The following post appears courtesy of the Civil Division’s Consumer Protection Branch in honor of National Consumer Protection Week.

We are all aware of the importance of making healthy choices when it comes to foods, but some foods may be bad for your health in unexpected ways. 

In the last year, Americans have suffered through a significant number of illness outbreaks linked to such common foods as peanut butter, cantaloupe, ricotta cheese, and spinach.  The vast majority of food on our grocery shelves is safe – a historically significant accomplishment for which many people in the private and public sectors should be proud.  Yet, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 48 million people in America – one in six of us – get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die each year from foodborne diseases.  The dangers of foodborne illness must spur us all towards increased vigilance and, when appropriate, increased enforcement of our food safety laws.

With the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Justice is dedicated to ensuring the safety of foods eaten by Americans every day.   We are also joined in this effort by the vast majority of food producers and preparers – people from around the country who take seriously the crucial importance of preparing good, safe food. 

It is illegal for any person to introduce into interstate commerce an “adulterated” food.  Food is adulterated if it contains any poisonous or deleterious substance which may render the food injurious to health.  For example, if the food contains E. coli, it is adulterated, and the shipment of that food may constitute a crime.  Food is also adulterated if:

• it has been prepared, packed, or held under insanitary conditions, and
• may have become contaminated with filth, or
• injurious to health. 

Over the last few years, the Federal government has taken a number of steps to better protect the public from dangerous foodborne illnesses.  In January 2011, President Obama signed the Food Safety Modernization Act.   The new law squarely puts the focus on preventing food safety problems in the first place and gives the FDA the power to suspend a facility’s ability to sell food in the United States and to detain food that may be adulterated.

The Department of Justice also pays close attention to food safety matters.  We will not hesitate to use the many tools at our disposal to protect Americans from unsafe foods.  The Department can initiate civil actions to prevent individuals from distributing adulterated foods.  In more serious violations of the law, the Department and its law enforcement partners can investigate potential criminal violations of the law and seek to charge individuals with criminal violations.

Over the last year, the Department of Justice has brought civil cases to prevent companies and individuals from introducing adulterated foods into our markets.  These cases have involved a wide variety of foods, such as tofu and soy products, roasted nuts, whey protein powder, and various fresh and smoked fish.  Of course, in general, these foods are perfectly safe.  But where the Government believes food has or may become adulterated due to processing conditions or other factors, the Government has sought, and Courts have granted, orders requiring defendants to clean up their facilities before they start distributing certain food again.

We can also seek criminal charges in appropriate circumstances, as it did, for example, when it charged a number of former executives and employees of the Peanut Corporation of America and a related company with a variety of crimes (including violations of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act) related to multiple schemes to defraud the company’s customers and mislead those customers as to the presence of salmonella in the company’s peanut products. 

These cases demonstrate we will pursue cases where there the public is endangered, and further serve to encourage the food production industry to take utmost care in ensuring the safety of their products.  The Department of Justice will not hesitate to pursue any person whose criminal conduct risks the safety of Americans who have done nothing more than eat common, everyday foods.

The government needs partners in this effort.  There are over 171,000 registered food facilities in the United States alone, and a limited supply of inspectors.  Each food producer or processor has a responsibility to maintain its facility in a manner so American consumers know the food they buy is safe.  The majority of food producers take their responsibilities seriously and take the necessary precautions to produce safe food.  But each producer must also know that, if they fail in that responsibility, they will be held to account.

We also need you.  Prepare and handle foods safely.  Pay attention to any recall notices.  That way, we can all experience the joys of good food.

For more information, visit FoodSafety.gov.

The following post appears courtesy of the Access to Justice Initiative.

If you are in Washington D.C. on March 8, you are invited to attend a Consumer Protection Summit presented by the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force’s Consumer Protection Working Group. 

The Summit will expose some of the most egregious activities committed by fraudsters today, provide information on how consumers can protect themselves, and share what the Consumer Protection Working Group is doing to combat fraud in these areas.

Some of the dangers that will be discussed include:

• Financial Fraud Scams: American consumers owe a whopping $11.31 trillion dollars in debt and are behind on paying about $1.01 trillion of that amount.  Mortgages, student loans, and credit cards account for a large portion of that debt. Consumers are often haunted with huge monthly payments, and fraudsters take advantage of that with debt relief scams, tax scams, and other financial fraud scams.  Scams target individuals who are in financial distress, but they fail to fulfill their promises, and typically leave consumers worse off than when they started.  
• Dietary Supplement Dangers: Dietary supplements may seem harmless, or even beneficial for your health, but are not evaluated or reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for their safety and effectiveness before they are placed on store shelves or sold online.  They may contain questionable ingredients that can cause negative physical reactions in consumers with certain medical conditions or those taking other medications.  Consumers need to do their research to make sure they don’t do more harm than good when they turn to supplements. 
• Lottery and Imposter Scams:  Lottery scams prey on the elderly and other potentially vulnerable individuals and are increasingly common.  A typical scenario involves a fraudster convincing an individual that he or she has won the lottery, but then tells the target that in order to collect the prize, administrative fees or taxes must be paid up front.  Scammers will take on a wide array of other false identities to convince victims to part with their money.  They pretend they are police officers, federal agents, bank representatives, or even a romantic partner or relative who needs money.  

