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84% Of Americans Want Tougher Online Privacy Laws, But Congress Is Too Corrupt To Follow Through

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/08/21/84-of-americans-want-tougher-online-privacy-laws-but-congress-is-too-corrupt-to-follow-through/

Americans are, apparently, tired of having every last shred of personal data over-collected, hyper monetized, then improperly secured by a rotating crop of ethics-optional corporations and lazy exe…

1 comments

WatDabney

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To be fairish, it's not entirely that Congress is too corrupt and beholden to the very corporations that are abusing online privacy - it's also that the government itself shares the corporations' preference for a lack of privacy rights.

The federal government is also disincentivized from passing a nationwide privacy law for the internet era because they’ve found that buying consumer data from data brokers is a wonderful way to avoid having to get a traditional warrant.

Exactly.

For what it's worth, my own view is that the root problem is that the entire issue is framed backwards.

The question we're posed is whether or not people should have a right to privacy. Since privacy is the default state, the actual question should be whether or not people have the right to violate other people's privacy.

But of course that's not the question that's asked, since the obvious answer to that one is "No."

And that's exactly why it's the question that should be asked.