The VonFrederick 

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February 2007  Volume 4 Issue 2

  Feature Article:

Sarbanes-Oxley Safeguards Against Corporate Terrorism

Dr. Melissa K  Luke,  The Von Frederick Group

The egregious acts conducted by organizational leaders in large public companies such as Enron, Tyco, MCI World-Com, Global Crossing, and Arthur Andersen have served to demonstrate a critical need for the creation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (The Act). The primary intention of this new federal law is to protect individual investors from fraudulent activities of publicly traded entities. The Act will not eliminate corporate fraud in its entirety, but it will monitor the fiscal responsibility through all management levels within publicly traded entities. Most of the reporting requirements in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act came into full effect in 2005.

Although corporate terrorism was not the original intention of the Act, some unintended results on publicly traded companies may have been implemented that may have a positive affect to the business culture and organizational safety of these entities in safeguarding themselves against acts of terrorism. 

Between the years of 1998 through 2001, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reported 1,596 securities professionals, under Section 703(a)(1) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, aided or abetted in violations of the federal securities laws. The most frequently abused violation made by securities professionals were identified as violations under the antifraud provisions of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Exchange Act of 1934. Those included in the report were public accounting firms, public accountants, securities brokers, dealers, investment advisors and investment bankers who practice before the SEC. These are potential areas a terrorist will use to penetrate a corporation’s financial longevity through bribery and monetary pay-offs.

Chief executives were found responsible for inflating corporate financial statements to shareholders and Wall Street analysts, when in reality the organizations were fraudulently concealing large amounts of debt and financial inaccuracies; a terrorist's play field. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act adopted by Congress and signed by President George W. Bush on July 30th, 2002, was enacted, in which to require all entities operating within the realms of the Commission’s jurisdiction must comply “To protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures made pursuant to the securities laws, and for other purposes”. 

As a result of this new law, the following changes have been imposed on publicly traded firms, which include, but are not limited to:

1) Auditor Independence:
The practice and scope of auditing, pre-approval requirements, auditor rotation, reporting, conforming standards, conflicts, and regulatory authorities considerations.

2) Corporate Responsibility:
Audit committees, conduct, bonuses and profits, penalties, insider trading, responsibilities of attorneys and investor funds.

3) Enhanced Financial Disclosures: 
Periodic reports, conflict of interest, principle stockholders, internal controls, ethics, and disclosures.

4) Analysts Conflict of Interest: 
Security analyst treatment by regulatory and self-regulatory agencies.

5) Commission Resources & Authority: 
Appropriateness, authorization, appearance before the Commission, penny stocks, qualifications of broker and dealers.

6) Studies and Reports: 
Public accounting consolidations, credit rating agencies, violators and violations, enforcement actions, and investment banks.

7) Corporate & Criminal Fraud Accountability:
Alteration of documents & criminal penalties, debts, securities fraud statute of limitations, obstruction of justice, protection of employees, and criminal penalties.

8) White Collar Crime Penalty Enhancements:
Conspiracy, mail and wire fraud, Employee Retirement Income, and corporate responsibility.

9) Corporate Tax Returns: 
Corporate tax returns & signatory rights of chief executive officers.

10) Corporate Fraud & Accountability:
Tampering of records, temporary freeze of documents, sentencing guidelines, criminal penalties, and informant retaliation.

Most areas addressed in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act will not only protect a public company from corporate malfeasance, but the safeguards imposed will also tighten the organizations internal threats against corporate terrorism. Plan to make Sarbanes-Oxley your #1 issue for implementation.

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What Price Freedom?

George A. Torres, MBA, Law Enforcement Specialist

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty." … John F. Kennedy

Once again the enemy is at our gates demanding surrender. Islamic Fundamentalist threatens the destruction of America. What is the response of liberals? Nancy Pelosi says we need to treat the enemy with “the Golden Rule” and told Brit Hume “Iraq is not a war but a problem that needs to be fixed”. Liberals advocate “negotiations” or “appeasement”, believing Islamic Fascist will see their compassion, their desire and willingness to live in peace and end their aggression. One has to wonder in what universe they reside. The party of JFK has been hijacked by egotistical Liberals who follow the delusions of Liberalism while seeing themselves as heroes of freedom.

