California's Politicians Rush To Gut Internet Privacy Law With Pro-Tech Giant Amendments (theregister.co.uk) 59
The right for Californians to control the private data that tech companies hold on them may be undermined today at a critical committee hearing in Sacramento. The Register reports: The Privacy And Consumer Protection Committee will hold a special hearing on Tuesday afternoon to discuss and vote on nine proposed amendments to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) -- which was passed last year in the U.S. state but has yet to come into force. Right now, the legislation is undergoing tweaks at the committee stage. Privacy advocates are warning that most of the proposals before the privacy committee are influenced by the very industry that the law was supposed to constrain: big tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon.
In most cases, the amendments seek to add carefully worded exemptions to the law that would benefit business at the cost of consumer rights. But most upsetting to privacy folk is the withdrawal of an amendment by Assembly member Buffy Wicks (D-15th District) that incorporated changes that would enhance consumer data privacy rights. Wicks' proposal would have given consumers more of a say of what is done with their personal data and more power to sue companies that break the rules. But the Assembly member pulled the measure the day before the hearing because it was not going to get the necessary votes. If a measure is voted down it cannot be reintroduced in that legislative session.
In most cases, the amendments seek to add carefully worded exemptions to the law that would benefit business at the cost of consumer rights. But most upsetting to privacy folk is the withdrawal of an amendment by Assembly member Buffy Wicks (D-15th District) that incorporated changes that would enhance consumer data privacy rights. Wicks' proposal would have given consumers more of a say of what is done with their personal data and more power to sue companies that break the rules. But the Assembly member pulled the measure the day before the hearing because it was not going to get the necessary votes. If a measure is voted down it cannot be reintroduced in that legislative session.
Citizens United ... (Score:1)
... the largest political party in the US.
Re: This is why TRUMP (Score:1)
Note this business friendly exemption is from a rare D, not the usual Rs and their usual religious nonsense.
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Off course. You have already seen it for years. Two identical parties just act as one, are both bought by all the lobbying organizations, and have no room left for whatever ideology they once may have had.
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Nope, I don't need to blame it on the Republicans. What I can say is that the situation would be a lot worse if the majority were held by the Republicans, you know, the actual party of wealthy donors who are looking to cut necessary regulations and taxes - all in the name of freedom and capitalism!!!
Re:really though anyone shocked? (Score:4, Interesting)
Democrats rule when it comes to millionaires donating [capitalresearch.org]. They are the party of the rich - but use the poor to keep their power...
Your source is very biased [mediabiasfactcheck.com], and even a quick look at how that report generates numbers is ridiculous. They measured by zip codes and found that the top donor zip codes were democrat. What? Democrats live in higher population areas, like cities? I'm shocked. Shocked I tell you.
Re:really though anyone shocked? (Score:5, Informative)
The only votes [ca.gov] that I can find for the bill were unanimous. Fully bipartisan. The amendments in question here, both the anti-privacy ones and the pro-privacy one, are sponsored by Democrats. This doesn't seem to be a partisan issue at all, and yet here you are placing partisan blame.
Your comment is basically: "Ah ha! See? See!?! Democrats don't always agree with one another! They're not a homogeneous group! You thought they were all the same, but it turns out that they have differences! Take that!"
The only people who think that Democrats are all the same are people who hate Democrats. You don't develop those kinds of stereotypes about your in-group, only about your out-group.
Re:really though anyone shocked? (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, by the way, this CCPA was introduced by two democrats . So we wouldn't even have got to this point without the party ya'll are all denouncing.
(not saying we don't need to outrage at this possible gutting, just that we need outrage equally at similar net neutrality guttings)
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Over what timespan would these 20 stories have occured? Would it best be measured in decades? Most stories lead with "(R-[A-Z][A-Z]) .*" or "Republicans POUNCE".
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The AC was pretty clear about local offices. Perhaps easiest for change to start at the bottom.
Your country is supposed to be a federation of States, yet there's no individualism amongst them, every State voting for the same 2 parties, even every local election with only 2 parties.
