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DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
______________________________________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2010 DOJ (202) 514-2007
WWW.JUSTICE.GOV DOI (202) 208-6416
USDA (202) 720-4623
ATTORNEY GENERAL HOLDER, SECRETARIES SALAZAR AND VILSACK
APPLAUD FINAL PASSAGE OF THE CLAIMS SETTLEMENT ACT
WASHINGTON – Today, the Departments of Justice, Interior and Agriculture applauded the bipartisan House passage of the Claims Settlement Act. The act, which recently passed the Senate, will provide long-awaited funding for the agreements reached in the Pigford II lawsuit, brought by African American farmers; the Cobell lawsuit, brought by Native Americans over the management of Indian trust accounts and resources; and four separate water rights suits made by Native American tribes. President Barack Obama has said that he will sign the legislation into law.
“These are truly historic settlements that do not only resolve litigation, but also offer a new relationship between many deserving Americans and the federal agencies that play an important role in their lives,” said Attorney General Eric Holder. “Bringing this litigation to a close has been a priority for this administration, and today’s vote in Congress is a significant, historic achievement. These cases provide fair deals for the plaintiffs and for the American taxpayers.”
“Congress’ approval of the Cobell settlement and the four Indian water rights settlements is nothing short of historic for Indian nations,” Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said. “The settlements honorably and responsibly address long-standing injustices and represent a major step forward in President Obama’s agenda to empower tribal governments, fulfill our trust responsibilities to tribal members and help tribal leaders build safer, stronger, healthier and more prosperous communities.”
“President Obama and I made a firm commitment not only to treat all farmers fairly and equally, but to right the wrongs in USDA’s past,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “I applaud those who took this historic step to ensure black farmers who faced discrimination by their government finally receive justice. And I commend those who led this fight in the U.S. Congress and I am thankful for their unwavering determination. Today’s vote will help the Department of Agriculture move beyond this sad chapter in history. The bill that passed the Senate and House includes strong protections against waste, fraud, and abuse to ensure integrity of the claims process. In the months and years ahead, we will not stop working to move the Department into a new era as a model employer and premier service provider. We also must continue the good work we started to resolve all remaining administrative claims.”
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The United States is pulling out all the stops to win its bid to host the 2022 soccer World Cup – even sending the country’s top law enforcement officer to assure organizers that the country will be safe from terrorist attacks.
Attorney General Eric Holder is en route to Zurich today to support the U.S. bid, the Justice Department announced.
“The president asked the attorney general to attend to show the high-level commitment of our government to secure the World Cup and to make clear that the United States has the capacity to host a World Cup that is both secure and welcoming to the people of the world,” Justice Department spokesman Matt Miller said in a statement.
The trip will take place during the USA Bid Committee’s final presentation to the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, known as FIFA. Holder will return to the U.S. on Thursday. Other trip participants include former President Bill Clinton, actor Morgan Freeman, U.S. Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati and U.S. national team member Landon Donovan.
The other countries vying to host the 2022 World Cup are Australia, Japan, Qatar and South Korea.
The U.S. hosted the World Cup was in 1994, but since then soccer’s popularity has increased greatly among the U.S. population. The U.S. has its own Major League Soccer organization now, and its national team reached the round of 16 in this year’s World Cup in South Africa before being eliminated by Ghana.
Soccer enthusiasts say having the U.S. host the 2022 World Cup will help FIFA cultivate a lucrative market of more than 300 million people that is waking up to the world’s most popular sport. The U.S. is touting its many high-capacity stadiums around the country and emphasizing that unlike other countries, it won’t need to built the infrastructure to accommodate the World Cup.
The White House on Monday organized a conference call for reporters about stalled multi-billion-dollar settlements for American Indians and black farmers, underscoring the political importance the administration places on getting the troubled deals approved.
Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli called the settlements, which would conclude more than a decade’s worth of anti-discrimination lawsuits, “truly historic.” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Deputy Interior Secretary David J. Hayes joined Perrelli for the conference call, which was promoted by the White House.
All three officials urged the U.S. House of Representatives to approve the settlements. In early January, there will be a new, Republican-controlled House that could be far less amenable to the settlements. (The Democrats kept control of the Senate, albeit by a smaller margin than before.)
The Senate approved the settlement of the cases, known by the shorthand Cobell and Pigford II after the lead plaintiffs, just before Thanksgiving. After the Senate vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and the House Democratic majority leader, Steny Hoyer of Maryland, said they wanted their chamber to consider the settlements within days.
The Cobell settlement amounts to about $3.4 billion for Indians who long contended they were shortchanged by the Department of Interior on royalty rights for natural resources on tribal lands. The $1.15 billion Pigford settlement would compensate black farmers for years of discrimination by the Department of Agriculture on farm loans and other benefits.
