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Freedom Foods searches for a better corn flake

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Freedom Foods says its breakfast cereal recipes won't be the same in the next two years as it fends off moves from its bigger competitors into the allergen-free space.

David Kokke, a food technologist at the listed health foods company, said Freedom's products risked becoming "commodities" if it failed to constantly innovate and reinvent its brands. This means tinkering with its recipes, which are free of nuts, gluten and wheat, he said.

"Take something like a corn flake. Is the Freedom Foods' corn flake today going to be the same as the Freedom Foods corn flake in three years' time or two years' time?" Mr Kokke said.

"I hope not, because if we don't drive taste improvements or nutritional improvements, what's going to make our corn flake different to the rest?"

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Freedom has spent $30 million expanding its cereal factory at Leeton in the NSW Riverina and is planning more upgrades aimed at defending its market-leading position.

It comes as its bigger competitors and supermarket private label brands introduce their own allergen-free products.

Nestle Australia introduced a "lunchbox friendly" nut free muesli bar earlier this year, while Sanitarium launched gluten free Weet-Bix last month, using sorghum instead of wheat.

"If we don't drive innovation and we don't have our own genuine ideas and our innovative ideas, we're just a 'me too', we're just a follower," Mr Kokke said.

"We aren't going to necessarily lead or challenge some of the established players in the marketplace."

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Freedom Foods searches for a better corn flake

Restoring freedom to FOIA

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Over time, federal agencies have flipped the Freedom of Information Act on its head. Congress clearly intended the FOIA to be a tool for the public to pry information out of federal agencies.

In recent years, however, agencies have blatantly abused opaque language in the law to keep records that might be embarrassing out of the publics hands forever.

One of the clearest examples of this problem has been playing itself out in court rooms over the last few years as the Central Intelligence Agency has successfully argued against the release of a 30-year-old draft volume of the official history of the 1961 Bay of Pigs disaster.

There are few records in the federal government that are seen to merit such secrecy. This draft CIA history is afforded stronger protections than the presidents records, or even classified national security information. Members of the public are able to access similar records generated by the White House as early as 12 years after the president leaves office. Even most classified national security information is automatically declassified after 25 years. Yet, the CIA continues to insist that releasing a draft volume of a history of events that occurred more than 50 years ago, and are already generally understood by the public, must be kept secret.

How is this possible? The record can continue to be withheld because it fits under the rubric of the FOIAs exemption for inter- and intra-agency records.

While this exemption was intended in part to allow agency officials to give candid advice before an agency has made an official decision, agencies have stretched its use to cover practically anything that is not a final version of a document.

As long as a record meets the technical definition of an inter- or intra-agency record, there is nothing the public or courts can do to make an agency release it.

Thankfully, Congress has recognized this black hole in the publics right to know, and has stepped in with a bill that promises to close the loophole and make other changes that would improve the FOIA process. Longtime FOIA champions Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont and John Cornyn, R-Texas have reached across the aisle to develop and introduce S. 2520, the FOIA Improvement Act.

The bill takes the common sense step of requiring agencies to weigh the public interest in the release of an inter- or intra- agency record when considering whether to withhold it, and also puts a time limit of 25 years on the use of the exemption.

Far from radically changing how requests are processed, this narrowly tailored change to the law would help ensure historical records are available on a timely basis and stem the worst abuses by allowing a court to weigh in where necessary to make sure records that would show waste, fraud, abuse, or illegality are released.

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Restoring freedom to FOIA

Internet freedom group to rally Monday outside Comcast Center

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Internet freedom activists are holding a rally Monday outside the Comcast Center in Philadelphia to protest Comcast's proposed merger with Time Warner Cable.

The rally, from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. at 1701 John F. Kennedy Blvd, is organized by Free Press, a nonpartisan group that advocates to preserve open Internet communication and free speech. The group is demanding protections for net neutrality, and the rally will urge the Federal Communications Commission to adopt rules that prevent broadband providers like Comcast and Verizon from discriminating against online content and services. Monday is the FCC's deadline for public comments on the matter.

Speakers at the rally include Chris Rabb, a professor at Temple's Fox School of Business, as well as members of Free Press and other allied organizations.