 If you are interested in learning more about identifying scams and how to protect yourself, please attend the Consumer Protection Summit:

March 8, 2013

9:30 am – 12:30 pm

Gewirz Student Center at Georgetown Law School

120 F Street NW (near the Judiciary Square Metro)

Seating is limited.  Please RSVP by contacting Christine.Cardwell@usdoj.gov (or at 202-514-2674).   

The Consumer Protection Working Group (CPWG) is part of President Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force which was established to wage an aggressive, coordinated and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes.  The CPWG brings together federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, regulators, and other stakeholders to protect consumers from fraud that can devastate victims and cause widespread economic harm.  Consumer fraud comes in many forms and can be found in fraud on our nation’s servicemembers, payday lending, high-pressure telemarketing schemes, internet scams, business opportunity scams, and unscrupulous third party payment processors.  Scam artists often target vulnerable populations such as the unemployed and those already struggling with debt.  Through this partnership, the CPWG is working to strengthen consumer protection efforts, leverage resources, enhance civil and criminal enforcement of consumer fraud and educate the public in an effort to prevent consumers from being victimized.  For more information about the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, visit www.stopfraud.gov.

Today, the Department of Justice’s Civil Division joins an array of other public and private partners to kick off National Consumer Protection Week.

National Consumer Protection Week is a coordinated campaign to raise awareness about information and resources that are available to consumers nationwide so they may take full advantage of their consumer rights and make better-informed decisions.

At the Department of Justice, the Civil Division’s Consumer Protection Branch, along with the Criminal Division, and the United States Attorney’s Offices, is hard at work all year long ensuring consumers are protected from those looking to cheat them or by manufacturers of unsafe products that put profit ahead of consumer safety. 

For example, did you know that American consumers are behind on paying about $1.01 trillion worth of debts, including payments towards mortgages, student loans, and credit cards? Debt relief scams are among the most notorious frauds to target consumers.  Companies offer consumers help, but many not only fail to fulfill their promises, but fail to offer any services at all.

When these scams occur, the Consumer Protection Branch and their partners take action to investigate, and when appropriate, prosecute those who commit fraud or other violations of law. Debt-relief scams are just one type of the harmful conduct that the Branch works to eliminate.

Other examples of the work we do include:

• abusive and overreaching debt collection practices;
• fraud related to the financial crisis;
• health care fraud by drug and medical device manufacturers, including misbranding due to off-label promotion and providing misleading information to the FDA;
• producing food or drugs under insanitary conditions, which can lead to contaminated food or drugs;
• sale of counterfeit pharmaceuticals;
• fraudulent investment schemes;
• mortgage fraud;
• telemarketing abuse;
• immigration services fraud; and
• odometer frauds, in which automobile mileages are falsified to fraudulently inflate market values and to conceal potentially unsafe vehicles.

All this week, we’ll highlight ways you can protect yourself from these and other scams.  And on Friday, March 8, the Week will culminate with the Second Annual Consumer Protection Summit, organized by the Consumer Protection Working Group of the President’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force.  The Summit will take place at 9:30am at the Gewirz Student Center at Georgetown Law School, 120 F Street NW (near the Judiciary Square Metro).  Seating is limited.  RSVP by contacting Christine.Cardwell@usdoj.gov (or at 202-514-2674).

For more information, visit the National Consumer Protection Week website or visit the website for the Consumer Protection Branch of the Civil Division.

The following post appears courtesy of Victoria Espinel, U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator

The Administration is focused on protecting the innovation that drives the American economy and supports jobs in the United States. I am pleased to announce that tomorrow we will be releasing the Administration’s Strategy to Mitigate the Theft of U.S. Trade Secrets. I will be joined by senior officials in the Administration to discuss this important issue, as noted in the agenda below. You can watch live on WhiteHouse.gov/live beginning at 3:15pm tomorrow.

Launch of the Administration’s Strategy to Mitigate the Theft of U.S. Trade Secrets

Wednesday, February 20, 2013, 3:15 PM

Speakers

The Honorable Victoria A. Espinel, U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator

The Honorable Eric H. Holder Jr., Attorney General of the United States

The Honorable Rebecca Blank, Deputy Secretary of Commerce

Discussion

The Honorable Robert Hormats, Under Secretary of State

The Honorable Demetrios J. Marantis, Deputy United States Trade Representative

Frank Montoya, National Counterintelligence Executive, Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Panel

The Honorable Lanny Breuer, Assistant Attorney General – Moderator

Ambassador Karan Bhatia, Vice President and Senior Counsel, Global Government Affairs and Policy, General Electric

Dean Garfield, CEO, Information Technology Industry Council

John Powell, General Counsel, American Superconductor

Victoria Espinel is the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator

The following post appears courtesy of Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole. It was adapted from recent remarks made to the National District Attorneys Association Winter Conference.