The House actually endorsed the settlements in July, but did so by attaching it to a war-funding bill — a device that the Senate rejected in passing its own version of the Cobell-Pigford package. So now the lame-duck House is being called upon to vote again.
Vilsack and Hayes agreed with Perrelli that the settlements will be as nearly fraud-proof as possible, fair to the taxpayers as well as the plaintiffs and that, in Vilsack’s words, they go a long way toward “righting the wrongs of the past.”
As the official who overseas the Justice Department’s civil division, Perrelli has been an administration point man on the settlement negotiations.
Glenn A. Fine is stepping down as Inspector General at the Department of Justice after a decade in the post, Attorney General Eric Holder announced on Monday.
“I believe it is time for me to pursue new professional challenges,” Fine, 54, said in a letter to President Barack Obama and to Holder in which he said he was proud of his service at DOJ.
Holder, in turn, praised Fine, who will depart in January. “In the Justice Department’s most critical operations and practices, especially our efforts to combat corruption, fraud, waste and abuse, the work done by the Office of the Inspector General is essential,” Holder said on the DOJ’s internal “watchdog.”
“Thanks to Glenn’s outstanding leadership, this Office has never been stronger,” Holder said in a statement.
During his tenure, Fine was involved in several high-profile investigations, including an inquiry into whether the FBI improperly used the Patriot Act, passed in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, to obtain personal information about people in the United States.
Senator Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, released a statement commending Fine. “I particularly applaud his work to shed light on improper political influence in hiring and prosecutions, which helped bring the Department through a particularly dark chapter in its history. All Americans should appreciate Inspector General Fine’s audits of the use of surveillance authorities under the Patriot Act.”
Fine’s departure will coincide with the beginning of the new Congress, which will have a Republican-controlled House. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is in line to become chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and is expected to use the panel’s subpoena power to delve into administration activities.
Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by Attorney General Eric Holder at the Operation in Our Sites II Press Conference
Washington, D.C. ~ Monday, November 29, 2010
Good morning, and thank you all for being here.
Today I’m joined by two of the key leaders in the U.S. government’s work to combat intellectual property crimes – John Morton, the Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Ron Machen, the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.
We are pleased to announce an important step in our ongoing efforts to protect the interests and safety of consumers, to ensure the strength of our markets, and to safeguard the intellectual property rights of innovators and entrepreneurs.
Over the past few days, the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, the Department of Homeland Security and nine U.S. Attorneys’ Offices from across the country obtained and executed seizure orders against 82 domain names of websites engaged in the sale and distribution of counterfeit goods and illegal copyrighted works.
This coordinated law enforcement effort – known as “Operation In Our Sites II” – targeted online retailers of a diverse array of counterfeit goods, including sports equipment, shoes, handbags, athletic apparel, sunglasses, and illegal copies of DVDs, music and software.
During the course of this operation, federal law enforcement agents made undercover purchases from a variety of online retailers suspected of selling counterfeit goods. For items confirmed as counterfeit or infringing, seizure orders for the domain names of the websites that sold these goods were obtained from U.S. Magistrate Judges.
As of today – what is known as “Cyber Monday” and billed as the busiest online shopping day of the year – anyone attempting to access one of these websites using its domain name will no longer be able to make a purchase. Instead, these online shoppers will find a banner notifying them that the website’s domain name has been seized by federal authorities.
With today’s seizures, we are disrupting the sale of thousands of counterfeit items. We are cutting off funds to those looking to profit from the sale of illegal goods and exploit the ingenuity of others. And, as the holiday shopping season gets underway, we are also reminding consumers to exercise caution when looking for deals and discounts online. To put it simply: If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is.
The Justice Department’s commitment to IP enforcement has never been stronger. This work is a top priority. And through the leadership of the Department’s Criminal Division and our U.S. Attorneys’ Offices – and with the help of ICE, the FBI, and many other agency and law enforcement partners – we will continue our efforts to protect intellectual property rights and to disrupt markets for counterfeit or infringing goods.
For far too long, the theft of innovative ideas or sale of counterfeit, defective, and dangerous goods has been perceived as “business as usual.” Not anymore. IP crimes threaten economic opportunities and financial stability. They destroy jobs. They suppress innovation. And they can jeopardize the health and safety of the men and women we are sworn to protect.
Make no mistake: Intellectual property crimes are not victimless, and they are not risk-free.
Today’s domain name seizures build on number of critical steps we have taken recently to ensure the protection of intellectual property rights.
During “Operation in Our Sites I” over the summer, authorities executed seizure warrants against the domain names of several websites offering illegal copies of first-run movies. This past February, I reestablished the Department’s Intellectual Property Task Force, which is strengthening our efforts to investigate and prosecute IP crimes. And just last month, I traveled to Hong Kong and Beijing to meet with our law enforcement counterparts from China and around the world to ask them to do more to fight these crimes.
