Cyber Law and Business Report on WebmasterRadio.fm

Sandy Rosenthal is an American civic activist and founder of Levees.Org, an organization created in October 2005 to educate the American public about the cause of the levee failures and catastrophic flooding in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.  In the aftermath of one of the worst disasters in U.S. history, Words Whispered in Water tells the story of one woman's fight―against all odds―to expose a mammoth federal agency―and win. It's a horror story, a mystery, and David and Goliath story all in one. In 2005, the entire world watched as a major U.S. city was nearly wiped off the map. The levees ruptured and New Orleans drowned. But while newscasters attributed the New Orleans flood to “natural catastrophes” and other types of disasters, citizen investigator Sandy Rosenthal set out to expose the true culprit and compel the media and government to tell the truth. This is her story. When the protective steel flood-walls broke, the Army Corps of Engineers―with cooperation from big media―turned the blame on natural types of disasters. In the chaotic aftermath, Rosenthal uncovers the U.S. corruption, and big media at the root. Follow this New Orleans hero as she exposes the federal agency's egregious design errors and eventually changes the narrative surrounding the New Orleans flood. In this engaging and revealing tale of man versus nature and man versus man, Words Whispered in Water proves that the power of a single individual is alive and well.

An intriguing and accessible nonfiction graphic novel about the role that wealth and influence play in American democracy.Despite our immense political divisions, Americans are nearly united in our belief that something is wrong with our government: It works for the wealthy and powerful, but not for anyone else. Unrig exposes the twisted roots of our broken democracy and highlights the heroic efforts of those "Unrigging" the system to return power to We the People.This stirring nonfiction graphic novel by democracy reform leader Daniel G. Newman and artist George O'Connor takes readers behind the scenes—from the sweaty cubicles where senators dial corporate CEOs for dollars, to lavish retreats where billionaires boost their favored candidates, to the map rooms where lawmakers scheme to handpick their voters. Unrig also highlights surprising solutions that limit the influence of big money and redraw the lines of political power.If you're overwhelmed by negative news and despairing about the direction of our country, Unrig is a tonic that will restore your faith and reveal the path forward to fix our broken democracy.Daniel G. Newman is a national expert on government accountability and money in politics. He is president and co-founder of MapLight, a nonpartisan nonprofit that promotes transparency and political reform. Newman has appeared in hundreds of media outlets, including CNN, CBS, MSNBC, FOX Business News, and NPR. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

As with past years, we conclude 2019 with our annual Heroes and Zeros show with our good friends Brenda Christensen and Dan Tynan.Except this year, we are covering Heroes and Zeros both for 2019 and the decade as a whole.

Josh Levin is the national editor at Slate and the host of the sports podcast Hang Up and Listen. He previously worked at the Washington City Paper and has written for Sports Illustrated, the Atlantic, GQ, and Play: The New York Times Sports Magazine. He is a graduate of Brown University. The Daily Beast calls his book, The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth (Little, Brown and Company), "one of the most outlandish true crime capers of the season. On the South Side of Chicago in 1974, Linda Taylor reported a phony burglary, concocting a lie about stolen furs and jewelry. The detective who checked it out soon discovered she was a welfare cheat who drove a Cadillac to collect ill-gotten government checks. And that was just the beginning: Taylor, it turned out, was also a kidnapper, and possibly a murderer. A desperately ill teacher, a combat-traumatized Marine, an elderly woman hungry for companionship— after Taylor came into their lives, all three ended up dead under suspicious circumstances. But nobody- not the journalists who touted her story, not the police, and not presidential candidate Ronald Reagan- seemed to care about anything but her welfare thievery. Part social history, part true-crime investigation, Josh Levin's mesmerizing book, the product of six years of reporting and research, is a fascinating account of American racism, and an exposé of the "welfare queen" myth, one that fueled political debates that reverberate to this day.

Philip Mudd, the ex-deputy director of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center and FBI's National Security Branch, appears regularly on Fox News, CNN, and NPR. He is the current director of enterprise risk at SouthernSun asset management in Memphis, Tennessee.Black Site: The CIA in the Post-9/11 World is a bold account of one of the most controversial and haunting initiatives in American history, Black Site tells the full story of the post-9/11 counterterrorism world at the CIA.When the towers fell on September 11, 2001, nowhere were the reverberations more powerfully felt than at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Almost overnight, the intelligence organization evolved into a warfighting intelligence service, constructing what was known internally as “the Program”: a web of top-secret detention facilities intended to help prevent future attacks on American soil and around the world. With Black Site, former deputy director of the CIA Counterterrorist Center Philip Mudd presents a full, never-before-told story of this now-controversial program, directly addressing how far America went to pursue al-Qa'ida and prevent another catastrophe.Heated debates about torture were later ignited in 2014 after the US Senate published a report of the Program, detailing the CIA's use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” to draw information from detainees. The report, Mudd posits, did not fully address key questions: How did the officials actually come to their decisions? What happened at the detention facilities―known as “Black Sites”―on a day-to-day basis? What did they look like? How were prisoners transported there? And how did the officers feel about what they were doing?Black Site seeks answers to these questions and more, first by examining pre-9/11 Langley, when the CIA was tasked with collecting, disseminating, and analyzing information related to overseas events. Mudd argues that September 12, 2001, marked an operational revolution, as officials suddenly felt the weight of protecting a nation from a second wave of attacks inside the United States. Re-creating the incredibly tense atmosphere of the time, Mudd reveals that many officials felt an unshakable personal responsibility to thwart another attack.Based on interviews from dozens of officials―many of whom have never spoken out before― Black Site illuminates how the Agency quickly stepped into the process of organizing a full-blown interrogation program. Mudd offers a deeper understanding of how the enhanced interrogation techniques were developed and how intelligence professionals prepared to talk to the world's most hardened terrorists. With careful detail, he takes us through the process of each legally approved technique, including waterboarding.As compelling as it is revelatory, Black Site shows us the tragedy and triumph of the CIA during its most difficult days.

