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For Immediate Release
November, 30 2023, 01:05pm EDT
Contact:
David Rosen: drosen@citizen.org
Meta Sics Big Law Attack Dogs on FTC in Cynical Effort to Avoid Accountability
On Wednesday night, Meta filed a lawsuit against the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleging that the agency lacks the constitutional authority to enforce a consent decree that Meta voluntarily entered into.
Emily Peterson-Cassin, digital rights advocate for Public Citizen, released the following statement in response:
“Facebook made an agreement with the FTC, and now it doesn’t want to face the consequences of possible violations of that agreement. It’s beyond cynical for Facebook to launch a legal attack on the FTC’s authority to enforce an agreement the company voluntarily entered into. Meta’s lawsuit echoes a series of well-funded attacks on the administrative state, exemplified by Supreme Court arguments yesterday in Jarkesy v. SEC.
“Facebook is accused of hurting and exploiting kids; the public needs the FTC to get to the bottom of those accusations and hold Facebook liable for any and all violations, without delay.”
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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ICC Judges 'Wiped Out Economically and Socially' by US Sanctions—But Remain Resolute
“In my country, I prosecuted terrorists and drug lords," said Judge Luz Ibáñez Carranza of Peru. "I will continue my work."
Dec 12, 2025
International Criminal Court judges remain steadfast in their pursuit of justice—including for victims of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza—even as they suffer from devastating US sanctions, some of the affected jurists said in recent interviews.
Nine ICC officials are under sanctions imposed in two waves earlier this year by the Trump administration following the Hague-based tribunal's issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation. The tribunal also issued warrants for the arrest of three Hamas officials, all of whom have been killed by Israel during the course of the war.
The sanctioned jurists are: Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan (United Kingdom), Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan (Fiji), Deputy Prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang (Senegal), Judge Solomy Balungi Bossa (Uganda), Judge Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza (Peru), Judge Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini-Gansou (Benin), Judge Beti Hohler (Slovenia), Judge Nicolas Yann Guillou (France), and Judge Kimberly Prost (Canada).
The sanctions followed a February executive order from US President Donald Trump sanctioning Khan and accusing the ICC of “baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.”
The sanctions—which experts have called an act of criminal obstruction—prevent the targeted ICC officials and their relatives from entering the United States; cut off their access to financial services including banking and credit cards; and prohibit the use of online services like email, shopping, and booking sites.
Fearing steep fines and other punitive measures including possible imprisonment for running afoul of US sanctions by providing “financial, material, or technological support" to targeted individuals, businesses and other entities strictly blacklist sanctioned people—who are typically terrorists, organized crime leaders, and political or military leaders accused of serious human rights crimes.
“Your whole world is restricted,” Prost—who was part of an ICC appellate chamber's unanimous 2020 decision to investigate alleged US war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan—told the Associated Press on Thursday. “I’ve worked all my life in criminal justice, and now I’m on a list with those implicated in terrorism and organized crime."
Ibáñez Carranza said the US sanctions are not deterring her, telling the AP: “In my country, I prosecuted terrorists and drug lords. I will continue my work."
Guillou told Le Monde last week that the sanctions mean he is banned from almost all digital services—including Amazon and PayPal—in a world dominated by US tech giants. This has led to some absurd scenarios, including having a hotel reservation he booked via Expedia in his own country canceled.
"To be under sanctions is like being transported back to the 1990s," he said.
The Trump administration's objective, said Guillou, is "intimidation... permanent fear, and powerlessness."
"European citizens under US sanctions will be wiped out economically and socially within the [European Union]," he added.
Guillou remains defiant in the face of sweeping hardship caused by the sanctions, contending that he is part of a larger struggle for justice as, "empires are hitting back" in response to "three decades of progress in multilateralism."
The US—which, like Israel, is not party to the Rome Statute that governs the ICC—has been at odds with the court for decades. In 2002, Congress passed, and then-President George W. Bush signed, the American Service Members’ Protection Act—also known as the Hague Invasion Act—which authorizes the president to use “all means necessary and appropriate” including military intervention to secure the release of American or allied personnel held by or on behalf of the ICC.
During his first term, Trump sanctioned then-ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and Prosecution Jurisdiction Division Director Phakiso Mochochoko over the Afghan war crimes probe.
The nine jurists sanctioned this year by the US are seeking relief and are calling on European governments to invoke the EU's so-called "Blocking Statute," which is meant to shield officials of the 27-nation bloc from the extraterritorial application of third country laws.
"States parties [to the Rome Statute] face a choice: Continue to capitulate to the bullying of the US, or meet the challenge posed by the sanctions, past and future, and respond appropriately," Jens Iverson, an assistant professor of international law at Leiden University in the Netherlands, wrote last month for OpinioJuris. "Which choice they make will reveal the actual values of the states who as a matter of law are pledged to combat atrocity and impunity."
Ibáñez Carranza told Middle East Eye in a recent interview: "What we are asking are practical measures. What we are asking is action. We need the support of the entire world. But we are in Europe now, and Europe is a powerful structure. The European Union is a powerful structure. They should react as such. They cannot be subordinated to the American policies."
International Criminal Court (ICC) judge Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza has called on the international community to stand with ICC judges following US-imposed sanctions over the court’s arrest warrants for Israeli officials pic.twitter.com/otJfwHgzdw
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) December 6, 2025
Ibáñez Carranza said that said measures should be taken "to support the court, not only to support the judges, but to support the system... of Rome."
"It's not only the judges" who are affected by the US sanctions, she asserted. "They want to affect the system of Rome, the system of the court, where we deliver justice for... the most defenseless and vulnerable victims... They are the affected ones with this."
"The work of the International Criminal Court is for humanity," Ibáñez Carranza added. "And this is why we are resilient, and this is why we need not only to stand together as judges, but the entire international community."
