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New California Ballot Measure Demands Groundbreaking Privacy Rights (mercurynews.com)
Supporters gathered 625,000 signatures to put the "California Consumer Privacy Act" on the ballot in November -- far exceeding the 365,880 signatures needed to qualify. The Mercury News reports:
The proposed initiative aims to allow consumers to see what personal information companies are collecting about them and ask the companies to stop selling that information, and also seeks to hold businesses accountable for data breaches. "Today is a major step forward in our campaign, and an affirmation that California voters care deeply about the fundamental privacy protections provided in the California Consumer Privacy Act," said Alastair Mactaggart, the San Francisco real estate developer who is bankrolling the measure. He has spent $1.65 million on the effort, according to filings with the California secretary of state.
The measure is opposed by companies such as AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and Google, which have all donated $200,000 each to fight the measure. Facebook has also given $200,000 to the opposition. However, Facebook last month said it would leave the effort to fight the initiative.
The article notes that Facebook's decision to stop publicly opposing the privacy measure occurred "around the time Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was testifying to Congress about the company's Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal."
The measure is opposed by companies such as AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and Google, which have all donated $200,000 each to fight the measure. Facebook has also given $200,000 to the opposition. However, Facebook last month said it would leave the effort to fight the initiative.
The article notes that Facebook's decision to stop publicly opposing the privacy measure occurred "around the time Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was testifying to Congress about the company's Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal."
Companies should not be allowed to sell or share data on customers with any other company. Any data they collect should only be allowed to be used for their own internal business purposes. Sad it's come to this but enough has become enough.
Protecting people against activities that make the rich richer and violate the non-rich? What is capitalism coming to! This must be socialism, right?
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Occasionally there are people with money that also have a conscience and do not only care about themselves. Shocking, I know. Don't they know that in true capitalism such behavior is anathema? These dangerous deviants sometimes even happen to live in the US.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
We joke about Google cutting off companies or groups they disagree with, but with this ballot and the right to get companies to stop selling your information, they may just find themselves cut off.
California? Mess? You mean fifth or sixth largest economy in the world? Oh right, and democracy (subject to Constitutional restrictions: CA still has courts) is better than oligarchy.
Having a large economy doesn't necessary mean you have a healthy economy. You also have the largest debt of any state in the union at over 700 billion. The highest tax rate, one of the highest homeless population in the country, and the fastest shrinking middle class. You know the ones that actually pay all those taxes. You have junkies shooting up in your subways. An a complete and total dependency of surrounding states for water.
So, yes, California is a complete and total mess.
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Oh you also have the highest rate of junkies shooting up in the streets and subways.
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They just use their "government" face (lobbyist politicians) whenever they do something you livestock might not like, to get you to hate the very and onl concept that could save you from them: An *actual* government. Like an *actually* democratic one. Aka without "representatives" (aka corporate lobbyists), let alone senators (aka "former" nobility old boys club. *literally*.).
Keep in mind that your freedom as a human being is a zero-sum game.
The more power you give to others and/or government, the less freedom everyone has.
A large government is large basically because it has many things to do, and that's because it has many powers.
Because a large government necessarily has many powers by definition, the people it governs have less freedom.
If the federal government was small and didn't have a lot of domestic power, scope, and control, it would not be such a target and opportunity for corruption.
Governments should be designed like a computer network that handles power/force instead of data. A network built of numerous nearly stand-alone computers with a variety of hardware, OS's, security suites, etc is far more secure against being suborned as opposed to a bunch of dumb terminals, all alike, totally dependent on a master mainframe.
Fortunately, there are already plans written for just such a system designed by some of the very first network security design geniuses. We just have to get the current iteration returned to more closely resemble the original design specs.
https://www.usconstitution.net...
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Having a large economy doesn't necessary mean you have a healthy economy. You also have the largest debt of any state in the union at over 700 billion.
In absolute terms, the debt is the largest of any state, but of course, that is entirely expected because the total California economy is the largest of any state. In terms of debt as a percentage of GDP, California is about in the middle in terms of ordinal ranking as well as being very close to the aggregate percentage of all states combined.
