The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has issued a notice to inform the public of the new Lacey Act provisions enacted by the 2008 Farm Bill, including the declaration required to be submitted at time of importation for certain plants and plant products that takes effect on December 15, 2008, and APHIS' plan for phasing-in and enforcing this requirement.
The Census Bureau has issued a memorandum to certain government agencies and members of the trade1 stating that reuse of the shipment reference number reported in the Automated Export System (AES) is prohibited.
A list broker agreed to a court order proposed by the Federal Trade Commission barring him from violating the Telemarketing Sales Rule, the commission said Wednesday. The order settles an FTC complaint alleging that from 2002 to 2007 broker Glenn Patten and his two companies helped telemarketers of fraudulent “advance-fee” credit cards by selling them unencrypted, unauthorized consumer information, including bank and credit-card information. The order bars Patten from collecting, selling, renting or disclosing consumers’ account numbers, with narrow exceptions. Patten must provide the FTC with account-number lists and destroy all other copies. Patten must monitor customers and investigate complaints about them. Patten must report to the FTC any customer he finds violating commission rules. The order mandated a $120,000 fine against Patten but suspended it because he can’t pay. Still, the FTC said it can collect the fine if it learns that Patten has misrepresented his finances. The proposed order was filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago.
1. DDTC Forms With Expiration Date of 9/30 Still Valid
Licensed Motor Carriers (LMCs) must submit their Port of Los Angeles Clean Truck Program concession applications by Wednesday, September 24, 2008 to be approved as trucking concessionaires by the October 1, 2008 start date of the Port's Clean Truck Program. The Port will continue receiving and processing applications on an ongoing basis, but based on the overwhelming response by the trucking community, the Port cannot ensure that applications received after September 24 will be processed by October 1. (Port of Los Angeles news release, dated 09/19/08, available at http://www.portoflosangeles.org/newsroom/2008_releases/news_091908ctpapp.pdf.)
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a CSMS message announcing that beginning on or about October 24, 20081, CBP will use a new system, the Decal and Transponder Online Procurement System (DTOPS), for user fee decal and transponder transactions.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted the agenda, presentations, and materials used during the September 8 - 11, 2008 meeting of the Trade Support Network (TSN) held in Tyson's Corner, VA.
A possible entrant into the U.S. behavioral targeting market made a veiled pitch to regulators at a Pike & Fischer conference on Web 2.0 legal issues Wednesday in Washington. U.K.-based Phorm’s behavioral-targeting tests with British Telecom created a stir with the European Commission before targeting provider NebuAd’s work with U.S. ISPs came to light (WID April 8 p4). Phorm Chief Privacy Officer Brooks Dobbs said its targeting trials have been more consumer-friendly than NebuAd’s. The Senate Commerce Committee’s Sept. 25 hearing on ISP targeting, formally announced late in the day, was already on everyone’s lips at the conference.
CBP has posted to its Unified Business Resumption Messaging Web site messages providing a port status update in the wake of Hurricane Ike. The most recent message was issued at 5:30 p.m. EST on September 15, 2008. In addition, CBP issued an alert on Hurricane Ike port closures (as of 9:00 a.m. EST on September 16, 2008). According to the alert, the following ports are closed: Presidio, Houston Field Office, Area Port of Houston/Galveston Seaport, Service Port of Houston, Port Arthur, Beaumont, Point Comfort, and Freeport.