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U.S. consumer protection official puts Equifax probe on ice
- moistoreos 9y agoTax dollars hard at "work" at "protecting" consumers.
- lostcolony 9y agoConsider the administration, and the fact the GOP has hated this bureau since it's inception, promising to curtail it. This is hardly evidence that governmental consumer protection can't work, just evidence that the GOP has delivered on its promise to stop government from trying.
- santoriv 9y agoIndeed. Run on a platform saying that government doesn't work, and once in office govern in a way that proves the premise! Brilliant.
- dhimes 9y ago^^ P.J. O'Rourke's observation
- geofft 9y agoThe purpose of all this "deep state" talk is to cast doubt on the idea that certain government policies should not change at each administration's whims, and there should be a semblance of continuity of both policy and personnel across presidential elections. Now that anyone who's been working for the government since before 2017 is being demonized as the "deep state," it opens the door to politicize every single action from every single agency. If a Democratic president gets elected in 2020, it'll be interesting to watch whether this standard gets upheld. (Most likely the Republicans will complain about how the Democrats are attacking loyal Americans working hard for their government, and the Democrats will do their usual thing of feeling bad and giving in.)
- fjsolwmv 9y agoPolitics is a pendulum. It has always swung back and forth every few year. But now it's swinging much farther and much heavier, and it's making the whole system unstable. Democrats are unlikely to give in again. Giving in is what drive away their base cost them the election in 2016. If they do it again in 2020, the party is dead.
- zero_intp 9y agoGood luck with that, the Democratic party has not suddenly grown a spine.
- aerotwelve 9y agoPlease vote in your local Democratic caucus/primary and force them to grow a spine. We need your help to make it happen.
- fjsolwmv 9y agoOf course agencies should follow the administration's whims, that's the administration's job. If executive behavior should be constrained by previous administration's decisions, then Congress or if necessary a Constitutional convention should make a law to establish that. If our country is so divided that we can't maintain basic consistency across changing administrations, then we don't deserve to be a country anymore, and we should split into 2.
- lostcolony 9y agoThis was largely by unspoken agreement up to now, because it was understood that certain things -had- to be maintained. Even if not as a promise to the american people (they did, after all, vote the prior pack of people in, so what those people set in motion is just as valid as anything you want to do now), as a promise to the world. Imagine the state of diplomacy if any agreement could be thrown out on a whim by a newly elected president? That's effectively what we're seeing now, and even if you disagree with the agreements, and feel they never should have been made, the tarnishing of our diplomatic status and general trustworthiness on the world stage is not easily dismissed.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- devonkim 9y agoGiven the trillions in waste, fraud, and abuse prevalent for decades in DoD projects all with the intent to “protect the American people and soldiers”, surely a few million for protecting consumers is pretty decent value even if it’s nowhere near as effective as our defense / offense department by now?
- bzbarsky 9y agoAmusingly, the other comments in this thread point out that the last budget request for this agency was for $0. So it's more like not-tax-dollars not being at work.
- a3n 9y ago"Big dollar reapers good, small dollar earners bad."
- imglorp 9y agoWe've arrived at Orwell's doublespeak. Consumer financial protection is now in charge of making sure corporations can harm consumers without obstacle.
- brndnmtthws 9y agoTime to think about a new system of governing.
- ztjio 9y agoHow about we actually participate in this one first.
- TausAmmer 9y agoYou can voice your opinion, write a blog, write a petition, complain on twitter, create thread on reddit. There is hundreds of platforms where you can participate in political erm, participation. And you will find plenty of people that are in same boat, all of them will participate in participation. And day will be great!
- brndnmtthws 9y agoThere are only 100 seats in the US senate. How can 'we' participate in that? There are somewhere around 330 million people in the US, represented by just 100 people, who mostly act in their own self interest. How can one person properly represent on average ~3.3 million people? What a sham.
