Why Congress WILL pass a privacy law!
The U.S. is fully committed to re-living the 1980's
Interesting article in the NY Times by Mike Isaac and Kashmir Hill about an anonymous prankster who revealed the purported Spotify listening habits of a bunch of politicians, tech executives and journalists.
Great story - although with respect - I think Hill and Isaac buried the lede.
Nothing spurs Congressional action more quickly than fear of embarrassment. Not the kind of embarrassment one might feel when a large percentage of your constituents feel you’re not doing your job, or when you all literally leave town early in hopes people will stop talking about the latest scandal - or when you’re clumsily attempting to rewrite history on national TV.
The type of embarrassment that spurs real Congressional action occurs when they realize that the public might discover you and/or your colleagues’ secret affinity for NSMB - or (even worse for certain conservatives) that your playlist includes Erasure, RuPaul, Gaga and Liza.
As is often the case today, there are parallels one might draw from the 1980’s. And this is where I think Hill and Isaac may have missed the bigger picture.
Robert Bork was nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States by President Ronald Reagan on July 1, 1987. To say that that his confirmation hearings were contentious would be an understatement. Anyway, a journalist named Michael Dolan happened to frequent the same video rental store as Mr. Bork. Mr. Dolan requested - and for some reason was granted - a copy of Mr. Bork’s video rental history. He then published a piece on Bork’s rental history on the front cover of The City Paper - a local Washington arts rag.
Seeing how the publication of video rental history would impact THEM directly, our esteemed members of Congress sprung into action - passing the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) in near record time.
I believe that the underlying story behind today’s New York Times article will have a similar effect on privacy in the U.S.
In other words, when the 119th Congress is back in session, the first order of business will OBVIOUSLY be the passage of the Spotify Entanglement, Credibility Restoring & Ending Terrible Scandals, or SECRETS Act. The fully bi-partisan law will require that all Spotify settings default to “private”.
It certainly won’t be the comprehensive privacy law that the U.S. desperately needs - although they’ll probably use that bill preempt all state privacy laws in a lass minute deal in exchange for enforcement via a private right of action.
Just like we have with the VPPA.
Mr. Bork innocently watching Alfred Hitchock’s Vertigo without a hint of irony.