CBS NEWS April 4, 2018, 6:33 PM
Shooter held bitter grudge against YouTube before opening fire at headquarters
Last Updated Apr 4, 2018 6:57 PM EDT
SAN FRANCISCO -- Police in San Bruno, California, said it was a beef with YouTube that drove a 39-year-old woman to shoot people -- apparently at random -- at the company's headquarters Tuesday. She then turned the gun on herself. Details about the suspect have since come to light.
Online the shooter, Nasim Najafi Aghdam, had already expressed her anger at YouTube.
"I am being discriminated and filtered on YouTube. My new videos hardly get views," she was heard saying on one of her uploaded videos.
Fake news on YouTube shooting spreads, despite recent efforts to clamp down on misinformation
She had been a prolific contributor to the video sharing site, posting videos on fitness, veganism and animal rights.
Nasim Najafi Aghdam SAN BRUNO POLICE DEPARTMENT
Police say Aghdam legally owned the 9 mm semi-automatic handgun she used and visited a shooting range Tuesday morning before going to YouTube's headquarters.
Police said the shooter wounded three people in YouTube's open courtyard and then killed herself.
Investigators covered her body with a yellow tarp.
"Well, we know that she was upset with YouTube, and right now that's the motivation that we've identified," San Bruno Police Chief Ed Barberini said.
Last week, Aghdam's family reported her missing from her home in San Diego. Then Tuesday morning, hours before the shooting, police in Mountain View found her sleeping in her car, about 25 miles south of the YouTube campus. After interviewing her for 20 minutes, authorities alerted her family.
Aghdam's father says he warned officers she had a grudge against YouTube, but in a statement the police said: "At no point did her father or brother mention anything about potential acts of violence."
Investigators visited family homes in Southern California on Wednesday. At her father's house, one relative said Aghdam came from Iran as a refugee at 18, about 21 years ago.
"How come, for getting stupid gun, we don't need mental doctor?" one family member said. "I don't know."
YouTube has not responded to CBS News' request for information about Aghdamn's history with the company and whether any of her videos were blocked.
Shooting at YouTube headquarters wounds several
Shooting at YouTube headquarters wounds several
Barberini confirmed Wednesday they found no links between Aghdam and any of the victims. Two women wounded in the attack were released Wednesday from a San Francisco hospital. The third victim, a 36-year-old man, was upgraded from critical to serious condition.
Officials are serving search warrants at two houses in Southern California associated with Aghdam, reviewing surveillance video and scouring her social media posts, Barberini said.
YouTube shooting: Witness describes helping wounded employees
San Bruno is "no stranger to a crisis," said Mayor Rico Medina, and praised first responders who "ran into an active shooting situation as it occurred."
"No one goes to work thinking this is what will happen to them around their meal time, but it did," Medina said.
Thursday, April 5, 2018
Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg to testify before Senate too - CBS News
April 4, 2018, 8:59 PM
Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg to testify before Senate too
WASHINGTON -- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has agreed he will testify in a second congressional hearing next week, this time in the Senate. Zuckerberg will appear at a rare joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees on April 10 -- a day before testifying at the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
The social media giant is reeling from a privacy scandal over its data collection following allegations that the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica obtained data on about 87 million Facebook users to try to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.
Mark Zuckerberg says he's not stepping down at Facebook, nobody fired after data scandal
Reps. Greg Walden, R-Oregon, and Frank Pallone, D-New Jersey, said the House panel hearing will focus on the Facebook's "use and protection of user data."
Walden is the House committee's Republican chairman and Pallone is the panel's top Democrat.
"This hearing will be an important opportunity to shed light on critical consumer data privacy issues and help all Americans better understand what happens to their personal information online," Walden and Pallone said.
Their committee is among the congressional panels that requested Zuckerberg's testimony to announce a hearing date.
Walden and Pallone said last month that they wanted to hear directly from Zuckerberg after senior Facebook executives failed to answers questions during a closed-door briefing with congressional staff about how Facebook and third-party developers use and protect consumer data.
Zuckerberg said during a March 21 interview on CNN that he would be "happy" to testify before Congress, but only if he was the right person to do that. He said there might be other Facebook officials better positioned to appear, depending on what Congress wanted to know. Walden and Pallone said a day later that as Facebook's top executive, Zuckerberg is indeed the "right witness to provide answers to the American people."
Their call represented the first official request from a congressional oversight committee for Zuckerberg's appearance as lawmakers demanded that Facebook explain reports that Cambridge Analytica harvested the data of more than 50 million Facebook users.
The company, funded in part by Mr. Trump supporter and billionaire financier Robert Mercer, paired its vault of consumer data with voter information. The Trump campaign paid the firm nearly $6 million during the 2016 election, although it has since distanced itself. Other Republican clients of Cambridge Analytica included Sen. Ted Cruz's failed presidential campaign and Ben Carson, the famed neurosurgeon who also ran unsuccessfully for president in 2016.
The data was gathered through a personality test app called "This Is Your Digital Life" that was downloaded by fewer than 200,000 people. But participants unknowingly gave researchers access to the profiles of their Facebook friends, allowing them to collect data from millions more users.
It's far from certain what action, if any, the GOP-led Congress and the Trump administration might take against Facebook, but the company will almost certainly oppose any efforts to regulate it or the technology business sector more broadly.
As do most large corporations, Facebook has assembled a potent lobbying operation to advance its interests in Washington. The company spent just over $13 million on lobbying in 2017, with the bulk of the money spent on an in-house lobbying team that's stocked with former Republican and Democratic political aides, according to disclosure records filed with the House and Senate. The company sought to influence an array of matters that ranged from potential changes to government surveillance programs to corporate tax issues.
Facebook said Wednesday that the number of users whose data was swept up by Cambridge Analytica could be as high as 87 million, significantly more than the figure of 50 million that was widely reported at the outset of the data scandal more than two weeks ago.
"We only just finalized our understanding of this situation in the last, I think, couple of days on this," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during a conference call with reporters Wednesday afternoon. "We didn't put out the 50 million number. That came from other parties."
In a blog post, Facebook's Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer said the company believes data from up to 87 million people was "improperly shared" with Cambridge Analytica, the consulting firm who received data on users and their networks from a researcher who developed an app that captured the information. Facebook banned Cambridge Analytica, the researcher and a former employee from the platform in March.
Are we in a trade war yet? - CNN Money
Are we in a trade war yet?
by Chris Isidore @CNNMoney
April 4, 2018: 12:05 PM ET
US trade with China, explained
Are we there yet?
Has Donald Trump started a trade war with China, the world's second largest economy? Wall Street certainly is worried he has. Economists aren't as sure.
This week, the United States announced a range of tariffs on Chinese goods, claiming that China is stealing US intellectual property. China responded with its own tariffs on US goods within hours. The moves follow US tariffs that were imposed earlier this year on Chinese steel and aluminum, which also prompted a response from China.
But economists say the US isn't in a trade war, at least "not yet."
Related: 'Trade wars are good?' Two words — Great Depression
"The odds have gone up considerably," said Bill Reinsch, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank.
"What happened so far is what typically happens — we do something, they do something back more or less equivalent, then we glare at each other," he said. "The war starts if they do something in excess of what we've done, or if we counter-retaliate to what we've done."
It's that risk of escalation that has the experts so scared.
"The rhetoric is different this time around," said Jay Bryson, international economist with Wells Fargo. "This is most serious situation I can think of in at least the last 40 or 50 years."