The heroes of freedom are not politicians who protect by legislation or Hollywood leftist who defeat our enemies in two hour movies. The freedoms we enjoy today were secured with the blood of proud tradition of Americans willing to fight tyranny. While each American death in Iraq is tragic, these brave souls answered the call and volunteered to give the ultimate sacrifice to provide security and liberty for Americans, as well as Iraqis. 

In the Revolutionary War about 33,000 gave their lives for the creation of our great country. In the War Between the States over 558,000 gave their lives to preserve the Union and ultimately end slavery. During World War II over 407,000 Americans gave their lives to prevent the tyranny of Nazism and Japanese Imperialism, 90,000 alone in the Battle of the Bulge, Christmas 1944. In the Vietnam War over 58,000 Americans gave their lives defeating the Communist only to have liberal politicians surrender, resulting in tyranny and the murder of millions.

Over a million Americans have given the ultimate sacrifice to preserve our freedom and liberty for others. President Harry Truman said, "I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." British P.M. Tony Blair noted, “Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you: 1. Jesus Christ 2. The American G. I. One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.” Can it be said any better?

At this moment in history freedom is facing another threat. In 1943, Soleyman al-Asad said, “The spirit of hatred and fanaticism imbedded in the hearts of the Arab Muslims against everything that is non-Muslim has been perpetually nurtured by the Islamic religion. There is no hope that the situation will ever change.” In 1998 al-Qaida spokesman Suleiman Abu Ghaith said, “There can be no truce until we have killed four million Americans, whereupon the rest can convert to Islam.” As Ronald Reagan noted, "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” 

Today liberty is facing extinction from internal and external forces. During the last fifty years Liberal academia, politicians and media have used the freedoms earned by others to re-write history and misinform society to meet a political agenda. As noted by Philosopher David Hume "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." What is lost to Liberals is attacks on freedom by ideologies that oppose it are relentless; the cost of freedom is great; and we must “bear any burden” to ensure its survival. Unfortunately, Liberal academia has dumbed-down so many Americans that the sacrifices for liberty made by our forefathers are lost on today’s “instant gratification-entitlement” generation.

Those who know history understand what is at stake. The war in Iraq is not a “problem that needs to be fixed”, but one battlefield in a war against religious tyranny. The price of victory will be great and achieving the goal, the preservation of freedom, will pay homage to those who have already made payment.

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I had a nightmare and saw why we lost World War two! 

What finally did it was when our war President came on the public airwaves in the USA and in Germany during the Battle of the Bulge. He publicly apologized for the swift sentencing to the firing squad of the German spies caught in civilian clothing or US army uniforms and equipment and creating havoc and bringing destruction to the Allied supply lines. 

That was a shameful and un-American act lowering us to the level of the enemy we were fighting.

The outcry from the German public opinion, that was daily broadcasted by our media on the Home-front, was the cause of that historical moment that was quickly followed by a unilateral withdrawal of our troops from Europe, the signing of a peace treaty with Adolf Hitler and the return to the isolationism that served us well until we were dragged in that murderous conflict in 1941, long after most of Europe was under the Nazi boot.

We should have seen it coming earlier, when the Red Cross condemned the internment of Japanese and Italian Americans, thus exposing us as the hypocritical nation we were: a so called Democracy at war, fighting a couple of dictatorships while rounding up potential enemies or spies in the name of an outdated concept of National Security.

We should have seen it coming when our war reporters in the cities of Dresden or Tokyo reported live the inhumane slaughter of thousands of unarmed civilians burning alive under the rain of US incendiary bombs. They unveiled military actions that went far beyond the legitimate show of power and diplomatic sanctions that should have followed Pearl Harbor and the loss of the Pacific to the misguided but still humane, and forgivable, Axis forces. After all, our media and intellectuals said it well: were we not a little responsible for the anger the assailants had for us?

