Company is buying up large tracts of land around a California Air Force base

Mon, July 31, 2023 at 6:54 PM EDT

https://www.yahoo.com/news/buying-land-around-major-air-225434490.html

 

The rest of the article, and some of the comments (copy here) are quite revealing, I think. And I wonder - why did the new disclosure law take so long?

Comments copied from Yahoo news.

• 12 hours ago
  Starting 1/1/2024, all businesses have to report direct and indirect owners of all businesses to the financial crime enforcement network. They have until 1/1/2025 to file this report. By then, we should know every person owning these businesses..
• 
  
• Flannery Associates LLC bought the land but even though they have a business name in CA, the main one is in Delaware. Looking up info, the Agent name/Director of this company is The Corporation Trust Company in Wilmington, DE with the address of 1209 Orange Street, Wilmington, DE which in turn is the registered agent address of around 285,000 businesses including Apple, American Airlines, Coca-Cola, Walmart and dozens of other companies in the Fortune 500 list of America’s biggest companies. Being registered in Delaware lets companies take advantage of strict corporate secrecy rules, business-friendly courts and the “Delaware loophole”, which can allow companies to legally shift earnings from other states to Delaware, where they are not taxed on non-physical incomes generated outside of the state.
• 
  The loophole is said to have cost other states more than $9bn in lost taxes over the past decade and led to Delaware to be described as “one of the world’s biggest havens for tax avoidance and evasion”
• ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  Delaware AGAIN. Just like the domestic and overseas degree mills incorporated there. J.

 

There might be all kinds of reasons to be concerned about a company buying up a bunch of land around an Air Force base, but security isn't one of them.

There are two kinds of security, operations and intel. Both are quite secure in this scenario.

The base is protected physically (operations) by both passive and active means. That means physical barriers, alarm systems, and highly trained and armed security personnel.

The base is protected from intel security breaches primarily because it doesn't do anything that needs to be hidden. Flight operations are quite open--it's hard to hide airplanes taking off and landing in a populated area. In fact, on any given flying day there will likely be people outside the base perimeter taking photos of planes taking off and landing. And if the Chinese want to know what we're doing, I'm sure satellites provide them all they need.

Travis AFB is an Air Mobility Command (AMC) base. It's mission is transport. It's about as interesting as a UPS or Fedex operation.

It is curious why a company would want the land--its agricultural capabilities are nonexistent and there really isn't much commercial activity or potential out there. People are looking into it, obviously. But I have to think military intelligence has already gotten the answers it needs.

 

"If you build it, they will come." Maybe the Chinese Communist Party wants to build a Theme Park...

 

Maybe related?


"Encounters with small unidentified "objects," sometimes in swarm-like groups of as many as eight. Sightings of other objects, including some characterized as drones, flying at altitudes up to 36,000 feet and as fast as Mach 0.75. Another apparent small drone actually hitting the canopy of an F-16 Viper causing damage. These incidents and many more, all occurred in or around various military air combat training ranges in Arizona since January 2020.

 

If it doesn't already, the Air Force will quickly determine the source of this interference with safe operations.

 

U.S. officials at the press conference condemned China's espionage campaign Thursday.

"There is no bigger, multigenerational threat to the United States" than China, said FBI Special Agent Stacey Moy. Beijing"will stop at nothing to attack the United States in its strategic plan to become the world's sole superpower."

WASHINGTON, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Two U.S. Navy sailors have been arrested on charges of handing over sensitive national security material to China, U.S. officials said Thursday.

Petty Officer Wenheng Zhao, 26, was charged with conspiracy and bribetaking in connection with taking nearly $15,000 in exchange for photographs and videos of sensitive U.S. military information, the officials said. U.S. Navy sailor, Jinchao Wei, whose age was not disclosed, was charged with conspiring to send national defense information to China in exchange for thousands of dollars.

 

Michigan town stops Chinese company's farmland purchase in its tracks: 'Fighting them every step of the way'

National Black Farmers Association President John Boyd Jr., former gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon and Michigan residents Jeff Thorne and Lori Brock weigh in on the community's successful attempt to block a Chinese company's farmland purchase.

 

Now, reports from The New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle reveal Flannery is comprised of a group of ultra-wealthy Silicon Valley investors acquiring vast parcels of land northeast of San Francisco with the mission to build a new California city “from scratch.”


https://www.yahoo.com/news/mystery-land-buyers-around-california-192053920.html

 

I don’t think it’s a national security issue. The original rumors that it was the Chinese doing it seem to have fallen away. Besides, there’s no way sitting on some land next to an Air Force base is a security issue. Many bases have businesses and residences encroaching them. At Luke AFB there is new commercial construction going up right next to the base. It’s no big deal. Our adversaries know what they want to know, and nothing at Travis AFB is particularly sensitive anyway.

No, the real battle is between the company behind the acquisition and the people who sold to them. The company is alleging that the sellers conspired together to bump up the selling price, so their suing the farmers involved. Money and lawyers, same old story.

 

Who is John Galt ? - Ayn Rand