Of course, there have been countless tariffs and trade disputes in the past that never escalated to the status of full-blown trade war. And the latest US tariffs won't even take effect until at least next month. But if the US does get into a full-scale trade war, it would be the first time since the Great Depression.
It's difficult to determine what constitutes a trade war, since there isn't a bright line between a trade dispute and a war. "There isn't a hard and fast definition," said Bryson.
But some developments would clearly signal that we're in a trade war.
"If the Chinese decide to devalue the yuan, if they throw American companies out or make it hard for American companies to come in, if they decide to cut back on direct investment in the US, that's a war," said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Analytics.
Even if the current trade skirmishes don't constitute a full war, they can still cause pain for many US businesses and their employees. That includes companies that can no longer sell goods and services to China, and businesses and consumers who can no longer buy the lower priced Chinese imports they've come to depend upon.
CNNMoney (New York)
First published April 4, 2018: 12:05 PM ET
by Chris Isidore @CNNMoney
April 4, 2018: 12:05 PM ET
US trade with China, explained
Are we there yet?
Has Donald Trump started a trade war with China, the world's second largest economy? Wall Street certainly is worried he has. Economists aren't as sure.
This week, the United States announced a range of tariffs on Chinese goods, claiming that China is stealing US intellectual property. China responded with its own tariffs on US goods within hours. The moves follow US tariffs that were imposed earlier this year on Chinese steel and aluminum, which also prompted a response from China.
But economists say the US isn't in a trade war, at least "not yet."
Related: 'Trade wars are good?' Two words — Great Depression
"The odds have gone up considerably," said Bill Reinsch, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank.
"What happened so far is what typically happens — we do something, they do something back more or less equivalent, then we glare at each other," he said. "The war starts if they do something in excess of what we've done, or if we counter-retaliate to what we've done."
It's that risk of escalation that has the experts so scared.
"The rhetoric is different this time around," said Jay Bryson, international economist with Wells Fargo. "This is most serious situation I can think of in at least the last 40 or 50 years."
Of course, there have been countless tariffs and trade disputes in the past that never escalated to the status of full-blown trade war. And the latest US tariffs won't even take effect until at least next month. But if the US does get into a full-scale trade war, it would be the first time since the Great Depression.
It's difficult to determine what constitutes a trade war, since there isn't a bright line between a trade dispute and a war. "There isn't a hard and fast definition," said Bryson.
But some developments would clearly signal that we're in a trade war.
"If the Chinese decide to devalue the yuan, if they throw American companies out or make it hard for American companies to come in, if they decide to cut back on direct investment in the US, that's a war," said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Analytics.
Even if the current trade skirmishes don't constitute a full war, they can still cause pain for many US businesses and their employees. That includes companies that can no longer sell goods and services to China, and businesses and consumers who can no longer buy the lower priced Chinese imports they've come to depend upon.
CNNMoney (New York)
First published April 4, 2018: 12:05 PM ET
A potential trade war is scary, but the US has a legitimate beef with China - CNBC News
A potential trade war is scary, but the US has a legitimate beef with China
Though President Trump has come under fire for his tariff actions, the U.S. has been at the short end of a number of trade deals.
Trump has announced a list of 1,300 Chinese goods subject to tariff, prompting retaliation against U.S. products.
Economist Alan Blinder likens the moves to the brinkmanship practiced during the Cold War.
"A threat of a trade war that doesn't erupt into an actual trade war could conceivably do some good. But it's playing with fire," Blinder says.
Jeff Cox | @JeffCoxCNBCcom
Published April 5, 2018
CNBC.com
Still time for negotiating tariffs and to walk back from where we are, says expert
19 Hours Ago | 05:59
The U.S. is coming off as the agitator in what could turn into a global trade war. Yet in many ways, it is simply responding to what indeed has been an uneven playing field for decades.
Most notably, the U.S. and others around the world have suffered at the hands of China's rampant intellectual property theft. From designer brand knockoffs to technological innovations to the secret sauce that so many companies use to make their brands special, China is notorious for the practice.
What the White House is doing that has caused so much commotion is taking a more aggressive approach than any of its predecessors to put that practice, and others like it, to an end.
The administration has announced a list of 1,300 Chinese products subject to a 25 percent tariff, a move that drew an immediate retaliation and sparked more fears of a protracted international commerce battle.
"People have known for some time that China has sought quite actively to acquire intellectual property through their relationships with foreign businesses," said Lewis Alexander, chief U.S. economist at Nomura Global Economics. "These are not new problems."
What is new is someone willing to push the argument far enough with China to threaten trading relationships.
U.S. President Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping leave a business leaders event at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 9, 2017.
U.S. President Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping leave a business leaders event at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 9, 2017.
"The question really is how big a difference can you make and what the potential consequences of it are," Alexander said. "Is it worth putting the whole global trading system at risk to achieve these objectives?"
President Donald Trump has been railing against the trade deficit the country has with its counterparts around the world, and in particular the bilateral shortfall with China.
Only he knows if the latest round of saber rattling is really about dishwashers and veterinary vaccines and golf carts or any of the other items that can be found here. After all, trying to eradicate a $375 billion annual deficit that has come about mostly because Americans consume more than they make and require cheap imported goods to bridge the gap seems unrealistic.
However, Trump may be able to right some previous wrongs while also playing to his middle-America blue-collar base.
"The analogy is to the arms race with the former Soviet Union," said Princeton economist Alan Blinder, author of the recently released book, "Advice and Dissent: Why America Suffers When Economics and Politics Collide." "We had great success with this under Ronald Reagan, in which he basically threatened a slightly wacky escalation of defense spending and the Russians couldn't match it and they sort of caved."
"It could have had a bad ending if they didn't cave. The analogy here is a trade war. A threat of a trade war that doesn't erupt into an actual trade war could conceivably do some good. But it's playing with fire."
Blinder said it's unclear, though, exactly what Trump hopes to achieve.
Trade deficits usually are a byproduct of a growing economy, and U.S. GDP appears well on its way to achieving the administration's 3 percent annual target. Low levels of American savings also make deficits virtually unavoidable.
"I have not the slightest idea of what Trump thinks he wants to accomplish on this. He talks as if he wants a balance of trade on China. Can he really?" Blinder said. "If what he's after is intellectual property protection, he's been really quiet about it."
The actual release from the U.S. Trade Representative office lists "China's Acts, Policies, and Practices Related to Technology Transfer, Intellectual Property, and Innovation" as the overriding impetus for the tariffs. There's a 90-day public comment period that also could serve as a chance for the opposing sides to come to the bargaining table.
Trump likely has more than China in his sights, and there are, to be sure, other items besides intellectual property. The U.S. would like to get its cars and trucks sold in more countries, and the administration has slapped global tariffs on aluminum and steel in an effort to promote domestic production of those goods.
During his presidential campaign, he vowed to tear up trade agreements that he didn't think were fair to the U.S., placing the NAFTA pact with Mexico and Canada near the top of his grievance list.
The world, then, will be watching what happens with China.
"It would be a wonderful thing to see if the Chinese government would put more handcuffs so to speak on that ability to pillage other people's intellectual property," said Seth Kaplowitz, finance lecturer at San Diego State University.
"Not everybody likes the president, not everybody supports the president. The one thing everyone recognizes is that they need the United States to trade with to get their goods to market as well as to provide American goods to their markets," he said. "I am sure behind the scenes they're discussing or about to discuss how this could be resolved."
