Companies have started to request permission to unload cargo destined for Vancouver at U.S. ports as the labor dispute and truck driver strike in the Canadian city continues, said CBP in a CSMS message. Truckers at Port Metro Vancouver have been on strike since Feb. 26, though there has been some progress toward resolving the dispute, said A.N. Deringer in a March 14 alert.
Google’s request to seal documents in a civil suit accusing Google of violating wiretap laws by scanning Gmail messages “demonstrate[s] hypocrisy at the company’s core,” said Consumer Watchdog Privacy Project Director John Simpson in a Tuesday blog post (http://bit.ly/1hgF3dd). “Google is in the business of gathering data and making it public, often when people want to keep it private,” Simpson said. Google has argued information in the case might reveal trade secrets, and thus certain documents should be sealed, he said. “I think the reason is just Google’s reflexive secrecy about everything it does,” he said. A number of media organizations have filed an amicus brief with U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh, arguing First Amendment rights should require the disclosure of all legal proceedings in the case. Oral arguments will be held Thursday at the U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif.
Google’s request to seal documents in a civil suit accusing Google of violating wiretap laws by scanning Gmail messages “demonstrate[s] hypocrisy at the company’s core,” said Consumer Watchdog Privacy Project Director John Simpson in a Tuesday blog post (http://bit.ly/1hgF3dd). “Google is in the business of gathering data and making it public, often when people want to keep it private,” Simpson said. Google has argued information in the case might reveal trade secrets, and thus certain documents should be sealed, he said. “I think the reason is just Google’s reflexive secrecy about everything it does,” he said. A number of media organizations have filed an amicus brief with U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh, arguing First Amendment rights should require the disclosure of all legal proceedings in the case (WID Feb 20 p19). Oral arguments will be held Thursday at the U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif.
The Court of International Trade on Feb. 25 again denied Best Key’s challenge to a CBP ruling revocation on its metallized yarn. Although it had dismissed the case in December, CIT reversed course on whether it could hear Best Key’s challenge. Contrary to its earlier decision, it found Best Key did not have to be a direct importer to file suit against the ruling revocation. This time, CIT heard Best Key's arguments related to CBP misconduct and the interpretation of tariff headings on metallized yarn. But the court was not convinced by Best Key’s evidence of misconduct, and found no clear error in CBP’s revocation of the rulings.
Recent high-profile data breaches have spurred the FTC and Congress to accentuate the need for heightened authority for the commission to regulate data security. One company is trying to take away that authority altogether.
The U.S. District Court in San Jose should make public all documents in a civil suit accusing Google of violating wiretap laws by scanning Gmail messages, said an amicus brief several media organizations filed Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1gHalJO). The organizations include Atlantic Media Co., National Public Radio, The New York Times Co., The Washington Post and Reuters. “Under the First Amendment and the federal common law, the press and the public have a presumptive right of access to court proceedings and documents,” the brief said. Google has argued that some of the information in the case would constitute trade secrets, the brief said. Google did not comment.
President Barack Obama issued an Executive Order establishing a deadline for the completion of the long-awaited International Trade Data System (ITDS) “single window” for filing trade information required by numerous government agencies, the White House said Feb. 19. The order (here) is meant to propel necessary data sharing agreements among the agencies and align ITDS with the timeline set for the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE), former CBP officials said.
Protests must be filed at the port where the contested CBP decision was made in order to be eligible for a subsequent court challenge, ruled the Court of International Trade on Feb. 14 as it dismissed an importer’s tariff classification suit. The regulatory requirement that “protests shall be filed with the port director whose decision is protested” is a requirement for CIT jurisdiction, it said. Just as with the requirements that protests be filed on time and duties be paid before the trade court can take up a challenge, so must the importer meet the requirements of CBP’s “place-of-filing” regulation, it said.
The Food and Drug Administration’s proposed rule on the Foreign Supplier Verification Program leaves too much to the imagination and could impose burdensome requirements on importers, said the American Association of Exporters and Importers in comments recently submitted to the agency (here). “A close reading of the lengthy and complex rule reveals that many fundamental questions remain unanswered,” said AAEI. Worried about provisions of the proposed rule that could prove costly, including management and recordkeeping requirements, “some AAEI members that import only small amounts of food have indicated that they will cease future imports of food if the FSVP Rules are implemented in their current form,” the group warned.
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 31 rejected a Commerce Department ruling on the extent of antidumping duties on petroleum wax candles from China, casting yet more uncertainty onto the agency’s current interpretation of the scope of that order. The court held Commerce based its ruling, which found over 200 novelty holiday candles imported by Trade Associates Group to be subject to AD duties, on an overbroad reading of the scope. In Commerce’s view, which had been codified in a 2011 “scope clarification,” the scope applied to all candles regardless of shape, unless specifically excluded from duty liability. CIT found that reading too expansive, finding a list of shapes of candles in the scope language limited the coverage of AD duties only to candles of those shapes.