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posted by janrinok on Wednesday June 12 2019, @05:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the wind-of-change-is-blowin' dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/08/opinion/sunday/privacy-congress-facebook-google.html

In the past year, Congress has been happy to drag tech C.E.O.s into hearings and question them about how they vacuum up and exploit personal information about their users. But so far those hearings haven't amounted to much more than talk. Lawmakers have yet to do their job and rewrite the law to ensure that such abuses don't continue.

Americans have been far too vulnerable for far too long when they venture online. Companies are free today to monitor Americans' behavior and collect information about them from across the web and the real world to do everything from sell them cars to influence their votes to set their life insurance rates — all usually without users' knowledge of the collection and manipulation taking place behind the scenes. It's taken more than a decade of shocking revelations — of data breaches and other privacy abuses — to get to this moment, when there finally seems to be enough momentum to pass a federal law. Congress is considering several pieces of legislation that would strengthen Americans' privacy rights, and alongside them, a few bills that would make it easier for tech companies to strip away what few privacy rights we now enjoy.

American lawmakers are late to the party. Europe has already set what amounts to a global privacy standard with its General Data Protection Regulation, which went into effect in 2018. G.D.P.R. establishes several privacy rights that do not exist in the United States — including a requirement for companies to inform users about their data practices and receive explicit permission before collecting any personal information. Although Americans cannot legally avail themselves of specific rights under G.D.P.R., the fact that the biggest global tech companies are complying everywhere with the new European rules means that the technocrats in Brussels are doing more for Americans' digital privacy rights than their own Congress.

The toughest privacy law in the United States today, is the California Consumer Privacy Act, which is set to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2020. Just like G.D.P.R., it requires companies to take adequate security measures to protect data and also offers consumers the right to request access to the data that has been collected about them. Under the California law, consumers not only have a right to know whether their data is being sold or handed off to third parties, they also have a right to block that sale. And the opt-out can't be a false choice — Facebook and Google would not be able to refuse service just because a user didn't want their data sold.

[...] Where the Warner/Fischer bill looks to alleviate the harmful effects of data collection on consumers, Senator Josh Hawley's Do Not Track Act seeks to stop the problem much closer to the source, by creating a Do Not Track system administered by the Federal Trade Commission. Commercial websites would be required by law not to harvest unnecessary data from consumers who have Do Not Track turned on.

A similar idea appeared in a more comprehensive draft bill circulated last year by Senator Ron Wyden, but Mr. Wyden has yet to introduce that bill this session. Instead, like Mr. Warner, he seems to have turned his attention to downstream effects — for the time being, at least. This year, he is sponsoring a bill for algorithmic accountability, requiring the largest tech companies to test their artificial intelligence systems for biases, such as racial discrimination, and to fix those biases that are found.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Wednesday June 12 2019, @06:30PM (11 children)

    by bradley13 (3053) on Wednesday June 12 2019, @06:30PM (#854764) Homepage Journal

    The founders thought they had it covered. They tried to restrict the government, by requiring warrants, etc..

    In recent times, well, the EU is a younger government. Corruption is less entrenched in the EU parliament. In the US, essentially all Congress critters are on the take, because that's the only way to get elected.

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
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  • (Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday June 12 2019, @10:21PM (8 children)

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Wednesday June 12 2019, @10:21PM (#854874) Homepage

    People always say that some of the things in our constitution are antiquated and no longer apply, often citing the second amendment ("assault rifles didn't exist in the days of the revolutionary war"). Well, I disagree with that one, but in retrospect birthright citizenship was a pretty big mistake, because demographic warfare has been a thing since the dawn of time. I think Denmark's attitude regarding birthright citizenship should be the minimum escalation that America should strive for.

    With that, a constitutional convention, and the inclusion of the citizenship question on the census; We'd be on the right track to making America great again. A true despot couldn't just deport all the illegals overnight and then expect to use the violence as an excuse to consolidate his power, because the illegals are his army to use against discontent citizens -- all a despot would have to do is get their CIA or a friendly foreign army such as the IDF/Mossad to provide that army of illegals guns and, thanks to Obama's NSA data sharing relaxations, names and locations of specific targets.

    If I were a despot seeking to consolidate my power through violence, that would be the method I would use, because the violence would at first appear to be committed by random vagrants and the inertia from it being verboten to criticize illegal migrants, even violent ones. They would be able to hide amongst the general population a lot better than former eleven-bravos wearing Oakley shades and with steroids in their blood. In the case of actual Mossad agents on U.S. soil, lots of those people look like Mexicans and in many such cases are real Mexicans, so if they keep a low-profile and only their disposables get caught for interrogation, a lot of damage could be inflicted.

    • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday June 12 2019, @11:20PM (6 children)

      by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Wednesday June 12 2019, @11:20PM (#854904)

      That spiel would be funny if it wasn't so weird.

      Why are you so frightened of other people?

      • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday June 12 2019, @11:25PM (5 children)

        by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Wednesday June 12 2019, @11:25PM (#854907) Homepage

        Sometimes a lot of us get together and discuss thought experiments. We are not against our own people, but if you want to dominate a nation, how would you do it? What I just described is how I would do it, should I have that mentality.

        • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday June 12 2019, @11:33PM (4 children)

          by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Wednesday June 12 2019, @11:33PM (#854909)

          I wonder why so many of your "thought experiments" involve "The Jews" doing bad stuff?

          • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday June 12 2019, @11:57PM (3 children)

            by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Wednesday June 12 2019, @11:57PM (#854923) Homepage

            Don't ask me, ask them.

            • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday June 13 2019, @12:10AM

              by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Thursday June 13 2019, @12:10AM (#854930)

              Ha!

              OK, I will phone my sister tonight. Now that she is a Jew she must be busy taking over the world and doing bad stuff and things.

              I will probably have to leave a message.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @12:26AM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @12:26AM (#854937)

              How can so many voices fit inside one tiny head like that of Ethanol_funnelled? "Thought experiment"= paranoid schizophrenia.

              • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday June 13 2019, @04:04AM

                by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 13 2019, @04:04AM (#855003) Journal

                RIP MDC, de mortuis nil nisi bene.

                --
                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday June 12 2019, @11:21PM

      by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Wednesday June 12 2019, @11:21PM (#854906)

      Oh sorry, I just realised. Spiel is probably a Jewish word too, just to make it worse for you.

  • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday June 12 2019, @11:16PM (1 child)

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Wednesday June 12 2019, @11:16PM (#854903)

    ...the EU is a younger government.

    You do know that Europe has been doing government for longer than the United States has existed don't you?

    They didn't just forget what they had learned when they set up the EU.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @12:31AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @12:31AM (#854938)

      Brad is American. That means near complete ignorance of history, and geography. He only lives in the country of "Europe", which is next to the country of "Africa". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww [youtube.com]