Amazon.com has fessed up to a potential violation of federal law.
In its annual 10-K financial disclosure form for the fiscal year ending December 31 submitted to the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission, the Jeff Bezos-owned, massive e-commerce retailer revealed that certain transactions may have violated U.S. sanctions on Iran.
Bezos also owns the Washington Post, otherwise known as the leader in fake news and full-on anti-President Trump propaganda outlet. “‘Journalism’ at the WashPost…has devolved to the point where new fake stories are published to try to bolster the fabrications of old fake stories,” Health Ranger Mike Adams, the founder of Natural News, wrote in December 2016. (RELATED: Read more about media fakery at Journalism.news.)
The law in question is the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act, and Amazon apparently sold various consumers products to Iranian-controlled entities located outside of Iran during the January 2012-December 2016 time frame. Those entities were apparently subject to the provisions of the ITRA or other regulations governing export controls. In its filing, Amazon valued the cost of the goods sold at about $4,000.
By the way, do you think those Iranian-affiliated individuals or groups were members of Amazon Prime?
“In 2012, President Barack Obama signed the ITRA to strengthen trade restrictions on Iran and try to persuade the country to stop its nuclear activities,” Bloomberg Technology explained. Amazon, which indicated that it voluntarily reported the potential violations to the U.S. Treasury and Commerce Departments and is no longer doing business with those accounts.
Amazon says it is conducting an internal review of the situation, intends to cooperate with government agencies, and acknowledges that possibility of the “imposition of penalties” after the feds complete their regulatory oversight.
The U.S. State Department still considers Iran a state sponsor of terrorism, even though Obama gave away the kitchen sink, if not the entire store, in the flawed nuclear deal, which President Trump has described a total disaster.
“Why come clean now, and disclose violations that took place as far back as 2012?,” the ZeroHedge website wondered about the Amazon revelations. “Perhaps because Amazon, along with many other tech companies, was a key catalyst behind the recent successful lawsuit against the Trump administration’s immigration executive order. While it is unknown if AG Sessions (or Trump himself) will retaliate against said companies, Jeff Bezos, who has a long ‘history’ with Trump, decided not to take the chance.”
During the presidential campaign, Trump told FNC’s Sean Hannity that Bezos was using the Washington Post to attack him because of Amazon’s “huge antitrust problem.” (RELATED: Read more about the Trump administration at Trump.news.)
Earlier this month, Mike Adams separately warned about Amazon spying on customers’ buying behavior, paving the way for a psychological profile of each buyer for marketing purposes. Information could also be wrongly funneled to law enforcement in a further compromise of personal privacy. Devices such as Amazon Echo or the Kindle can function as multi-tasked surveillance interfaces in this context. “It is the combination of all these data sets that is astoundingly dangerous because it ‘profiles’ your mind without your consent,” Adams noted.
Mike discusses how Amazon became your Orwellian Big Brother in the video below.
According to The Conservative Treehouse, the Washington Post is also the preferred conduit for CIA leaks from Obama holdovers. This kind of bureaucratic trickery may have led to the resignation of General Michael Flynn, President Trump’s former National Security advisor, because of the controversy surrounding a telephone conversation with the Russian ambassador.
Like Trump, Gen. Flynn is and was a critic of the Iran deal. This seems to suggest that Trump’s foes in the intelligence community might hate Trump more than they oppose America’s enemies.
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