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	1	+Current application of qualified immunity arose in response to, solves for, excessive litigation.
	2	+Wurman, Ilan, from the Stanford Law School, “Qualified Immunity and Statutory Interpretation”, 2013, Seattle University Law Review, http://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2227andcontext=sulr
	3	+The Glick test posed a challenge for plaintiffs. It is difficult to prove that an officer acted maliciously and without good faith. Because many instances of force may be excessive but very few will truly “shock the conscience,” Glick was an effective bar to recovery. Graham v. Connor 16—the decision that changed the standard for all excessive force cases—demonstrates these propositions.
	4	+In Graham, the plaintiff (Graham) had his friend take him to a store to resolve a blood sugar problem.17 Because the line in the store was too long, he ran out of the store back to his friend.18 Officers who saw him grew suspicious and detained him while another officer went to investigate.19 The officers refused his friend’s request to give him orange juice, though Graham was manifestly having some reaction.20 When they learned that nothing was wrong the officers drove Graham home, but Graham had by then “sustained a broken foot, cuts on his wrists, a bruised forehead, . . . an injured shoulder, and developed a loud ringing in his right ear that continues to this day.”21
	5	+Few who read the Court’s full opinion can doubt that the officers acted excessively and unreasonably. Of course, they probably did not intend to act unreasonably, but surely they should have known better? Under Glick that question hardly matters: even if their acts were unreasonable, they were not acting maliciously or sadistically, and they were acting on a good faith belief that Graham may have committed a crime at the store he had hastily exited.
	6	+That is exactly what the district court, relying on Glick, found in Graham. 22 The trial had even proceeded to a jury, but the district judge granted the officers’ motion for a directed verdict.23 Graham did not have a claim as a matter of law because the court found that the use of force was “‘appropriate under the circumstances,’ that ‘there was no discernable injury inflicted,’ and that the force used ‘was not applied maliciously or sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm,’ but in ‘a good faith effort to maintain or restore order in the face of a potentially explosive situation.’”24
	7	+The Supreme Court reversed and held that all excessive force cases arising out of arrests or investigatory stops must be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment, the proper textual home for them.25 The Court eliminated the subjective components of the excessive-force inquiry in favor of an objective multi-factor test to determine the reasonableness of the application of force. The proper application of the test requires careful attention to the facts and circumstances of each particular case, including 1 the severity of the crime at issue, 2 whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and 3 whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight.26
	8	+This is an explicitly objective test, with no reference to subjective intent.27 This test opened the floodgates to plaintiffs litigating excessive force claims against police officers. Those floodgates were promptly reclosed by the application of the Court’s reinvented qualified immunity doctrine.
	9	+B. Qualified Immunity: A Mess in the Circuits
	10	+Qualified immunity had already been established as a doctrine divorced from the common law at this point.28 The Court held in Saucier v. Katz29 that in excessive force cases qualified immunity requires, as a first step, an inquiry into whether a cognizable constitutional violation has occurred and thus a determination of whether excessive force was used under the Graham standard.30 Then, as a second step, the courts must determine whether it was “clearly established” at the time that the particular use of force was unconstitutional.31
	11	+Excessive litigation kills tech innovation.