The highest tax rate, one of the highest homeless population in the country, and the fastest shrinking middle class. You know the ones that actually pay all those taxes.
Well, that's a nice populist sentiment that is not necessarily supported by actual numbers. Looking at slightly old (from 2015) numbers, half of all income tax revenue in California comes from those in the top 1% of income earners. For 2003 to 2014, all years except for one saw at least 40% of total income tax revenues coming from the top 1% of income earners.
An a complete and total dependency of surrounding states for water.
Well, sort of but not really. California uses about 40 million acre-feet of water per year. About 10% comes from the Colorado River system. One third comes from ground water. Another third comes from the Sierra snowpack. The rest comes mostly from in-state reservoirs.
Of course, California would have less debt if it were its own country, since Federal tax money is constantly taken from CA and used to support red states.
We have been over this before too. California wouldn't have any less debt if it was it own country. It would have exactly same amount of debt because you assume that you would be free of your debt if you did secede. Which isn't going to happen anyway. No, what you would do is you would be taking your debt with you.
So lets just say for shits and giggles that you did find some way to go your own way. Here is what would happen. You would be taking your $700B debit with you. But then you would have no way to pay it because what makes you the "5th" largest economy is being attached to the largest economy, The United States. Once you go your own way that support will go away as will all the federal contracts you have plus most of the tech industry will vacate too. So you will lose all that and you can say bye bye to that large economy.
Oh but it gets better. With out the support of the surrounding states you will lose the water that they proved. That will kill off that agriculture you people like to boast about.
So here is the result. You will have a large debt and no way to pay it mainly because all the sources of income that you had will go away. Now you might like to think that you would get foreign investors, but that wouldn't happen ether. You see foreign investors are not going to put money into a new government without a proven track record and a $700B debt.
But at least the rest of us would be free of that raving loon Maxine Waters.
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one of the highest homeless population in the country,
Well, stop sending them here.
An a complete and total dependency of surrounding states for water.
Around half the food people eat in the USA is produced in California. Besides not sending us your homeless, you can also stop eating our food.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That could happen but I'm betting it wouldn't. There is already some resistance to the current deals in the surrounding states with the water issue. I would think that once they see a way out of it that there would be no deal.
It would take years to renegotiate those water deals. Years that California wouldn't have.
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And as a sovereign state free to issue its own currency, it would also be free to tell those debt holders to pound sand
That would be the absolute worse thing California could do. Not only would you default on your debt, you would be showing the rest of the world that you can't be trusted to honor your commitments. Nobody would do any business with California at all. Being both a new and untested country and one that defaulted on a 700 Billion dollar debt. It would pretty much seal any new country of California doom.
An since most of the industry in Calif. is tied up in that debt, the moment it was defaulted on that industry wouldn't worth piss and shit.
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The 9th Circuit
The most over turned court in the land.
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No. It's because the 9th circuit has been wrong about more things than any other court in history.
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No what they are doing is called "direct democracy".
Stop talking about things you don't understand. It only makes you look foolish. An makes my job so much easier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Direct democracy, in other words a democracy. They do not work, they never work. Our Founding Fathers saw this and it why we have repressive republic. Another name for mob rule, or the tyranny of the majority.
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I'm not sure what parts you would consider un-sensible. They are all true. High tax rate, high homeless, large public debt, and water dependence on other states. This is all public record an known issues.
The only thing that I have any personal with is calling Maxine Waters a shreeking fool.
"Impeach!! Impeach!! Impshreeek! Shreek!!! Shreek!!!"
Crazy fool has no clue what happens if they Impeach Lord Trump. We get Mike Pence and then God help us all. That crazy fool thinks he is on a mission from God to put gays back in the closet and women back in kitchen.
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HAHAHAHAHAno. The tech industry is fed up with the federal government dicking them around over data security. Instead of leaving, they would be staying in droves. And go ahead, tell us exactly what those federal contracts are worth. Meanwhile, marijuana production and tourism would explode, oh and by the way we grow half of the food the nation consumes. If you want to eat more than corn and wheat, you'll pay what we ask, fuckers.
The USA needs California far more than the other way around.