A deeply textured and compelling biography of comedy giant Mel Brooks, covering his rags-to-riches life and triumphant career in television, films, and theater, from Patrick McGilligan, the acclaimed author of Young Orson: The Years of Luck and Genius on the Path to Citizen Kane and Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light. Patrick McGilligan is the author of Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light; Fritz Lang: The Nature of the Beast; and George Cukor: A Double Life; and books on the lives of directors Nicholas Ray, Robert Altman, and Oscar Micheaux, and actors James Cagney, Jack Nicholson, and Clint Eastwood. He also edited the acclaimed five-volume Backstory series of interviews with Hollywood screenwriters and (with Paul Buhle), the definitive Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist. He lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, not far from Kenosha, where Orson Welles was born.

Alissa Quart is the executive editor of the journalism non-profit Economic Hardship Reporting Project. She co-founded its current incarnation with Barbara Ehrenreich. She is also the author of four previous acclaimed books, Branded, Republic of Outsiders, Hothouse Kids and the poetry book Monetized. She writes the Outclassed column for The Guardian and has published features and reported commentary in many magazines and newspapers, most recently for The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Nationand The New York Review of Books. She has won the Columbia Journalism School's 2018 Alumni Award and the LA Press Club Award for Commentary, was a 2010 Nieman fellow at Harvard University, and has been nominated for an Emmy and a National Magazine Award. Squeezed: Why Our Families Can't Afford America (Ecco) is her most recent book. Alissa Quart, executive editor of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, examines the lives of many middle-class Americans who can now barely afford to raise children. Through gripping firsthand storytelling, Quart shows how our country has failed its families. Her subjects—from professors to lawyers to caregivers to nurses—have been wrung out by a system that doesn't support them, and enriches only a tiny elite. Squeezed is an eye-opening page-turner. Powerfully argued, deeply reported, and ultimately hopeful, it casts a bright, clarifying light on families struggling to thrive in an economy that holds too few options.

Miriam Pawel is the author of In The Browns of California, journalist, and scholar. Miriam weaves a narrative history that spans four generations, from August Schuckman, the Prussian immigrant who crossed the Plains in 1852 and settled on a northern California ranch, to his great-grandson Jerry Brown, who reclaimed the family homestead one hundred forty years later. Through the prism of their lives, we gain an essential understanding of California and an appreciation of its importance. The magisterial story is enhanced by dozens of striking photos, many published for the first time.

CLBR presents its annual year-end Heroes and Zeros episode as guests Brenda Christensen, Denise Howell and Dan Tynan highlight those doing wonderful things on the internet and those deserving a cyber lump of coal. Plus, Bennet announces sadly, it most likely will be our last live broadcast as I have decided its time to move on.  Officially, he is taking a break for a few months before finally deciding whether to continue with the show for a ninth season.

Beth Macy is the author of the widely acclaimed and bestselling books Truevine and Factory Man. Based in Roanoke, Virginia for three decades, her reporting has won more than a dozen national awards, including a Nieman Fellowship for Journalism at Harvard. Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America (Little, Brown and Company) is the only book to fully chart the devastating opioid crisis in America: "a harrowing, deeply compassionate dispatch from the heart of a national emergency" (New York Times) from a bestselling author and journalist who has lived through it. In this masterful work, Beth Macy takes us into the epicenter of America's twenty-plus year struggle with opioid addiction. From distressed small communities in Central Appalachia to wealthy suburbs; from disparate cities to once-idyllic farm towns; it's a heartbreaking trajectory that illustrates how this national crisis has persisted for so long and become so firmly entrenched. In these politically fragmented times, Beth Macy shows, astonishingly, that the only thing that unites Americans across geographic and class lines is opioid drug abuse.

Michael Beschloss is the author of nine books on presidential history, including, most recently, the New York Times bestsellers Presidential Courage and The Conquerors, as well as two volumes on Lyndon Johnson's White House tapes.  He was also editor of the number-one global bestseller Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy. He is the NBC News Presidential Historian and a PBS NewsHour contributor and has received an Emmy and six honorary degrees. Presidents of War (Crown) is a groundbreaking and often surprising saga of America's wartime chief executives. Ten years in the research and writing, Presidents of War is a fresh, magisterial, intimate look at a procession of American leaders as they took the nation into conflict and mobilized their country for victory. It brings us into the room as they make the most difficult decisions that face any President, at times sending hundreds of thousands of American men and women to their deaths. 

A former reporter for the Charlotte Observer, Pam Kelley has won honors from the National Press Club and the Society for Features Journalism. She contributed to a subprime mortgage exposé that was a finalist for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. She is the author of Money Rock: A Family's Story of Cocaine, Race, and Ambition in the New South (The New Press). Meet Money Rock. He's young. He's charismatic. He's generous, often to a fault. He's one of Charlotte's most successful cocaine dealers, and that's what first prompted veteran reporter Pam Kelley to craft this riveting social history—by turns action-packed, uplifting, and tragic—of a striving African American family, swept up and transformed by the 1980s cocaine epidemic. This gripping tale, populated with characters both big-hearted and flawed, shows how social forces and public policies—racism, segregation, the War on Drugs, mass incarceration—help shape individual destinies. Money Rock is a deeply American story, one that will leave readers reflecting on the near impossibility of making lasting change, in our lives and as a society, until we reckon with the sins of our past.