- maxerickson 9y agoYou aren't being fair to the Senators of large states that represent tens of millions of people. I think your thesis is not correct though, the senate is less dysfunctional than the house, at least partly because they each answer to a broad constituency.
- brndnmtthws 9y agoThe senate has an excellent track record for protecting the corporate elite, not the broad constituency.
- 8note 9y ago
- ceejayoz 9y agoDepressing, but hardly surprising. One of his early moves was to change their mission statement to add "regularly identifying and addressing outdated, unnecessary, or unduly burdensome regulations". https://thinkprogress.org/cfpb-protect-consumers-8d50e60ba5d6/ https://thinkprogress.org/cfpb-protect-consumers-8d50e60ba5d... Odd addition to the agency that was created because existing regulation was demonstrably insufficient.
- thrillgore 9y agoI feel helpless with everything the current Administration is doing.
- sjg007 9y agoRegister to vote, get out the vote and vote!
- toomuchtodo 9y agoAnd donate to candidates/campaigns that support your values.
- LeifCarrotson 9y agoI've done that - I suppose it's marginally better than doing nothing. But I still feel helpless, voting for incompetent elitist cronies on both sides who are relentlessly abusing the system for their own benefit, or voting for the rare ethical person who is hamstrung by their honest desire to do the right thing and therefore simply can't possibly win this rigged game.
- jkestner 9y ago@Pinboard has done a huge amount of work here for people like you and me. https://techsolidarity.org/resources/great_slate.html https://techsolidarity.org/resources/great_slate.html First-time progressive candidates that are running in districts the Democratic party hasn't bothered contesting, and outraising the incumbents with just grassroots support. There is a wave. We'll see how big it gets. https://theintercept.com/2017/07/13/democrat-beto-orourke-takes-bernie-sanders-fundraising-model-local-in-run-at-ted-cruz/ https://theintercept.com/2017/07/13/democrat-beto-orourke-ta... Give money; take heart!
- __MatrixMan__ 9y agoWhat this guy said. Also, consider your talents, pick a problem, and try to solve it. For instance, is there anything that the credit bureaus provide that we can't beat with a little game theory and some cryptography? Let's build an open source decentralized alternative and use it to replace the whole cancerous sector.
- outsidetheparty 9y ago> Mulvaney put a hold on much agency work when he took over in November, and said it would last at least 30 days to give him a chance to understand the job. Yes, I too routinely shut down entire departments when I'm put in charge of them. Just long enough so I can get a handle on things, you know. Perfectly reasonable behavior.
- Avshalom 9y agoand just a reminder: he went to court to take this job from some one who already knew what she was doing.
- ceejayoz 9y agoHe also requested this year's [edit: sorry, quarter] operating funds be $0. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/18/mulvaney-funding-consumer-bureau-cordray-345495 https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/18/mulvaney-funding-c...
- jkestner 9y agoNot exactly - just for the quarter. "Mulvaney wrote that the bureau has $177 million in the bank, enough to cover the $145 million the bureau has budgeted for its second quarter."
- jeremyt 9y agoThe misinformation here is ridiculous. The operating budget request for zero dollars was because they collected so much in fines last year that it will pay the entire year’s budget.
- HugoDaniel 9y agoI blockchained so hard at this
- FilterSweep 9y ago143M Americans Affected and by Census'[0] count, there are ~327M Americans. Chances are, if you're an adult American you are impacted. Even if you did not authorize Equifax's "services", a third party most likely did it for you, and you are impacted. Note that your credit score or lack thereof is often used to deny housing and (for generally unsubstantiated reasons,) employment. The fact that Equifax is not held accountable is one of the biggest data-related atrocities of the modern era. [0]: https://www.census.gov/popclock/ https://www.census.gov/popclock/
- khana 9y agoAbsolutely correct.
- MaxBarraclough 9y ago> Note that your credit score or lack thereof is often used to deny housing and (for generally unsubstantiated reasons,) employment. Not defending Equifax, but this is misleading. Credit checks are what enable lending of this sort in the first place.
