September 2018

The Senate Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on Sept 26 on “Examining Safeguards for Consumer Data Privacy,” intended as an opportunity for lawmakers to learn about “possible approaches to safeguarding privacy more effectively.” That’s great except for two small things. No consumers were invited to speak on safeguarding consumer data privacy. No consumer advocates were invited to speak on safeguarding consumer data privacy. Who was invited?

After years of debate, Congress is poised to vote on legislation that would cement the Department of Homeland Security’s role as the government’s main civilian cybersecurity authority.  The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act (HR 3359), which has been in the works since the Obama administration, would give the department a stand-alone cybersecurity agency with the same stature as other DHS units, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

An Internet service provider can see every website that you choose to access. And with the scrapping of Obama-era privacy regulations in 2017, the US federal government has no rules against ISPs collecting and selling your information to marketers. But new tech fixes are plugging the privacy holes that the government won’t. The effort began in April, when Firefox browser maker Mozilla and content delivery network Cloudflare rolled out measures to block one of the easiest ways for ISPs to snoop.