KUCI: Privacy Piracy

Ghazal Omid, Iranian expatriate author of Living in Hell, an autobiography and political memoir has caused quite a controversial stir in ultra-conservative Iranian society. Omid is possibly the first Muslim woman to challenge a traditional taboo in speaking out publicly against child abuse and incest among some Iranian families and to challenge Iranian society which prefers to hush up rather than address this greatly ignored problem and looks down upon the women who have been victimized.

A disturbing truth about Ghazal Omid's life is that it is also the story of millions of Muslim women. As a result of standing up for herself she was shunned by her family which she in turn divorced. Surviving a lonely life was as hard as surviving the Islamic revolution, the Iran/Iraq war and the US embassy hostage crisis, all of which she witnessed up close and personal. Throughout the Iran/Iraq war, with her home in a prime Iraqi target area, she and her mother went to bed at night expecting to be killed in bombing raids. She grew up in an oppressed society that taught children to hate people of different cultures but she refused to hate someone she didn't know. Strengthened by her Islamic education and curious mind, she was not poisoned by the propaganda of a government that was imprisoning and killing its opponents by the thousands.

During her university years, she was abducted by the secret police from the streets of Isfahan, the nuclear plant city. She escaped, temporarily, by jumping from the speeding kidnap car. Seriously injured, she was rescued by people on the street but, soon afterwards, was taken to prison and given a Hobson's choice; sign a document stating the abduction never happened or remain in prison until she did sign it. She describes the fetid prison conditions in which women and babies were being held indefinitely. After being released, she was constantly watched and received threatening letters.

Realizing she was marked for an orchestrated death sentence on trumped up charges, a common occurrence, she fled Iran, thru France to Holland from where, using a fraudulent Algerian passport, she flew to refugee status in Canada; arriving alone, penniless and without language in an alien land. She describes her life in Canada, her personal growth and adjustment to a new culture and how she arrived where she is today; determined to help others with her message.It is important that everyone knows about her experiences. Her unsuspecting contact with an Al-Qaeda sleeper cell illustrates that the enemy we fear is already living among us but we would not know it if 9/11 had not occurred.

She constantly receives threatening hate e-mail in the genre, "God will send you to the devil and you will roast in hell." Her response; "I'll be sure to pay you a visit." She established her website, www.livinginhell.com, not just to promote her book but also her cause--the liberation of Iran through regime change.

Ghazal calls herself "A rebel with a cause," and encourages others not to be afraid of the unknown; saying she lost much but gained more in her liberating process and feels freedom outweighs past abuse and intolerable traditions. Brought to her knees, she nearly committed suicide before she learned to speak up. She believes if she can do it, any individual from any place on earth can do it too. And says, "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger. Ghazal is considered a personal privacy and human rights activist. She has become an expert commentator on Iran and the issues of terrorism in the middle eacst. and appears frequently on Fox news and other national media to speak the truth of what is happening in Iran and the interplay between the insurgents in Iraq and the Iranian regime.

To learn more visit::

www.livinginhell.com

www.ghazalomid.com

Joanne McNabb is Chief of the California Office of Privacy Protection. Created by legislation in 2001, the first-in-the-nation Office is a resource and advocate on identity theft and other privacy issues. In addition to providing information and education for consumers, the Office also publishes privacy practice recommendations for business and other organizations.

McNabb is co-chair of the International Association of Privacy Professionals' Government Working Group and a member of the Privacy Advisory Committee to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Before starting up the Office of Privacy Protection, McNabb had over 20 years experience in public affairs and marketing, in both the public and private sectors, including five years with an international marketing company in France. Her marketing background gives her an understanding of the commercial uses of personal information that have become a significant privacy concern.

McNabb attended Occidental College and holds a master's degree in Medieval Literature from the University of California, Davis.

www.privacy.ca.gov

Katherine Bryant, Vice President of Consumer Advocacy for ChoicePoint tells how consumers can get free background information about themselves and also what ChoicePoint does when it collects sensitive information. Visit www.choicetrust.com

Sr. Vice President, Marketing at RedCannon, John brings a decade of security marketing experience to RedCannon. Mr. Jefferies joins us from Teros, where he drove marketing for the leader in Web application firewalls until it was acquired by Citrix. Prior to Teros he was VP of Marketing at Silicon Defense at where he raised the visibility of the worm threat and defined the Worm defense space. He has launched and managed major network security and Internet products for both start-up and Fortune 500 organizations, including Receipt.com (acquired by ValiCert), Pario Software (acquired by Lucent), Dascom (acquired by IBM) and Hewlett Packard. John obtained his MBA from the Ivy School of Business in London, Ontario and his BA in Business for Michigan State University. www.redcannon.com

Daniel C. Tsang is UCI's Asian American Studies, politics and economics bibliographer. He runs the Social Science Data Archives at the University of California, Irvine. Since 1993, he has hosted "Subversity", a public affairs interview show at KUCI, and for many years covered "civil unliberties" for OC Weekly. He has written op eds for the Los Angeles Times on First Amendment issues. He co-founded Asian Americans United (Philadelphia) and Alliance Working for AsianRights & Empowerment (Orange County, Calif.). He successfully sued the CIA for spying on him. The case, Tsang v. CIA, was settled out of court with a promise from the CIA has promised not to spy on him again. He studied government at the University of Redlands and political science and library science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

He was a Fulbright research scholar in Vietnam in 2004.

http://kuci.org/~dtsang/subversity

Kate Martin has been Director of the Center for National Security Studies, a non-profit human rights and civil liberties organization in Washington, D.C, since 1992. Ms. Martin has taught Strategic Intelligence and Public Policy at Georgetown University Law School and also served as general counsel to the National Security Archive, a research library located at George Washington University from 1995 to 2001. Since 1988, she has litigated and testified before Congress on the entire range of national security and civil liberties issues. Among her publications are: 'Enemy Combatants,' the Constitution and the Administration's 'War on Terror' with Joe Onek, American Constitution Society (2004); Domestic Intelligence and Civil Liberties, SAIS Review of International Affairs (Winter-Spring 2004); and Secret Arrests and Preventive Detention, in Lost Liberties ed. Brown (New Press 2003). Previously Ms Martin was a partner with the Washington, D.C. law firm of Nussbaum, Owen & Webster. She graduated from the University of Virginia Law School, where she was a member of the Law Review, and from Pomona College.

www.cnss.org

Dr. Lawrence A. Ponemon is the Chairman and Founder of the Ponemon Institute, a research think tank dedicated to advancing privacy and data protection practices. Dr. Ponemon is considered a pioneer in privacy risk management and the development of the Responsible Information Management or RIM framework.

Ponemon Institute conducts independent research, educates leaders from the private and public sectors and verifies the privacy and data protection practices of organizations in a various industries. In addition to Institute activities, Dr. Ponemon is an adjunct professor for information ethics and privacy at Carnegie Mellon University's CIO Institute and is faculty of CyLab. He serves on the Unisys Corporation?s Security Leadership Institute Board and the IBM Privacy Management Council.

Dr. Ponemon is a member of the National Board of Advisors of the Eller College of Business and Public Administration, University of Arizona. He serves on the Government Policy Advisory Committee and Co-Chair of the Internet Task Force for the Council of American Survey and Research Organizations (CASRO).

Dr. Ponemon earned his Ph.D. at Union College in Schenectady, New York. He has a Master?s degree from Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and attended the doctoral program in system sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Dr. Ponemon earned his Bachelors with Highest Distinction from the University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona.

Please visit Dr. Ponemon's web site: www.ponemon.org

Susan Jayson

Susan Jayson is executive director and co-founder of Ponemon Institute, LLC. In this role, Susan is responsible for managing the Institute's operations, including research on privacy and information management issues. Susan's background includes marketing, investor relations and corporate communications for such leading organizations as KPMG Peat Marwick, Arthur Andersen and the Financial Relations Board.