Markets also are watching closely.
The Dow industrials opened Wednesday down more than 500 points as trade war fears percolated, then staged a stunning turnaround on seemingly no news.
The day seemed to symbolize that the market is trying to price in both outcomes: a damaging global trade war, or a Trump victory on a tariff gambit that others wouldn't take.
"We're going to see more nervousness, more noise, more volatility, more turmoil than less over the next few months," said Eric Winograd, senior economist at AllianceBernstein. "This, too, shall pass. Both parties have enough incentive from an economic sense to progress toward free trade rather than walk away from it."
Though President Trump has come under fire for his tariff actions, the U.S. has been at the short end of a number of trade deals.
Trump has announced a list of 1,300 Chinese goods subject to tariff, prompting retaliation against U.S. products.
Economist Alan Blinder likens the moves to the brinkmanship practiced during the Cold War.
"A threat of a trade war that doesn't erupt into an actual trade war could conceivably do some good. But it's playing with fire," Blinder says.
Jeff Cox | @JeffCoxCNBCcom
Published April 5, 2018
CNBC.com
Still time for negotiating tariffs and to walk back from where we are, says expert
19 Hours Ago | 05:59
The U.S. is coming off as the agitator in what could turn into a global trade war. Yet in many ways, it is simply responding to what indeed has been an uneven playing field for decades.
Most notably, the U.S. and others around the world have suffered at the hands of China's rampant intellectual property theft. From designer brand knockoffs to technological innovations to the secret sauce that so many companies use to make their brands special, China is notorious for the practice.
What the White House is doing that has caused so much commotion is taking a more aggressive approach than any of its predecessors to put that practice, and others like it, to an end.
The administration has announced a list of 1,300 Chinese products subject to a 25 percent tariff, a move that drew an immediate retaliation and sparked more fears of a protracted international commerce battle.
"People have known for some time that China has sought quite actively to acquire intellectual property through their relationships with foreign businesses," said Lewis Alexander, chief U.S. economist at Nomura Global Economics. "These are not new problems."
What is new is someone willing to push the argument far enough with China to threaten trading relationships.
U.S. President Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping leave a business leaders event at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 9, 2017.
U.S. President Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping leave a business leaders event at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 9, 2017.
"The question really is how big a difference can you make and what the potential consequences of it are," Alexander said. "Is it worth putting the whole global trading system at risk to achieve these objectives?"
President Donald Trump has been railing against the trade deficit the country has with its counterparts around the world, and in particular the bilateral shortfall with China.
Only he knows if the latest round of saber rattling is really about dishwashers and veterinary vaccines and golf carts or any of the other items that can be found here. After all, trying to eradicate a $375 billion annual deficit that has come about mostly because Americans consume more than they make and require cheap imported goods to bridge the gap seems unrealistic.
However, Trump may be able to right some previous wrongs while also playing to his middle-America blue-collar base.
"The analogy is to the arms race with the former Soviet Union," said Princeton economist Alan Blinder, author of the recently released book, "Advice and Dissent: Why America Suffers When Economics and Politics Collide." "We had great success with this under Ronald Reagan, in which he basically threatened a slightly wacky escalation of defense spending and the Russians couldn't match it and they sort of caved."
"It could have had a bad ending if they didn't cave. The analogy here is a trade war. A threat of a trade war that doesn't erupt into an actual trade war could conceivably do some good. But it's playing with fire."
Blinder said it's unclear, though, exactly what Trump hopes to achieve.
Trade deficits usually are a byproduct of a growing economy, and U.S. GDP appears well on its way to achieving the administration's 3 percent annual target. Low levels of American savings also make deficits virtually unavoidable.
"I have not the slightest idea of what Trump thinks he wants to accomplish on this. He talks as if he wants a balance of trade on China. Can he really?" Blinder said. "If what he's after is intellectual property protection, he's been really quiet about it."
The actual release from the U.S. Trade Representative office lists "China's Acts, Policies, and Practices Related to Technology Transfer, Intellectual Property, and Innovation" as the overriding impetus for the tariffs. There's a 90-day public comment period that also could serve as a chance for the opposing sides to come to the bargaining table.
Trump likely has more than China in his sights, and there are, to be sure, other items besides intellectual property. The U.S. would like to get its cars and trucks sold in more countries, and the administration has slapped global tariffs on aluminum and steel in an effort to promote domestic production of those goods.
During his presidential campaign, he vowed to tear up trade agreements that he didn't think were fair to the U.S., placing the NAFTA pact with Mexico and Canada near the top of his grievance list.
The world, then, will be watching what happens with China.
"It would be a wonderful thing to see if the Chinese government would put more handcuffs so to speak on that ability to pillage other people's intellectual property," said Seth Kaplowitz, finance lecturer at San Diego State University.
"Not everybody likes the president, not everybody supports the president. The one thing everyone recognizes is that they need the United States to trade with to get their goods to market as well as to provide American goods to their markets," he said. "I am sure behind the scenes they're discussing or about to discuss how this could be resolved."
Markets also are watching closely.
The Dow industrials opened Wednesday down more than 500 points as trade war fears percolated, then staged a stunning turnaround on seemingly no news.
The day seemed to symbolize that the market is trying to price in both outcomes: a damaging global trade war, or a Trump victory on a tariff gambit that others wouldn't take.
"We're going to see more nervousness, more noise, more volatility, more turmoil than less over the next few months," said Eric Winograd, senior economist at AllianceBernstein. "This, too, shall pass. Both parties have enough incentive from an economic sense to progress toward free trade rather than walk away from it."
Zuckerberg Speaks, Oracle and Trump, YouTube Security: CEO Daily for April 5, 2018 - Fortune
Zuckerberg Speaks, Oracle and Trump, YouTube Security: CEO Daily for April 5, 2018
Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer and founder of Facebook Inc., speaks during the Oculus Connect 3 event in San Jose, California on Oct. 6, 2016.
Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer and founder of Facebook Inc., speaks during the Oculus Connect 3 event in San Jose, California on Oct. 6, 2016.
David Paul Morris—Bloomberg via Getty Images
By DAVID MEYER 6:37 AM EDT
Good morning. Berlin-based Fortune writer David Meyer here, filling in for Alan today.
Facebook’s share price is up a few percentage points after CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the recent scandals hadn’t made “any meaningful impact” on the business.
The claim came as Facebook confirmed that it scans the links and images sent in private Messenger conversations. The company yesterday also said the data of 87 million, not 50 million, of its users may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica. Oh, and malicious actors had been using a (now removed) tool for finding friends to record people’s public information. “Most people on Facebook could have had their public profile scraped in this way,” Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer admitted in a blog post.
Given that Facebook’s privacy scandals keep on coming—and the investigations keep piling up—is it reasonable for investors to be buying into the company rather than walking away from it?
There are indeed causes for optimism. First off, if all this stuff comes out now, there are hopefully fewer potential scandals waiting in Facebook’s closet.
More importantly, though, Facebook’s many admissions come in the context of the company making major changes to its systems, so they are more compliant with the European Union’s incoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It’s a lot easier to fess up to something when you can promote the cure along with the diagnosis. (Zuckerberg also used a Wednesday conference call with reporters to insist that, contrary to a Reuters report, Facebook will extend GDPR-compliant privacy controls to users around the world, not just in the EU.)