	12	+Kirk 6, Executive Director of the American Intellectual Property Law Association, 3-24-6 (Michael, http://www.aipla. org/Content/ContentGroups/Legislative_Action/109th_Congress/Testimony5/ImmigrationBillSenatorSpecter.pdf)
	13	+I am writing to you on behalf of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) regarding the pending immigration reform legislation that would transfer jurisdiction over immigration appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. We believe that such broadening of the Federal Circuit’s jurisdiction would seriously hinder the court’s ability to render high quality, timely decisions on patent appeals from district courts, and patent and trademark appeals from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. This runs directly counter to the present efforts of Congress to otherwise reform and improve this nation’s patent system. We take no position on other specific elements of the legislation or on the underlying need for immigration reform. Our concern focuses solely on the proposed shift in appellate jurisdiction, which we believe will do more harm than good. AIPLA is a national bar association whose approximately 16,000 members are primarily lawyers in private and corporate practice, in government service, and in the academic community. AIPLA represents a wide and diverse spectrum of individuals, companies, and institutions involved directly or indirectly in the practice of patent, trademark, copyright, and unfair competition law, as well as other fields of law affecting intellectual property. Our members represent both owners and users of intellectual property, and have a keen interest in an efficient federal judicial system. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit was established in 1982 after more than a decade of deliberate study and Congressional consideration. The Hruska Commission (chaired by Senator Roman Hruska) conducted a study lasting nearly three years before recommending to Congress the establishment of a national appeals court to consider patent cases. It took two Administrations, several Congresses, and a number of hearings in both the House and Senate before legislation establishing the Federal Circuit was finally enacted. Over the past 26 years the Court, through its thoughtful and deliberate opinions, has made great progress in providing stability and consistency in the patent law. Removing immigration appeals from the general jurisdiction of the twelve regional Courts of Appeals and centralizing it in the Federal Circuit is an enormous change. Leaving aside the impact, both pro and con, on the affected litigants, the Federal Circuit is simply not equipped to undertake the more than 12,000 requests for review of deportation orders that twelve courts now share each year. The Federal Circuit currently has no expertise or experience in the field of immigration law. While the legislation envisions adding three judges to the twelve currently on the Court, we have serious concerns whether this increase will be adequate. Judge Posner has calculated that, even with the three additional judges proposed in the legislation, each of the fifteen Federal Circuit judges would be responsible for about 820 immigration cases per year, on the average—an incredibly large number that we believe will have a significant adverse impact on the remainder of the court’s docket. It seems inevitable that the proposed legislation will have a dramatic, negative impact on Federal Circuit decisions in patent cases and appeals from the USPTO. Such an increased caseload will necessarily delay decisions in these appeals, which in turn will cause uncertainty over patent and trademark rights and interfere with business investments in technological innovation. Beyond mere delay, the Federal Circuit's ability to issue consistent, predictable opinions in patent cases will be complicated by an increase in the number of judges. If conflicts in panel opinions increase, the inefficient and often contentious en banc process will have to be used more often, further adding to the overall burden on the court. Business can effectively deal with decisions, positive or negative, but it cannot deal with protracted uncertainty caused by inconsistent opinions or long delays in judicial review. Demand for reform of the patent system has been the topic of considerable public debate of late. Congress held extensive hearings on this subject last year, and more are scheduled in coming weeks. The House is currently considering legislation that would dramatically change the patent statute, and we understand that patent reform legislation may soon be introduced in the Senate as well. It would be unfortunate for Congress to inadvertently compound the challenges facing the patent system by weakening the ability of the Federal Circuit to give timely and consistent consideration to patent cases.