- mijamo 9y agoNo. France for one does not have a similar system available and lending still works well.
- Karunamon 9y agoHow does France go about determining if someone is a good credit risk who pays their bills on time?
- mulmen 9y agoCall the bank and ask?
- ubernostrum 9y agoIt really is amazing how until the current three credit reporting agencies came long, nobody in the history of humanity had managed to obtain a loan. We owe them a lot for inventing the entire idea of lending money.
- AdmiralAsshat 9y agoAnother transparent appointee of Trump's designed to destroy the department to which he/she was appointed. See: Ajit Pai, Rick Perry, Scott Pruitt, Betsy DeVos, and more. Is there any precedent for committing "mutiny" in a governmental organization?
- wil421 9y agoNot if you want to keep your pension.
- maxxxxx 9y agoBe careful about advocating mutiny in government agencies. Their job is to implement the rules the political system creates. It's a slippery slope if you allow them to inject personal opinions.
- ceejayoz 9y ago> It's a slippery slope if you allow them to inject personal opinions. The Nuremberg Trials - where we decided "just following orders" wasn't an excuse for illegal acts - demonstrate the other side of that slippery slope. For a concrete example of refusing illegal/immoral orders from American politics, see the Saturday Night Massacre.
- rhino369 9y agoFirst, nobody is saying government workers need to follow all orders. They can always quit. If certain workers believe they cannot in good conscience work for the Trump administration, then they have my respect, but they should resign. Second, genocide is a far cry from the government not sufficiently regulating a business to your tastes. If government workers are allowed to make their own policy, we are not long a democracy, but a dictatorship-by-beaucracy. You may think that is a-okay when someone you dislike is in power, but how did you feel when that Kentucky Clerk refused to issue marriage certificates to homosexuals? What if the workers in HHS decide they need to regulate abortion?
- geofft 9y ago
- featherverse 9y agoThe government exists to identify thieves who think they can steal from you and get away with it. The choice remains yours, do you tolerate them and scream at the TV about how unfair it is? Or do you take action.
- mtgx 9y agoMore like corporate protection official, am I right?
- maxxxxx 9y agoI see a bright and lucrative future for him in private business once he is done with this.
- nicwolff 9y agoTrump's cabinet is like the wind-down team a VC brings in to shutter a non-performing portfolio company – they have no experience or interest in the work done by the divisions they are put over, only in selling them off.
- antiviral 9y agoAnd in your analogy, all hypothetical of course, the VC here is located in Moscow? Update: Am I really being down-voted for suggesting what everyone already knows? Seriously?
- hockley 9y agoThis is 100% Driven by Americans. See “Freedom Caucus.”
- beager 9y agoIf we're going to entertain the analogy further, Freedom Caucus is an association of funding targets for "VCs" (PACs and super-PACs) in which Russian investors/state agents are possibly LPs (see: reports of Russian money in the NRA). LPs typically don't have such a direct influence on the operations of the investments, although certain actual LP arrangements have in recent years. Of course, the nature of political contributions and influence seems to be vastly more complicated compared to VC.
- ataturk 9y agoI doubt very much any Russian money went to the NRA. It wouldn't make any sense. What good would it do for Russia to pump up the NRA's coffers when a small group of people in the NRA then choose which candidates to support via the ILA? You do understand that the NRA is a huge grassroots organization but that the lobbying arm, the ILA, is a pretty small group of people, right? The membership would find out about any significant pot of money that just showed up from out of nowhere and somebody would scream bloody murder about it--the NRA members, including the board, are patriotic Americans, after all. No, the whole Russia NRA thing is absolute slander of the worst kind. Something the left is very good at lately because there's no way to "prove innocence." They just make wild accusations and leave a mess in their wake because that's how leftists tear apart a country.
- tomasien 9y agoThere is no purpose for the United States regulatory apparatus if no action is taken against Equifax. None.