If Facebook didn’t make big changes to get in line with the European privacy law, which comes into effect next month, it would have been risking fines of up to 4% of global annual revenues. It remains to be seen whether EU regulators will be satisfied with the changes Facebook has implemented, but it certainly looks like it’s making a serious effort.
The big question now is how much those changes will affect Facebook’s bottom line. They make it harder for third-party apps to get data on Facebook’s users, potentially making the social network a less attractive platform for some developers. They loosen lucrative ties with data brokers, potentially making for less relevant ads on the platform (something that’s worrying Morgan Stanley’s analysts.) These are reversals of policies that made Facebook what it is today—invasive of privacy, but a big money-spinner.
So when Zuckerberg says there hasn’t been a material impact on Facebook’s business yet, that may not be relevant for long. Yes, most people haven’t jumped on board the #DeleteFacebook bandwagon, but it’s what happens next that counts. Once Facebook has worked to regain people’s trust—if indeed that’s possible—it needs to show that it can still thrive while being respectful of users’ data and privacy.
More news below.
David Meyer
@superglaze
Top News
Dimon Newsletter
JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon has praised Trump’s policies in his latest newsletter, noting that the deregulation and tax cuts mean more money for the bank. However, he also said the White House should think again about its antipathy to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, which has gone ahead without the U.S. Reuters
Oracle and Trump
Oracle co-CEO Safra Catz, whose company is in bigtime competition with Amazon in the cloud computing space, reportedly told President Donald Trump in a private dinner that bidding for a Pentagon cloud contract was unfairly weighted in Amazon’s favor. Trump has it in for Amazon at the moment, but, according to the report, he made no indication to Catz that he would interfere in the bidding process. Bloomberg
YouTube Security
YouTube’s offices around the world are to get a security boost following Tuesday’s shooting at its San Bruno headquarters. Nasim Aghdam, who shot and wounded three people before killing herself, entered the facility through its parking garage. “We are…revisiting this incident in detail and will be increasing the security we have at all of our offices worldwide to make them more secure not only in the near term, but long-term,” the Google-owned operation told its employees. However, it’s not so easy to boost security on open-design tech campuses. Recode
Saudi Cinema
Saudi Arabia lifted its 35-year ban on movie theaters at the end of last year, and now the country has issued its first cinema operating license to the U.S.-headquartered (and Chinese-owned) chain AMC. AMC’s first Saudi cinema will open in Riyadh in a couple weeks’ time. It will likely soon face competition from regional companies such as Vox Cinemas and Novo Cinemas, which are based in the United Arab Emirates. CNN
Advertisement
Around the Water Cooler
Wine Deal
The Carlyle Group is buying Australia’s largest winemaker, Accolade Wines, for $769 million. Accolade is the company behind labels such as Hardy’s and Kumala, and the fifth-largest company in its field globally. Like other Australian winemakers, Accolade has been enjoying brisk trade with China, where the middle classes are increasingly keen on wine. City A.M.
Nike Diversity
Nike’s HR chief has told employees that the company has “failed to get traction” in its efforts to hire more women and minorities. “Our hiring and promotion decisions are not changing senior-level representation as quickly as we have wanted,” Monique Matheson said in a memo leaked to The Wall Street Journal. Only 29% of Nike’s several hundred vice presidents are women. WSJ
Philippine Diversion
Airlines are cancelling flights to the popular Philippine island of Boracay, after the government ordered its closure to protect it. On Wednesday, President Rodrigo Duterte railed against unlicensed developments on the island and highlighted the outflow of raw sewage to the sea around it. Cebu Pacific, Philippine Airlines and AirAsia Philippines are all scaling back flights to Boracay—Cebu Pacific reckons it will lose as much as $5 million over the next six months due to the cancellations. Reuters
Harassment in Congress
Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto wants Congress to overhaul its sexual harassment policies. In a piece for Fortune, she writes: “Four out of 10 female congressional staffers believe that sexual harassment is a problem on Capitol Hill, according to a 2016 CQ Roll Call survey. One out every six of these women say they themselves are survivors of sexual harassment. These numbers show just how widespread sexual misconduct continues to be in Congress. This culture must change.” Fortune
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer. Find previous editions here, and sign up for other Fortune newsletters here.
Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer and founder of Facebook Inc., speaks during the Oculus Connect 3 event in San Jose, California on Oct. 6, 2016.
Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer and founder of Facebook Inc., speaks during the Oculus Connect 3 event in San Jose, California on Oct. 6, 2016.
David Paul Morris—Bloomberg via Getty Images
By DAVID MEYER 6:37 AM EDT
Good morning. Berlin-based Fortune writer David Meyer here, filling in for Alan today.
Facebook’s share price is up a few percentage points after CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the recent scandals hadn’t made “any meaningful impact” on the business.
The claim came as Facebook confirmed that it scans the links and images sent in private Messenger conversations. The company yesterday also said the data of 87 million, not 50 million, of its users may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica. Oh, and malicious actors had been using a (now removed) tool for finding friends to record people’s public information. “Most people on Facebook could have had their public profile scraped in this way,” Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer admitted in a blog post.
Given that Facebook’s privacy scandals keep on coming—and the investigations keep piling up—is it reasonable for investors to be buying into the company rather than walking away from it?
There are indeed causes for optimism. First off, if all this stuff comes out now, there are hopefully fewer potential scandals waiting in Facebook’s closet.
More importantly, though, Facebook’s many admissions come in the context of the company making major changes to its systems, so they are more compliant with the European Union’s incoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It’s a lot easier to fess up to something when you can promote the cure along with the diagnosis. (Zuckerberg also used a Wednesday conference call with reporters to insist that, contrary to a Reuters report, Facebook will extend GDPR-compliant privacy controls to users around the world, not just in the EU.)
If Facebook didn’t make big changes to get in line with the European privacy law, which comes into effect next month, it would have been risking fines of up to 4% of global annual revenues. It remains to be seen whether EU regulators will be satisfied with the changes Facebook has implemented, but it certainly looks like it’s making a serious effort.
The big question now is how much those changes will affect Facebook’s bottom line. They make it harder for third-party apps to get data on Facebook’s users, potentially making the social network a less attractive platform for some developers. They loosen lucrative ties with data brokers, potentially making for less relevant ads on the platform (something that’s worrying Morgan Stanley’s analysts.) These are reversals of policies that made Facebook what it is today—invasive of privacy, but a big money-spinner.
So when Zuckerberg says there hasn’t been a material impact on Facebook’s business yet, that may not be relevant for long. Yes, most people haven’t jumped on board the #DeleteFacebook bandwagon, but it’s what happens next that counts. Once Facebook has worked to regain people’s trust—if indeed that’s possible—it needs to show that it can still thrive while being respectful of users’ data and privacy.
More news below.
