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Ventura Foods, LLC is voluntarily recalling seven of its Dean’s® Dip products, with specific production dates, because a flavor enhancer may be contaminated with salmonella. The flavor enhancer is made by an ingredient supplier, Basic Food Flavors, Inc., in Las Vegas. This is the same ingredient linked to the Food & Drug Administration’s recall announcement Thursday.more...

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Publix Super Markets is issuing a voluntary recall for four (4) varieties of seasoning mixes. The products have been manufactured with HVP (hydrolyzed vegetable protein) supplied by Basic Food Flavors of Las Vegas, Nevada. The HVP may be contaminated with Salmonella.more...

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A South Florida lawyer and forensic accountant who authorities say has stolen millions as many as 250 of his clients pleaded guilty to a mail fraud conspiracy charge in Miami federal court today. Freeman, who is 60 years old, faces a maximum term of 20 years in prison, the Miami Herald reports. Sentencing is set for May 19. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami says he misappropriated at least $6 million from from his firm's operating account—$2.6 million of which was not recovered. Freeman was charged last month with mail fraud conspiracy. The FBI raided the Miami and Plantation offices…more...

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The Kroger Co. said today it is recalling Kroger Onion Soup & Dip Mix and Kroger Beefy Onion Soup & Dip Mix sold in some of its retail stores because the Company has been made aware by a supplier that an ingredient in the product may have been contaminated with Salmonella.more...

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The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced on Monday key amendments to the regulation of United States sanctions against Cuba, Iran and Sudan.

The new provisions give a blanket license for the export of "certain services and software incident to the exchange of personal communications over the Internet, such as instant messaging, chat and email, social networking, sharing of photos and movies, web browsing, and blogging, provided that such services are publicly available at no cost to the user."

This clarification is just what EFF called for last June, and will go a long way to allay concerns that online service providers based in the U.S. cannot offer their services in those countries. Previously, despite the well-known freedom-enhancing capabilities of services like Twitter and Facebook in repressive regimes like Iran, it was unclear whether those companies could even offer their services there without falling foul of the United State's broad prohibition on the export of goods and services to these regimes.

This was not a hypothetical concern: other services that were useful for dissidents to communicate and organize, like Microsoft, and Google's instant messaging clients had previously been blocked from being used in these very countries -- not by the repressive states, but by companies themselves, cautious of violating sanctions.

While the change in the letter of the law is clearly positive, perhaps just as important is the signal this sends about the administration's new guiding policy on global Internet freedom.

Previously, cautious companies, afraid of running afoul of OFAC, have frequently forbidden or blocked all use in sanctioned countries, even when the letter of the law did not require such draconian steps. You can see this institutionally paranoid language, and its inevitable results, in Bluehost's terms of service, which pre-emptively prohibits all citizens of sanctioned countries from even applying to use their hosting facilities (a policy which lead them to shamefully throwing innocent Zimbabwean activists off their service last year).

Now we are moving (slowly) to a new, and better default, where technologists and their lawyers might assume that free Internet services that facilitate free expression and association need not be blocked pre-emptively for anyone, anywhere.

The Obama administration has shown with these changes that it would prefer to move toward that end. Have we got there yet? Is it what export law now says?

While we wait for export regulation experts to sweat the details, the answer is still far too hazy for comfort.  While the State and Treasury departments have fixed much that was wrong with Iranian, Cuban and Sudanese sanctions, there are still regulations on, for instance, Zimbabwe, Syria and North Korea for techies and their lawyers to worry about, and those sanctions still inhibit making software generally available. We also would like to see more clarity about collaborative software development locations, like Sourceforge.

We hope that this administration backs up these first steps with a continuing review of export rules, and pro-actively works to reassure Internet companies that they are free to build an open Internet for everyone, without expecting a knock on the door from their own government.

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The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation reports that a recently retired county district attorney kept a file of citations he had dismissed and referred to it to call in favors. The SBI began its probe of Person-Caswell County District Attorney Joel Brewer last fall, and released a warrant affidavit in that investigation the information from a warrant affidavit Tuesday, the Herald-Sun reported. Brewer announced his retirement last week, with eight months left in his term, the Danville News reported. According to the affidavit, an unnamed witness "familiar with the workings of the district attorney's office" told the SBI that…more...

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The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE:PG), in response to a recommendation from the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) to the food industry, announced today that it is voluntarily recalling Pringles Restaurant Cravers Cheeseburger potato crisps and Pringles Family Faves Taco Night potato crisps as part of an industry ingredient recall to protect consumers from potential Salmonella exposure.more...

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As a precautionary measure, Nutritional Resources, Inc announced, it is voluntarily recalling one production code of Healthwise Cream of Mushroom Soup because an ingredient used in the product has the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella. Salmonella is a common food borne pathogen that can cause severe illnesses, including fever, abdominal cramps and diarrhea.more...

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The InterAcademy Council, a multinational body of science academies including the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, was asked today to conduct an independent review of the processes and procedures of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The review was requested by the United Nations secretary-general and the chair of the IPCC.more...

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