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Re:really though anyone shocked? (Score:5, Insightful)
All of that finally set in for me around the second election of Obama.
If getting more Democrats in power would fix anything, then why do Democrat owned cities, states, and Democrat presidents never actually improve anything even when they control the house and senate, their states and their cities? Chicago has some of the the worst crime in the USA. Ohio is a cesspool of poverty. (I would know.) There was a California gun-control (D) senator who literally got caught... importing illegal firearms from the Philippines. He was suspended in 2014. Not 1960. Not 1980. Not 2000. Twenty. Fourteen. (So even if you think guns are the ultimate evil, he was still committing that evil by selling illegal arms to pad his wallet.)
And if you think I'm suggesting Republicans are the answer, I'm equally laughing.
The way forward is not with tribalism. It's not with blind support. The way forward is criticizing your ALLIES as much as your ENEMIES until the only ones left are ones that value our country over corruption.
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Obama...Democrats ... never actually improve anything .... Chicago ... crime ... anecdotal story ... The way forward is criticizing your ALLIES as much as your ENEMIES
Sounds like your trying to get everyone to criticize each other more. Well, if you want to increase corruption, you'll get everyone fighting w/ eachother so that nobody notices the increase in corruption. So congrats, you're making the problem worse.
Ohio? (Score:2)
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Kasich is hardly a republican at least not more then by putting an R next to his name.
Kasich was a gung-ho Republican when he came into office. Remember when he tried to destroy the public sector unions a la Scott Walker as soon as his foot was in the door? However, like much of the US, he succumbed to TDS in 2016 and shifted greatly to the left. He spent the next two years abandoning his post so that he could mug for the news programs and pontificate on how we need to remove Trump. It was clear he wanted to re-litigate the 2016 Primaries where he thought he should have done better. Per
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How did that work out for Steve King, again?
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Not great but better than nothing. (Score:4, Insightful)
This does afford people with more limited protection but it's still better than no protection at all. In time (hopefully) these loopholes can be closed once they are shown to make the law ineffective.
We need to get money out of politics if we really want to avoid BS like this in the future.
Re:Not great but better than nothing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Bad protections are usually worse than no protections. They lull customers into a false sense of security, and provide ammunition to opponents who say "We already have laws that do X".
Re:Not great but better than nothing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent comment was right - we should be reducing the amount of money in politics. That should be the one thing every genuine person can agree on.
That NASCAR amendment 2-3 years ago would be great (Score:5, Insightful)
Not so much we need to get money out of politics as we need to show where the money is coming from.
Comment removed (Score:3)
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Re:What the government gives . . . (Score:1)
the government can take away. That's why the Founders and the Constitution recognized that certain rights
You can use whatever high sounding language you like. The government can take away anything it likes, just ask the citizens of a country with a constitution that the government has thoroughly ignored.
The mere existence of a constitution does nothing.
Yeah, I listened to this hearing... (Score:2)
I listened to this hearing... and it was a giveaway to tech companies....
I was pretty disappointed.
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Follow the money.
I'd suspect some "donations" will be made.
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Yep...
It was very obvious that there were lots of meetings between staff and lobbyists, because so many of them mentioned (fawned) over their working closely with staff in a productive manner, and the ACLU, EFF and even Consumer Reports representatives were just present for the hearing, when all the deals were already done.... By that time it almost seemed as if they had the motions already formulated and they were just hearing the opponents go on, and then take the committee vote. And it was bipartisan,
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Don't be simple. It isn't always about donations. They are way to transparent. Sometimes it is the promise of a lucrative job after the term is up. After all, the politicians are "experts" on user data after this vote, right? Sometime it is about getting a close family member a good business deal, like Joe Biden's deals with the Ukranians.
All the talk about getting money out of politics. Pffft! That won't do anything until you get politicians out of politics. What needs to happen is the elimination
Well, it is the Democratic Republic of California (Score:1)
Where all thought and deed must be monitored and approved by, or sanctioned, if it goes against the diktat of the Democratic Party.