Marco Rubio Introduces Privacy Bill To Create Federal Regulations On Data Collection (fortune.com) 103
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fortune: Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) introduced a bill Wednesday aimed at creating federal standards of privacy protection for major internet companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google. The bill, titled the American Data Dissemination Act, requires the Federal Trade Commission to make suggestions for regulation based on the Privacy Act of 1974. Congress would then have to pass legislation within two years, or the FTC will gain the power to write the rules itself (under current laws, the FTC can only enforce existing rules). While Rubio's bill is intended to reign in the data collection and dissemination of companies like Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google, and Netflix, it also requires any final legislation to protect small businesses from being stifled by new rules. The caveat comes when one considers states' rights to create their own privacy laws. Under Rubio's legislation, any national regulations would preempt state laws -- even if the state's are more strict. "While we may have disagreements on the best path forward, no one believes a privacy law that only bolsters the largest companies with the resources to comply and stifles our start-up marketplace is the right approach," Rubio wrote in an op-ed for The Hill, announcing his bill.
Yeah, right (Score:3, Insightful)
Like the Bay Area billionaire owners of the Democratic party would allow any of that.
so what (Score:1)
Re:Yeah, right (Score:5, Interesting)
Like the Bay Area billionaire owners of the Democratic party would allow any of that.
Nah. The key line is “Under Rubio's legislation, any national regulations would preempt state laws -- even if the state's are more strict.” That eliminates the need to buy state legislatures; all you have to buy is Congress and get them to draft some watered down laws.
Kinda necessary. 50 different conflicting rules (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you're going to have separate companies for each state, you kinda need a uniform set of rules for the country. That's what the EU has done with GDPR. Even with the uniform Privacy Directive providing uniform principles to be applied in each country, they found that wasn't sufficient; a uniform rule was needed across Europe.
There is plenty to debate about what the rules should *be*. There's no doubt that having 50 different conflicting sets of rules would be a mess. One state would require records be preserved for inspection by authorities, while another would require that data be deleted after it's no longer actively used, and it would be impossible to comply with both.
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That's good that encourages the large entities to be broken up for the sake of state compliance.. this helps to prevent overgrowth. And Encourage turnover,
Also, if only there was a device connected to other devices all over the country and well the world that could be used to automate complex tasks with complex rules.
In short, I'm not remotely buying the "It's too hard to do argument."
Also as someone else pointed out, it is very wrong having a non elected agency head and similar creating effectively laws. Either congress does their job correctly or leave it as it is. In fact just his lame ass suggestion pretty much leads me to conclude that he is too inept
Re: Kinda necessary. 50 different conflicting rule (Score:4, Insightful)
It would make it difficult for you to buy services from other states, bugger up interstate commerce. You would find companies saying "sorry, we don't ship to / provide services to your state".
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Believe me, as someone who lives with that reality, it's not something you want.
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Love the 10th, and interstate commerce exists (Score:3)
Btw I've posted plenty about how we need to pay more attention to the 10th amendment and the enumerated powers. I'm all about the 10th amendment - and web sites are so clearly interstate commerce. Interstate commerce is one of the enumerated powers, and for good reason.
#fuckthewheatcases
USA and EU actually worked out okay (Score:2)
> They should, by your assertion, be why we need a world government that makes laws that override the laws of "sovereign states".
It's interesting that you used the correct term, states.
It actually worked pretty well to have a federation of states agree to give certain listed powers to a federation government. We call it the federa(tion) government the federa(l) government.
Where things tend to go sideways is when the states allow the federal government to purport to exercise powers it does not have under
Country != nation != state (Score:2)
You might want to learn a bit of English. Nation, country, and state all mean different things.
In 1785, Virginia and 13 other states were sovereign states which signed a NATO-like common defense agreement, with these words:
"Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated."
The states delegated to the Congress of the Confederation the ability to make war with Britain, and not much else:
"The said Sta
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Unless you're going to have separate companies for each state, you kinda need a uniform set of rules for the country. That's what the EU has done with GDPR. Even with the uniform Privacy Directive providing uniform principles to be applied in each country, they found that wasn't sufficient; a uniform rule was needed across Europe.
