Wiki: Peter Videnieks

Peter Videnieks is a Commissioner with the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He was recently reappointed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for a second two-year term expiring December 31, 2010.

Prior to his appointment, Videnieks served on the staff of Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV).

Biography

Videnieks' wife, Barbara Videnieks, also served on Senator Byrd's staff. During the early-1990s, she was Chief of Staff. On the evening of August 9, 1991, freelance writer Danny Casolaro intended to meet in Martinsburg, West Virginia, with two employees of Senator Byrd's staff. Barbara Videnieks was believed to be related to one of Casolaro's contacts.

Shortly before noon, the following day, Casolaro was found dead in his hotel bathtub, the apparent victim of a suspicious suicide. Casolaro had been researching material for Inslaw Inc. and that material had centered on Inslaw's arguments in a very contentious bankruptcy liquidation case against the United States Department of Justice.

Inslaw

Videnieks was the Contract Officer who oversaw Inslaw Inc.'s Promis contract for the Management Division of the United States Department of Justice. Prior to joining the DoJ, Videnieks had administered three contracts between the Customs Service and Hadron Inc. Hadron was a competitor to Inslaw, and was under the direction of controlling shareholder, Earl Brian, the former California health secretary under Gov. Ronald Reagan from 1971-3.

At the time of Inslaw's contracts with Justice, Brian had become a venture-capitalist with a suspected connection to Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey's covert intelligence operations. During investigations surrounding the Inslaw Affair, Brian was accused of receiving a stolen copy of Inslaw's Promis software from Videnieks.

In a court affidavit filed on March 21, 1991, by Michael Riconosciuto, on behalf of Inslaw's case, Riconosciuto claimed that "the Justice Department stole the Promis software as part of a payoff to Brian for helping to get some Iranian leaders to collude in the so-called October surprise." Moreover, Riconosciuto named both Brian and Videnieks as being "among the frequent visitors" to the Cabazon Indian Reservation in Indio, California, where the Cabazon Band of Indians had formed a joint venture with the Wackenhut Corporation of Coral Gables, Florida, to developed and market munitions "to support the needs of a number of foreign governments and forces, including forces and governments in Central America and the Middle East." By the early-1990s, the joint venture was rumored to be a California extension of the Iranian and Nicaraguan policy objectives of President Ronald Reagan's White House staff, more commonly known as the Iran Contra Affair.

Riconosciuto was a shady character with equally as shady contacts in black ops, according to the Executive Summary of the House Judiciary Investigation on Inslaw. He claimed to have been directed by Brian to reprogram Inslaw's software sometime between 1983–84 so that it could be sold to dozens of foreign governments with a secret "back door" which allowed outsiders to track individuals using the Promis software. Riconosciuto further claimed that Videnieks in a telephone conversation prior to Riconosciuto's filing of his affidavit threatened Riconosciuto's family with DoJ reprisals if Riconosciuto divulged any of this information in his initial interviews with House Judiciary investigators. Eight days after he filed his affidavit, Riconosciuto was arrested on serious drug charges, then later convicted, and sentenced to 30 years in federal prison. Soon afterwards, Riconosciuto's wife was arrested on child custody charges; she eventually lost custody of their children. During Riconosciuto's Tacoma, Washington, trial in which Riconosciuto claimed that he had been "set up" by the government on fraudulent drug charges, Videnieks denied ever having known Riconosciuto.

To this day, there has never been any reliable or conclusive documentation in support of Riconosciuto's allegations. Riconosciuto claimed to have made three tape recordings of their telephone conversation; however no tapes to corrobrate Riconosciuto's claims have ever surfaced. Additionally, in House Judiciary investigations into the Inslaw Affair both Brian and Videnieks "denied under oath even knowing each other" though the House Judiciary investigating committee received information from Margaret Wiencek and John Schoolmeester in apparent contradiction to both Brian and Videnieks.