Mr. Joel S. Lisker was most recently the Senior Vice-President for Security and Risk Management for MasterCard International. In this capacity he served as the company's world-wide senior security representative for all matters relating to the fraudulent use of its numerous card products. He was instrumental in developing technical solutions and strategies to thwart the efforts of organized crime, and as head of Corporate Security with responsibility for safeguarding MasterCard employees, premises, and property throughout the world, he ensured the safety and security of its' human and physical assets, without incident. At MasterCard, he led the development of chip-based biometrics solutions for data security, perimeter security, visitor screening and employee authentication.

After completion of his formal education at the University of Pennsylvania (B.S.) and the Temple University School of Law (J.D.), he joined the FBI as a Special Agent where he worked against domestic terrorist groups. Thereafter, as a Special Agent Supervisor, assigned to FBI Headquarters, he developed sophisticated solutions to safeguard FBI communications between FBI Headquarters and its' overseas offices. He also developed techniques used in foreign counter-intelligence operations. Next, Mr. Lisker served as Senior trial Attorney in the U.S. Dept. of Justice Criminal Division, Internal Security section where he directed a task force operating against domestic terrorists, and led a group seeking to discover and control foreign agents.

In 1981, Mr. Lisker was selected by the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, to be Chief Counsel and Staff Director of its' newly formed Sub-Committee on security and Terrorism. In this capacity, in addition to managing the Committee's oversight and Authorization responsibility for the FBI, the DEA and the U.S. Marshal Service, he organized more than 25 hearings aimed at uncovering the global terrorist inter-connections and transnational operations that became known as the "terror network". Mr. Lisker was also responsible for drafting legislation with respect to protecting identities of covert agents, jurisdictional realignment of authority regarding escaped federal prisoners and other fugitives from justice, criminalization of payments card fraud and counterfeit, amendment of legislation relating to agents of foreign principals, etc.

In each of his roles and in the responsibilities he was required to carry out over the years Mr. Lisker has maintained regular contact with counterparts in the FBI and those reporting to the Director of Central Intelligence. In 1987, Mr. Lisker was selected as Associate Counsel to the Senate select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition. One of his major accomplishments in this assignment was the uncovering and tracing of clandestine funding sources, through the Swiss banking Network.

Mr. Lisker is a member of the District of Columbia Bar, and is admitted to practice before the U.S. District Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He is also admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court. He is a life member of the FBI Agents Association, The Association of Former Agents of the FBI. He serves on several corporate Boards of Directors and Advisory Boards and is currently serving on two FBI industry Task Forces dealing with Terrorist Financing and Identity Theft.

Mr. Lisker brings to Dudinsky Lisker & Associates, LLC current, wide ranging, and state of the art experience in biometric technologies, neural network technologies, and other cutting edge risk reduction solutions.

DUDINSKY LISKER & ASSOCIATES, LLC

www.dudinskyassociates.com

Mr. Davis, a partner in the Washington, D.C. office, is a member of the Litigation Group of the Orrick law firm. Mr. Davis advises clients on a wide range of legal and governmental issues. He concentrates his practice in civil litigation, with particular focus on securities fraud and accounting irregularities cases, antitrust, government contracts and commercial litigation, and legal crisis management and strategic communications. In June 2005, President Bush appointed Mr. Davis to serve on the five-member Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, created by the U.S. Congress as part of the 2005 Intelligence Reform Act.

From 1996 to 1998, Mr. Davis served as Special Counsel to the President in the White House and was spokesperson for the President on matters concerning the campaign finance investigations and other legal issues. Drawing upon this experience, since his return to private practice, Mr. Davis provides counseling to corporations and government contractors on crisis management issues by developing press strategies for entities exposed to high-profile litigation and regulatory matters, particularly in high-tech/securities fraud cases and other legal issues where media coverage can affect legal outcomes and commercial reputational injuries.