There is plenty to debate about what the rules should *be*. There's no doubt that having 50 different conflicting sets of rules would be a mess. One state would require records be preserved for inspection by authorities, while another would require that data be deleted after it's no longer actively used, and it would be impossible to comply with both.
While I agee that uniorm rules are better than a patchwork; the real goal of federal lawmaking is to ensure the minimum possible standards while providing the greates possible opportunuity to influence the rules in a company's favor. Of course, people are in f avor of it when it does something they want and agaisnt it if it prevents them from doing something they want to do.
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Yeah that's why Europe and the US have entirely different companies
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That eliminates the need to buy state legislatures; all you have to buy is Congress and get them to draft some watered down laws.
That just sounds like good old fashioned capitalist efficiency to me.
If you don't like it, buy your own senators.
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That ship sailed when the federal government turned the Senate into House 2.0 (17th amendment) and told the States to fuck off.
Re:Yeah, right (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny you mention California, since the state recently passed a sweeping data privacy law which is scheduled to come into effect at the end of the year.
This bill seems to be a reaction to that, though it remains to be seen if the bill is meant to extend such state laws nationwide, or gut them.
And I'm curious as to the constitutionality of 'preempting' state consumer protection laws.
Re:Yeah, right (Score:5, Informative)
Keep in mind that the lawmakers (super majority Democrats) in California did not want a privacy bill, or more specifically the money behind the lawmakers didn't want such a bill. However they were forced to act because a ballot initiative was poised to make a stricter law and the polling numbers showed it would pass overwhelmingly
"The so-called California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (AB 375) was introduced late last week by state assemblymember Ed Chau and state senator Robert Hertzberg, in a rush to defeat a stricter privacy-focused ballot initiative that had garnered more than 600,000 signatures from Californians. The group behind that initiative, Californians for Consumer Privacy, said it would withdraw it if the bill passed." - Wired magazine
And of course the one thing that is bi-partisan are lobbyist dollars, so this privacy bill passed unanimously both Dems and GOP.
Likewise last year when there was a proposal for a Net Neutrality bill for the state, the Democratic led committee tried to quietly quash it, led by the telecom-funded committee members. Only after the dirty trick was made very, very public did it go through. I expect the State Senator who made the fuss will need to be watching his political back for some years to come.
As many have said in /. be wary of being a party-first sort of voter.
Re: Yeah, right (Score:4, Funny)
Noooooooo! It's all lies and fake news! $MY_PARTY is composed of intelligent, honorable statesmen who always put the interests of the People first. Only $OTHER_PARTY has dirty rotten scoundrels in the legislature, ready to take bribes from every big money corporate lobbyist who comes along. If you don't support $MY_PARTY then you're literally a Nazi!!
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They already did. Current CA law has been codified...this is a federal attempt to pre-empty the CA law already in place that is effective in 2020.
Re: Trump's shutdown, McConnell's cowardice (Score:1)
Thank you for being outraged! Fight among yourselves, American dogs! Please address all replies to:
Comrade Major Lifeng Wang
Information Operation Directorate
Ministry of State Security
14 East Chang'an Street
Dongcheng Qu
Beijing
People's Republic of China
Silly tech companies! (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't they know that mass data collection is for the FBI, CSI, NSA, IRS, DHS, DMV, Customs and Border Protection, Department of State, Department of Defense, National Counterterrorism Center and any local police departments that care to get in on the party?
Re: Silly tech companies! (Score:3)
You make it sound like we live in a Soviet style totalitarian police state. But that can't possibly be true. Because everybody knows the terwwawists hate us for our freedom.
Re:Silly tech companies! (Score:5, Informative)
Now here he is introducing "privacy protections" (never mind that this actually reduces your effective privacy, since it stops states from introducing real protections) which would limit only Google / Facebook / Apple, etc. and would not apply to ISPs.
