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Senator Prevents Action on Online Privacy Bill
securitas writes "The NYTimes tells us Senator Trent Lott forced the Senate Commerce Committee to adjourn this morning as it was on the verge of adopting an online privacy bill requiring ISPs and commercial Web sites to get customers' permission before they could disclose important personal information. That would include financial,
medical, ethnic, religious and political information along with Social Security data and sexual orientation. I urge Trent Lott's constituents to make your voices heard on this. Same goes for readers whose senators serve on the Senate Commerce Committee." Salon and EPIC have written about
Hollings' bill.
Get the attention of all of the task force members.
http://rpc.senate.gov/httf/fastfacts.htm
I'm a Mississippi voter (shut up), and so Trent Lott is my senator. Right after the hearings for the (then) SSSCA with Eisner et al, I wrote a letter to Sen. Lott saying how much I didn't like that bill. I figured, "Hey, he's one of the top Republicans. This bill is sponsored by a Democrat. As much as I dislike Lott, he's bound to agree with me!"
Not quite. I got a letter back three days ago. It was a bit behind the times, still referring to the SSSCA. It basically said, "Yes, there is a bill. Yes, there was testimony. It was very useful. Your opinion is important to me." Considering how reviled the CBPTA eventually became and when the letter was sent, it shouldn't exactly take a lot of political initiative to stand up against that kind of bill. But from the letter it didn't look like he exactly opposed it or anything.
I realized there are lots of problems with Hollings most recent bill, and maybe that's why he's doing that, but I wouldn't call Lott privacy- or tech-friendly by any stretch of the imagination.
Using this procedural rule is actually quite common for Lott. He has invoked this rule several times over the past year to tie up the business of the senate. He did this after the nomination of Judge Pickering was defeated in Committee.
Of course, Lott also snipes at Daschle constantly for not clearing legislation in a timely manner. Go figure!
This is not the sig you are looking for...
Hello! This is yesterday's news. Today's News.com article has more up-to-date info, and it says that Lott's tactic only delayed things by one day.
"If I could live to be several hundred
I could take a walk and really wander, really wonder."
Contact info for the committee is here.
(Shoulda put this in my rant. Sorry.)
Likewise with the Online Personal Privacy Act. It is masquerading as pro-consumer when in fact it is pro-business. The new legislation is similar to laws passed in Europe that divide your personal information into two types. The first is "sensitive" information, such as your financial and medical history, race, lifestyle, religion, political affiliation, and sex life. The second is "nonsensitive" information, and among that will include your name, address, and records of anything you buy or surf on the Internet. Under the act, business can't collect or divulge the sensitive bits without your express consent, but anything classified as nonsensitive can be freely collected and sold at will.
I guess anything that Hollings touches is evil.
In the eyes of the law, it is. The Supreme Court ruled about a hundred years ago that a corporation has almost all the same rights as a natural (i.e. human) person has. Coproations can own property in their names, sue and be sued, engage in political speech, etc. ad nauseum.
You think Skynet and the Matrix were scary-- just wait until the coprorations become sentient...
vote 3rd party...you are guronteed that they will do somthing diffrent....try the greens...they are hugly anti-corpreations.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Read the bill, or at least the comments WHY he shut it down.
I think that it shouldn't happen. This bill legalizes sharing of much personal information WITHOUT authorization.
It also legitimizes those constantly changing TOS that "by continuing to use the service you agree to"
This is NOT a personal privacy bill, this in an anti privacy bill.
Disagree with me if you want, but at least see what the bill and issues are BEFORE you go off half cocked complaining about this.
The Senator from Disney is sponsoring this bill, which many others have pointed out.
Lott may have done 'the right thing' by trying to keep this bill from passing. There was another /. article not very long ago More on Internet Privacy Legislation and a link from it A law to protect spyware that shows how this bill is not all that great for our privacy.
One point that the article makes is that this bill would "place a congressional stamp of approval on precisely the kinds of practices that purveyors of spyware are eager to engage in" and "the nonsensitive clause is a huge gaping loophole through which business will ride roughshod."
Before we blast Lott for this, we should get a good idea of what the bill does based off of something other than its name (which of course was given to it by Sen. Fritz Hollings!)
I'm not saying that Lott is working for our better good, or even that he is thinking of people like us, but we should take a good look at this thing before we complain that someone kept it from passing.
AHP
Now what would be -really- useful is for someone to write a PHP script that goes to the signup page, enters random information. signs you up, then logs in and goes to the page you originally wanted. Then we could just point all the links to mydomain.net/ReferToNyTimes?StoryID=x You mean something like this?
It's true--he had to adjourn to his office to check his list of contributors. How else is a senator supposed to know which vote to cast?
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
The current system in North America just doesn't work.
I've thought about this a lot, and it seems to me that the "right" thing to do is run yourself. Start small and work your way up to where you can make a difference.
So then I ask myself, why don't I run for office? I'm too lazy, and it's easier to put up with the crap being dealt me than it is to do something about it. Shameful but true.
We have prepared on analysis of this bill andit is online here, much easier than reading through the 30 pages, a condensed outline version. We oppose the bill and sent a letter to Sen. Hollings yesterday saying so, we also cc: to all members of the Committee (inc. Sen. Lott). You can also read our press release from our front page here.
We do not want to see the Internet, and Internet commerce treated differently than non-internet commerce. We do not want discriminatory effects placed on the Internet, and wide ranging new regulations and sever legal penalties that will bankrupt many firms. If you conduct any business with a web site, you should oppose this bill!
It voted to require the Federal Trade Commission to develop privacy rules for offline businesses as well, and reduced the maximum amount consumers could win for privacy violations from $5,000 to $500.
This is just absurd. Assuming that a violating company only got 1% of people suing, and a fraction of them winning... this means that the average cost per customer is really about $5. This is an acceptable "cost of doing business".
Seriously, all they seem to need is a perceived threat to privacy ("Senator Prevents Action on Online Privacy Bill"!!) even if the same bill was critized a while go on slashdot, and is sponsored by the senator from disney.
Please, follow someof the links before jumping in to agree with the post ...
Lott against privacy, Lott baaaad !!!
what's next ?
Hollings pro-privacy, Hollings good !?!?
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results" - Winston Churchill
You want to know why the politicians don't pay attention to geeks? Because you're clueless. You're no more informed about the issues than your common couch potato sucking in the CNN lies.
Last week you were all rallying around your privacy rights. This week you pan the guy that killed a bill that would have taken away your privacy rights. The geek coalition is just as malleable with ten second sound bites as the soccer moms and suv dads.
Go find out what this bill is about before you start clamouring for its passage. It serves you a bowl of shit and you're happy because there's a doggy biscuit mixed in. Sheesh! Oh boo hoo that filthy republican took away my doggy biscuit...
I'm definitely going to let Trent Lott know how I feel. I'll let him know that I'm glad he kept my best interests in mind in that den of weasels they call the Senate. I want a real privacy bill, not this half-assed excuse for a placebo.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned