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32 Senators Want To Know If US Regulators Halted Equifax Probe (engadget.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the up-in-the-air dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: Earlier this week, a Reuters report suggested that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) had halted its investigation into last year's massive Equifax data breach. Reuters sources said that even basic steps expected in such a probe hadn't been taken and efforts had stalled since Mick Mulvaney took over as head of the CFPB late last year. Now, 31 Democratic senators and one Independent have written a letter to Mulvaney asking if that is indeed the case and if so, why.

In their letter, the senators expressed their concern over these reports and reiterated the duty the CFPB has to not only investigate the breach but to bring action against Equifax if deemed necessary. "Consumer reporting agencies and the data they collect play a central role in consumers' access to credit and the fair and competitive pricing of that credit," they wrote. "Therefore, the CFPB has a duty to supervise consumer reporting agencies, investigate how this breach has or will harm consumers and bring enforcement actions as necessary."

14 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. Spoiler alert: Yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Trump blocked the inquiry into the worst data breach ever, and he committed treason with the Russians. Basically he is a bad guy and his supporters are retards.

    Well quitting time. Anyone wanna hit the strip club?

    1. Re:Spoiler alert: Yes by fluffernutter · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Honest question, what damage did the email server incident actually cause? I've read some things about it and I don't understand how it is on the same scale as the Equifax breach.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    2. Re:Spoiler alert: Yes by Immerman · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I didn't follow the story in depth - mostly they seemed to be the usual partisan torch-and-pitchfork rants. However, I think the core issue, and reason that such behavior is illegal, is that like electronic voting without a paper trail, there's no way to tell how much damage was actually done. You control your own communications channel for government business, it makes it that much easier for you to engage in corrupt dealings and then destroy the evidence. As well as allowing foreign intelligence agencies to more easily spy on you, since it's a fair bet that your basement server is far less secure than the shared servers with a full IT staff charged with keeping them up to date and secure.

      As such I'd love to see everyone who engaged in such practices imprisoned, but honestly I don't expect to see it happen. I think most everyone accepts that the vast majority of federal elected officials are corrupt, the only question is exactly how badly. As such, while everyone will make lots of noise about their opponent's corruption, they won't actually *do* anything about it, as it would set precedent for their own prosecution when the wheel of power inevitably turns against them. They've pretty much got to be caught red handed doing something really appalling for there to even be a serious inquiry, and even then it's as likely as not that it will simply be dragged out until the population moves on to new outrages, and then quietly dropped with just enough of a slap on the wrist that everyone else can claim that "something was done about it"

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    3. Re:Spoiler alert: Yes by bondsbw · · Score: 3, Interesting

      My company is a large federal contractor, and everyone has it drilled in our heads just how many levels of prison we'll go to if we are negligent in like manner to the email debacle.

      So sure, I think she should be in prison. But Leavenworth is much better than Guantanamo, which is where her competition deserves to go.

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
  2. Why write letters? by xevioso · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seriously. Why are these Senators bothering? It's not like he will give them a clear response. Any response, if he even provides one, will only serve to make up some bullshit reason why it was "unnecessary" rather than the real reason, which is that these guys believe fundamentally there's nothing wrong with cheating people and fucking people over.

    So why waste time and write the letters? To just look like they are doing something useful?

    1. Re:Why write letters? by fafalone · · Score: 4, Informative

      To look like they're doing something; what else? Of course nothing is being done. The director of the agency is fundamentally opposed to his own agency existing, requested a budget of $0, and won't even go after abusive payday lenders. That's par for the course with Trump; appointing someone who hates the agency they're now leading.

  3. Yes. Next Question? by Voyager529 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've seen more commercials for Equifax consumer products in the last six months than I have in the last six years. Enron wasn't pitching their retirement accounts while they were under investigation and Martha Stewart wasn't taking out Super Bowl ads to pitch her new holiday pots-and-pans collection while she was under investigation.

    A real investigation of Equifax would keep Equifax's name in the news in a bad way, and Equifax wouldn't be pitching their credit monitoring apps on primetime TV if their name was associated with being under investigation.

    So yes, it's abundantly clear that Equifax isn't getting the probing they deserve.

    1. Re:Yes. Next Question? by fustakrakich · · Score: 2

      They don't deal on the retail level. The "news" means nothing to them. The opinions of the banks are all that matters. There is only one way to get even. Pay off your debts and/or don't take out new credit.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  4. Re:You guys realize... by countypyr · · Score: 2

    FYI - Congress can use legislation to change (or even abolish) the bureau. Indeed, there’s currently legislation in both chambers to enshrine a variety of transparency standards, some of which passed the House Financial Services Committee with bipartisan backing. - The Senate must confirm the head of the bureau. - The board’s director must testify at least twice a year before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee; the House Financial Services Committee; and the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The bureau must also submit semi-annual budget justifications. - The bureau is subject to an annual financial audit by the Government Accountability Office, a congressional agency. * Other experts in government regulation and oversight don’t go this far -- but they add that Fiorina’s characterization is an exaggeration.

  5. Who gets the fine money? by RogueWarrior65 · · Score: 2

    So what if the company gets a huge fine? It doesn't solve a damn thing. The people whose data was stolen don't get their security back nor do they get compensated in any way. IMHO, this is little more than an extortion racket being run by the government who inhales every dollar it can.

  6. Re:Is this more treason? by speedlaw · · Score: 2

    Sayeth the russian bot

  7. Good luck with that by magzteel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The CFPB is not subject to congressional oversight
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    "A 2013 press release from the United States House Financial Services Committee criticized the CFPB for what was described as a "radical structure" that "is controlled by a single individual who cannot be fired for poor performance and who exercises sole control over the agency, its hiring and its budget." Moreover, the committee alleged a lack of financial transparency and a lack of accountability to Congress or the President. Committee Vice Chairman Patrick McHenry, expressed particular concern about travel costs and a $55 million renovation of CFPB headquarters, stating "$55 million is more than the entire annual construction and acquisition budget for GSA for the totality of federal buildings."[71] In 2012, the majority of GSA's Federal Buildings Fund went to rental costs, totaling $5.2 billion. $50 million was budgeted for construction and acquisition of facilities.[72]"

  8. Re:Rules are rules - just not for all of us ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    How about 3 to start with, I'm betting there are others:

    Executive Order 13526 and 18 U.S.C Sec. 793(f) of the federal code make it unlawful to send or store classified information on personal email.

    Note the code says nothing about intent.

    Section 1236.22 of the 2009 National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) requirements states that

    Agencies that allow employees to send and receive official electronic mail messages using a system not operated by the agency must ensure that Federal records sent or received on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency record keeping system.

    Just guessing here, but I don't believe deleting any emails with BleachBit is allowed under this statute.

    Violation of the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA)

    Veterans for a Strong America filed a lawsuit against the State Department for violations of the FOIA. They had filed the FOIA request because of Benghazi and specifically asked for any personal email accounts and her private server emails were not turned over as required.

    Oh hell, why not add a 4th:

    18 U.S. Code 1519 - Destruction, alteration or falsification of records in Federal investigations and bankruptcy

    Clinton's emails were subpoena'd by the FBI on March 4, 2015, Her campaign claimed they were deleted prior to the subpoena but the FBI investigation determined the emails were actually deleted sometime between March 25 -31, basically 3 weeks after the subpoena.

  9. Fox in charge of the hen house... by DavidHumus · · Score: 2

    ...not doing a good job? I'm shocked! Absolutely shocked!