We should have seen it coming when a teary Peter Pumpkin, the American favorite newscaster, conducted an emotional interview of Mr. A. Hitler in the middle of the leveled city of Berlin. The heart wrenching, and first hand descriptions of what the German people had to endure from Allied forces dedicated to crushing the Fuhrer’s dream of a happy and united Europe of playful blond haired and blue eyed children, was just a Pulitzer sized masterpiece. Finally, thanks to the dedication of our free responsible press sponsored by Goebbels himself, Joe and Jane Doe got to hear it at home, from Adolf’s broken English. They got the sad vision of the shattered German dreams of European happiness and unity from Madrid to Moscow: one land for one people under one enlightened leader….the American dream that could have been true in Europe!

We should have seen it coming when finally the wonderful US concept that “dissention is patriotic” was successfully applied all over America through anti-war and flag burning demonstrations fueled by some politicians and major media. 
We should have seen it coming when our Hollywood icons chained themselves to our tanks, burned their draft cards or went to entertain German Armies, while doing drugs and having the promiscuous superficial lives modern role models should have.
We should have seen it coming when on the European and Pacific theatres, the enemy started to accuse our soldiers of standing for our values, fighting too hard for their cause, for their lives, firing their weapons or refusing to give up. Once exposed, these despicable un-American behaviors quickly led to the trial and repatriation of the culprits but the damages were done and the American flag stained forever. 

Yes, .we should have seen it coming and spared America, the Home of the Brave and the Land of the Free, with the shame of fighting its enemies. We understood that salvation was in forgiveness and that a shameful peace was the only alternative to war. 

May 8 1945, now celebrated as Bratwurst day, the president had lunch in Berlin, signed a peace treaty, and hugged Mr. Hitler while his wife played piano with Eva Braun. Two months later, he visited Japanese Emperor Hirohito, renounced his imperialistic claims on some meager Pacific possessions, dedicated the Missouri memorial to the Japanese pilot murdered at Pear Harbor and bought a Japanese car.

The folly of war was over, and Americans could now serenely go back to their pursuit of happiness, knowing that the whereabouts of every single one of its war criminals, former hateful servicemen and women that dared fight bravely the poor Germans and Japanese misguided people, was monitored and that a database of their addresses was easily accessible at the local library.

God Bless America! 


NB Fiction...? Think again!

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The pattern emerging for juvenile offenders in many parts of the country is one that emphasizes punishment over rehabilitation. This pattern is not, however, new. It has been taking shape since the late 1970s, until there are now more juveniles confined than ever before, despite the fact that the juvenile population nationwide has dropped.

Crowding and state budget constraints, moreover, have meant that relatively little is made available for the kinds of intensive educational and therapeutic programs that advocates believe necessary to prepare youths in confinement for re-entry into the community. The emergence of a retribution and just-deserts model for juveniles has gone hand in hand with a public and political unwillingness to allocate resources to children, particularly those who commit crimes.

 The spirit of punitiveness toward youths adjudicated delinquent – the term used in the juvenile system for “found guilty” – prevails even though the actual number of serious offenders is small. Most juveniles in custody are there for non-violent or property offenses. But violent crimes highly publicized by the media have led legislatures to enact an array of mandatory and determinate sentencing laws that are packing juvenile detention centers and training schools around the country

According to the Federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (O.J.J.D.P), 8 out of 10 juvenile admissions are to institutional rather non-incarcerative settings. Most of the youths are between 14 and 17. But in the large congregate care institutions that continue to be extensively used, not only is it difficult to implement what rehabilitative programs do exist, there is also greater likelihood of physical violence, particularly as crowding intensifies. In addition, staff abuses in settings of this type, such as excessive isolation and physical restraints for punishment, have been frequently documented.

But resistance on the part of state and local juvenile justice officials to experiment with such programs on a wide scale remains strong in regions with an entrenched reliance on the institutional model. And, solid changes are not yet to be expected: the will to do right for at-risk-youths is not present in these times of crime, violence, and terrorism.

We must re-emphasize treatment for the juveniles. As a criminologist, I am aware that some teenagers are sociopaths and psychopaths who cannot be rehabilitated. We are not communicating about the incorrigibles. But most are still growing and capable of change under the right circumstances. How can we, as a society, just give up on a 13 year old? Would you do that to you child?…

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She can be fictitious or flesh and blood; she can use her fists, a gun or knife to maim or kill a man in a love or sex-related situation. One thing is certain: At a time when crime and violence are among the top concerns of most people, the Violent Femme is a compelling vision – one of tabloid television’s favorite subjects and a bottomless source of material for jokes and chatter among the general public. She has become a national figure.