	14	+Innovation solves great power war
	15	+Taylor 4 – Professor of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Mark, “The Politics of Technological Change: International Relations versus Domestic Institutions,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 4/1/2004, http://www.scribd.com/doc/46554792/Taylor) //RGP
	16	+I. Introduction Technological innovation is of central importance to the study of international relations (IR), affecting almost every aspect of the sub-field. First and foremost, a nation’s technological capability has a significant effect on its economic growth, industrial might, and military prowess; therefore relative national technological capabilities necessarily influence the balance of power between states, and hence have a role in calculations of war and alliance formation. Second, technology and innovative capacity also determine a nation’s trade profile, affecting which products it will import and export, as well as where multinational corporations will base their production facilities. Third, insofar as innovation-driven economic growth both attracts investment and produces surplus capital, a nation’s technological ability will also affect international financial flows and who has power over them. Thus, in broad theoretical terms, technological change is important to the study of IR because of its overall implications for both the relative and absolute power of states. And if theory alone does not convince, then history also tells us that nations on the technological ascent generally experience a corresponding and dramatic change in their global stature and influence, such as Britain during the first industrial revolution, the United States and Germany during the second industrial revolution, and Japan during the twentieth century. Conversely, great powers which fail to maintain their place at the technological frontier generally drift and fade from influence on international scene. This is not to suggest that technological innovation alone determines international politics, but rather that shifts in both relative and absolute technological capability have a major impact on international relations, and therefore need to be better understood by IR scholars. Indeed, the importance of technological innovation to international relations is seldom disputed by IR theorists. Technology is rarely the sole or overriding causal variable in any given IR theory, but a broad overview of the major theoretical debates reveals the ubiquity of technological causality. For example, from Waltz to Posen, almost all Realists have a place for technology in their explanations of international politics. At the very least, they describe it as an essential part of the distribution of material capabilities across nations, or an indirect source of military doctrine. And for some, like Gilpin quoted above, technology is the very cornerstone of great power domination, and its transfer the main vehicle by which war and change occur in world politics. Jervis tells us that the balance of offensive and defensive military technology affects the incentives for war. Walt agrees, arguing that technological change can alter a state’s aggregate power, and thereby affect both alliance formation and the international balance of threats. Liberals are less directly concerned with technological change, but they must admit that by raising or lowering the costs of using force, technological progress affects the rational attractiveness of international cooperation and regimes. Technology also lowers information and transactions costs and thus increases the applicability of international institutions, a cornerstone of Liberal IR theory. And in fostering flows of trade, finance, and information, technological change can lead to Keohane’s interdependence or Thomas Friedman et al’s globalization. Meanwhile, over at the “third debate”, Constructivists cover the causal spectrum on the issue, from Katzenstein’s “cultural norms” which shape security concerns and thereby affect technological innovation; to Wendt’s “stripped down technological determinism” in which technology inevitably drives nations to form a world state. However most Constructivists seem to favor Wendt, arguing that new technology changes people’s identities within society, and sometimes even creates new cross-national constituencies, thereby affecting international politics. Of course, Marxists tend to see technology as determining all social relations and the entire course of history, though they describe mankind’s major fault lines as running between economic classes rather than nation-states. Finally, Buzan and Little remind us that without advances in the technologies of transportation, communication, production, and war, international systems would not exist in the first place.
	17	+Perception of inaction against securities fraud undermines confidence ~-~-- crushes the global economy
	18	+Lerach 2 (William, fmr. partner, Milbreg Weiss Bershad Hynes and Lerach LLP, “ENRON: LESSONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Plundering America: How American Investors Got Taken for Trillions by Corporate Insiders~-~-The Rise of the New Corporate Kleptocracy,” 8 Stan. J.L. Bus. and Fin. 69, LexisNexis