David Meyer
@superglaze
Top News
Dimon Newsletter
JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon has praised Trump’s policies in his latest newsletter, noting that the deregulation and tax cuts mean more money for the bank. However, he also said the White House should think again about its antipathy to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, which has gone ahead without the U.S. Reuters
Oracle and Trump
Oracle co-CEO Safra Catz, whose company is in bigtime competition with Amazon in the cloud computing space, reportedly told President Donald Trump in a private dinner that bidding for a Pentagon cloud contract was unfairly weighted in Amazon’s favor. Trump has it in for Amazon at the moment, but, according to the report, he made no indication to Catz that he would interfere in the bidding process. Bloomberg
YouTube Security
YouTube’s offices around the world are to get a security boost following Tuesday’s shooting at its San Bruno headquarters. Nasim Aghdam, who shot and wounded three people before killing herself, entered the facility through its parking garage. “We are…revisiting this incident in detail and will be increasing the security we have at all of our offices worldwide to make them more secure not only in the near term, but long-term,” the Google-owned operation told its employees. However, it’s not so easy to boost security on open-design tech campuses. Recode
Saudi Cinema
Saudi Arabia lifted its 35-year ban on movie theaters at the end of last year, and now the country has issued its first cinema operating license to the U.S.-headquartered (and Chinese-owned) chain AMC. AMC’s first Saudi cinema will open in Riyadh in a couple weeks’ time. It will likely soon face competition from regional companies such as Vox Cinemas and Novo Cinemas, which are based in the United Arab Emirates. CNN
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Around the Water Cooler
Wine Deal
The Carlyle Group is buying Australia’s largest winemaker, Accolade Wines, for $769 million. Accolade is the company behind labels such as Hardy’s and Kumala, and the fifth-largest company in its field globally. Like other Australian winemakers, Accolade has been enjoying brisk trade with China, where the middle classes are increasingly keen on wine. City A.M.
Nike Diversity
Nike’s HR chief has told employees that the company has “failed to get traction” in its efforts to hire more women and minorities. “Our hiring and promotion decisions are not changing senior-level representation as quickly as we have wanted,” Monique Matheson said in a memo leaked to The Wall Street Journal. Only 29% of Nike’s several hundred vice presidents are women. WSJ
Philippine Diversion
Airlines are cancelling flights to the popular Philippine island of Boracay, after the government ordered its closure to protect it. On Wednesday, President Rodrigo Duterte railed against unlicensed developments on the island and highlighted the outflow of raw sewage to the sea around it. Cebu Pacific, Philippine Airlines and AirAsia Philippines are all scaling back flights to Boracay—Cebu Pacific reckons it will lose as much as $5 million over the next six months due to the cancellations. Reuters
Harassment in Congress
Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto wants Congress to overhaul its sexual harassment policies. In a piece for Fortune, she writes: “Four out of 10 female congressional staffers believe that sexual harassment is a problem on Capitol Hill, according to a 2016 CQ Roll Call survey. One out every six of these women say they themselves are survivors of sexual harassment. These numbers show just how widespread sexual misconduct continues to be in Congress. This culture must change.” Fortune
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer. Find previous editions here, and sign up for other Fortune newsletters here.
Facebook Says Data on Most of Its 2 Billion Users Is Vulnerable - Bloomberg
Facebook Says Data on Most of Its 2 Billion Users Is Vulnerable
By
April 5, 2018, 4:42 AM GMT+10 Updated on April 5, 2018, 2:32 PM GMT+10
Malicious actors scraped users’ public profiles, company says
Shares climb after CEO Zuckerberg defends ad-driven business
Bloomberg’s Emily Chang reports on Facebook’s confirmation of the data shared with Cambridge Analytica.
Facebook Inc. said data on most of its 2 billion users could have been accessed improperly, giving fresh evidence of the ways the social-media giant failed to protect people’s privacy while generating billions of dollars in revenue from the information.
The company said it removed a feature that let users enter phone numbers or email addresses into Facebook’s search tool to find other people. That was being used by malicious actors to scrape public profile information, it said.
“Given the scale and sophistication of the activity we’ve seen, we believe most people on Facebook could have had their public profile scraped in this way,” the company said. “So we have now disabled this feature.”
Facebook also said data on as many as 87 million people, most of them in the U.S., may have been improperly shared with research firm Cambridge Analytica. This is Facebook’s first official confirmation of the possible scope of the data leak, which was previously estimated at roughly 50 million. It has resulted in calls from legislators and policy makers for greater regulation of social media, helping to shave billion of dollars from the company’s market value.
“We didn’t take a broad enough view of what our responsibility was and that was a huge mistake. It was my mistake,” Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said on a conference call with reporters. “We’re broadening our view of our responsibility.”
Zuckerberg is scheduled to appear before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committee on April 10 to discuss Facebook’s role in society and users’ privacy. Australia’s government said it has started a formal investigation into whether Facebook breached the country’s privacy laws.
He defended the company’s advertising business model, confirmed he wants to stay in charge and disclosed no "meaningful impact" from an online campaign by some users to delete their Facebook accounts. Facebook stock rose almost 3 percent in extended trading, after closing at $155.10 in New York.
About 270,000 people downloaded a personality quiz app and shared information about themselves and their friends with a researcher, who then passed along the information to Cambridge Analytica, in a move that Facebook says was against its rules. Facebook reached the 87 million figure by adding up all the unique people that those 270,000 users were friends with at the time they gave the app permission. Facebook made the new disclosure in an online posting Wednesday.
Cambridge Analytica, which worked for Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, said it licensed data on 30 million people, countering Facebook’s 87 million estimate. Cambridge Analytica said in a tweet that it “immediately deleted the raw data from our file server, and began the process of searching for and removing any of its derivatives in our system” after Facebook contacted them to let them know data had been improperly obtained.
Facebook says it will tell people, in a notice at the top of their news feeds starting April 9, if their information may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica. But it still hasn’t independently confirmed if the firm currently has the data. The revelation, and the subsequent media questions, hint at the grilling Zuckerberg will likely face when he testifies on the matter before Congress next week: How many other Cambridge Analytica-scale leaks of data are out there?
Zuckerberg, in Wednesday’s call, said he couldn’t be sure. “We’re not going to be able to go out and find every single bad use of data, but what we can do is make it a lot harder for folks to do that going forward,” he said. “I think we will be able to uncover a large amount of bad activity that exists.”
The company has been embroiled in controversy for weeks over the revelation that data was shared and then not deleted. It raised questions over the information Facebook compiles on users, makes available to third parties, and what happens to it afterward. Facebook made the announcement along with an update on its plans to restrict data access through its platform.
Zuckerberg defended gathering user data for a business model that lets advertisers use Facebook’s information and targeting tools to reach specific audiences.
“People tell us that if they’re going to see ads they want the ads to be good,” he said, noting that requires keeping track of what people are interested in.
Either way, he thinks he should remain at the helm of Facebook. “I think life is about learning from mistakes and figuring out what you need to do to move forward,” he said.
By
April 5, 2018, 4:42 AM GMT+10 Updated on April 5, 2018, 2:32 PM GMT+10
Malicious actors scraped users’ public profiles, company says
Shares climb after CEO Zuckerberg defends ad-driven business
Bloomberg’s Emily Chang reports on Facebook’s confirmation of the data shared with Cambridge Analytica.
Facebook Inc. said data on most of its 2 billion users could have been accessed improperly, giving fresh evidence of the ways the social-media giant failed to protect people’s privacy while generating billions of dollars in revenue from the information.
The company said it removed a feature that let users enter phone numbers or email addresses into Facebook’s search tool to find other people. That was being used by malicious actors to scrape public profile information, it said.
“Given the scale and sophistication of the activity we’ve seen, we believe most people on Facebook could have had their public profile scraped in this way,” the company said. “So we have now disabled this feature.”