So to summarize the bullshit "plan" that isn't (Score:1)
Rubio proposes a plan for an agency to eventually come up with a plan, that gives Congress 2 fucking YEARS to think about it, then there's this little gem - "any national regulations would preempt state laws -- even if the state's are more strict." - which is probably the underlying (lying, yep, Republicans) motivation in this farcical bullshit "plan" lol. Typical despicable Rubio with the half-ass plan that isn't really, have some water you sweaty bitch, bullshit lawmaking is thirsty work.
In the end they'
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Awh come on folks.. This is how this game is played, or didn't you understand?
Anybody in Congress, in either house, can submit bills that say ANYTHING they wish. So you get elected and to "keep" your campaign promises you show up the first week, toss you bill into the growing pile of bills errr Campaign promises that everybody knows will never make it out of committee. They hit the floor, get referred to the appropriate committee and get sent into the committee's inbox to die.
The only way you get a bill
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every time I hear this story, this "so and so will be in prison, this will happen", I am reminded of how children run fantasies in their head about the bully, or the teacher, or someone else meeting their demise.
Rubi-who? (Score:1)
If it comes from a republican you can bet it isn't worth the paper it's printed on. Best to just burn it and move on. No republican is worth a shit; they're all traitors.
Vword: incest
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Oh yes, you're certain the other team isn't worth shit, because your team is (except for the few bad apples).
Seems like an end run around states. (Score:5, Insightful)
Under Rubio's legislation, any national regulations would preempt state laws -- even if the state's are more strict.
I seems like this is really just a way to prevent states from creating strict privacy laws and moor any possible advancements in partisanship.
I don't trust him (Score:4, Insightful)
Like TFS suggests this is most likely just to preempt stronger protections from the states, particularly California. We've been relying on CA to protect the rest of the country from this kind of bullshit by passing laws that end up affecting the other states. Don't think the folks in Congress and their donors haven't noticed that.
The solution is and always will be to stop voting for people like Rubio who take corporate PAC money. I keep on saying this but the Dems have a wing of the party [justicedemocrats.com] that does just that. I know of no such animal on the GOP side but I'm happy to be proven wrong. In the meantime you can't serve two masters. If your politician accepts corporate PAC money they're not _your_ politician. They belong to the donors who bankrolled their campaign. Full Stop.
Re: I don't trust him (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't trust Rubio one little bit. But I don't trust the Just-Us Democrats one bit more. Whenever so-called Progressives talk about "justice" it's code for fucking over the "deplorable redneck" working class.
Those Just-Us Democrats who care more about economic issues facing working people, and less about promoting racism and feminazism while disarming the masses, should drop that ugly Just-Us label. Maybe they could call themselves Roosevelt Democrats. Like many many people I would have voted for FDR - so
Have you read their platform? (Score:2)
1. Medicare for All.
2. Tuition Free College.
3. The "Green New Deal" (e.g. a federal jobs guarantee building renewable energy installations)
4. Infrastructure spending.
5. Higher taxes for top earners, think $500k+
#1 is a big issue for "rednecks", e.g. rural voters. Their hospitals are closing left and right.
#3 would help. Coal mining's going away like it or not and they need jobs.
#4 would be good too since thei
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Nationalized healthcare is a good idea, but I don't think other countries realize how much their costs will increase: the US is a cash cow for this, and the money has to come from somewhere. If I was British or Canadian, I'd be sweating about the prospect.
Tuition free college would either require much fewer people going to college, a rollout of good 'ol trade schools, or both- not that I'm against the idea.
Green new deal would become an enormous money sink.
Infrastructure spending is needed quite badly.
Highe
It actually saves us $5 trillion (Score:2)
Other countries send everyone to college just fine. If anything we could use a few people hitting the economy later.
The Green New Deal is _supposed_ to be a money sink. The New Deal was a jobs program. The fact that we get clean air and maybe less climate change is just a cherry on the cake.
The tax system can't be simplified. As soon as you try there are
Little Marco (Score:2)
Well that may be true and all, but first let’s dispel with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s trying to change this country. He wants America to become like the rest of the world...
Corporate Payola (Score:5, Insightful)
This proposed legislation is nothing than a veiled attempt to eviscerate State and local privacy laws.
Little Marco the Regulator (Score:1)
The last thing we need is the government playing data referee. I'm not surprised that Sen. Rubio, aka "Little Marco", is the one to bring it to the floor.