But is she real? More importantly, is she on the rise – or even a trend? With all the media and mass cultural attention, we might easily believe that – having spent human history tied down, boxed in and beaten up – women are turning the tables of abuse on men. We might start to think that violence, like distance running, has become world-wide sport in which men are soon to be outdone. We might even conclude that the numbers of men suffering from battered- boyfriend syndrome will soon eclipse the amount of domestic violence cases perpetrated by men against women.

If so, we would be dead wrong. Violent tendencies are by no means the province of men alone. But all reliable statistics point in the other direction: When it comes to serious physical abuse, women are still overwhelmingly on the receiving end. Case studies indicate that while psychological profiles of battered men are similar to those of battered women, there are key differences that modify the nature and severity of abuse. And though abused men do not have the emergency support services available to their female counterparts, this may be precisely because they need them less. 

So, while images of abusive women hog the spotlight, a disproportionate number of numbing stories about abused women are relegated to the back pages of newspapers – and the back burner of mass consciousness. Violent Femme tales have made us lose our taste for all-too-true stories of flesh-and-blood women who suffer at the hands of violent men.
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Tempus Virtuous

(good), adj., morally excellent; kind, beneficent; honorable or worthy

It had been raining cats and dogs as we twisted and turned up one holler and down and around another. We were smack dab in Ozark country in the middle of Branson, Missouri, on our way to Predator World. ‘Holler’ is a local term for the hills, dales and hollows a person must traverse to get to one end of Branson to the other. We needed to be on the other end. It’s beautiful country to live in, and visit, as I was doing over the Christmas holiday. We, including my self were a motley bunch in a big ol’ pick-up truck running on diesel fuel: in the back seat nestled next to me were two little boys, my nephews who are too smart for their own good (and keeping out of trouble by way of playing their hand-held Game Boys), a tall Nordic beauty, my sister, (and mother to the boys) was squeezed up front between our 78 year old, and endearingly zany mother with memory impairment (she had had always been zany, the memory started fading a couple years ago), and her hyper vigilant husband who was manning the wheel and keeping us on course.

Predator World. The very title conjured up grand expectations especially having perused the slick and professional brochure my sister had picked up a couple days before. We were looking forward to encountering dangerous creatures “unlike any zoo or aquarium”-- incredible displays allowing us to come face to face as if we were in the predator’s ecosystem. Imagine our surprise and commentary to find ourselves pulling into a mud puddle of a parking lot and see a building that was slapped together with Styrofoam, sheets of plywood, and some chain link fencing. The best of our profundity was the two large, pre-dilapidated, white Geodesic buildings which certainly were not the typical architecture for the countrified-style buildings of Branson.

The interior was but a step up (yes, we took our chances regardless of what the exterior implied, and paid the entrance fee). At the first exhibit, I had concern for one of the terrariums featuring a blue Poison Dart frog out of the Amazon. I could have easily lifted the top off the terrarium if I wanted to create chaos among the management. However, before entering the exhibits, we all had to swear to a promise not to tap the glass or stick our hands into any of the habitats. As we walked the low-lit maze of one exhibit after another, we became awe-struck regardless of the misleading brochure and lack of superlative quarters. We did come face to beak, muzzle or snout, as the case may be, with exotic animals that many American zoos would deem too dangerous and/or could not handle. We saw our first African Black Mamba only inches away from the viewing glass; next it was a Gaboon Viper ,and then on to the Australian Brown snake--one of the most deadliest slithering reptiles known on the southerly continent. My nephews fed Nursery sharks with a fish on a stick and nuggets of fish meal to stingrays popping up the side of an aquarium. The outside exhibits, with some reservation, offered extraordinary encounters with a Puma living with a Cervil; two well-fed Siberian tigers lounging on a grassy knoll; and a Bengal tiger sharing his habitat with an Asian Black bear.