Facebook also said data on as many as 87 million people, most of them in the U.S., may have been improperly shared with research firm Cambridge Analytica. This is Facebook’s first official confirmation of the possible scope of the data leak, which was previously estimated at roughly 50 million. It has resulted in calls from legislators and policy makers for greater regulation of social media, helping to shave billion of dollars from the company’s market value.
“We didn’t take a broad enough view of what our responsibility was and that was a huge mistake. It was my mistake,” Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said on a conference call with reporters. “We’re broadening our view of our responsibility.”
Zuckerberg is scheduled to appear before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committee on April 10 to discuss Facebook’s role in society and users’ privacy. Australia’s government said it has started a formal investigation into whether Facebook breached the country’s privacy laws.
He defended the company’s advertising business model, confirmed he wants to stay in charge and disclosed no "meaningful impact" from an online campaign by some users to delete their Facebook accounts. Facebook stock rose almost 3 percent in extended trading, after closing at $155.10 in New York.
About 270,000 people downloaded a personality quiz app and shared information about themselves and their friends with a researcher, who then passed along the information to Cambridge Analytica, in a move that Facebook says was against its rules. Facebook reached the 87 million figure by adding up all the unique people that those 270,000 users were friends with at the time they gave the app permission. Facebook made the new disclosure in an online posting Wednesday.
Cambridge Analytica, which worked for Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, said it licensed data on 30 million people, countering Facebook’s 87 million estimate. Cambridge Analytica said in a tweet that it “immediately deleted the raw data from our file server, and began the process of searching for and removing any of its derivatives in our system” after Facebook contacted them to let them know data had been improperly obtained.
Facebook says it will tell people, in a notice at the top of their news feeds starting April 9, if their information may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica. But it still hasn’t independently confirmed if the firm currently has the data. The revelation, and the subsequent media questions, hint at the grilling Zuckerberg will likely face when he testifies on the matter before Congress next week: How many other Cambridge Analytica-scale leaks of data are out there?
Zuckerberg, in Wednesday’s call, said he couldn’t be sure. “We’re not going to be able to go out and find every single bad use of data, but what we can do is make it a lot harder for folks to do that going forward,” he said. “I think we will be able to uncover a large amount of bad activity that exists.”
The company has been embroiled in controversy for weeks over the revelation that data was shared and then not deleted. It raised questions over the information Facebook compiles on users, makes available to third parties, and what happens to it afterward. Facebook made the announcement along with an update on its plans to restrict data access through its platform.
Zuckerberg defended gathering user data for a business model that lets advertisers use Facebook’s information and targeting tools to reach specific audiences.
“People tell us that if they’re going to see ads they want the ads to be good,” he said, noting that requires keeping track of what people are interested in.
Either way, he thinks he should remain at the helm of Facebook. “I think life is about learning from mistakes and figuring out what you need to do to move forward,” he said.
Russian live missile tests force Latvia to close airspace over Baltic sea - Independent
4/4/2018
Russian live missile tests force Latvia to close airspace over Baltic sea: 'It's hard to comprehend'
'It is a demonstration of force. It is hard to comprehend that it can happen so close to [our] country'
Samuel Osborne @SamuelOsborne93 1
Russian military vessels conduct drills during the joint war games Zapad-2013, in the Baltic Sea
Russia has carried out missile tests in the Baltic Sea, causing Nato member Latvia to shut down part of its commercial airspace.
The Russian defence ministry said its Baltic Fleet, based in the exclave of Kaliningrad, would conduct routine training in the area starting on Wednesday.
It said the drills would involve firing live ammunition to practise hitting air and sea targets.
They are taking place between Sweden, Poland and Latvia – close to the southern Swedish city of Karlskrona, which hosts a key naval base.
Three corvettes and a frigate are taking part, as well as ship-borne helicopters which are conducting training flights and practising hunting enemy submarines.
Drills involve firing of live ammunition to practise hitting air and sea targets
“It is a demonstration of force,” Latvia’s prime minister, Maris Kucinskis, told Reuters. “It is hard to comprehend that it can happen so close to [our] country.”
Russia calls meeting of chemical weapons watchdog over Skripal attack
Trump says ‘stupid people don’t want to get on better with Russia’
Russia has underestimated the West, Nato chief warns
British forced to borrow Nato planes to monitor Russian submarines
Russia simulated full-scale war against Nato, says military commander
The tests are being carried out in Latvia’s exclusive economic zone, an area of the sea just beyond its territorial waters where Latvia has special economic rights, as well as further west in the Baltic Sea.
Riga has closed some of its airspace for the three days of tests, while Sweden issued a warning to civilian sea traffic and said there could be delays and disruption to civilian air traffic.
The tests began a day after the US president, Donald Trump, met the presidents of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia at the White House.
Donald Trump says only ‘very stupid people don’t want to get on better with Russia’
President Trump made the case the US had been “very tough on Russia,” pointing to its support for increased defence spending by Nato countries as a check on Moscow’s aggression.
“Nobody has been tougher on Russia, but getting along with Russia would be a good thing, not a bad thing. And just about everybody agrees to that except very stupid people,” he said in a Cabinet Room meeting with the leaders. “We’ve been very tough on Russia, frankly.”
When President Trump was asked by a reporter if he considered the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to be a friend or foe, he replied: “We’ll find out. I’ll let you know.”
Latvia’s president, Mr Kucinskis, noted the decision to carry out tests so close to Latvian waters came after the West expelled the largest number of Russian spies since the Cold War, following the military-grade nerve agent attack on former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury.
Latvian officials said Russian drills have never taken place so close to its territory. However, it noted Russia is not breaking any international regulations and has the right to carry them out.
“Drills lasting for three days in the region where there is very intensive aviation traffic, and given everything else that is happening in relations between the West and Russia, I think that it is a rather provocative action,” Latvia’s ambassador to Russia, Maris Riekstins, told Latvian television.
Nato’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, said the alliance would follow the tests closely, while noting every nation has the right to carry out military exercises.
“We are staying vigilant and we are also increasing the readiness of our forces, especially in the Baltic region,” he told reporters after meeting the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, in Ottawa.
The missile tests and military drills follow Russia’s massive war games last September, which stretched from the Baltics to the Black Sea.
The exercises unnerved the West because of their scale, scope and what Nato said was a lack of transparency.
Additional reporting by agencies
Russian live missile tests force Latvia to close airspace over Baltic sea: 'It's hard to comprehend'
'It is a demonstration of force. It is hard to comprehend that it can happen so close to [our] country'
Samuel Osborne @SamuelOsborne93 1
Russian military vessels conduct drills during the joint war games Zapad-2013, in the Baltic Sea
Russia has carried out missile tests in the Baltic Sea, causing Nato member Latvia to shut down part of its commercial airspace.
The Russian defence ministry said its Baltic Fleet, based in the exclave of Kaliningrad, would conduct routine training in the area starting on Wednesday.
It said the drills would involve firing live ammunition to practise hitting air and sea targets.
They are taking place between Sweden, Poland and Latvia – close to the southern Swedish city of Karlskrona, which hosts a key naval base.
Three corvettes and a frigate are taking part, as well as ship-borne helicopters which are conducting training flights and practising hunting enemy submarines.
Drills involve firing of live ammunition to practise hitting air and sea targets
“It is a demonstration of force,” Latvia’s prime minister, Maris Kucinskis, told Reuters. “It is hard to comprehend that it can happen so close to [our] country.”