Through the Task Force and other initiatives, we have improved coordination with our partners in federal law enforcement. In particular, I would like to note the great work being done through the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, which is led by our colleagues in ICE and brings together investigators and analysts from a number of federal agencies.
Without these partnerships, today’s success would not have been possible.
I am especially grateful for the contributions of the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, as well as our U.S. Attorneys’ Offices in the District of Columbia, the Southern District of New York, the Middle District of Florida, the District of Colorado, the Southern District of Texas, the Central District of California, the Northern District of Ohio, the District of New Jersey, and the Western District of Washington.
Everyone who has contributed to today’s operation – the many agents, investigators, attorneys, and support staff – has worked long hours to protect consumers and intellectual property rights. Thank you all for your outstanding work.
And although today’s progress is an important step forward, we cannot be satisfied. And we must not become complacent.
Our fight to combat intellectual property crime continues. In the critical days ahead, I encourage consumers to be vigilant and to share tips and concerns with us. And I urge all of our law enforcement partners to keep up the great work.
With your help, I believe we can turn the page on a problem that threatens consumer safety and our nation’s economic security.
Thank you all. And, now, I’d like to turn things over to Director [John] Morton.
The watchdog website WikiLeaks is under criminal investigation, Attorney General Eric Holder said during a news conference Monday in Washington.
“There is an active, ongoing criminal investigation that we’re conducting with the Department of Defense,” Holder said. “We are not in a position as yet to announce the result of that investigation.”
Although the news conference was called to announce that federal authorities have shut down websites selling counterfeit goods, Holder quickly was fielding questions about how the Justice Department is approaching the release of classified and confidential State Department documents, the latest such material to be exposed publicly by the website.
On Nov. 28, The New York Times and other news organizations began publishing some of the 250,000 confidential U.S. diplomatic cables that WikiLeaks began posted the same day. News organizations reported extensively on the documents in Monday’s print editions.
In October, WikiLeaks released 400,000 secret U.S. files on the war in Iraq and in July published tens of thousands of secret U.S. military documents on the war in Afghanistan.
Holder, who held out the possibility of criminal charges being brought after the earlier disclosures, said the most recent disclosure is a security risk, adding that DOJ will prosecute anyone found to have violated U.S. law in the WikiLeaks case.
“To the extent that we can find anybody who was involved in the breaking of American law, who put at risk the assets and the people I have described, they will be held responsible; they will be held accountable,” he said. Although he was not identified by Holder, questions regarding the prosecution of non-U.S. citizens and residents were related to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, an Australian citizen.
He added that there is an ongoing investigation into WikiLeaks’ release of documents and therefore he could not provide details about possible prosecutions.
When asked whether WikiLeaks deserves to be treated like other news organizations, granting it some protections under shield laws and the First Amendment, Holder said that other news organizations have been more responsible than WikiLeaks regarding classified documents.
Federal authorities have shut down 82 websites that were selling counterfeit apparel, software, movies and other illegal goods as part of stepped up intellectual property rights enforcement.
Attorney General Eric Holder, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton and U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ron Machen announced the coordinated federal action today in a news conference at Justice Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. “Our fight to combat intellectual property crime continues,” Holder said in prepared remarks.
Holder last year established an Intellectual Property Task Force at the Department of Justice, overseen by the office of the Deputy Attorney General. The task force works with the White House’s Office of the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, Victoria Espinel; and the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, known as the IPR Center, headquartered at ICE in the Department of Homeland Security
Investigators made undercover purchases from online retailers suspected of selling the illegal counterfeit goods, authorities said Monday. Some of the goods were found to have been shipped directly into the U.S. from other countries. The counterfeit goods obtained by federal agents included shoes, sports equipment, sunglasses, handbags, athletic apparel, and copyrighted music, movies and software. The U.S. then executed seize orders against the domain names of what authorities labeled “rouge” websites.
“The sale of counterfeit U.S. brands on the Internet steals the creative work of others, costs our economy jobs and revenue and can threaten the health and safety of American consumers,” Morton said in prepared remarks. The action announced today builds upon another initiative last June called Operation in Our Sites I, in which the U.S. seized the domain names of nine websites selling stolen copies of new-release films.
Major U.S. corporations from software maker Microsoft Corp. to entertainment companies like NBC Universal have lobbied for strong action from the Obama administration on IP rights. The administration, in turn, has made copyright and IP enforcement a priority.
On Nov. 18, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved strengthened anti-piracy legislation, the proposed Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, introduced by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah.)
The website domain name seizure announced today was conducted in coordination with the DOJ Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section and nine U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, including the Southern District of New York; District of Columbia; Middle District of Florida; District of Colorado; Southern District of Texas; Central District of California; Northern District of Ohio; District of New Jersey; and the Western District of Washington. The Criminal Division’s Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section at DOJ headquarters in Washington also worked on the case.