Mr. Davis has participated in national, state and local politics for almost 30 years. He has served three terms (1980-1992) on the Democratic National Committee representing the State of Maryland, and during that period he served on the DNC Executive Committee and as Chairman of the Eastern Region Caucus. In Montgomery County, Maryland, he served as Chairman of the Washington Suburban Transit Commission.

Mr. Davis has written extensively on politics for many years in a variety of publications. He is the author of Truth to Tell Notes From My White House Education (The Free Press: New York, 1999). Tom Brokaw of NBC News said, "Lanny Davis has written a book that should be required reading for all Washington officials and journalists alike. It's an instructive and cautionary tale of the constant struggle to know the truth of what is going on at the highest levels of government." He is also the author of The Emerging Democratic Majority: Lessons and Legacies from the New Politics (Stein and Day, 1973), a political history of the liberal movements of the 1960's and early 1970's. Mr. Davis is the co-author of Allen and Davis on Computer Contracting: A User's Guide with Forms and Strategies (Prentice Hall, 1992), and has lectured throughout the United States and Europe on the subject. In addition, he is the author of forthcoming book, "Scandal: How 'Gotcha' Politics is Destroying America," to be published by Palgrave Macmillan in September 2006.

Between 1990 and 1996, Mr. Davis was a bi-monthly commentator on Maryland politics for WAMU-88.5/FM, a Washington D.C. local affiliate of National Public Radio. He has been a regular television commentator and has been a political and legal analyst for MSNBC, CNN, Fox Cable, CNBC and network TV news programs. He has published numerous op-ed/analysis pieces in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and other national publications.

Mr. Davis came to Washington, D.C. in 1970 after graduating from Yale Law School where he won the prestigious Thurmon Arnold Moot Court prize and served on the Yale Law Journal. A graduate of Yale College, Mr. Davis served as Chairman of the Yale Daily News.

Mr. Davis started as an associate at Patton Boggs in 1975 and became a partner in 1978. In October 2003, Mr. Davis became a partner at Orrick and brought along with him the other members of his unique "Legal Crisis Communications" practice group. He has been featured in articles published in USA Today, Forbes and Fortune magazines, and numerous national and local newspapers.

Randy V. Sabett, CISSP, is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP, where he is a member of the Information Security & Internet Enforcement and Intellectual Property & Technology Practice Groups. He counsels clients on information security, privacy, IT licensing, and patents, dealing with such issues as Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), digital and electronic signatures, federated identity, HIPAA, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, Sarbanes- Oxley, state and federal information security laws, identity theft, and security breaches.

Mr. Sabett has helped companies develop strategies to protect their intellectual property, including preparing and prosecuting patents related to cryptography, authentication, security, certification and accreditation, and related areas of technology. He has also drafted and negotiated a wide variety of technology transaction agreements, including software licenses, OEM agreements, ASP agreements, technology development and licensing agreements, template agreements, and joint marketing and collaboration agreements. Having served previously as an in-house counsel to a Silicon Valley start up, Mr. Sabett employs a pragmatic approach when structuring and negotiating such agreements.

Prior to joining Sonnenschein, Mr. Sabett was a Special Counsel at Cooley Godward Kronish LLP, where he founded the Information Security and Cybercrime practice group. He has also served as Senior Technology Counsel for a Silicon Valley information security company. He began his legal career as an associate at Venable, Baetjer, Howard & Civiletti, LLP in Washington, DC. In addition, he has several years of engineering experience in the information security marketplace, including as a crypto engineer with the National Security Agency, and has worked in active noise cancellation. He holds two U.S. patents.

www.sonnenschein.com

In the information age where sensitive customer data is being stolen and privacy intrusions are vast, new technologies have arisen to protect companies, their employees and customers. Join Host Mari Frank, Esq. as she interviews the data protection experts and their new technologies to protect you and your private information at the Data Protection Conference that was held recently in Orange County California.