Gillespie explains that his book I have been writing about the impact of platforms and the digital transformation for fifteen years,” said Gillespie. “This book explains how content moderation works: how the platforms think of their responsibilities, the way they create and articulate the rules, the labor behind the scenes, and recent efforts to automate it all.” Based on interviews with content moderators, creators, and consumers, this book contributes to the current debates about the public responsibilities of platforms, be it about harassment, data privacy, or political propaganda. Gillespie argues that content moderation still receives too little public scrutiny. How and why platforms moderate can shape societal norms and alter the contours of public discourse, cultural production, and the fabric of society.

Gaurav is Free Press' policy counsel and works alongside the policy team on topics ranging from internet freedom issues like Net Neutrality and media ownership to consumer privacy and government surveillance. Gaurav's human rights and civil liberties work has taken him from Capitol Hill to Uganda, India and Liberia. Before joining Free Press, he worked at the Government Accountability Project protecting the rights of national security whistleblowers like Edward Snowden, and prior to that as a legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union. He earned both his B.A. in international affairs and his J.D. from the George Washington University. Outside of work he can be found getting some fresh air riding his bike to and from one of D.C.'s many roof decks.

It's CyberLaw and Business Report's annual Cyber Thanksgiving Special and for the 7th year, we celebrate the Wednesday before Thanksgiving with a special show featuring a guest panel discussing websites/apps they are grateful for, recommendations for Giving Tuesday and maybe even share what they will be cooking for Thanksgiving. Open source evangelist and troubadour Pete Kronowitt and Benét Wilson, founder and sole proprietor of Aviation Queen LLC, return to join Bennet on what they are thankful for.  

We continue our 2018 Miami Book Fair series with Obama National Security Council Alum Rumana Ahmed who is one of eighteen former Obama administration contributors to “West Wingers: Stories from the Dream Chasers, Change Makers and Hope Creators Inside the Obama White House“. Rumana Ahmed interned in the White House Office of Presidential Correspondence before becoming a full-time staffer. She then was a liaison to Muslim American and other communities in the Office of Public Engagement, where she also worked on highlighting community-based efforts to address issues like gun violence. Later, as Senior Advisor in the Office for Global Engagement and Strategic Communications in the National Security Council, she worked on advancing relations with Cuba and Laos. A Bangladeshi-American and Muslim who wore a hijab since she was twelve, Rumana was the only (and possibly the first) hijab-wearing staffer in the West Wing.  She played a key role in President Obama's visit and speech at a Baltimore mosque in response to anti-Muslim hate crimes.

James Miller is a professor of politics and liberal studies at the New School for Social Research. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Examined Lives: From Socrates to Nietzsche; The Passion of Michel Foucault; Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and Roll, 1947-1977; and Democracy Is in the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago. He is the author of Can Democracy Work?: A Short History of a Radical Idea, from Ancient Athens to Our World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Today, democracy is the world's only broadly accepted political system, and yet it has become synonymous with disappointment and crisis. How did it come to this? In Can Democracy Work?James Miller offers a lively, surprising, and urgent history of the democratic idea from its first stirrings to the present. As he shows, democracy has always been rife with inner tensions. Ranging from the theaters of Athens to the tents of Occupy Wall Street, Can Democracy Work? is an entertaining and insightful guide to our most cherished―and vexed―ideal.

Sarah Kendzior is best known for her reporting on St. Louis, her coverage of the 2016 election, and her academic research on authoritarian states. She is currently an op-ed columnist for the Globe and Mail and she was named by Foreign Policy as one of the “100 people you should be following on Twitter to make sense of global events.” Her reporting has been featured in many publications, including Politico, Slate, The Atlantic, Fast Company, The Chicago Tribune, TeenVogue, and The New York Times. The View from Flyover Country: Dispatches from the Forgotten America (Flatiron Books) is her most recent book. Kirkus writes it is,"A collection of sharp-edged, humanistic pieces about the American heartland...Passionate pieces that repeatedly assail the inability of many to empathize and to humanize." A clear-eyed account of the realities of life in America's overlooked heartland, The View from Flyover Country is a piercing critique of the labor exploitation, race relations, gentrification, media bias, and other aspects of the post-employment economy that gave rise to a president who rules like an autocrat. The View from Flyover Country is necessary reading for anyone who believes that the only way for America to fix its problems is to first discuss them with honesty and compassion.

We continue our 2018 Miami Book Fair series with lawyer turned acclaimed author Ben Fountain and his new book, Beautiful Country Burn Again: Democracy, Rebellion and Revolution“.  Fountain argues that the United States is in the middle of an existential crisis akin to the Civil War or the Great Depression that will require a “burning” of the old order for a new America to emerge.

Bennet Kelley launches our annual coverage of the 2018 Miami Book Fair series with radio host and political commentator Bill Press. He talks about Trump and a life in the crossfire as he discusses his books, TRUMP MUST GO: The Top 100 Reasons to Dump Trump (and One to Keep Him) and From the Left:  Life in the Crossfire. 

At CLBR, we are proud of our record promoting press freedom with guests such as Reporters Without Borders to discuss global press freedom. For the episode on Raif Badawi, we prepared a special backgrounder on human rights in Saudi Arabia. Because of this, CLBR strongly condemns the apparent abduction, torture and murder of  Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy in Turkey. We also are proud of our record of promoting human rights around the world from China, to Mexico and Saudi Arabia.  This includes a 2016 interview with Human Rights Watch's Kristine Beckerle on Social Media and Women's Rights in Saudi Arabia and an interview earlier this year with Brandon Silver of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights on the campaign to free jailed Saudi blogger Raif Badawi.