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With GOP 'Looking at' Tyson's Alleged Market Manipulation, Nebraska Candidate Osborn Says 'Enforce the Law'
"Candidate for Senate Dan Osborn is already doing more for the people affected by the Tyson closure than the current Nebraska senators," said a worker rights advocate.
Dec 12, 2025
Instead of "another investigation" into possible wrongdoing by meatpacking giant Tyson, independent US Senate candidate Dan Osborn is demanding that elected officials in Nebraska simply "pick up the damn phone" and demand action from the Trump administration following the company's closure of one of the nation's largest meat processing plants in what one antitrust expert said was a clear-cut case of market manipulation.
Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), whom Osborn is challenging in the 2026 election, said Thursday that his team is "taking a look at any allegation of wrongdoing" by Tyson, weeks after the company announced its massive plant in Lexington, Nebraska is set to close in January—putting more than 3,000 people in a town of 11,000 out of work.
The closure comes months after Tyson boosted its stock buybacks and following an announcement that its adjusted operating income had increased by 26% compared to 2024. Tyson controls about 80% of the US beef market along with three other companies, and the Department of Justice is investigating whether the four corporations are colluding to keep beef prices high.
Despite near-record high prices in the industry, Tyson said last week it was closing the Lexington plant and scaling back operations at its facility in Amarillo, Texas to "right-size its beef business and position it for long-term success."
Basel Musharbash, an antitrust lawyer at Antimonopoly Counsel in Paris, Texas, attended a press conference with Osborn across the street from the Lexington plant this week and said that the "legal analysis here is pretty straightforward" regarding whether Tyson has engaged in market manipulation.
“The Lexington plant accounts for around 5% of the nation’s cattle," said Musharbash. "By shutting down a plant that slaughters such a large portion of the cattle in this region and the country, Tyson will single-handedly reshape the nation’s cattle markets from boom to bust.”
Ranchers will be forced "to accept lower prices, and Tyson will be able to make higher profits," he said.
Osborn and Musharbash say Tyson has broken the 2021 Packers and Stockyards Act, which prohibits meatpackers from engaging "in any course of business or [doing] any act for the purpose or with the effect of manipulating or controlling prices."
Addressing Ricketts on social media, Osborn said Tyson workers "don’t need another useless congressional report that leads to nothing. We need ACTION!"
"Tyson workers and Nebraska ranchers need you to demand that [US Agriculture] Secretary Brooke Rollins immediately initiate an action to hold Tyson accountable for any market manipulation," he said.
The USDA told the Nebraska Examiner this week that it is monitoring "the closure of the plant to ensure compliance with the Packers and Stockyards Act," but Musharbash said Rollins can and should "compel Tyson to either keep the plant open or sell the plant to an upstart rival who will introduce honest competition into this cartelized industry."
"There is nothing left for Ricketts to 'look into,' and Nebraskans certainly don’t need some intern on Ricketts’ staff to write a research paper about this issue for the next six months while Tyson hollows out the Lexington community for its selfish gain," added Musharbash. "Nebraska—and this whole country—deserves better leaders than this."
Osborn pointed out Thursday that Ricketts has taken more than $70,000 in campaign donations from Tyson.
“The people of Lexington need their elected officials to fight now more than ever,” Osborn said at the press conference this week. “The law that’s been on the books for over 100 years should be enforced... So pick up the damn phone, call Brooke Rollins, and get the USDA to enforce the law.”
By visiting Lexington and speaking out against Tyson's gutting of thousands of jobs, former Federal Trade Commission member Alvaro Bedoya said that "candidate for Senate Dan Osborn is already doing more for the people affected by the Tyson closure than the current Nebraska senators."
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Venezuela Condemns US 'Piracy' as Trump White House Signals It Will Seize More Oil Vessels
"I’m fairly gravely concerned that he’s sleepwalking us into a war with Venezuela," said one US senator.
Dec 12, 2025
The Trump White House indicated Thursday that the administration is planning to seize more Venezuelan oil vessels after the president of the South American nation, Nicolás Maduro, denounced the US takeover of a tanker earlier this week as "an act of international piracy."
Reuters reported Thursday that the Trump administration, which has claimed without evidence to be targeting drug traffickers, "is preparing to intercept more ships transporting Venezuelan oil" as it ramps up its lawless military campaign in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific—and threatens a direct military assault on Venezuela.
In response to the Reuters story, which cited six unnamed sources, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declared that "we're not going to stand by and watch sanctioned vessels sail the seas with black market oil, the proceeds of which will fuel narcoterrorism of rogue and illegitimate regimes around the world."
The US seizure of the Venezuelan tanker and its oil earlier this week marked the Trump administration's latest escalation in what experts and critics fear is a march to an unlawful, all-out war with the South American country.
"I have no idea why the president is seizing an oil tanker," US Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said Thursday. "I’m fairly gravely concerned that he’s sleepwalking us into a war with Venezuela."
Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Al Jazeera that the oil vessel seizure "is certainly an escalation designed to put additional pressure on the Maduro regime, causing it to fracture internally or convincing Maduro to leave."
“The purpose also depends on whether the US seizes additional tankers,” he added. “In that case, this looks like a blockade of Venezuela. Because Venezuela depends so heavily on oil revenue, it could not withstand such a blockade for long.”
US lawmakers in both the House and Senate are pursuing war powers resolutions aimed at preventing the Trump administration from engaging in military conflict with Venezuela without congressional approval.
“Whatever this is about, it has nothing to do with stopping drugs," said US Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.). "To me, this appears to be all about creating a pretext for regime change. And I believe Congress has a duty to step in and assert our constitutional authority. No more illegal boat strikes, and no unauthorized war in Venezuela."
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