	19	+What happened was quite the opposite. Within a few years after corporate and Wall Street interests got Congress to pass the 1995 Act, "the chickens came home to roost." n28 As night follows day, after these powerful interests achieved their goal of *79 curtailing the ability of investors to hold them accountable for securities fraud, there has been a massive upsurge in securities fraud. The results are clear for all to see. Every metric to measure fraud in our markets soared. Financial scandal after financial scandal~-~-accounting restatement after accounting restatement~-~-surfaced. The huge market bubble burst, leaving investors holding a multi-trillion dollar bag, lay-offs sky-rocketed, the IPO window all but closed, and capital formation collapsed. Reality has overtaken deceit. While there have always been high-profile financial frauds~-~-Equity Funding, U.S. Financial, National Student Marketing, Penn Square Bank and Miniscribe come to mind~-~-these were isolated instances. Even the savings-and-loan scandals of the 1980s were confined to that industry. Historically, our public-company accounting has been of high quality and one of the major factors that has led to investor confidence in our markets, making them the envy of the world and helping to fuel the strong capital formation and economic growth we enjoyed for years. n29 Over the past several years, important changes in our financial markets occurred which, exacerbated by the negative consequences of the late 1990s legislative bonanza for corporate and financial interests, contributed to the massive increase in financial fraud we have witnessed. Over 9,000 new public companies were created by the IPO boom of the 1980s-1990s. Many of these new companies were smaller, high-tech or bio-tech companies where the pressure to show earnings growth was intense. Others were dot-com enterprises which had no earnings and were under pressure to show revenue increases~-~-or create apparent profits by using so-called "pro forma" accounting to generate financial results which Generally Accepted Accounting Principles would never sanction. However dubious these enterprises may have been as public companies, bringing them public generated billions in fees for the investment bankers and gargantuan returns to venture capital investors~-~-as well as making countless instant corporate insider multi-millionaires of people who had never even run a business before. But now each of these *80 companies was a public company, subject to all the pressures inherent on public companies to meet the revenue and earnings growth forecasts necessary to support a high stock price valuation. Executive compensation also changed. Executives now got cash bonuses only if earnings reached preset targets or the company's stock hit targeted prices. They received gigantic stock options, not to hold for the long term, but rather to exercise and sell each quarter, in a trading window that opened a day or two after the company reported its quarterly numbers. Also during the 1990s, the amounts paid to accounting firms by their corporate clients for consulting services skyrocketed, and the profitability of the huge accounting firms increasingly came to depend on their high-margin consulting fees from their audit clients, creating powerful incentives for these so-called "watchdogs" to accommodate their corporate clients. These were important structural changes that altered the type of public companies that dominated our financial markets, the relationship of the auditors to their corporate clients and the incentives that shape the behavior of corporate executives and their professional assistors. This explosion of new "high-growth" public companies, plus an executive-compensation system based on meeting predetermined earnings and stock-price appreciation targets, with stock options to be exercised and sold quarterly, created very powerful incentives to falsify results. This was exacerbated by executives' knowledge that markets, increasingly dominated by momentum investors, would instantly crush stocks for missing the "whisper" earnings numbers by just a penny or two. Add to this that it turned out that the supposedly "independent" accountants were routinely violating independence rules while pocketing lavish consulting payments that outweighed their audit fees many times over. While all of this was going on, Congress via the 1995 and 1998 Acts and several courts~-~-via a series of anti-investor decisions implementing these Acts~-~-were curtailing investor rights and remedies more severely than at any time since the enactment of the 1933 and 1934 Acts, n30 a toxic mixture in the making. *81 These factors created a "race to the bottom" in financial reporting that undermined the integrity of public-company financial reports which is essential to informed investor decisions, investor confidence in our markets, and the efficient allocation of capital to honest entrepreneurs whose efforts will create long-term economic job growth and positive investor returns. n31 Remember, Adam Smith's invisible hand guides us all. When there was so much to be gained by those who create the financial results of public companies by meeting expectations~-~-and so much to be lost by missing them~-~-we should not be surprised that corporate managers and their professional assistors yielded to temptation~-~-especially when their legal responsibility and accountability had been drastically curtailed. Under these circumstances, it is not hard to see the temptation to