Spouse of Ring Exec Among Lawmakers Trying To Weaken California Privacy Law (arstechnica.com) 45
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The California legislature worked through the summer to finalize the text of the state's landmark data privacy law before time to make amendments ran out on Friday. In the Assembly (California's lower house), Assemblywoman Jacqui Irwin has been a key voice and vote backing motions that would weaken the law, and a new report says her reasoning may be very, very close to home. A review of state ethics documents conducted by Politico found that Ms. Irwin is married to Jon Irwin, the chief operating officer of Amazon's controversial Ring home surveillance business. That company stands to benefit if the California law is weakened in certain key ways before it can take effect.
One proposal put forth by Assemblywoman Irwin would expand what kind of data would be exempt from CCPA provisions, and this drew the ire of consumer protection groups, Politico reports. Irwin also initially proposed striking out "a provision requiring companies to disclose or delete data associated with 'households' upon request," a regulation that will likely affect companies like Ring. She also voted against an amendment that would have required smart speaker systems, like Amazon's Alexa or Google Home, to obtain user consent to sell recorded conversations, and "used store security-camera footage as an example of data that would be burdensome and risky for businesses to be required to link to consumers in response to data-deletion requests." Assemblywoman Irwin told Politico she found questions about her spouse to be offensive, given her own personal background as a systems engineer. "My role in the privacy debate in the Legislature is focused on bringing people together and solving the practical issues posed to us as policy makers and is independent of any job or role my husband may have," she said. The California Consumer Privacy Act was signed into law in June 2018 by California nGovernor Gavin Newsom. "This legislation gives California residents several protections with regard to their personal information, including the rights to know what is being collected, what is being sold, and to whom it is being sold," reports Ars Technica. "It also grants Californians the right to access their personal information, the right to delete data collected from them, and the right to opt out -- without being charged extra for services if they choose to do so."
One proposal put forth by Assemblywoman Irwin would expand what kind of data would be exempt from CCPA provisions, and this drew the ire of consumer protection groups, Politico reports. Irwin also initially proposed striking out "a provision requiring companies to disclose or delete data associated with 'households' upon request," a regulation that will likely affect companies like Ring. She also voted against an amendment that would have required smart speaker systems, like Amazon's Alexa or Google Home, to obtain user consent to sell recorded conversations, and "used store security-camera footage as an example of data that would be burdensome and risky for businesses to be required to link to consumers in response to data-deletion requests." Assemblywoman Irwin told Politico she found questions about her spouse to be offensive, given her own personal background as a systems engineer. "My role in the privacy debate in the Legislature is focused on bringing people together and solving the practical issues posed to us as policy makers and is independent of any job or role my husband may have," she said. The California Consumer Privacy Act was signed into law in June 2018 by California nGovernor Gavin Newsom. "This legislation gives California residents several protections with regard to their personal information, including the rights to know what is being collected, what is being sold, and to whom it is being sold," reports Ars Technica. "It also grants Californians the right to access their personal information, the right to delete data collected from them, and the right to opt out -- without being charged extra for services if they choose to do so."
Bullshit ! (Score:4, Insightful)
"My role in the privacy debate in the Legislature is focused on bringing people together and solving the practical issues posed to us as policy makers and is independent of any job or role my husband may have,"
Bullshit. Bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit.
How can a supposed human being become so completely and utterly deprived of the smallest, tiniest shred of human decency that they can vomit that kind of bullshit lie in our faces without even flinching.
How can these abominations look themselves in the mirror ? How can they look their children in the eyes ?
Re: Bullshit ! (Score:3, Interesting)
Also realize that politics is a field with one of the highest rates of psychopathy. In fact, one might argue that a non-psychopath could not actually be elected in well-contested districts. You simply have to sell out the interests of too many people.
I particularly liked the bit about her being âof
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That's not the damning sentence. It's where she claims to be offended that you know she is human garbage. The second a politician claims offense to a criticism, or that they're too good for some undesirable comparison, you know beyond all doubt that they need to be removed from office. Should never have been in office.
Re:Bullshit ! (Score:4, Insightful)
How can a supposed human being become so completely and utterly deprived of the smallest, tiniest shred of human decency that they can vomit that kind of bullshit lie in our faces without even flinching.
It's called money. Someone once said "the love of money is the root of all evil". I haven't seen an exception to this yet.
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Ahhh, politicians taking donations to weaken their new laws! You're half "woke". Now take the other step and wonder how much of the behind the scenes creation of said laws was disinterested service to beloved constituents and how much was creating draconian laws to begin with to get paid to back off some.
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No, I'm 100% "woke", I just didn't rattle on about the inherent motivations of (too) many politicians (power and control). I simply don't have the time to expand and delve deeper into this discussion.