-Allison Steele

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Internet freedom group to rally Monday outside Comcast Center

Privacy advocates split over NSA reform bill

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A coalition including civil liberties groups and government whistleblowers hascome out against aSenate bill respondingto the government surveillance and data collection revealed by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

Many observers seethe current Senate version of the USA FreedomAct as the most likely to succeed. But a letter released by the groupMonday argues that the language in the bill is too murky and could actually codify some controversial government programs while failing to provide meaningful prohibition against mass surveillance.

"The USA FreedomAct has significant potential to degrade, rather than improve, the surveillance status quo," the letter warns. "At best, even if faithfully implemented, the current bill will erect limited barriers to Section 215, only one of the various legal justifications for surveillance, create additional loopholes, and provide a statutory framework for some of the most problematic surveillance policies, all while reauthorizing the Patriot Act."

Signers of the letterinclude NSA whistleblowers William Binney and Thomas Drake, as well as journalist Daniel Ellsberg, who revealed the Pentagon Papers, and groupsincludingProgressive Change Campaign Committee, the Sunlight Foundation, Restore The Fourth, and Fight for the Future.

But notably absent from the list are some of the big-name civil liberties groups--including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy & Technology and New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute--who havesigned on to a letter endorsing the version of the bill introduced by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). Major tech companieshave alsoendorsed the bill through trade groups and industry coalitions.

The legislation includes limits on surveillance under Section 215 of the USA PatriotAct -- the part invoked to justify the bulk collection of domestic phone meta-data -- as well as additional transparency provisions and the creation of a special advocate for civil liberties within the secretive court that overseas surveillance decision. But the billdoesnotaddress surveillance or data collection occurring under other authorities, including Section 702 of the USA PatriotAct and Executive Order 12333.

Neema Singh Guliani, legislative counsel with the ACLU, says the organization"conducted a careful analysis of the bill" and believes on the whole it is a step in the right direction, although "not perfect."

Kevin Bankston, the policy director at the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, says he sympathizes with the group opposing this version but believesthis bill is the best path forward. "I agree with the signers of today's letter that USA FreedomAct doesn't go nearly far enough in addressing all of the worst NSA surveillance practices," says Bankston. "But I also believe this bill is a critically important first step in the reform process that would end the NSA's bulk telephone records program while giving us much more transparency and accountability when it comes to government surveillance overall. "

Thoseopposing the Leahy version of the bill argue it may not actually end bulk surveillance programs. "Given the several broad legal authorities claimed as justifications for mass surveillance of United States persons and non-United States persons," the letter reads, "it remains unclear if the Senates USA FreedomAct would end any of the Intelligence Communitys clandestine programs to surveil Americans."

Sascha Meinrath, directer of X-lab at the New American Foundation and the founder of the Open Technology Institute, isskeptical that the bill would effectively stymie bulk collection and signed on to the letter opposing the bill as an individual. Even experts on the matter, he says, have trouble determining the actual policy outcomes of the legislation because of the measure's "nebulous" language.

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Privacy advocates split over NSA reform bill

Freedom flakes out competition

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FREEDOM Foods says its breakfast cereal recipes won't be the same in the next two years as it fends off moves from its bigger competitors into the allergen-free space.

David Kokke, a food technologist at the listed health foods company, said Freedom's products risked becoming "commodities" if it failed to constantly innovate and reinvent its brands. This means tinkering with its recipes, which are free of nuts, gluten and wheat, he said.

"Take something like a corn flake. Is the Freedom Foods' corn flake today going to be the same as the Freedom Foods corn flake in three years' time or two years' time?" Mr Kokke said.

"I hope not, because if we don't drive taste improvements or nutritional improvements, what's going to make our corn flake different to the rest?"

Freedom has spent $30 million expanding its cereal factory at Leeton in the NSW Riverina and is planning more upgrades aimed at defending its market-leading position.

It comes as its bigger competitors and supermarket private label brands introduce their own allergen-free products.

Nestle Australia introduced a "lunchbox friendly" nut free muesli bar earlier this year, while Sanitarium launched gluten free Weet-Bix last month, using sorghum instead of wheat.

"If we don't drive innovation and we don't have our own genuine ideas and our innovative ideas, we're just a 'me too', we're just a follower," Mr Kokke said.

"We aren't going to necessarily lead or challenge some of the established players in the marketplace."

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Freedom flakes out competition


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