manipulate reported results - especially when the efficient market (it's really a ruthless market) would savage a stock for the slightest earnings disappointment. It is not as if Congress was not warned. Consumer, labor, and investor groups testified that the drastic cutback on investor protections and remedies for securities fraud embodied in the 1995 Act, and reduction of corporate executives' and securities professionals' accountability for misconduct that would follow, would inevitably result in an increase in securities fraud and investor losses. They told Congress this would impair investor confidence, harm capital formation and our economy. The 1995 Act was opposed by major consumer, worker, and investor groups. The vast majority of America's newspapers also editorialized against the 1995 Act. They warned that it would grant those best positioned to profit from stock inflation a license to lie and would result in a massive upsurge of fraudulent conduct and investor losses. *82 A review of these editorials is telling. How accurate their warnings and predictions were. Two bills before Congress reveal how reckless the Republicans have become in their zeal to reduce regulation. The bills~-~-which would "reform" laws governing securities firms and banks~-~-go far beyond their stated purpose of ending frivolous litigation. What they would actually do is insulate corporate officials who commit fraud from legal challenge by their victims. The securities bill would erect a nearly insurmountable barrier to suing officials who peddle recklessly false information. It would block suits against accountants, lawyers and other professionals who look the other way when the companies they serve mislead investors. The high-sounding Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 . . . might come to be remembered as legislation that steeply tilted the playing field against investors. n32 "The bill . . . would bar . . . charges of fraud against those who make false projections . . . . By granting "safe harbor" to all statements of a "forward-looking" nature, it essentially tells companies . . . . Go ahead, lie about the future . . . you can fleece investors in any way that your imagination allows." n33 Gone, if these bills ever become law, is the uniquely American system of open, accessible civil justice . . . Gone, too, would be vital rights of ordinary Americans to seek redress against fraudulent securities hucksters. . . . The "Securities Litigation Reform Act" is a gift to the boiler-room crowd in the securities profession. It would raise the standards of evidence required to bring fraud cases to court while lowering the standards of professional conduct considered legally fraudulent. n34 "Companies and their agents could make false "projections" and "estimates" of future performance, even if they were deliberate lies, without fear of lawsuits by those defrauded." n35 Talk about a twist of fate. Rep. Christopher Cox, a California Republican, wrote a tough, aggressive bill on securities-law reform, which passed the House of Representatives in March. If it becomes law, investors who think they've been defrauded will find it incredibly hard to bring a class-action lawsuit to recoup their loss. Just two months after his bill passed Cox found himself tagged by just such a suit, brought by some victims of the noxious *83 First Pension fraud. In a second suit last week, First Pension's court-appointed receiver charged Cox, among others, with contributing to the hoax. n36 How, in the light of overwhelming consumer, labor and investor group opposition and widespread editorial warnings, could this special-interest legislation have possibly been enacted? In truth, the fault lies not with the corporate and financial interests that used their financial and political power to get this legislation. After all, they were only exercising their First Amendment rights to advance their interests. Nor does it really lie with the likes of Senators Domenici, Gramm, Bennett, D'Amato n37 and their ilk, who were just doing the bidding of their corporate and financial supporters. The real responsibility lies with those in positions of public trust who defaulted, who gave in and even actively assisted these special interests to help get this legislation passed when they were in a position~-~-and had a responsibility~-~-to stop it. Notable among those who defaulted was then SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt, the quintessential man of Wall Street who became the first Chairman in history to support legislation curtailing investor protections against securities fraud. n38 Levitt *84 often bragged how he had dined every month with corporate executives to hear their views. n39 It is unfortunate he never dined with victims of securities fraud to listen to their plight. While the Levitt of late has become a prominent critic of financial abuse, in truth, he abandoned the investors he was supposed to protect when the corporate and financial interests besieged Congress in 1994-1995 and again in 1998. n40 As the new Republican Congress arrived in Washington, the SEC~-~-the investor protection agency~-~-was in the hands of only two Commissioners~-~-with three seats vacant. Clinton, paralyzed by his recent election rebuke, failed to fill the empty seats. Thus, it remained for the Chairman, former Wall Street executive Levitt, and