Other

Videnieks has been an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) revenue officer. (One of two Enterprise Computing Centers for the IRS is located in Martinsburg, West Virginia.)..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Videnieks

Wiki: Frank Carlucci

Frank Charles Carlucci III (born October 18, 1930) served as the United States Secretary of Defense from 1987 to 1989 in the administration of President Ronald Reagan. Prior to that, Carlucci served in a variety of senior-level governmental positions, including Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity in the Richard Nixon administration, Deputy Director of the CIA in the Jimmy Carter administration, and Deputy Secretary of Defense and National Security Advisor in the Reagan administration.

Carlucci was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the son of Roxanne (née Bacon) and Frank Charles Carlucci, Jr., an insurance broker. His father was of Italian and Swiss descent.[1] He graduated from Wyoming Seminary in 1948 and Princeton University in 1952, where he roomed with Donald Rumsfeld, and attended Harvard Business School for an MBA in 1954-55. He was a Naval officer from 1952-54. He joined the Foreign Service, working for the State Department from 1956 until 1969. In 1961 he participated in a CIA mission to Congo.

According to James Schlesinger, following the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the new Prime Minister of the Congo, Cyrille Adoula, began a meeting with President John F. Kennedy with the question "Ou est Carlucci?" (Where is Carlucci?), since Carlucci was suspected to be one of the CIA officials who oversaw the murder of Lumumba. Kennedy first responded "Who the hell is Carlucci?'" and then sent Dean Rusk to find him.[2]

In the year 2000, a film called Lumumba portrayed him as being involved during his service in Congo in the murder of Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba. Carlucci furiously denied the charges, and successfully went to court to prevent being named in the film when it was released in the United States....

...Carlucci served as chairman of the Carlyle Group from 1992–2003, and chairman emeritus until 2005. He also has business interests in the following companies: General Dynamics, Westinghouse, Ashland Oil, Neurogen, CB Commercial Real Estate, Nortel, BDM International, Quaker Oats, and Kaman. Carlucci is Chairman of Envion USA, and former director of Wackenhut. He is a co-founder and senior member of the Frontier Group, a private equity investment firm co-founded by David Robb (formerly with The Carlyle Group) and to which Sanford McDonnell and Norm Augustine are senior advisors...

He is affiliated with the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a conservative think tank.[citation needed] He formerly sat on the Board of Directors of the Middle East Policy Council.[citation needed] He is Chairman Emeritus of the US-Taiwan Business Council [1]. Carlucci is a member of the Board of Trustees of the RAND Corporation and founding co-chair of the Advisory Board for RAND's Center for Middle East Public Policy.[citation needed] He is also a member of the Honorary Board of the Drug Policy Alliance, a group which advocates drug legalization.[5]...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Carlucci

Wiki: G4S

G4S plc (formerly Group 4 Securicor) is a British multinational security services company headquartered in central London.[3] It is the world's largest security company measured by revenues and has operations in around 125 countries.[2][4] With over 620,000 employees, it is world's second largest private employer, and the largest on the London Stock Exchange. G4S was founded in 2004 by the merger of the UK-based Securicor plc with the Denmark-based Group 4 Falck.

G4S has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index, having been relegated from the FTSE 100 Index in December 2015...

Controversies

G4S supplied security equipment, services and maintenance for use at Israeli prisons, checkpoints and settlements in the West Bank. In 2007, the Israeli subsidiary of G4S signed a contract with the Israeli Prison Authority to provide security systems for major Israeli prisons. In April 2012, G4S released a statement detailing its activities in Israel – the provision of maintenance for some electronic security systems at a prison, a police station and a small number of checkpoints in the West Bank.[74] In June 2014, Desmond Tutu and others protested at G4S's involvement with Israeli prisons.[75] They also penned an open letter to the security firm, calling for it to "end its complicity in Israel's abuse of child prisoners".[76] A report prepared by Hugo Slim, a research fellow at University of Oxford, and commissioned by G4S stated that the company "had no causal or contributory role in human rights violations" and "there are clearly human rights failings in some parts of Israel's security system, but G4S's role is far removed from their immediate causes and impact."[77]...

