The Washington state legislature is again trying to pass privacy legislation after an effort to do so last session fell short. If passed, this would constitute the second major privacy and data security bill enacted in the U.S. after the “California Consumer Privacy Act” (CCPA) (AB 375) and the revised bill contains significant differences from … Continue reading Privacy Bill Revived and Revised in Washington State
A bit of a deviation here from the usual fare. The Washington Post has begun to publish a series of blockbuster articles on the interviews and materials it has obtained from the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), showing that U.S. officials knew very early that operations in Afghanistan were not … Continue reading Much Of The Post’s Afghanistan Scoop Was In Plain Sight
WhatsApp and Facebook filed suit against the Israeli security firm, NSO Group, alleging that in April 2019, it sent “malware to approximately 1,400 mobile phones and devices…designed to infect the Target Devices for the purpose of conducting surveillance of specific WhatsApp users.” This step was taken, Facebook and WhatsApp claim, in order to circumvent WhatApp’s … Continue reading Facebook and WhatsApp Sue Israeli Security Firm, NSO Group
Last week, we delved into the “Social Media Privacy Protection and Consumer Rights Act of 2019” (S. 189), but this week we will look at a bill that probably exceeds bounds of the politically possible: Senator Ed Markey's (D-MA) “Privacy Bill of Rights Act” (S. 1214), the only bill to get an A in the … Continue reading Spotlight: A Privacy Bill A Week: “Privacy Bill of Rights” (S. 1214)
As we wait for stakeholders in Congress to finalize and release their proposals to regulate how private sector companies handle, use, and distribute the private information of Americans, we thought there would be value in reviewing some of the key bills already introduced this Congress and some introduced over the last few Congresses so when … Continue reading A Privacy Bill A Week: The Data Care Act
Now that Congress and the White House have agreed on the FY 2020 top line numbers for defense and non-defense discretionary spending, both the House and Senate need to adjust the numbers they have put forth as their working caps. The House did not pass a budget resolution and instead passed a deeming resolution (H.J.Res. … Continue reading Appropriators Have Work To Do
As has been widely reported in the media, Congress and the White House agreed on a deal to raise the FY 2020 and 2021 budget caps and suspend the debt ceiling until July 2021. Ostensibly, this clears the way for Congress to send appropriations bills to the White House in September when the two chambers … Continue reading Budget Deal Reached; Battle Over FY 2020 Appropriations Continues
If privacy legislation gets passed by the Congress this year or next (although recent reports suggest a number of impasses between Republicans and Democrats), it might also contain language on data security standards. Such legislation would also likely direct the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to conduct an Administrative Procedure Act (APA) rulemaking to promulgate regulations … Continue reading Possible Preview of Federal Data Security Regulations?
This week saw the struggle over and then enactment of supplemental appropriations for the current fiscal year to address the inflow of migrants on the U.S.-Mexico border. Yesterday, the Congress sent the $4.5 billion “Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Humanitarian Assistance and Security at the Southern Border Act, 2019” (H.R. 3401) to the White House. It … Continue reading House Democrats Surrender on Border Supplemental
The House is on the verge of finishing work on its 12 appropriations bills while the Senate has passed only a supplemental appropriations bill and will bring another to the floor. Absent an imminent breakthrough on the caps on discretionary spending for FY 2020 and 2021, the word for appropriations will be “impasse” until the … Continue reading Appropriations State of Play
Michael Kans 