- peterwwillis 9y agoThe purpose is the illusion of responsibility. If politicians didn't even attempt to pretend they were trying to fix things, people might actually get upset - or even worse, actively interested in fixing the credit system, or government.
- justin66 9y agoYou might want to think that one through a little more closely, keeping in mind who is running the executive branch right now. They want you to think there is no purpose for the regulatory apparatus, and they are attempting to take no action against Equifax. It would certainly be useful to them if you took their inaction as proof that the regulatory apparatus has no purpose.
- tomasien 9y agoAbsolutely agree. I think my statement makes implies I believe the regulatory apparatus COULD have utility, but in any state where they can't prosecute Equifax it does not.
- adregan 9y agoI froze my credit for free in response to the Equifax breach, and it gave me a little more piece of mind. However, I just had the experience of thawing my credit and I discovered that the companies are back to charging you for the freeze. I had the pins for all the thaws and they went relatively smoothly, except for Equifax, who required me to call and answer ridiculous questions about banking I did over a decade ago (and suggested I would always have to do this regardless of the fact that I had my pin and an account). I shudder to think what would happen if I lost my pin numbers. Especially if I didn't realize until right before I needed a credit check.
- stillhere 9y agoWe should never forget that Equifax first tried to charge consumers for a freeze until consumers complained so loudly that they were forced to give it for free. They clearly have no respect for their consumers and show/flaunt it. Legislators have failed to deal with this issue in a modern way. We need to assume that every American is compromised and freeze accounts by default.
- lostapathy 9y agoI'm waiting for the other shoe to drop on that. Surely, given the recent breaches, a lot more people are freezing accounts who are less accustomed than the average HN reader to keeping pins or other security identifiers around long-term. Once those people need to start unfreezing accounts, we're either going to have a mess because they can't, or a mess because it turns out unfreezing isn't that well protected either. Either way, gonna be ugly.
- fortythirteen 9y agoManufactured outrage checklist: [x] "Anonymous sources" [x] Unprovable speculation on "what might be happening behind closed doors" run as the headline. [X] A plausible explanation buried in the last paragraphs of the article.
- wnevets 9y agoThe free market is all the consumer protection you need /s
- stillhere 9y agoEquifax should NOT be allowed to operate.
- schnable 9y agoThey are still being investigated by the FTC.
- tammer 9y agoSince I'm seeing confusion about how this has occurred in various comments: this is actually not a failure of the executive branch/presidential administration. The American system is defined by a system of "checks and balances" — meaning that the legislature has full power to veto appointees to these departments and even impeach the president. What we're witnessing is a critical vulnerability in this system — when two branches of American government no longer work in the interest of the country, the only remaining check is public elections. These are slow to occur and can be manipulated in plethora ways. So the issue here is a legislature that has coordinated against the interests of the country and its people for the betterment of themselves and the few who fund them. Keep that in mind, and direct anger and action there.
- rgbrenner 9y agoMulvaney is the acting head of the CFPB.. meaning he was not confirmed by the Senate. Trump appointed him, and he leads the agency. That's it. I'm going to assume you weren't aware of that... and not--as Trump likes to do--pointing fingers at others for Trump's failures.
- asciimo 9y agoYes, that's true--the malware installed in our government has done some bad things that need to be discussed. But we also have to address the vulnerability that resulted in its installation.
- evan_ 9y agoTo continue the metaphor: From the perspective of the malware, the bugs are features
- wu-ikkyu 9y agoWhat is the scope of the vulnerability?
- defterGoose 9y agoWell, ok. But if people were more interested in having reasoned debates on policy than coming up with tenuous metaphors, maybe we wouldn't have so many problems.
- cheschire 9y agoWhat saddens me is that the details of the pervasiveness of this administration’s failures will likely be lost when the stories are retold decades from now. The big sweeping failures will be the focus, and people still won’t quite grasp how living in this time actually feels.