Gun violence has touched every state, county, city and town in America.  While we have seen the devastating examples of it over the years, since December’s horrific events in Newtown, Connecticut, the need to address this problem has been center stage.  And we at the department — led by the Attorney General – have been working with Vice President Biden and agencies and departments across the Obama Administration to formulate concrete, common-sense recommendations for reducing gun violence and preventing future tragedies.

The Administration has proposed a range of legislative remedies – along with 23 executive actions – to address mass shootings and reduce gun violence. The Department of Justice is working to implement a number of those executive actions. 

For example, we are working to strengthen the national background check system by addressing gaps in the federal and state records currently available in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).  Those gaps significantly hinder the ability of NICS to quickly confirm whether a prospective purchaser is prohibited from acquiring a firearm as a felon. 

There are also still 12 states with fewer than 10 mental health records in the system.  To help fix this problem, we are providing $25 million in grants to states to assist them in finding ways to make more records available, especially mental health records.

We are also making it possible for local law enforcement officers to run a full NICS background check before returning a firearm to someone after the criminal investigation is finished.  For example, when a stolen firearm recovered by police is returned to its original owner, the police need to be sure they are not returning that weapon to a prohibited person.

In addition, the ATF will soon be publishing instructions on how to trace recovered firearms.  All it takes is a computer and an internet connection.  We encourage local law enforcement officers to do this every time they recover a firearm.  ATF will also be publishing an annual report on nationwide lost and stolen gun data.   Making this data available gives us a great opportunity for us to work together, at all levels of government to use our limited resources as effectively as possible, to make our communities safer.

We’re also taking a hard look at our federal laws and our enforcement priorities to ensure that we are doing everything possible at the federal level to keep firearms away from traffickers and others who should not have them. 

And while most of our efforts will be focused on keeping guns out of the wrong hands, we also want to help those on the ground prevent and mitigate violent situations when they do occur.  To this end, the FBI will be providing a new specialized training course for active shooter situations for law enforcement officers, first responders, and school officials.

We recognize that it is not just a federal problem and our law enforcement partners at the state, local and tribal levels are doing some of the hardest and most important work to keep our people safe, and our cities, neighborhoods, and schools secure. 

Working together, on these and other efforts, we will help reduce gun violence and prevent future tragedies.

On January 7, 2013, the Access to Justice Initiative brought together about twenty indigent defense experts to brief them on the newly adopted United Nations Principles & Guidelines on Access to Legal Aid in Criminal Justice Systems, and to seek their practical input as the UN and its member states begin to use the Principles & Guidelines to guide real-world reforms.

The UN General Assembly formally adopted the Principles & Guidelines in December 2012, making it the first international legal document on indigent defense.  The Principles & Guidelines emerged through the efforts of non-governmental organizations and member states over several years, and the Department of Justice actively supported the Principles & Guidelines throughout its adoption process.  The Access to Justice Initiative helped to formulate the U.S. position on the document, which reflects many of the same values as the American Bar Association’s Ten Principles of a Public Defense Delivery System (PDF), which were adopted in 2002 for use by communities across the country in establishing and reforming defender systems.  Attorney General Holder and Acting Associate Attorney General West spoke in support of the Principles & Guidelines in their remarks at events around the opening of the 67^th Session of the UN General Assembly. 

As Acting Associate Attorney General West stated:

 “…Establishing standards can be instrumental in raising the level of representation for defenders across the country…These comprehensive guidelines and principles can be effective tools in strengthening and expanding existing criminal legal aid systems throughout the world.”

As a secondary source of law, much like a U.S. Restatement of the Law, the Principles and Guidelines express a developing international consensus on the importance of effective legal aid systems in indigent defense:

• First, the Principles & Guidelines provide a model for countries still at the beginning stages of developing public defense systems.  The document confirms that public defense providers must have the resources and independence to provide effective legal aid to all persons accused of crimes, regardless of economic or social status.  The Principles & Guidelines also acknowledge the need for flexibility – legal aid systems will develop in different countries in different ways. 
• Second, the Principles & Guidelines demonstrate an international consensus to challenge all countries to achieve high standards in criminal defense.  As we in the United States continue to work to meet our own constitutional obligations to provide effective representation to criminal defendants, the values expressed in the Principles & Guidelines can inform and guide the efforts of U.S. advocates and policymakers. 

At the January 7 meeting, the Access to Justice Initiative convened a diverse group of U.S. indigent defense experts to discuss the Principles and Guidelines.  To begin a conversation on how U.S. criminal defense practitioners may use the Principles & Guidelines as a source of persuasive authority, the Director of the Local Human Rights Lawyering Project at American University’s Washington College of Law described their efforts to make the use of international human rights law in U.S. courts more common and accepted. 

In addition, the meeting was an opportunity for this community to contribute to the implementation of the Principles & Guidelines at the international level.  The Executive Director of the International Legal Foundation, which is contributing to a UN manual on early access to counsel, sought practical input from the experts in the room.  The participants provided insights from their own experiences on the meaning and implications of “early access” to counsel, suggested models for providing early access, and discussed obstacles that countries will face as they translate the Principles & Guidelines into practical reforms of their criminal defense systems. 

Participants agreed that the US experience in providing effective criminal defense – both successes and failures – offers valuable lessons to other countries at the early stages of developing their criminal defense systems.