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05/15/2014

The FTC goes to federal court, and the Judge was not impressed

In a hearing before U.S. District Court Judge William Duffey in the North District of Georgia, the government made some ridiculous arguments and was criticized by a federal judge for shutting down a small business without providing any guidance. Here are some of the highlights from the hearing:

The government claims it monitored a private citizen’s website to ensure he was still able to express his free speech rights

A Department of Justice attorney claimed that Federal Trade Commission employees regularly visited LabMD CEO Michael Daugherty’s personal website to “monitor whether or not he’s still continuing to express his speech.” Judge Duffey responded:

Court on FTC Monitoring part 1

The transcript continues:

Court on FTC Monitoring part 1 interesting and troublign turn

Judge Duffey criticizes the FTC’s actions in reducing the amount of competition in medical detection business by driving LabMD out of the market.

FTC has taken LabMD out of the market

 

Should a federal agency be able to go after people for not complying with guidance they haven’t given?

 

FTC should have given guidance

 

What about the government claiming to use documents as evidence against LabMD when it doesn’t know where the documents came from?

holy cow

 

 

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05/15/2014

Washington Free Beacon: Nonprofit Challenges Government Definition of a Media Outlet

Read the full story: Washington Free Beacon

Cause of Action also points out that the U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C., recognized a similar watchdog group as a member of the media in a 2003 decision.

“The FTC’s repeated denial of our status as a news media organization threatens all new media and nonprofit news organizations that seek fee waivers for FOIA requests,” Cause of Action president Dan Epstein said in a statement. “Simply because the FTC feared that unfavorable information would be made public, we were unfairly denied access. If every agency behaves like the FTC, it will be devastating to those who fight for government accountability and transparency. The FTC’s job is not to play news editor and decide what is or isn’t news.”

This is the first time a federal appeals court has considered the issue. Because Cause of Action’s appeal will set precedent, the amicus brief argues the case “has implications beyond the outcome for the parties directly involved, and could make it difficult for the news media to fully report on the workings of government for the benefit of the public.”

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05/15/2014

WSB-TV Channel 2 Atlanta: Ch. 2 investigation finds hundreds of VA patient deaths linked to malpractice

Read the full story:  Channel 2

 

Channel 2 Action News brought our findings to national government watchdog Daniel Epstein with Cause of Action.


 
“That not only signals an enormous waste of taxpayer dollars and a mentality and a culture at the top that is totally inappropriate, but it also shows that they’re not really concerned about the problem,” Epstein said. 

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05/13/2014

Cause of Action statement concerning LabMD and denial of preliminary injunction in North District of Georgia

Reed Rubinstein, Senior VP of litigation for Cause of Action:

“The fact remains, as Judge William Duffey said on the record, that this case is ‘a sad comment on [the FTC].’   We continue to believe that the FTC is exercising authority it does not have and using its power to punish a company that objected to agency overreach.  We are studying Judge Duffey’s order and considering next steps.”

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05/13/2014

Washington Post: Buckyballs founder agrees to product recall in settlement with federal regulators

Read the full story: Washington Post

Cause of Action, a conservative legal group assisting Zucker with his legal defense, said the businessman agreed to pay less than 1 percent of the $57 million the commission once estimated the recall effort would cost.

Zucker claimed the CPSC sued him as an act of retaliation after he criticized the agency for heavy-handed enforcement actions the allegedly crippled his business. Cause of Action said in a statement on Monday that the Buckyballs case represented “yet another example of a federal agency gambling with taxpayer dollars to test its own power.”

Cause of Action said it is pursuing litigation against the CPSC to uncover documents that might show the commission “values retaliation against its critics above its own mission to protect consumers.”

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05/12/2014

Cause of Action statement concerning Craig Zucker and the Consumer Product Safety Commission

With the help of Cause of Action, Craig Zucker fought back against the government, and this settlement is evidence that the government caved under pressure. The CPSC’s actions regarding Craig Zucker are not about consumer safety, they’re about punishing an entrepreneur who dared to speak out against the federal government. The years spent by the CPSC targeting a product that has never been declared unsafe and pursuing overzealous litigation against Craig Zucker are yet another example of a federal agency gambling with taxpayer dollars to test its own power.

If the CPSC’s goal was consumer safety, why is it settling for an amount that covers less than one percent of its original $57 million recall estimate? To get the answer, Cause of Action is continuing to pursue our FOIA litigation against the CPSC to expose an agency that values retaliation against its critics above its own mission to protect consumers.  The CPSC’s choice to settle proves that the government’s conduct was worthy of criticism.

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05/6/2014

Washington Examiner: Cause of Action asks court to stop FTC abuse of FOIA fee waiver authority

Read the full story: Washington Examiner

In an appeal filed Monday in the D.C. appeals court, Cause of Action argued that the FTC got it completely wrong because the courts ruled in 2003 that the Electronic Privacy Information Center, another nonprofit government watchdog, qualified as a news representative.

 

Cause of Action also noted in its Monday filing that the Open Government Act of 2007 mandated that federal agencies and courts include “alternative media” as representatives of the news media.

 

It would appear that a nonprofit watchdog group like Cause of Action or EPIC would qualify under the 2007 law, but federal courts have yet to decide that question. That means the Cause of Action appeal represents “issues of first impression.”

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