- smhinsey 9y agoI don't know about this. One thing that has really struck me about the kind of behavior on display is that a lot of it seems to be under the assumption that getting away with it initially means getting away with it forever, but in reality, we live in one of the most well documented periods of time in history. Information is everywhere and it's nearly impossible to suppress. Not everything happens in internet time, but the truth is going to catch up to a lot of people eventually. There will probably be dozens of books solely about the topic of what has been said by the executive branch on Twitter. (How clever will all those snappy quips and one liners seem 15 years from now on the pages of the next David McCollough?) It's usually the case that those who aren't passionate about history will primarily be familiar with the big picture marquee events without fully getting the nuance of the experience, but there are troves of evidence here for extraordinarily rich future histories.
- fjsolwmv 9y agoWe have been increasing "true positives" of documentary evidence, but nuch more rapidly increasing "false positives" of lies and spin and fake news. It's not clear that we are overall better informed now than 10 years ago.
- thaumaturgy 9y ago> Information is everywhere and it's nearly impossible to suppress. I've noticed a disturbing trend recently where this is becoming less true than we'd like to believe. Try searching for news articles about GWB's 2nd term. Try to find opinion pieces about it. Try to name (and cite) a dozen different important events directly related to his administration. It's doable, but it's not easy. Google's got a really short-term memory these days (unless, of course, you're trying to debug a problem in Linux, in which case these forum posts from 2010 are sure to help...). It's a big part of why I take the time to maintain the bookmark database I've got: I don't trust that I'll be able to find articles like this one in the future.
- 40acres 9y agoThis current administration must be like living in a mirror reality for long time government workers. The EPA, FCC, CFPB, DOE and other regulatory agencies have had appointed leaders who explicit mandate is to tear them apart. Even the state department has been severely reduced (Did you know that we don't have an ambassador to South Korea???). It seems like only Homeland Security and DoD have had leaders who alight with their vision. There is tons of waste in government and oversight is needed in many facets but destroying our agencies is not the way forward. I wish voters where more aware of how many services government agencies provide, it seems like most of America is for smaller government until something like a shutdown slaps them awake for a brief period of time.
- fjsolwmv 9y agoShuttering most of the Federal Government has been GOP platform since 1994 Contract With America.
- jacobolus 9y agoReagan’s whole schtick was that government is inherently useless. e.g. “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I'm here to help.’” “One way to make sure crime doesn't pay would be to let the government run it.” “Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.” etc., and unfortunately this rhetoric was very effective as advertising/propaganda, noticeably shifting public attitudes. His platform was largely about cutting taxes, deregulation, privatizing public institutions and infrastructure, reducing or eliminating government services, ...
- username223 9y ago> "Government is like a baby..." ... so let's starve it to death, because that's what you normally do with babies. I always knew that Reagan was a dementia victim, but not that he was so bad at metaphors.
- 9y ago
- Froyoh 9y agoWhat does it mean to put something 'on ice'?
- bo1024 9y agoTo "freeze" it, i.e. stop it from moving forward, also to preserve in its current form with possibility of pursuing later.
- turc1656 9y ago"In contrast, the CFPB fined credit bureaus more than $25 million just last year for over-marketing its monitoring services, which generated monthly fees." How is "over-marketing" even a thing? Like what is the definition of that term? Seems very odd that would be a regulation at all which they could be fined for. I'm no fan of credit companies, but it seems strange that a company could get fined for aggressively advertising their product.
- neuronexmachina 9y agoThey were selling credit scores to consumers and claimed they were the same scores lenders used for making credit decisions. They weren't. They also deceptively enrolled consumers in costly subscriptions, e.g. "It costs only $1" but then in the small print costs $16/month after the trial period. https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-orders-transunion-and-equifax-pay-deceiving-consumers-marketing-credit-scores-and-credit-products/ https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-order...