Bill Press is host of The Bill Press Show, simulcast on Free Speech TV. He is the former co-host of MSNBC's Buchanan and Press and CNN's Crossfireand The Spin Room. Press is the author of several books including The Obama Hate Machine and Trump Must Go: The Top 100 Reasons to Dump Trump (and One to Keep Him). His memoir, From the Left: A Life in the Crossfire (Thomas Dunne Books), has been named a Washington Post bestseller. The name Bill Press is synonymous with honest journalism, intelligent commentary, and progressive politics. But based on where he came from, it's a wonder he didn't end up a Trump voter. He grew up in a blue-collar family in a small town in Delaware south of the Mason-Dixon line, where segregation was the rule. So what went right for him that he swerved so far to the left? In From the Left, Press shows this gradual transformation, starting with two years of studies in Europe and a providential escape to California. From Sacramento he made his way to Southern California television and talk radio as a political commentator and liberal talk show host. Jumping to Washington and national cable TV, Press hosted Crossfire and The Spin Room on CNN, and Buchanan and Press on MSNBC. If you're already on the left, you'll cheer a fellow traveler. If not yet there, you soon will be. In Trump Must Go: The Top 100 Reasons to Dump Trump (and One to Keep Him) (Macmillan) TV and radio host Bill Press offers 100 reasons why Trump needs to be removed from office, whether by impeachment, the 25th Amendment, or the ballot box. Beginning with the man himself and moving through Trump's executive action damage, Press covers Trump's debasement of the United States political system and destruction of the Republican Party. In a political climate where the world has learned to expect the unexpected, Press offers readers a twist: one reason not to ditch Donald Trump.

Dubbed “the leading national watchdog of state and local economic development subsidies” and “God's witness to corporate welfare,” Greg founded Good Jobs First in 1998 upon winning the Public Interest Pioneer Award. He has been training and consulting for state and local governments, associations of public officials, labor-management committees, unions, community groups, tax and budget watchdogs, environmentalists, and smart growth advocates more than 30 years.Greg backed into subsidy reform accidentally, while creating a national consulting practice against plant closings from Chicago from the early 1980s through the mid-1990s. He is associate producer of the 1984 PBS documentary The Last Pullman Car and consulted for state agencies in Illinois, New York, and Washington State. His 1986 Early Warning Manual Against Plant Closings (upon which he trained all 50 states' Dislocated Worker Units under contract to the U.S. Department of Labor) and his 1989 study “Intervening With Aging Owners to Save Industrial Jobs” (the first study to quantify the risk of job loss due to a lack of succession planning) set precedents that guided many public agencies and non-profits.Numerous plant closings he worked on involved abuse of economic development subsidies; factories that had received past incentives were now being shuttered. Usually, the fine print revealed that such abuses were technically legal; those revelations lead to public outrage and the enactment of clawbacks and other safeguards to prevent future waste. Sometimes there was a basis for legal challenge: in 1987, Greg wrote a study that triggered the City of Duluth's successful lawsuit against Triangle Corporation; the nationally-reported verdict arrested the closure of that city's largest factory, Diamond Tool, based on an Industrial Revenue Bond contract. Between 1990 and 1992, he assisted the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers in Elkhart, Indiana in their multiple-abuse lawsuit against American Home Products that settled for $24 million on the eve of trial.Collecting the reforms prompted by these revelations (clawbacks, disclosure, job quality standards, etc.), Greg wrote No More Candy Store: States and Cities Making Job Subsidies Accountable in 1994. It was lauded by the International Economic Development Council as “very impressive research” and reviewed by the National Conference of State Legislatures a “famous polemic that contends that subsidies for economic development are mere corporate giveaways, and that calls for greater accountability and public restraint.”Founding Good Jobs First in Washington, DC in 1998, partnering with the Fiscal Policy Institute to launch Good Jobs New York in 2000, and welcoming the Corporate Research Project in 2001, Greg has built a full-service resource center for constituency-based organizations and public officials seeking to reform economic development. Since its first report in 1999, Good Jobs First has issued more than 100 studies, setting a long string of influential research precedents about economic development subsidies.Good Jobs First's 50-states-plus-DC “report card” studies, such as “Show Us the Subsidized Jobs,” have made it de facto the arbiter of best state and local practice in transparency (disclosing deal-specific costs and benefits online). It is also the go-to source on best practices for job creation and job quality standards, and for enforcement including “clawbacks,” or recapture safeguards. Led by research director Phil Mattera, Good Jobs First research analysts Leigh McIlvaine, Tommy Cafcas and Kasia Tarczynska monitor subsidy news in all 50 states and provide front-line technical assistance.In response to GJF's 2003 study, A Better Deal for Illinois, that state enacted the nation's best subsidy disclosure system. In 2005, New York City enacted the best local disclosure ordinance in the nation (enhanced in 2010) after repeated agitations by Good Jobs New York's Bettina Damiani with the NYC Industrial Development Agency.Greg's 2005 book The Great American Jobs Scam: Corporate Tax Dodging and the Myth of Job Creation (Berrett-Koehler Publishers) was widely reviewed by daily newspapers, specialty tax and development publications, C-Span's Book TV, The New York Review of Books, Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. Business Week called it a “powerful compendium of corporate tax dodging in the U.S.” and State Tax Notes wrote: “meticulously documented …scrupulously accurate …evocative storytelling…”He has book chapters in Building Health Communities: A Guide to Community Economic Development for Advocates, Lawyers, and Policymakers (American Bar Association, 2009) and Breakthrough Communities: Sustainability and Justice in the Next American Metropolis (MIT Press, 2009).Greg summarizes the job-creation benefits of smart growth for working families in this article in Urban Habitat's Race, Poverty and the Environment entitled “Public Transit and Urban Density Create More Good Jobs.”