Russia calls meeting of chemical weapons watchdog over Skripal attack
Trump says ‘stupid people don’t want to get on better with Russia’
Russia has underestimated the West, Nato chief warns
British forced to borrow Nato planes to monitor Russian submarines
Russia simulated full-scale war against Nato, says military commander
The tests are being carried out in Latvia’s exclusive economic zone, an area of the sea just beyond its territorial waters where Latvia has special economic rights, as well as further west in the Baltic Sea.
Riga has closed some of its airspace for the three days of tests, while Sweden issued a warning to civilian sea traffic and said there could be delays and disruption to civilian air traffic.
The tests began a day after the US president, Donald Trump, met the presidents of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia at the White House.
Donald Trump says only ‘very stupid people don’t want to get on better with Russia’
President Trump made the case the US had been “very tough on Russia,” pointing to its support for increased defence spending by Nato countries as a check on Moscow’s aggression.
“Nobody has been tougher on Russia, but getting along with Russia would be a good thing, not a bad thing. And just about everybody agrees to that except very stupid people,” he said in a Cabinet Room meeting with the leaders. “We’ve been very tough on Russia, frankly.”
When President Trump was asked by a reporter if he considered the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to be a friend or foe, he replied: “We’ll find out. I’ll let you know.”
Latvia’s president, Mr Kucinskis, noted the decision to carry out tests so close to Latvian waters came after the West expelled the largest number of Russian spies since the Cold War, following the military-grade nerve agent attack on former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury.
Latvian officials said Russian drills have never taken place so close to its territory. However, it noted Russia is not breaking any international regulations and has the right to carry them out.
“Drills lasting for three days in the region where there is very intensive aviation traffic, and given everything else that is happening in relations between the West and Russia, I think that it is a rather provocative action,” Latvia’s ambassador to Russia, Maris Riekstins, told Latvian television.
Nato’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, said the alliance would follow the tests closely, while noting every nation has the right to carry out military exercises.
“We are staying vigilant and we are also increasing the readiness of our forces, especially in the Baltic region,” he told reporters after meeting the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, in Ottawa.
The missile tests and military drills follow Russia’s massive war games last September, which stretched from the Baltics to the Black Sea.
The exercises unnerved the West because of their scale, scope and what Nato said was a lack of transparency.
Additional reporting by agencies
American lawyers urged to use 'burner phones' when travelling abroad to protect information from US border inspection - Telegraph
American lawyers urged to use 'burner phones' when travelling abroad to protect information from US border inspection
Lawyers urged to leave smart phones at home when travelling abroad
Lawyers urged to leave smart phones at home when travelling abroad
David Millward, us correspondent
5 APRIL 2018 • 12:55AM
Lawyers in the US are being advised to use “burner phones” when they travel abroad to protect information from government inspection on re-entering the country.
The advice, given by the New York Bar Association, comes against the backdrop of the Trump administration tightening border security.
Anyone entering the US can be asked to turn over their computers and phones to Customs and Border Protection for inspection.
They will also be expected to disclose passwords to enable officials to examine their correspondence.
Foreigners who refuse to comply can be denied entry into the country while US citizens face having their equipment confiscated temporarily to allow further inspection.
Customs and Border Protection have the right to inspect smart phones
Customs and Border Protection have the right to inspect smart phones CREDIT: CHRIS HONDROS/GETTY IMAGES
The American Bar Association, which has 400,000 members, has been trying to persuade the Department of Homeland Security to devise a policy which will protect lawyer-client privilege.
Last year Linda Klein, the Association’s chairman, appealed to John Kelly, then the Homeland Security Secretary, to permit only cursory inspection of lawyers’ computers and phones.
But no agreement has been reached, leading the New York Bar Association to suggest drastic measures.
It has urged lawyers to use “burner phones” – cheap throwaway devices often seen in modern crime shows.
The Association has also advised lawyers to install software to wipe sensitive information and to disconnect from cloud services.
As things stand, the courts have yet to reach a conclusive decision on the legality of inspecting phones and computers.
Currently 0.017 per cent of people entering the US are subjected to an electronic device search.
Lawyers urged to leave smart phones at home when travelling abroad
Lawyers urged to leave smart phones at home when travelling abroad
David Millward, us correspondent
5 APRIL 2018 • 12:55AM
Lawyers in the US are being advised to use “burner phones” when they travel abroad to protect information from government inspection on re-entering the country.
The advice, given by the New York Bar Association, comes against the backdrop of the Trump administration tightening border security.
Anyone entering the US can be asked to turn over their computers and phones to Customs and Border Protection for inspection.
They will also be expected to disclose passwords to enable officials to examine their correspondence.
Foreigners who refuse to comply can be denied entry into the country while US citizens face having their equipment confiscated temporarily to allow further inspection.
Customs and Border Protection have the right to inspect smart phones
Customs and Border Protection have the right to inspect smart phones CREDIT: CHRIS HONDROS/GETTY IMAGES
The American Bar Association, which has 400,000 members, has been trying to persuade the Department of Homeland Security to devise a policy which will protect lawyer-client privilege.
Last year Linda Klein, the Association’s chairman, appealed to John Kelly, then the Homeland Security Secretary, to permit only cursory inspection of lawyers’ computers and phones.
But no agreement has been reached, leading the New York Bar Association to suggest drastic measures.
It has urged lawyers to use “burner phones” – cheap throwaway devices often seen in modern crime shows.
The Association has also advised lawyers to install software to wipe sensitive information and to disconnect from cloud services.
As things stand, the courts have yet to reach a conclusive decision on the legality of inspecting phones and computers.
Currently 0.017 per cent of people entering the US are subjected to an electronic device search.
Philippines to temporarily close popular tourist island Boracay - BBC News
5/4/2018
Philippines to temporarily close popular tourist island Boracay
Boracay is popular with foreign and local tourists
The Philippine island of Boracay will be closed to tourists for six months following concerns of damage to its once pristine shores.
A spokesperson for President Rodrigo Duterte said the closure would begin on 26 April.
Earlier this year Mr Duterte said Boracay was turning into a "cesspool" and threatened to shut it down.
The island, known for its white-sand beaches, attracted nearly 2 million visitors last year.
The decision has prompted concern for the thousands of people employed in Boracay's busy tourist trade.
The island is home to around 500 tourism-related businesses, which drew in annual revenue of $1.07bn (£760m) last year. The government said affected companies will receive financial aid.
It's not clear how the shutdown will be implemented, though the department of trade and industry had earlier proposed closing the island down in phases, saying a total shutdown would be detrimental to businesses and livelihoods.
Damage fears
The move follows growing concern over the island's environmental health.
Officials had warned businesses had been releasing wastewater into the surrounding waters.
In February, Mr Duterte condemned the island's hotels, restaurants and other tourist businesses, accusing them of dumping sewage directly into the sea.
A mountain of trash sits on a hillside on Boracay
"I will charge you for serious neglect of duty [for] making Boracay a fishpond or a sewer pool," Mr Duterte said at the time.
"Either [you] clean it up or I will close it permanently. There will be a time that no more foreigners will go there."
Philippines to temporarily close popular tourist island Boracay
Boracay is popular with foreign and local tourists
The Philippine island of Boracay will be closed to tourists for six months following concerns of damage to its once pristine shores.
A spokesperson for President Rodrigo Duterte said the closure would begin on 26 April.
Earlier this year Mr Duterte said Boracay was turning into a "cesspool" and threatened to shut it down.
The island, known for its white-sand beaches, attracted nearly 2 million visitors last year.