the only commissioner, Steve Wallman, an attorney who represented the Business Roundtable, to protect investors from the new, pro-corporate Congressional onslaught that was shaping up. Instead of fighting for investors, Levitt and Wallman actually helped the corporate community and its new Republican Congress pass the most damaging assault on investor protection since the federal securities laws came into being. Next comes Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), a senior Democrat on the Banking Committee and the Chairman of the Democratic Party. n41 A purported progressive, n42 Dodd energetically championed the accounting firms and insurance and Wall Street interests, i.e., his contribution base, which all benefited so *85 handsomely from his efforts in making the attempt to gut the securities laws appear to be "bipartisan." n43 He actually led the veto override efforts to enact the 1995 Act~-~-challenging his own party's President~-~-blind to all the warnings of the frauds to come. This is a cautionary tale of how money and power and the promise of lucrative post-Beltway staff jobs can produce special interest legislation that harms America's workers and investors~-~-and in the end all of us. F. The "Cop on the Beat" Sleeps Also in the mix here was the failure of the SEC~-~-the supposed "cop on the beat"~-~-to do its job. Despite some public "jawboning" and an aggressive public-relations program casting former SEC Chairman Levitt as an investor's champion, n44 after the SEC was turned over to that alumnus of Wall Street, the SEC was anything but aggressive in cracking down on financial manipulation and insider trading by corporate executives. n45 Until recently, the SEC was headed by a lawyer who, while in *86 private practice, championed passage of the 1995 Act and represented the big accounting firms, Wall Street banks, and some of the corporations which are among those whose credibility has been tarnished and are under regulatory scrutiny. n46 He even wrote an article telling them how to cover their tracks by destroying incriminating evidence before anyone has sued them. n47 According to Forbes, in October, 2000 video cameras recorded Pitt giving a seminar for in-house corporate counsel and saying that chief financial officers whose e-mails detail too-cozy conversations with analysts about earnings estimates should "destroy" the incriminating messages "because somebody is going to find this, and it will probably be the SEC when they investigate." n48 Incredibly, this new head of the SEC early on signaled he wanted a "gentler" relationship with the accounting profession and that his SEC might actually seek to further restrict corporate liability for false forecasts. n49 In a belated response to the upsurge in corporate fraud, Pitt put forth what are at best meek proposals. For instance, Pitt recently had the SEC require corporate CEOs and CFOs to "swear" that their corporate financial results are accurate. n50 But the securities laws have required CEOs and CFOs to prepare and file accurate financial reports for public companies for sixty-eight years! CEOs and CFOs have had to sign corporate 10-Ks and 10-Qs for years. Wilfully filing false financial statements has long been a felony, subject to a prison term, since 1934. n51 And do you doubt that Enron's, WorldCom's, Adelphia's, Dynegy's, Qwest's, RiteAid's, and Global Crossing's CEOs and CFOs would have so sworn, if they had not been previously exposed. This would be humorous, if it weren't so sad. n52 *87 It now is clear that the worst stock market debacle in the history of postwar America did not just happen by chance or by the greed of the masses (although they were invaluable participants, as the sucker always is) but happened in large part because of conspiracy, greed in high places, incredible ignorance by those in high places, and a federal regulatory failure of unique proportions . . . . . . In the Internet/high-tech boom, completely worthless companies, with no prospect of earnings, were flogged insanely by the very people who should have been labeling them as unsound, the "analysts" and "market gurus" of the big investment banks. Companies that existed as no more than dreams and fantasies were touted as multi-billion dollar entities by people and investment houses whose job was to defend against exactly such viruses. What happened did not happen by accident, and a full accounting is owed to the people who were fleeced. n53 G. Pro-Corporate Courts Protect Fraudsters The courts are also responsible. For instance, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers the high-tech and venture-capital havens of California (the Silicon Valley) and Washington (the Silicon Forest), which pushed so hard for the 1995 Act, was once a progressive court with a reputation for protecting investors. n54 Yet since the 1995 Act it has thrown 18 consecutive securities fraud suits by investors out of court. Eighteen times in a row, using the 1995 Act, the Ninth Circuit has sided with corporate interests and closed the courthouse door to defrauded investors. Not one complaint out of 18 upheld or permitted to go forward! It all started with the Ninth Circuit's 2-1 In re Silicon Graphics decision in 1999, n55 one of the first to interpret the 1995 Act's elevated pleading standard which laid out a roadmap for judges who wanted to use that pleading