Sheila Dean's Podcast

Not many can tell by looking at a picture of a smiling President Obama that his Les Paul is made from Indian Rosewood, unless you know your Gibson guitars.   

Close to a million dollars worth of Indian Rosewood fretwork, guitars, electronics and productivity was siezed last week in a federal raid conducted as part of a criminal investigation by the Department of Justice, according to Gibson's General Counsel, Bruce Mitchell.   

A request to recover Gibson merchandise siezed in the 2009 raid was stayed by the DOJ, pending a criminal investigation. A second raid commenced this August for contraband possession of imported Indian Rosewoods from the largest wood supplier in the world. 

To analyze current events, we are first joined by Eapen Thampy, Executive Director for Americans for Forfeiture Reform to explain what asset forefeiture is and how it affects businesses. 

LATER.. The mysterious role of the Forest Stewardship Council is clarified in a revealing conversation with Gibson's General Counsel, Bruce Miller. We touch on NGO involvement in submitting reports and recommendations for regulatory violations involving seizure. 

SOURCES: 

WSJ: Forestry Law Splits Wood Industry  

NPR: Why Gibson was raided by the Justice Department 

Business Insider: Gibson guitar CEOsays Feds told him problems would "Go Away" if labor done in Madagascar

Antiwar.com, a news organization featuring overseas war coverage and anti-war opinion news, discovered over the weekend they have been an FBI surveillance target after a blogger sent them a redacted PDF file in the course of a Freedom of Information Act  or FOIA document request for research.  

We interviewed Jason Ditz, news editor at Antiwar.com, for details on recent events.

SUPPORTING INFORMATION:

FOIA shows Bush admin. spied on Antiwar.com 

Maine has tread a rocky road to success and compromise towards resolving Real ID compliance and State boundaries.  Rep. Ben Chipman, a freshman elected on an Independent ticket, used Maine's legislative history and his experience on a local People's Veto initiative to gain support and sponsorship for An Act To Protect the Privacy of Maine Residents under the Driver's license Laws [LD-1068].   The bill has been recently re-worked to include an Amendment; which united partisan interests and gained a nod from the Governor.

Rep. Chipman discusses the bill, the Amendment, the  legislative priorities for LD-1068 and Maine's conflicted history with Real ID. 

BTC - On March 30th Sen. Anitre Flores submitted an amendment with high ambitions for Floridian driver identity. The amendment was passed out of the local Transporation Committee in SB 1150 and is now headed for Florida State's Budget Committee. The Committee Substitute now contains language, reasonably defined and considered may allow for RFID tags to be added to Florida drivers licenses. However, that's not worst of what's ahead. Online authentication of drivers license information is being added as an alternative to another Big Database DHS program E-Verify.

Our guest, Paul Henry of Floridians against Real ID, discussed more about meeting the challenges ahead for driver identity in Florida.

BTC - Florida's wintery grounds become heated over the DMV's handling of driver information.  The West Palm Beach Post reported the DMV had sold license records to 3rd party marketing firms, some including very private information, including Social Security Numbers.

According to Paul Henry with Floridians Against Real ID, this is the 2nd class action State based lawsuit against the DMV's mishandling of driver records.  The lawsuit is the first of it's kind since the Florida adopted State laws compliant with the Real ID Act.  Privacy and data brokerage concerns have been a strong argument against moving towards centralized ID card systems for Americans.

Mr. Henry updates us on legislative reform towards driver privacy, enlightens us on Florida's move to nullify the Real ID Act by invoking a classic 10th Amendment move.

It's called National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace or NSTIC.  It is a policy "blueprint"for the incorporation of a national online identity number.  NSTIC will be available for public evaluation Friday via WhiteHouse.gov.  Public comments concerning the new centralized identity number will be taken for 3 weeks. Interaction is expected to take place online using Open Government crowdsourcing tools from IdeaScale.

More about NSTIC here:

http://www.crn.com/security/225700973

SPECIAL COVERAGE BeatTheChip  Computers, Freedom & Privacy Conference

Privacy Enhancing Tech Fair: 
http://www.cfp2010.org/wiki/index.php/Privacy_Enhancing_Technology_Fair

Featuring web inventions and solution providers for digital privacy dilemmas.

Accelion: Protecting the transfer of intellectual property, ensuring compliance, improving business productivity and reducing costs are the reasons companies around the world select Accellion secure managed file transfer. 
Website: http://www.accellion.com 

Reputation Defender and author of Wild West 2.0, David Thompson

Reputation Defender the world's first comprehensive online reputation management and privacy company. We help everyday people take back control of their image and privacy by giving them powerful tools and professional guidance. David Thompson is General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer of ReputationDefender. 
Website: http://www.reputationdefender.com 

HayStackproject.org 

Greasemonkey Code which obfuscates search queries with machine-generated queries that are designed to be as close to indistinguishable from the human generated ones as possible. David Huerta is the founder of the Haystack Project. 
Website: http://www.haystackproject.com 

TrackMeNot 

A lightweight browser extension that helps protect web searchers from surveillance and data-profiling by search engines. It does so not by means of concealment or encryption (i.e. covering one's tracks), but instead, paradoxically, by the opposite strategy: noise and obfuscation. 
Website: http://cs.nyu.edu/trackmenot/

Utah's bill to opt out of the Real ID Act , HB 234, has passed both chambers of the State legislature and is now on the way to the Governor's desk today. The bill was signed by the Senate President late afternoon.

Rep. Stephen Sandstrom, author of the bill, introduced HB 234 at the beginning of the Utah legislative session. He then watched it rocket through the local legislature after mounting public outcry over decisions to move forward with implementation of the Real ID regulations for drivers licenses.