Jonathan Casey is Director of Archives and the Edward Jones Research Center at the National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Mo. He has been with the Museum and Memorial since April 2001. Casey was integral to the planning, developing and opening the organization's massive expansion, which featured significantly enhanced exhibition space and a new research center that opened in 2006. He manages the Museum and Memorial's two-dimensional collection of approximately 100,000 items and the Edward Jones Research Center library of approximately 10,000 titles. Casey has delivered numerous programs at the Museum and Memorial and in other venues across the world. He has traveled to WWI sites in Italy and Bosnia-Herzegovina, including visiting the site of the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on the 100th anniversary of the event in 2014. The Virginia native graduated from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., with a bachelor's degree in history and from the University of Kansas with a master's degree in Museum Studies. He and his family reside in Kansas City, Mo.National WWI Museum and MemorialSoon after World War I ended, Kansas City leaders formed the Liberty Memorial Association (LMA) to create a lasting monument to the men and women who had served in the war. In 1919, the LMA and citizens of Kansas City raised more than $2.5 million in just 10 days. The equivalent of roughly $34 million today, this staggering accomplishment reflected the passion of public sentiment for the Great War that had dramatically changed the world.In 2004, the Museum and Memorial was designated by Congress as the nation's official World War I Museum, and construction started on a new 80,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art museum and the Edward Jones Research Center underneath the Liberty Memorial.

Matthew Schaefer, a Partner at the law firm Brann Isaacson, has focused for nearly 20 years on state tax matters and contested proceedings before courts and administrative tribunals.  He was co-counsel before the U.S. Supreme Court for the Respondents in South Dakota v. Wayfair Inc., 135 S.Ct. 2080 (2018) and for the Petitioner in Direct Marketing Association v. Brohl, 135 S.Ct. 1124 (2015).  Matthew advises numerous e-commerce vendors, multi-channel merchants, and trade associations, and has represented the challengers in nearly every leading court case testing the constitutionality of state “economic presence” laws that impose burdensome tax and regulatory obligations on remote sellers.Matt is a co-author of ‘Eyes on eCom Law,' a blog that reports on legal developments of interest to direct marketers and online sellers.Brann Isaacson is unique among its peers—a boutique law firm grounded in Maine that represents over 100 large and small online and multichannel companies across the country. The firm is general counsel to L.L. Bean, one of the most prominent and admired retailers in the industry. Today, we advise many of the companies in the Internet Retailer's Top 500 Guide, as well as many small companies that hope someday to be included in that list.Brann Isaacson is based in Lewiston, Maine which is approx. 40 miles north of Portland and 135 miles north of Boston.  It was in Lewiston where Muhammad Ali had his first title defense, knocking out Sonny Liston in the infamous phantom knockout.

In his most recent government role as the nation's top cyber diplomat, Mr. Painter coordinated and led the United States' diplomatic efforts to advance an open, inter operable, secure and reliable Internet and information infrastructure and advised the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of State on these emerging issues. The pioneering office that Mr. Painter established — the Office of the Coordinator for Cyber Issues —was the first high-level position and office dedicated to advancing the diplomatic aspects cyber issues ranging from national security to human rights matters anywhere in the world. Today more than 25 countries have created similar positions. In this role, Mr. Painter worked closely with the White House, other agencies, the private sector and civil society to create and implement US international cyberspace policies. These cross-cutting issues include promoting norms of responsible state behavior and cyber stability, preventing cyber conflict, enhancing deterrence, advancing cybersecurity, fighting cybercrime, promoting multi-stakeholder Internet governance and advancing Internet freedom. Among many other things, Mr. Painter was instrumental in negotiating a landmark agreement regarding the theft of intellectual property with China, negotiating a comprehensive cyber cooperation agreement with India, using diplomatic and other tools to combat high-profile cyber attacks and intrusions, and launching first of their kind “whole of government” cyber dialogues and capacity building programs with dozens of countries in Europe, Asia, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa. He and his team also spearheaded the promotion of an international framework of cyber stability that includes building a consensus around norms of acceptable behavior and getting agreement on transparency and confidence-building measures designed to reduce the risk of miscalculation that could inadvertently lead to cyber warfare.