standard to bar defrauded investors from pursuing any remedy and thus insulate corporate fraudsters from liability. n56 That precedent has resulted in an unbroken string of *88 follow-on affirmances of dismissals of securities class action suits by the Ninth Circuit n57 and the dismissal of scores of cases in the lower courts in the Ninth Circuit where judges are bound to follow Silicon Graphics. Given the current revelations of the gross frauds that have infested our securities markets in recent years, is it really reasonable to conclude that investors who sued in the Ninth Circuit have been unable to plead a securities fraud case in sufficient detail eighteen times in a row? The conduct of some judges in using the 1995 Act to block valid securities suits has contributed to the attitude of executive arrogance that led to the upsurge in corporate fraud. Can you imagine the stockholder fraud suits filed against WorldCom and Ebbers n58 in March 2000 and against Tyco and Kozlowski n59 in December 1999 alleging securities fraud were thrown out of court by federal judges? These were detailed complaints setting forth major frauds. Their allegations were true. Yet judges used the 1995 Act to throw these cases out of court, denying damaged investors any remedy and allowing these very serious frauds to continue~-~-ultimately inflicting far greater harm on investors. A shareholder suit against Oracle and Larry Ellison, where Ellison sold off 900 million dollars of stock just a few weeks before Oracle revealed financial reversals and the stock collapsed, was also dismissed. n60 These are not isolated examples. Many other procorporate judges have repeatedly used the 1995 Act to protect dishonest corporate executives who falsify financial statements while insider trading and bar innocent investors from court. n61 *89 Forbes, one of the most probusiness and anti-lawyer publications in our Country, was scandalized by the dismissal of the WorldCom suit. It wrote: Over a year ago a raft of former WorldCom employees gave statements outlining a scandalous litany of misdeeds~-~-deliberately understating costs, hiding bad debt, backdating contracts to book orders earlier than accounting rules allow. But it appears that WorldCom's directors never followed up to investigate the allegations . . . They should have. The alleged chicanery served to falsify hundreds of millions of dollars in profit and sales to give a veneer of stability and strength to WorldCom. The unheeded accusations first emerged in June 2001 n62 with the filing of a shareholder lawsuit against WorldCom in federal court on its home turf, Jackson, Miss. The complaint was backed by 100 interviews with former WorldCom employees and related parties. The allegations were startling in their breadth and detail. In smacking down the class action, the judge decreed: "The numbers are so large, the stakes were so high, and the fall of the dollar value of WorldCom stock so precipitous, that the reader reacts by thinking that there must have been some corporate misbehavior . . . However, after a thorough examination, it becomes apparent that the Complaint is a classic example of 'puzzle pleading,'" or using an onrush of "cross-references and repetition" in lieu of real substance. n63 Judge Barbour was an ideal adjudicator for the home team . . . Barbour and his family reside in a state where WorldCom was the biggest source of local pride and a major supplier of high-paying jobs. Mississippi is undergoing a highly charged tort reform battle, with Republicans squarely on the side of curtailing shareholder lawsuits. A Reagan appointee to the bench . . . Barbour is a first cousin and former law partner of Haley Barbour, former Republican National Committee chairman and now a high-powered Washington lobbyist mulling a run for Mississippi governor . . . . *90 More intriguing still, Judge Barbour's second cousin, Henry Barbour, is the campaign chairman for U.S. Representative Charles W. (Chip) Pickering. The Mississippi Republican was the largest congressional recipient of contributions from MCI, WorldCom and related individuals, receiving $ 83,750 from 1989 to 2002. n64 With judicial protection like this, it is no wonder corporate executives became emboldened and misbehaved~-~-and investors ended up damaged and dismayed! Investors realize that purchasing securities entails risks, including the risk of loss. But if victims of securities fraud perceive that they have lost a fair chance to hold perpetrators legally responsible, that has to contribute to undermining investor confidence. n65 If corporate executives realize they can get away with it they will be all the more emboldened to try to do so. The truth is, in the last half of the 1990s, Congress, the SEC and several courts caved in to the corporate and financial interests and badly impaired the investor protections historically provided by our federal securities laws. n66 As a *91 result, the integrity of public~-~-company financial reporting and disclosure practices became severely undermined at the very time the IPO boom and the greatest bull market in history roared on~-~-attracting all-time record levels of pension funds' and individuals' investment of retirement savings monies. These investors got creamed. Over 14 trillion dollars was lost in just over two years~-~-a lot of that due to fraud.
	20	+Economic collapse causes war.
