The Great Congressional Sell Out Your Identity for Their Campaign Contributions
March 16, 2006 You can call it anything you want but when the average American accepts money or gifts in return for favorable treatment, its referred to as a bribe. And when they accept bribes in the course of their jobs, its a criminal matter that can result in stiff fines and jail time. But in Congress, this kind of behavior is referred to as lobbying rather than corruption and it is all in a days work. And thanks to the lobbying efforts of banks and data brokers, Congress is now poised to strip away laws that the states use to help you from becoming an identity theft statistic. They should be ashamed.
In early 2005,
In February, 2005 ChoicePoint, one of the largest data brokers in the country, had a large data breach involving 30,000
But ChiocePoint stubbornly denied that any consumers outside of
Within a few months Lexis-Nexis, another large data broker, had a similar breach. This time the data of 310,000 consumers were involved. Once again,
Based largely on these two breaches and the effect of
While these notification laws are popular with consumers and the states, they are very unpopular with the companies that are supposed to be guarding your data. So they have been lobbying Congress to pass a weak national standard to regulate data breaches and consumer notifications. And that effort may be about to pay off at the expense of consumers.
The House Financial Services Committee is about to act on HR 3997, a bill which is widely referred to as the "worst data breach notice bill ever." Among other things, the bill provides a notification standard for data breaches that is so weak that it is expected there will be no consumer notifications in the future. The bill also prevents the states or their attorneys general from passing stronger financial privacy laws, or enforcing laws that are already on the books.
In short, the bill is a complete sell out of American citizens by a small group of corrupt politicians that are more concerned with campaign contributions that they are with the well being of their constituents.
It should be no surprise that this bill is moving forward at precisely the same time that many members of Congress are trying to stop lobbying reform legislation in its tracks. Congressional members are openly complaining about legislation that would prevent them from taking free corporate sponsored trips. They are also campaigning about legislation that would force members to declare earmarks. These are federal funds that are steered to special projects, normally at the behest of lobbyists and without any debate on the floor of Congress.
If you are interested in voicing your displeasure with HR 3997, Consumers Union has setup a website that will allow you to send a letter to your elected representatives. Just go to www.financialprivacynow.org, fill out the contact information and hit the submit button. A letter will be sent to representatives asking them to vote no on the bill.
by Jim Malmberg
Note: When posting a comment, please sign-in first if you want a response. If you are not registered, click here. Registration is easy and free.
{moscomment}