Cameron Kerry joined Governance Studies and the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings as the first Ann R. and Andrew H. Tisch Distinguished Visiting Fellow in December 2013. In addition to his Brookings affiliation, Cameron Kerry is Senior Counsel at Sidley Austin, LLP in Boston and Washington, DC, and a Visiting Scholar the MIT Media Lab. His practice at Sidley Austin involves privacy, security, and international trade issues. Kerry served as General Counsel and Acting Secretary of the United States Department of Commerce, where he was a leader on a wide of range of issues laying a new foundation for U.S. economic growth in a global marketplace. He continues to speak and write on these issues, particularly privacy and data security, intellectual property, and international trade.While Acting Secretary, Cameron Kerry served as chief executive of this Cabinet agency and its 43,000 employees around the world, as well as an adviser to the President.  His tenure marked the first time in U.S. history two siblings have served in the President's Cabinet at the same time.As General Counsel, he was the principal legal adviser to the several Secretaries of Commerce and Commerce agency heads, and oversaw the work of more than 400 lawyers across these agencies.  He was a leader in the Obama Administration's successful effort to pass the America Invents Act, the most significant overhaul of the patent system in more 150 years.  As co-chair of the National Science Technology Council Subcommittee on Privacy and Internet Policy, he spearheaded development of the White House blueprint on consumer privacy, Consumer Data Privacy in a Networked World.   He then led the Administration's implementation of the blueprint, drafting privacy legislation and engaging on privacy issues with international partners, including the European Union.  He helped establish and lead the Commerce Department's Internet Policy Task Force, which brings together agencies with expertise in the 21st Century digital economy.He also played a significant role on intellectual property policy and litigation, cybersecurity, international bribery, trade relations and rule of law development in China, the Gulf Oil spill litigation, and many other challenges facing a large, diverse federal agency.  He travelled to the People's Republic of China on numerous occasions to co-lead the Transparency Dialogue with China as well as the U.S./ China Legal Exchange and exchanges on anti-corruption.Before his appointment to the Obama Administration in 2009, Cameron Kerry practiced law at the Mintz Levin firm in Boston and Washington.  His practice covered a range of complex commercial litigation and regulation of telecommunications.  He tried cases involving significant environmental and scientific evidence issues and taught telecommunications law as an adjunct professor at Suffolk University Law School.Prior to joining Mintz Levin, he was an associate at Wilmer Cutler Pickering in Washington, D.C. and a law clerk to Senior Circuit Judge Elbert P. Tuttle of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.  During the 2004 presidential campaign, Cameron Kerry was a close adviser and national surrogate for Democratic nominee John Kerry. He has been deeply involved in electoral politics throughout his adult life. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Boston College Law School (1978), where he was winner of the school's moot court competition and a law review editor. and a cum laude graduate of Harvard College (1972).Cameron Kerry also has been actively engaged in politics and community service throughout his adult life.  In 2004-04, he was a senior adviser and national surrogate in the U.S. Presidential campaign, traveling to 29 States and Israel.  He has served on the boards of non-profits involved in civic engagement and sports.

The Senate will begin hearings on D.C. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court immediately after Labor Day.  The nomination is mired in controversy after Republicans insisted in 2016 that it was improper to consider a nominee so close to an election and are now trying to push the nomination through without permitting a proper vetting of his record.The EFF's Camille Fischer, Corynne McSherry and Shahid Buttar recently published “Questioning Kavanaugh About Digital Privacy and Net Neutrality.”Camille Fischer joins us to talk about the Kavanaugh nomination which the San Jose Mercury has called Kavanaugh's nomination a “disaster for the technology industry and the users of tech products.”  See Is Judge Kavanaugh a “Disaster” For Tech?, Cyber Report.Now, with Michael Cohen's guilty plea implicating President Trump and raising questions about the legitimacy of the Trump presidency, Democrats have found a new line of attack against the nomination.I have cancelled my meeting with Judge Kavanaugh. @realDonaldTrump, who is an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal matter, does not deserve the courtesy of a meeting with his nominee—purposely selected to protect, as we say in Hawaii, his own okole.

Mark serves as senior product and privacy counsel to Fortune 500 and 100 companies. A zealous advocate of privacy by design, Mark counsels end-to-end privacy implementation in all aspects of product development and go-to-market strategies.A frequent lecturer and speaker on US / EU comparative privacy laws and GDPR compliance best practices and strategies, Mark currently serves as Chairman of the Internet and Privacy Law Committee of the Business Law Section of the California Lawyers Association (formerly, the State Bar of California). Mark has been counseling on global privacy laws since 2004 and is a member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals.Currently serving as embedded Senior Counsel at Autodesk, Inc., through Paragon Legal, acting as lead legal business partner for two business units, implementing privacy by design while helping build a new business and bring a new SaaS solution to market. Mark has advised companies around the world at all stages, from Fortune 100 to startups, on global privacy compliance, product development, and go-to-market strategies.

Bennet Kelley speaks with Jared Gordon, an attorney in the Business Practice Group of McCormick Barstow, LLP and Joshua de Larios-Heiman, CIPP/US,  the founder and managing director of Data Law, They discuss various issues in the California State Legislature including new privacy law, net neutrality and an email bill.

Uber has put the brakes on its experimental autonomous vehicles in Phoenix, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and Toronto following a deadly crash. Bennet Kelley welcomes Jim McPherson, a California attorney and self-driving car consultant who has criticized the industry for moving too fast to put untested technology on public roads, to talk about autonomous vehicles and the safety issues involved. 

Amnesty International's latest report discusses what a lot of Twitter'sfemale users already know: the social network is toxic for women. The non-government organization says the platform fails to respect women's rights by not "investigating and responding to reports of violence and abuse in a transparent manner." By being inconsistent in the enforcement of policies and by failing to clarify what is and isn't acceptable on the platform, it's fostering a hostile environment. That forces women to self-censor and even to stay silent due to fear of receiving abusive messages, including rape and death threats. According to Amnesty, that makes the problem a human rights issue. Amnesty International technology and human rights researcher Azmina Dhrodia talks to Bennet Kelley framing Twitter's abuse problem towards women as a human rights issue in an effort to force the platform to enforce its policies consistently and in a transparent way.

Bennet Kelley welcomes Peter Edelman, his law professor and aide to Bobby Kennedy, to talk about the 50th anniversary of his presidential campaign and assassination and what it means today. Peter Edelman is the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law and Public Policy at Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches constitutional law and poverty law and is faculty director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality.

There were 800+ lawsuits last year over website accessibility.  Today on CLBR Bennet talks to Kathy Wahlbin and Heather Antoine to learn how to be compliant. Heather Antoine of the Antoine Law Group in Beverly Hills returns along with Kathy Wahlbin, Founder of Interactive Accessibility in Boston to discuss how the ADA applies to websites; the role of advocates for the disabled and the Justice Department in ensuring website accessibility; the Trump administration's view of accessibility; and what are web accessibility guidelines and how you can make your website compliant?