My frustration, and with people in general, this stuff seems so obvious to me, why do so many monsters get elected? Why do so many obvious monsters get appointed and hired (for example, thug cops)? We constantly read about police brutality, bad judges and judgments, constituents not represented, on and on.
Re: Bullshit ! (Score:2)
"How can a supposed human being become so completely and utterly deprived of the smallest, tiniest shred of human decency"
Suitcases full of cash in a dark parking lot.
And lots of blat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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How can these abominations look themselves in the mirror ? How can they look their children in the eyes ?
Because money, lots and lots of money.
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They don't see people as people, they see them as unharvested dollar signs.
No one with any knowledge need apply (Score:2)
Californians certainly wouldn't want anyone with any actual knowledge of the impact on people and businesses of these sorts of regulations to participate in the process, now would they?
That'd be like asking someone technical about that software the sales guy the boss plays golf with wants to discuss, what would they know of interest, right?
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A person can be knowledgeable about a subject without being part of that subject. That's why we have people in academia who study things.
Are you sure? I thought it was done to justify the grant money.
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The only exception is fundamental research, because there, the academics are the only practioneers in the field.
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"A person can be knowledgeable about a subject without being part of that subject. That's why we have people in academia who study things."
People who defer their critical thinking skills to others are why scheysters get elected in the first place. In order to make informed decisions, one must have a solid, well rounded education.
People need to learn how to think for themselves, not outsource the damned job. It helps avoid buying into fast talker's bullshit.
Re: No one with any knowledge need apply (Score:2)
"knowledge of the impact on people"
Any particular reason you feel the Nazis at Ring/Amazon are particularly concerned about the impact of their business of common people?
Re:No one with any knowledge need apply (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem in this particular case is that there is a direct conflict of interest involved, which is made clear in the headline.
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Conflicts of interest... (Score:2)
Does anyone in elected office know what those are any more? Or the term "recuse"?
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They ALL know what it means. How else do all them Congressional politicians wind up millionaires on a $175k/yr salary?
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When the evildooer is a Republican, the party affiliation is mentioned prominently.
When the evildoer is a Democrat [wikipedia.org], the party affiliation is not mentioned.
That's not true. Remember when Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina, cheated on his wife while claiming he was on the Appalachian trail? Well his party affiliation was listed prominently, and apparently he was a Democrat:
https://www.newscaststudio.com... [newscaststudio.com]
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Democrat? Is that why he is trying to primary President Trump?
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What is the US media so (Score:1)
Its CCTV, it shows bad people doing different type of crime in once nice parts of a city.
Now the devices are more internet connected and the world can see who is doing crime in the USA.
No having to wait and see what "political" national and local news will allow to "broadcast" during their news.
What a politically correct newspaper will consider is an ok image to print a day later?
Just like the FBI collected data on for generations.
Easy solution (Score:2)
Not an Easy solution (Score:3)
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Right instead you can get any other security company that all do the same thing and never hear about it because they are not associated with Amazon.
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I find it really stunning that people would go along with this. I get wanting to have some surveillance cameras on your property. There are some pretty good ones that will store the videos and images on YOUR storage. I warned people away from the "cloud" storage devices when the started getting popular, but most people don't seem to care.
And now Ring is actually providing access to the video feeds of their customers to law enforcement agencies [arstechnica.com], and it's automatic unless you can figure out how to "opt-out".
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And it didn't even cost the government money like it did for all those cameras in London. Ring customers are paying to allow this neighborhood intrusion into their lives.
That's the genius of it. If it was free and they wanted everyone or even made it so they had one there would be mass suspicion and push back and rightly so but they position it as a convenient novelty for a not cheap price and people eat it up.
Jacqui Irwin ... (Score:2)
Never heard of her till now.
Added her to my "Hope she gets a real painful form of cancer" list...
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Is she hot? And does she sunbathe in view of her soon to be publicly accessible Ring camera?
countermeasures (Score:1)
Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that the hurtles to become an elected official are so high, you have to be a sociopath to actually want the job. It was never supposed to be this way.
Coupled with an easily manipulated electorate with the memory and attention span of a snail, this is a deadly combination.
Do you think America's mediocre, overpriced education system is an accident? Well rounded, educated people see through politician's bullshit. They have an understanding of history.
One Ring (Score:2)
We are in late stage capitalism... (Score:2)
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Not really [vox.com]. Nobody put a gun to USPS's head to make them sign their deal with Amazon. If the USPS charged "much more" (as one politician who lacks any depth of understanding tweeted) then Amazon would simply use other couriers. It's the way the free market (that conservatives profess to love so much) is supposed to work.
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