order to build up a global extortion database so as to be able to blackmail every possible future politician into puppet like obedience (Uncle Tom Obama the choom gang coward) far outweighed the inevitability of getting exposed with so insane and psychopathic a conspiracy. This was not just the NSA/CIA but a whole range of major US military industrial complex contractors as well as telecoms, so all sorts ramifications will continue to play out for the next decade or so, all as a result of a series of individuals egoistically fulfilling their own perversions and delusion of power, total power, over everyone (really crazy psychopathic stuff, the 1% at their core).