Over the years, CLBR has tried to provide insight from a tech perspective on upcoming elections.  In 2014, when there was a vacancy in the Congressional District representing Silicon Beach we hosted a tech debate among the leading candidates.   In 2016, we had a discussion of Engine's Presidential Candidate Scorecard (for which Trump received an “F”) and provided a preview of the Presidential and Senate Primary for California.This year we are focusing on one race and one candidate, in particular, as being representative of a much larger trend that is of interest to the cyber community (i) promotion of science, technology and STEM education; (ii) net neutrality, (iii) privacy and cybersecurity;  (iv) immigration and tolerance and (v) concerns over an increasing radicalization of the Republican Party in Washington and refusal to acts as a check on Trump.ca-25-jess-phoenix-for-congress-poster_large_fullsizeJess Phoenix represents a number of trends this election.  She is one of over 300 women running for the House (a record), is running in California which has been on the front lines of many of the battles; and is part of a wave of scientists running for Congress.  In addition, she is challenging an incumbent Republican in a district carried by Hillary Clinton in 2016, making this district one of the many swing districts that will determine control of Congress.Her race has captured both local and national attention.  As a scientist, she is a strong proponent of Green Tech.  She is also a strong advocate of cybersecurity due to her husband's work in the field.

Tyler Marandola is a member of the Intellectual Property Litigation Group. He prosecutes and defends cases involving patents, copyrights, trademarks, licensing, unfair competition, and other commercial disputes. Tyler has experience in the areas of pharmaceutical and medical device patent litigation, as well as experience in transactional work and patent counseling and licensing, including within the biotech, mechanical, and telecommunication fields.Tyler's recent experience includes defending clients against allegations of infringement under software-related patents, as well as litigating patent claims relating to medical treatments and genetic sequencing. In addition, he has litigated copyright and trademark cases in various jurisdictions and has experience in proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB).Co-Author, GDPR And The Future of WHOIs Data, National Law Review (April 3, 2018).

What is often overlooked, however, is that the sharing economy is a platform driven economy and at the heart of it all is data.  Simon Fraser University Professor Katherine Reilly joins us to explain the issues arising from this new economic model both in North America and in the developing world.Professor Reilly is an Associate Professor in the School of Communications at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. Her work focuses on the impact of digital technologies on development, in particular, the impact of the platform economy in Latin America. Her work in this area includes Data, the Sharing Economy and Canadian Federal Regulation, Medium (Feb. 16, 2018);  The downside of Uber, Airbnb and the sharing economy, The Journal of Developing Societies (2017). Simon Fraser University has become Canada's leading comprehensive university with vibrant campuses in British Columbia's largest municipalities (Vancouver, Burnaby and Surrey) and deep roots in partner communities throughout the province and around the world.  Its notable alumnus include Canadian hero Terry Fox and First Lady/First Mother Margaret Trudeau.  SFU is also the only non-American university to compete in the NCAA.

Raif Badawi is a 34-year old Saudi activist, blogger and creator of the website Free Saudi Liberals.  His writings called for greater religious tolerance in Saudi Arabia which is dominated by Wahhabi Islamic fundamentalists.  (See CLBR Backgrounder: Saudi Arabia.)  They include:Is Liberalism Against Religion?Liberalism provides all that is necessary for individual freedoms, as well as freedom of religion, without imposing upon the society the tutelage of a certain sect or tyrant.Religions, according to the concept of liberalism, are personal and special choices. A liberal country has no religion, which doesn't mean it's godless. It means it protects the rights of all the religions and nurtures all of them without distinction or upholding one over the others. It doesn't apple-polish the majority's religion over the minorities'.No to Building a Mosque in New York CityFinally, it's clear to observers that our Muslims in Saudi Arabia disrespect the beliefs of others. We consider them apostates. Those who are Muslims but are not believers in the Hanbali school are seen, in a very limiting way, as aliens. Having this mentality in our society is destructive: How will we be able to build a human civilization with positive relations with the 7 billion people around the world when 5.5 billion of them don't even believe in Islam?Badawi's saga, however, demonstrates that the Saudi regime has no tolerance for religious tolerance.2008:   Badawi was detained on apostasy charges.  He was released prevented from leaving Saudi Arabia.2009:  Badawi and his wife's bank accounts were frozen.2012:  Badawi was arrested on a charge of “insulting Islam through electronic channels” and cited for apostasy which carries an automatic death sentence.2013:  Badawi was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes for founding an Internet forum that “violates Islamic values and propagates liberal thought” and his website shut down.2014:  Badawi's sentence was increased to 1000 lashes, 10 years in prison, and a fine of 1 million riyals (equal to about $267,000), for “insulting Islam”.2015: Badawi received 50 lashes before hundreds of spectators in front of a mosque in Jeddah, the first in a total of 1,000 lashes to be administered over twenty weeks.  Further flogging was suspended due to Badawi's health and an international backlash.

Bennet Kelley speaks with  Adam Winkler, author of   We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights. The book sheds light on one of the most successful, yet least known civil rights movements in American history. Like minorities and women, corporations too have fought to win equal rights under the Constitution—and today they have… 

Bennet Kelley holds a roundtable discussion on he Facebook Train Wreck and Fexit with Brenda Christensen and Dan Tynan. The Facebook / Data Analytica scandal has caused Facebook to lose nearly one-fifth of its value; has reignited the debate over internet privacy in the United States and sparked calls from some to abandon Facebook altogether (“Fexit”).

Bennet Kelley speaks with Darieth Chisolm, an Emmy Award-winning TV host and news anchor, author, life and business coach, who was devastated by the crime of cyber abuse and revenge porn after my life was threatened by a jealous ex-boyfriend. Darieth talks to us about 50 Shades of Silence, a global movement giving voice and dignity to victims of cyber harassment and online crimes. Our goal is to raise awareness to cyber stalking, cyber rape, cyber bullying and other online crimes.

