Free The Trillion-Dollar Conspiracy by Jim Marrs

particularly and the currency markets generally,
    Earlier in 2009, GATA sought information on current gold swaps, a practice denied by Alan Greenspan, then Fed chairman, back in 1995. But this question was rebuffed by the Fed, which claimed this information was exempt from Freedom of Information Act requests. GATA appealed to the Fed’s board. But in a September 2009 letter to GATA’s lawyer, Federal Reserve Board member Kevin M. Warsh upheld the denial of information by stating, “In connection with your appeal, I have confirmed that the information withheld under Exemption 4 consists of confidential commercial or financial information relating to the operations of the Federal Reserve Banks that was obtained within the meaning of Exemption 4. This includes information relating to swap arrangements with foreign banks on behalf of the Federal Reserve System and is not the type of information that is customarily disclosed to the public. This information was properly withheld from you.”
    GATA claimed the letter was not the first admission of the Fed making gold swaps but that “it comes at a sensitive time in the currency and gold markets.” According to a GATA news release, “The U.S. dollar is showing unprecedented weakness, the gold price is showing unprecedented strength, Western European central banks appear to be withdrawing from gold sales and leasing, and the International Monetary Fund is being pressed to take the lead in the gold price suppression scheme by selling gold from its own supposed reserves in the guise of providing financial support for poor nations.”
    It is now expected that a lawsuit will be filed in federal court to appeal the Fed’s denial of GATA’s freedom-of-information request concerning gold swaps. Those people stocking up on gold for safekeeping might keep in mind that gold and silver—in fact, just about anything considered a financial asset—may be seized by federal authorities in wartime or any officially declared “emergency.” Those who hoard gold against the possible devaluation or collapse of the dollar might remember that during the Great Depression, the hoarding and use of gold as a medium of exchange was outlawed.
    According to the GATA website, government confiscation of gold has never been a serious or imminent threat, but in any “emergency,” this could swiftly change. “While the U.S. Government in 1933 did demand the exchange of circulating government-issued coins for paper money (proceeding to devalue the paper money after the gold was surrendered), that gold then was a huge part of the country’s money supply, and amid the national economic collapse at that time the government could make a plausible complaint against ‘hoarding.’ There are no such circumstances today, gold no longer being in general circulation as currency…. But of course lately the arrogance and imperiousness of the U.S. government have far exceeded even the paranoia of precious metals investors. Certainly capital controls may be imposed in the United States in the next currency crisis, and it’s not far from capital controls to even more brutal interventions in the economy.”
    Such concern intensified with a 2005 letter to GATA in which the former chief counsel for the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, Sean M. Thornton, explained the scope of the government’s power in making financial seizures. “It took GATA six months and a little prodding to get answers from the Treasury, but the Treasury’s reply, when it came, was remarkably comprehensive and candid.
    “The government’s authority to interfere with the ownership of gold, silver, and mining shares arises…from the Trading with the Enemy Act, which became law in 1917 during World War I and applies during declared wars, and from 1977’s International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which can be applied without declared wars.
    “While the Trading with the Enemy Act authorizes the government to interfere