The decision has prompted concern for the thousands of people employed in Boracay's busy tourist trade.
The island is home to around 500 tourism-related businesses, which drew in annual revenue of $1.07bn (£760m) last year. The government said affected companies will receive financial aid.
It's not clear how the shutdown will be implemented, though the department of trade and industry had earlier proposed closing the island down in phases, saying a total shutdown would be detrimental to businesses and livelihoods.
Damage fears
The move follows growing concern over the island's environmental health.
Officials had warned businesses had been releasing wastewater into the surrounding waters.
In February, Mr Duterte condemned the island's hotels, restaurants and other tourist businesses, accusing them of dumping sewage directly into the sea.
A mountain of trash sits on a hillside on Boracay
"I will charge you for serious neglect of duty [for] making Boracay a fishpond or a sewer pool," Mr Duterte said at the time.
"Either [you] clean it up or I will close it permanently. There will be a time that no more foreigners will go there."
Zuckerberg: I'm still the man to run Facebook - BBC Nwes
Zuckerberg: I'm still the man to run Facebook
Dave Lee
North America technology reporter
5 April 2018
Mr Zuckerberg says he will not step down
Despite the turmoil that continues to surround his company, Mark Zuckerberg has insisted he is still the best person to lead Facebook.
"When you're building something like Facebook which is unprecedented in the world," he said on Wednesday, "there are things that you're going to mess up.
"What I think people should hold us accountable for is if we are learning from our mistakes."
As well as being Facebook's chief executive, Mr Zuckerberg is chairman of the company's board. When asked if his position had been discussed, he replied: "Not that I know of!"
The mere possibility that his leadership is in question is a scenario few would have predicted even a month ago.
But recent reports around improper data gathering by third parties - as well as fake news and propaganda - have prompted some to question Mr Zuckerberg's ability to lead a company that some think has grown beyond his control.
Facebook scandal 'hit 87 million users'
Zuckerberg to testify before US committee
Facebook chief fires back at Apple's Tim Cook
Facebook haunted by 'ugly truth' memo
'By design, he can’t be fired - he can only resign'
Scott Stringer, head of New York City's pension fund, said this week that Mr Zuckerberg should step aside. The fund owns approximately $1bn-worth of the social network.
"They have two billion users," Mr Stringer told CNBC.
"They are in uncharted waters, and they have not comported themselves in a way that makes people feel good about Facebook and secure about their own data."
He called for Mr Zuckerberg to step down in order to let Facebook start a "reputation-enhancing second chapter".
"He doesn’t just lead an institution that touches almost every person on the planet," wrote Felix Salmon.
"He also, thanks to financial engineering, has a majority of shareholder votes and controls the board, and is therefore answerable to no one.
"By design, he can’t be fired - he can only resign. Which is exactly what he should now do."
'A man often criticised as lacking empathy'
Mr Zuckerberg's conference call went as well as the 33-year-old could have expected.
Indeed, at one point he encouraged more time to take more questions.
From his answers we learned a little more about the real toll of the negative publicity and the "deleteFacebook" movement. And so far the answer is: not much.
There has been "no meaningful impact that we’ve observed" he said, before quickly adding: "But look, it's not good!"
Mr Zuckerberg said the "deleteFacebook" movement had had little impact
What we couldn't tell during the call, of course, was to what extent Mr Zuckerberg was being quietly guided by his team in the room.
But for a man often criticised as lacking empathy, it was a strong display lasting almost an hour. Investors certainly thought so - shares were up 3% once the call ended.
Next week he will face a potentially tougher prospect, this time in front of the cameras, when he heads to Washington to testify before Congress.
Cambridge Analytica: The story so far
Indeed, this session with the press was perhaps the ideal dress rehearsal.
The dynamic around Mr Zuckerberg's leadership could change dramatically in the coming months, as investigations - most notably from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) - begin to probe deeper into how Facebook handled the public's data.
If the company is seen to have fallen short of its responsibility, and is hit with a potentially enormous fine, it could increase pressure on Facebook to make serious personnel changes.
So far, despite all of the apologies and admissions of poor judgement, Mr Zuckerberg told reporters that not a single person at the company had been fired over the Cambridge Analytica fiasco.
The buck stops with him, he said - and indeed it might.
Dave Lee
North America technology reporter
5 April 2018
Mr Zuckerberg says he will not step down
Despite the turmoil that continues to surround his company, Mark Zuckerberg has insisted he is still the best person to lead Facebook.
"When you're building something like Facebook which is unprecedented in the world," he said on Wednesday, "there are things that you're going to mess up.
"What I think people should hold us accountable for is if we are learning from our mistakes."
As well as being Facebook's chief executive, Mr Zuckerberg is chairman of the company's board. When asked if his position had been discussed, he replied: "Not that I know of!"
The mere possibility that his leadership is in question is a scenario few would have predicted even a month ago.
But recent reports around improper data gathering by third parties - as well as fake news and propaganda - have prompted some to question Mr Zuckerberg's ability to lead a company that some think has grown beyond his control.
Facebook scandal 'hit 87 million users'
Zuckerberg to testify before US committee
Facebook chief fires back at Apple's Tim Cook
Facebook haunted by 'ugly truth' memo
'By design, he can’t be fired - he can only resign'
Scott Stringer, head of New York City's pension fund, said this week that Mr Zuckerberg should step aside. The fund owns approximately $1bn-worth of the social network.
"They have two billion users," Mr Stringer told CNBC.
"They are in uncharted waters, and they have not comported themselves in a way that makes people feel good about Facebook and secure about their own data."
He called for Mr Zuckerberg to step down in order to let Facebook start a "reputation-enhancing second chapter".
"He doesn’t just lead an institution that touches almost every person on the planet," wrote Felix Salmon.
"He also, thanks to financial engineering, has a majority of shareholder votes and controls the board, and is therefore answerable to no one.
"By design, he can’t be fired - he can only resign. Which is exactly what he should now do."
'A man often criticised as lacking empathy'
Mr Zuckerberg's conference call went as well as the 33-year-old could have expected.
Indeed, at one point he encouraged more time to take more questions.
From his answers we learned a little more about the real toll of the negative publicity and the "deleteFacebook" movement. And so far the answer is: not much.
There has been "no meaningful impact that we’ve observed" he said, before quickly adding: "But look, it's not good!"
Mr Zuckerberg said the "deleteFacebook" movement had had little impact
What we couldn't tell during the call, of course, was to what extent Mr Zuckerberg was being quietly guided by his team in the room.
But for a man often criticised as lacking empathy, it was a strong display lasting almost an hour. Investors certainly thought so - shares were up 3% once the call ended.
Next week he will face a potentially tougher prospect, this time in front of the cameras, when he heads to Washington to testify before Congress.
Cambridge Analytica: The story so far
Indeed, this session with the press was perhaps the ideal dress rehearsal.
The dynamic around Mr Zuckerberg's leadership could change dramatically in the coming months, as investigations - most notably from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) - begin to probe deeper into how Facebook handled the public's data.
If the company is seen to have fallen short of its responsibility, and is hit with a potentially enormous fine, it could increase pressure on Facebook to make serious personnel changes.
So far, despite all of the apologies and admissions of poor judgement, Mr Zuckerberg told reporters that not a single person at the company had been fired over the Cambridge Analytica fiasco.
The buck stops with him, he said - and indeed it might.
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