Re: Ted Rall Subscription Service (fwd)

[robert <http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert>]

FWIW, Ca is much better than most states since it has the CCPA.
But, yeah, it could be stronger and better.

 > From: Noelle <noelle>
 > Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2021 08:54:02 -0700 (PDT)
 >
 >  > From: Ted<http://www.send.mailchimpapp.com/~tedrall.aol.com>
 >  > Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2021 15:28:29 +0000
 >  > 
 >  > Activists harass White House officials
 >  > and
 >  > senators
 >  > as they eat dinner at restaurants. Another senator 
 >  > was recently stalked into the ladies’ room, where her pursuers shouted 
 >  > derision at her stall. Many other politicians have suffered protest 
 >  > demonstrations at their homes.
 >  > 
 >  > Now that they’re beleaguered, this may be the perfect time to convince 
 >  > lawmakers to act to protect Americans’ most personal information: their 
 >  > home address and phone number.
 >  > 
 >  > Type your name into a search engine. Odds are, a few of the results will 
 >  > include private companies that reveal your home address or part thereof, 
 >  > your phone number or part thereof, employment and education history, along 
 >  > with information about “known associates” like your friends and family 
 >  > members. For a fee, these personal search services offer to fill in the gaps 
 >  > with data culled from public records such as those of the Department of 
 >  > Motor Vehicles, marriage records, voter registration rolls
 >  > and consumer credit reports.
 >  > 
 >  > Easy access to mountains of personal data is such a gold mine for identity 
 >  > thieves, stalkers and other predators that women’s shelters spend much of 
 >  > their time helping their clients to navigate convoluted state-run programs 
 >  > which allow victims of abuse to replace their home addresses with boxes 
 >  > in public databases like those run by the DMV. Trying to disappear from the 
 >  > Internet is an uphill battle. Millions of Americans
 >  > report having been stalked.
 >  > 
 >  > It’s a murder pandemic: 54% of female homicide victims
 >  > were killed by former romantic partners who stalked 
 >  > them first, many by using public-records searches.
 >  > 
 >  > You can ask each of these companies to opt out by deleting their listings 
 >  > for you. But the processes are cumbersome and make you reveal more 
 >  > information, like your current phone number, that could increase your 
 >  > exposure. It’s like Whack-a-Mole; every time you get one taken offline, 
 >  > another pops up. And there are lot: 121 companies
 >  > registered to comply with a 2019 Vermont law set up 
 >  > to monitor the data brokerage business. Preventing predatory purveyors of 
 >  > personal information from selling your safety shouldn’t be a full-time 
 >  > job.
 >  > 
 >  > Nor should you have to install a VPN or script-blocker
 >  > or, as privacy experts advise, avoid posting 
 >  > anything on the Web.
 >  > 
 >  > Pre-Internet, you controlled access to your contact information. If you didn�>  > ��t want strangers to know your digits, you could request that the phone 
 >  > company keep you unlisted from 411 information and the white pages. One too 
 >  > many late-night raids by students wielding toilet paper convinced my mother, 
 >  > a high school teacher, to avail herself of that service. It worked.
 >  > 
 >  > The system wasn’t perfect. A determined stalker could follow you home. 
 >  > Announcements of home purchases, including the name of the buyer, were 
 >  > listed in local newspapers. But dead-tree publications weren’t 
 >  > keyword-searchable from anywhere on the planet. It took considerable effort 
 >  > to track a person to their residence.
 >  > 
 >  > Privacy was central to American culture. A high-profile, high-risk celebrity,
 >  >  the Soviet dissident author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn relied on an unlisted 
 >  > number and the respectful attitude of his neighbors in a small town in 
 >  > Vermont to keep KGB assassins and the innocuously curious at bay. “No 
 >  > Restrooms, No Bare Feet, No Directions to the Solzhenitsyn Home,” read a 
 >  > sign
 >  > at the local general store. Nowadays they’d track 
 >  > him all the way to the gulag.
 >  > 
 >  > Edward Snowden’s revelations that the NSA intercepts our phone calls, 
 >  > emails, texts and spies on us through the cameras on our computers
 >  > erased
 >  > Americans’ expectations of privacy from their 
 >  > government. Yet many people aren’t scared of the feds, figuring that they 
 >  > have nothing to fear since they’re not doing anything illegal.
 >  > 
 >  > But that doesn’t mean we want everyone to have access to our personal 
 >  > records. At least nine out of ten people
 >  > tell pollsters that they want control over their 
 >  > information and that it’s important to them.
 >  > 
 >  > Information brokerage is a $200 billion a year
 >  > industry, one that offers obvious benefits to 
 >  > marketers and entrepreneurs researching the viability of a start-up. They 
 >  > wield influence in Washington, where they dropped at least $29 million
 >  > in lobbying campaigns in 2020, as much as Facebook 
 >  > and Google combined. And for the most part, data brokers follow the law.
 >  > 
 >  > That’s the problem.
 >  > 
 >  > Information brokerage is basically unregulated (
 >  > . Attempts to require opt-outs, require 
 >  > transparency in calculations of consumer creditworthiness
 >  > and ban the collection of data under false 
 >  > pretenses have repeatedly died on Capitol Hill. We need legislation that 
 >  > protects vulnerable people, like women and men whose lives are ruined and 
 >  > sometimes ended because their addresses are made freely available online. 
 >  > But privacy shouldn’t just be for victims. Everyone deserves the right to 
 >  > eat dinner and go to the bathroom in peace, or relax at the end of the day 
 >  > without having to deal with a mob of angry demonstrators outside their 
 >  > house.
 >  > 
 >  > Even a senator.