My brother-in-law and I wondered aloud what kept the outdoor predators from escaping from what we estimated to be very low fencing. A nearby handler answered, “why would they want to escape?” Actually, the fencing was electrified, but we were still amazed by the variety of predators in Predator World. More significantly, we learned most of these animals had been rescued from previous owners. People most likely looking to entertain family and friends with something deadly and exotic. Somewhere in the life of these creatures they were no longer wanted or became a danger only to become a throw-away. We, a motley bunch well versed in social appropriateness and sophistication first entered Predator World unimpressed by the worrisome building. We exited with a humble realization these predators had been taken in, rescued and are being handled kindly and worthy of their existence. I caught goodness in an unexpected place that rainy day in the Ozarks.
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Did You Know? Michelle Glisan Blevins         

• That nearly half the population of Liberia lives in its capital city Monrovia, named after US President James Monroe

• That the University of Liberia in Monrovia opened in 1862 is one of the oldest in Africa

• That the 5% of Liberians who are the descendents of the freeborn African Americans and former slaves who settled in Liberia in the 1800s are known as Americo-Liberians

• That current Liberian president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, is the daughter of the first indigenous Liberian elected to the national legislature and the first female to be elected as a head-of-state in Africa

• That between 1989-1996 and again between 1999-2003 Liberia underwent two civil wars

The Liberian flag, based on the design of the United States flag, has 11 equal alternating horizontal bands of red and white and a five-pointed white star on a field of blue on the upper hoist side.

ENRICO FERMI

Enrico Fermi

9-29-1901 to 11-28-1954

Born in Rome, Italy, Fermi was an accomplished theoretical and experimental physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1938. Sometimes known as the “Architect of the Nuclear Age”, Enrico Fermi immigrated with his wife to America during World War II where he was appointed Professor of Physics at Columbia University. He was a lead scientist for the Manhattan Project working hard to develop the atomic bomb, though he later argued against the development of the hydrogen bomb. Fermi died of stomach cancer at the age of 53.

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How to Escape from a Mountain Lion

1. Do not run.
   The animal most likely will have seen and smelled you already, and running will simply cause it to pay more attention.

2. Try to make yourself appear bigger by opening your coat wide.
   The mountain lion is less likely to attack a larger animal.

3. Do not crouch down. 
   Hold your ground, wave your hands, and shout. Show it that you are not defenseless. 

4. If you have small children with you, pick them up- do all you can to appear larger.
   Children, who move quickly and have high-pitched voices, are at higher risk than adults.

5. Back away slowly or wait until the animal moves away.
   Report any lion sightings to authorities as soon as possible.

6. If the lion still behaves aggressively, throw stones.
   Convince the lion that you are not prey and that you may be dangerous yourself. 

7. Fight back if you are attacked.
   Most mountain lions are small enough that the average size human will be able to ward off an attack by fighting back aggressively. Hit the mountain lion in the head, especially around the eyes and mouth. Use sticks, fists, or whatever is at hand. Do not curl up and play dead. Mountain lions generally leap down upon prey from above and deliver a “killing bite” to the back of the neck. Their technique is to break the neck and knock down the prey, and they also will rush and lunge up at the neck of prey, dragging the victim down while holding the neck in a crushing grip. Protect your neck and throat at all costs.
   

HOW TO AVOID AN ATTACK

If none of these options is feasible, you have two other choices.

• Mountain lions, also called cougars, have been known to attack people without provocation; aggressive ones have attacked hikers and especially small children, resulting in serious injury. Still, most mountain lions will avoid people. To minimize your contact with cougars in an area inhabited by them, avoid hiking alone and at dusk and dawn, when mountain lions are more active. 

.(Piven and Borgenicht)

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The VonFrederick Group

Phone: (877) 207-1300
Fax:     (916) 488-7531
Email:

Dr. Lionel C.M. VonFrederick Rawlins
Lionel@VonFrederick.com

Dr. Melissa K. Luke
Melissa@VonFrederick.com

George A. Torres, MBA
George@VonFrederick.com

Eric Chevreuil
Eric@VonFrederick.com

Pat McLane
Pat@VonFrederick.com

Albert Globus, MD
Al@VonFrederick.com

General Clifford L. Stanely, Ph.D.
Cliff@VonFrederick.com

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