	21	+Harris and Burrows 9 Mathew, PhD European History @ Cambridge, counselor in the National Intelligence Council (NIC) and Jennifer is a member of the NIC’s Long Range Analysis Unit “Revisiting the Future: Geopolitical Effects of the Financial Crisis” http://www.ciaonet.org/journals/twq/v32i2/f_0016178_13952.pdf Increased Potential for Global Conflict
	22	+Of course, the report encompasses more than economics and indeed believes the future is likely to be the result of a number of intersecting and interlocking forces. With so many possible permutations of outcomes, each with ample Revisiting the Future opportunity for unintended consequences, there is a growing sense of insecurity. Even so, history may be more instructive than ever. While we continue to believe that the Great Depression is not likely to be repeated, the lessons to be drawn from that period include the harmful effects on fledgling democracies and multiethnic societies (think Central Europe in 1920s and 1930s) and on the sustainability of multilateral institutions (think League of Nations in the same period). There is no reason to think that this would not be true in the twenty-first as much as in the twentieth century. For that reason, the ways in which the potential for greater conflict could grow would seem to be even more apt in a constantly volatile economic environment as they would be if change would be steadier. In surveying those risks, the report stressed the likelihood that terrorism and nonproliferation will remain priorities even as resource issues move up on the international agenda. Terrorism’s appeal will decline if economic growth continues in the Middle East and youth unemployment is reduced. For those terrorist groups that remain active in 2025, however, the diffusion of technologies and scientific knowledge will place some of the world’s most dangerous capabilities within their reach. Terrorist groups in 2025 will likely be a combination of descendants of long established groups_inheriting organizational structures, command and control processes, and training procedures necessary to conduct sophisticated attacks_and newly emergent collections of the angry and disenfranchised that become self-radicalized, particularly in the absence of economic outlets that would become narrower in an economic downturn. The most dangerous casualty of any economically-induced drawdown of U.S. military presence would almost certainly be the Middle East. Although Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons is not inevitable, worries about a nuclear-armed Iran could lead states in the region to develop new security arrangements with external powers, acquire additional weapons, and consider pursuing their own nuclear ambitions. It is not clear that the type of stable deterrent relationship that existed between the great powers for most of the Cold War would emerge naturally in the Middle East with a nuclear Iran. Episodes of low intensity conflict and terrorism taking place under a nuclear umbrella could lead to an unintended escalation and broader conflict if clear red lines between those states involved are not well established. The close proximity of potential nuclear rivals combined with underdeveloped surveillance capabilities and mobile dual-capable Iranian missile systems also will produce inherent difficulties in achieving reliable indications and warning of an impending nuclear attack. The lack of strategic depth in neighboring states like Israel, short warning and missile flight times, and uncertainty of Iranian intentions may place more focus on preemption rather than defense, potentially leading to escalating crises. 36 Types of conflict that the world continues to experience, such as over resources, could reemerge, particularly if protectionism grows and there is a resort to neo-mercantilist practices. Perceptions of renewed energy scarcity will drive countries to take actions to assure their future access to energy supplies. In the worst case, this could result in interstate conflicts if government leaders deem assured access to energy resources, for example, to be essential for maintaining domestic stability and the survival of their regime. Even actions short of war, however, will have important geopolitical implications. Maritime security concerns are providing a rationale for naval buildups and modernization efforts, such as China’s and India’s development of blue water naval capabilities. If the fiscal stimulus focus for these countries indeed turns inward, one of the most obvious funding targets may be military. Buildup of regional naval capabilities could lead to increased tensions, rivalries, and counterbalancing moves, but it also will create opportunities for multinational cooperation in protecting critical sea lanes. With water also becoming scarcer in Asia and the Middle East, cooperation to manage changing water resources is likely to be increasingly difficult both within and between states in a more

EntryDate

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	1	+2016-11-06 05:48:12.849

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	1	+Calen Smith

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	1	+Loyola CH

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	1	+7

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	1	+2

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	1	+Palos Verdes Le Barillec Neg

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	1	+NOVDEC - Court Clog

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	1	+Damus