Fixing A Broken Campaign System From Dark Money to Online Ads as Bennet Kelley speaks with  Ann Ravel, the Former Chair Federal Elections Commission. In 2012, Ann Ravel was Chair of California's Fair Political Practices Commission and joined us to talk about her idea to require disclosure of payments made to bloggers by political campaigns. 

Melvin Goodman's long career as a respected intelligence analyst at the CIA, specializing in US/Soviet relations, ended abruptly after twenty-four years. In 1990, Goodman resigned when he could no longer tolerate the corruption he witnessed at the highest levels of the Agency. In 1991 he went public, blowing the whistle on top-level officials and leading the opposition against the appointment of Robert Gates as CIA director. In the widely covered Senate hearings, Goodman charged that Gates and others had subverted “the process and the ethics of intelligence” by deliberately misinforming the White House about major world events and covert operations.In this breathtaking exposé, Goodman tells the whole story. Retracing his career with the Agency, he presents a rare insider's account of the inner workings of America's intelligence community, and the corruption, intimidation, and misinformation that lead to disastrous foreign policy decisions. An invaluable and historic look into one of the most secretive and influential branches of US government—and a wake-up call for the need to reform its practices.

Cybercrime cost $600 billion in 2017.   What are the top threats and vulnerabilities for 2018?  Stan Stahl of Citadel Information Group returns to walk us through the threat landscape and discuss ways to build awareness about addressing cybersecurity. Dr. Stahl is a pioneer in the field of information security, having entered the field in 1980. Earlier in his career, he secured teleconferencing at the White House, databases inside Cheyenne Mountain and the communications network controlling our nuclear weapons arsenal. Dr. Stahl excels at helping his clients develop and implement information security management strategies consistent with their unique information security responsibilities, their business realities, and their cultural circumstances. He has that rare gift of being able to describe the complexities of information security in a way that makes sense to real-world non-technical business professionals.

Cybercrime cost $600 billion in 2017.   What are the top threats and vulnerabilities for 2018?  Stan Stahl of Citadel Information Group returns to walk us through the threat landscape and discuss ways to build awareness about addressing cybersecurity. Dr. Stahl is a pioneer in the field of information security, having entered the field in 1980. Earlier in his career, he secured teleconferencing at the White House, databases inside Cheyenne Mountain and the communications network controlling our nuclear weapons arsenal. Dr. Stahl excels at helping his clients develop and implement information security management strategies consistent with their unique information security responsibilities, their business realities, and their cultural circumstances. He has that rare gift of being able to describe the complexities of information security in a way that makes sense to real-world non-technical business professionals.

The Tech Agenda in Washington DC for 2018 as Bennet Kelley speaks with Internet Infrastructure Coalition Co-Founder Policy Working Group Chair David Snead. When the House of Representatives returns to work on Monday there will be approximately 90-days left on the House calendar until election day.  What is on tech's agenda for this election-year session.

Bennet Kelley and guest Jim Hedger from Digital Always Media weigh in on the ongoing battle to Become the Home of Amazon HQ2.Amazon HQ2 is a proposed new corporate headquarters for online retailer and tech company Amazon.com in North America, to supplement the existing Seattle headquarters. Amazon announced the initiative, along with a request for proposals from governments and economic development organizations, in September 2017, attracting attention from more than 200 cities in Canada, the United States and Mexico Amazon intends to have 50,000 workers at HQ2 and is planning to invest $5 billion in new construction. 

Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google have all come under scrutiny for anticompetitive behavior and market domination, with increasing calls that it may be necessary to break up one or all of these entities.  This debate was fueled by commentaries by Matt Stoler and Lina Kahn from the Open Markets Institute (“OMI”).  See Antitrust and the Tech Giants: A Reader.  OMI reporter Kevin Carty joins us to discuss this debate.

In The Gifted Generation, historian David Goldfield examines the generation immediately after World War II and argues that the federal government was instrumental in the great economic, social, and environmental progress of the era. Following the sacrifices of the Greatest Generation, the returning vets and their children took the unprecedented economic growth and federal activism to new heights. This generation was led by presidents who believed in the commonwealth ideal: the belief that federal legislation, by encouraging individual opportunity, would result in the betterment of the entire nation. In the years after the war, these presidents created an outpouring of federal legislation that changed how and where people lived, their access to higher education, and their stewardship of the environment. They also spearheaded historic efforts to level the playing field for minorities, women and immigrants. But this dynamic did not last, and Goldfield shows how the shrinking of the federal government shut subsequent generations off from those gifts.David Goldfield brings this unprecedented surge in American legislative and cultural history to life as he explores the presidencies of Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Lyndon Baines Johnson. He brilliantly shows how the nation's leaders persevered to create the conditions for the most gifted generation in U.S. history.

Jeffrey A. Greenbaum, Managing Partner of Frankfurt Kurnit, returns to talk to Bennet about the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) increased focus on Influencer Marketing. They discuss a formal request that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigate and bring enforcement actions related to the practice of non-disclosed advertising through “influencer” user profiles on Instagram.Based on an investigation conducted by Public Citizen and what is clear to anyone who browses popular Instagram profiles, Instagram has become a platform for disguised advertising directed towards young consumers.

Bitcoin, Blockchain Hype v Reality as Bennet Kelley speaks with Angela C. Walch, an Associate Professor at St. Mary's University School of Law,  2017 was heralded as the year of Bitcoin and Blockchain Technology, only to be greeted in the new year with a major drop in Bitcoin value. What is the substance behind the hype? What is Bitcoin and Blockchain? What is its promise?