Well let's spend some time and look at that shall we? First let's look at what article this thread is attached to, "New California Ballot Measure Demands Groundbreaking Privacy Rights." That is a referendum put to a public vote to put restrictions on these tech. industries you say are fed up with the federal government dicking them around. So now instead of being regulated by a government body where they have a recourse in court, they would now be regulated by whelms of the public with no recourse in court. An you think they would stay in California?
California is moving to restrict the way these tech. companies do business so what are these companies going to do? They are going move their business to some place where the whelms of the public don't affect their business model. Current that location would be in the United States, so they would probably be relocating to New York.
$375.8 Billion dollars per year. That is what the those federal government spending in California.
http://lao.ca.gov/Publications...
Yes, you do grow a lot of food in California, but you only do that because you take water from the surrounding regions. If that was to go away you wouldn't be farming any where as much. Most of the land that you grow food would revert to its natural state, a desert. From what I'm reading corn and wheat are not grown in California. Those are produced in the Midwest, far away from anything that would be affected by a collapse of California ag. Industry.
So, no we don't need you more than you need us. Without the United States California would quickly collapse under is own debt and regulations.
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No you will pretty much be deserted by the good ones. Nobody wants to do business in a questionable political climate. We won't mention the tax hikes that will be coming to finance the large public debt. They won't be coming from the middle class because there is no middle class. The only sources left to milk will be the industry. For this reason alone will enough to leave. An knowing that these industries will be looking for a new home other governments will offer crazy tax intensives to move there,
1/5 is a lot of water. Of what California uses, 1/5 is a crazy amount of water. An yes, it will be going away if California does break off, which it won't. All the treaties for the water are with ether the US government or the state of California. They are not with the Republic of California or whatever it would be called. if California was to go it own way those treaties automatically become void. It would take years to renegotiate those, if they are renegotiated at all. Lots of people unhappy with these water treaties.
You act like California is the only place to grow food or that it exists in some kind of bubble. It doesn't. Odds are that water sent to California would be re-purposed to grow else where. Any food that couldn't be grown locally can be imported, say from Mexico.
Then there are tariffs. Didn't think of that did you?
But this is all just a thought exercise. We need to stay in reality. An here is reality. California isn't going anywhere. You will stay apart of the United States weather you like it or not. For some reason if the legislature was to try to break away the government of California would be removed, arrested and charged with treason. Period. That is what would happen.
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No. Wrong as in "unconstitutional." Wrong as in "not in line with what the law says." Wrong, as in "overreaching and beyond their legal authority."
As for your independent California Republic. I think we have wasted enough time with that foolishness. It's not going to happen and would fail anyway, So lets just put that topic to bed.
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Before you continue to bray about a free an independent California you should become familiar with US law. Specifically, 18 U.S. Code Chapter 115 - TREASON, SEDITION, AND SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES.
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The 1st Amendment doesn't protect you from sedition of slander. Remember who is in office too. The only reason Calexit hasn't been prosecuted is because nobody takes it seriously. You can get as many signatures on that little piece of paper as you want. In the end it will be worth just as much as the paper you wipe your ass with. It will never see a day on the floor of California legislature.
I think we are done here. Not happening.
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Just because our government is currently a wholly owned subsidiary of BigCorp does not make OP's assertion untrue; it simply means our government has been corrupted because it was infiltrated and co-opted.
But the point is WHY is it corrupted, besides basic human nature?
The answer, young padawan, is that government becomes corrupt when there's enough power and control concentrated in one place to make it worthwhile. It's impossible to corrupt a federal regulatory agency that does not exist, and corrupting fifty or more independent regulatory bodies while remaining unnoticed while each is corrupted in turn is equally impossible in any realistic scenario of a functioning government.
Ironically, the best way for a megacorp to free itself of regulation is to persuade politicians to create a federal regulatory body as that means one-stop-shopping for all their corrupt-bureaucrats-that-wield-power-over-the-whole-country shopping needs.
Any time there is a concentration of government power you will find corruption in proportion to the amount of power in question. It's basic human nature. People suck in general and will abuse power. This goes triple for those who seek power through public office, even if they go in with good intentions.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.