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How do you figure that is the last thing we need? Who the hell else is going to restrict the data collection and usage? The companies' have zero incentive to do it and even if they do, there is nothing that says they can't hold themselves to a higher standard.
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It seems to me that the solution nowadays is for the Federal Government to get their hands into everything. Why do we need more?
I know in some cases it is difficult to avoid the reach of some companies and their ability to collect data on you. However, you DO have a choice. A free market can solve this. There are already solutions in the works to do just that. All you need to do is make a personal choice that it is important to you. Once you make that choice, it's easy to understand why the Federal Go
Re: Little Marco the Regulator (Score:3)
"you DO have a choice. A free market can solve this"
Broham, do you work for Big Brother Google or Creepy Facebook? Or have you just been drinking waaaaaaaaaay too much Kool Aid?
Duh fwee market has obviously, spectacularly FAILED to protect even the tiniest shred of privacy. Instead it delivered a fully privatized, fully automated totalitarian surveillance state.
Well-structured markets can do a pretty spiffy job of allocating capital and rationing goods. However markets do a super shittastic job of protecti
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Government would do no better. Government does not innovate. Free markets do. You just defined the problem space nicely: "fully privatized, fully automated totalitarian surveillance state". Innovation brings solutions. You have ways to escape this today if you want to.
You don't need to use "free" e-mail services. You don't have to conduct your home networking in an exposed fashion. You don't need to use social media. You don't need to buy from Amazon. You don't need to use discount cards. You do
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You don't need to use almost anything, but to live a marginally normal life within the society we have created some things are unavoidable. How are you planning to buy a house or car without any kind of credit or credit history? Sure you can save up cash, but without working ungodly hours and doing nothing else (or being born rich, which is outside of your control) by the time you save that money the house will have probably gone up in value or a million other factors make it difficult to buy. If even a
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I still do or have formerly used every one of those things that I said "you don't need", and I am most certain there are nice portfolios with information gathered from those activities; then some. Even perhaps from slashdot. lol There are countless other avenues for data to flow into such portfolios. Perhaps you got my point, but confused me with someone who cares deeply about privacy. The book about me has probably been sold for quite a while. Not a bestseller.
What I care about on this topic is who m
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I don't advocate for the government to have that control at all. I advocate for NO ONE to have that control whatsoever. The problem is the only way to do it is to pass regulations against it and have at least some good people enforce it. The government is abusing that data collection right now even if the data is held by the private sector. You don't think all the secretive courts that can compel them to release information or the illegal phone searches on basic traffic stops are not exactly that? If l
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Dude, I am a software engineer and know more about the solutions and tracking than 99% of the population most likely. You can avoid SOME things, but without living like a a mountain man and withdrawing from society, no you cannot entirely avoid it. Left unchecked, there will be at least one unscrupulous company that doesn't care and collects data through means you almost can't avoid without sacrificing or acting in very difficult ways. The free market doesn't fix all problems. Regulation and enforcement
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My wife is the libertarian. I'll just say that I have a healthy respect for the power of government, and I want that power to be clearly defined and limited. I've seen firsthand what a totalitarian government looks like and how one governs.
Bringing us full circle. I don't want nor trust Marco Rubio as the one defining the limits of that power as it relates to regulating data collection. I'm not sure it's possible for me to trust anyone in that role at the moment. The U.S. federal government is dysfunct
Break up the cartel (Score:1)
Google, Facebook, Apple, Twitter. Sorry Microsoft you are the past evil.
Wasted opportunity (Score:5, Funny)
Regulatory Capture (Score:1)
Nice! One nice, clean, and simple point of non-legislative bureaucracy that lobbyists can manipulate. So much better than actual laws with real protections.
who wrote this bill ? (Score:2)
Was it Facebook? Google? All of them?
And when they gave it to the senator, how much did they add to his re-election fund?
Experience suggests that any legislation of industry that sounds good for the people is probably very cleverly written (as this is) to give that impression, but it is written by industry with their profits in mind. Our elected officials represent them, not us.
Fair Game (Score:2)