...G4S subsidiary Wackenhut, in September 2005, faced allegations of security lapses at seven military bases where it was contracted to provide services. The company claimed the accusations were false and promoted by a union seeking to enroll its employees.[80]

In March 2006, whistle-blowers employed at Wackenhut released information to the press revealing that the company cheated on an anti-terrorism drill at a US nuclear site. It also performed poorly on another drill at a separate location. The allegations claimed that Wackenhut systematically violated weapons inventory and handling policies and that managers showed new hires spots at the facilities where they could take naps and cut corners during patrols.[81]...

...In October 2010, three G4S-guards restrained and held down 46-year-old Angolan deportee Jimmy Mubenga on departing British Airways flight 77, at Heathrow Airport. Security guards kept him restrained in his seat as he began shouting and seeking to resist his deportation. Police and paramedics were called when Mubenga lost consciousness. The aircraft, which had been due to lift off, then returned to the terminal.[90] Mubenga was pronounced dead later that evening at Hillingdon hospital.[91] Passengers reported hearing cries of "don't do this" and "they are trying to kill me." Scotland Yard's homicide unit began an investigation after the death became categorised as "unexplained". Three private security guards, contracted to escort deportees for the Home Office, were released on bail, after having been interviewed about the incident.[90]...

...In October 2012 the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Nick Hardwick published his inspection report into the G4S managed Cedars Pre-Departure Accommodation UK Border Agency (UKBA).[99] Whilst the majority of the report praised G4S and those working at the centre, noting that "Cedars is an exceptional facility and has many practices which should be replicated in other areas of detention", G4S were criticised for using "non-approved techniques" during one particular incident in which a pregnant woman's wheelchair was tipped up whilst her feet were held.[100]The incident used "non-approved techniques" causing significant risk to the baby and was a "simply not acceptable" use of force.[100] In response, G4S said its staff were trying to prevent injury and that the report also praised the staff for an "exceptional level of care."[100]...

...Peter McCormack, 79, was chained to a prison officer employed by G4S for eight days while in Royal Liverpool University Hospital after a heart attack in March 2012. The restraint was removed only briefly for him to take off his upper clothing, and when he was under heavy sedation undergoing an heart procedure. Judge Graham Wood QC ruled in September 2014 that “During this time he was humiliated and his dignity was affronted.” McCormack was awarded £6,000 compensation for breach of his human rights. The judge criticised the evidence given by G4S’s then head of security, saying it was “less than impressive… It is a reasonable conclusion that she simply ignored a recommendation from a security manager”.[101]...

...In July 2013, British Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, asked the Serious Fraud Office to investigate G4S for overcharging for tagging criminals in England and Wales, claiming that it and rival company Serco charged the government for tagging people who were not actually being monitored, including tags for people in prison or out of the country, and a small number who had died, and had done so since 2005. G4S was given an opportunity to take part in a "forensic audit" but initially refused.[102]...

...In October 2013, the British Broadcasting Corporation reported that there are allegations of prisoners being tortured at Mangaung Prison in South Africa.[105]The BBC cites research from the Wits Justice Project at Wits University in Johannesburg, claiming that dozens of the nearly 3,000 inmates at the G4S prison have been tortured using electroshock and forced injections. As of October 2013, G4S said it was investigating the allegations.[105]...

...Six members of staff were dismissed from G4S-operated Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre for children in Rugby in May 2015 following a series of incidents of gross misconduct. G4S took the action in response to an Ofsted inspection that reported some staff being on drugs while on duty, colluding with detainees and behaving "extremely inappropriately". The behaviour allegedly included causing distress and humiliation to children by subjecting them to degrading treatment and racist comments.[107][108]...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G4S