- s73ver_ 9y agoTo be quite frank, any amount of marketing is over marketing for this. I shouldn't have to pay a single cent to have that kind of monitoring; it is my data that they are using. I should be able to look at and correct the data at any time, with no cost whatsoever.
- kaonashi 9y agoAh Republicans, they want you to believe the government can't do anything well, and then they set out to prove it to you. Remarkably consistent.
- YTGRK 9y agohttps://youtu.be/Wgwt0CvVTxM https://youtu.be/Wgwt0CvVTxM
- jokoon 9y agoI really worry that this leak could really be used for a massive scam campaign. If well executed it could do massive damage. I really wonder about the necessary cost involved to prevent those future scams.
- drawkbox 9y agoIf you are setting up troll/bot armies, lots of valid information to setup users under. Wait til they start contacting representatives with stolen data to make it look like real constituents, en masse in your name like the FCC faked comments supporting net neutrality repeals. How are we gonna stop people contacting your representatives, under your name, throwing support behind what you are opposed to? We eventually need some sort of validated 'contact your representative' system that tracks responses, shows numbers of people in support against how representatives vote and more to make sure people are real people and that it isn't stolen data used to support something you don't want in your name. Contacting your representative is one of the most broken systems in the US with so few representatives, if they flood them with real user data but fake concerns, representatives will be flooded with the wrong perception of what people want. This is besides all the fraud that can come about with stolen data from hack after hack. How long until they have access to all the NSA collected data through hacks and backdoors. We are seriously in the thick of it.
- jimjimjim 9y agoHypothetical: If a Tyrant rules a country why should the serfs expect anything?
- Roqrqw12 9y agoThe tyrant is hoping the serfs learn not to expect anything. It makes them easier to oppress without any pushback. Most people on this forum, I gather, are not naive. We know democracies fall short of their ideals. But democracies only improve, as shown by history, when citizens hold their leaders accountable. You should expect, and demand better. There are many ways you can be politically active and join others in pressing for change.
- rhizome 9y agoNice, what was I just saying last night? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16307496 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16307496
- g051051 9y agoI don't see how the facts of this article agree with the headline. Most potential sources for information were cited as having "no comment". There's been no official indication that the investigations have been abandoned. > Three sources say, though, Mulvaney, the new CFPB chief, has not ordered subpoenas against Equifax or sought sworn testimony from executives, routine steps when launching a full-scale probe. Meanwhile the CFPB has shelved plans for on-the-ground tests of how Equifax protects data, an idea backed by Cordray. So, beyond not issuing subpoenas (yet), and shelving plans for a security test, that's hardly putting the probe "on ice". It's possible the the statement from TransUnion was correct: > We believe that it is clear that the CFPB was not given legal authority to supervise any financial institutions with respect to cybersecurity In which case it's no surprise that the inspections were deferred or cancelled.
- aaronbrethorst 9y agoThe "official" in this case is the new head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Mick Mulvaney, who is profiled here: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/09/01/mick-mulvaney-omb-trump-budget-profile-feature-215546 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/09/01/mick-mulv... and quoted as saying “I don’t think anyone in this administration is more of a right-wing conservative than I am.”
- MReedB 9y agoThis reminds me of the same thing happening at Yahoo. I and others are still dealing with every Yahoo account being hacked, and the world essentially just ignoring the disaster. This time it is far, far worse. The whole eTrust system is hacked. They are used by banks all over, and by most FDIC Banks here in the US. The idea that it can be ignored, and dealt with on a case by case basis, is almost insane. It is a clear criminally liable situation. Even if the certificates are replaced, they will be used, in time, to try to establish credibility and get access to the accounts they are tied to. I had seven! My firm blelief is even when I close those accounts, open new ones, all on MY dime, it will still leave me under a cloud. Whoevfer ends up with them will try to use them to trick monetary systems into thinking they are me, long enough to steal money. I have run over 100 banks, or done their books. The scope of this is potentially over $1 TRILLION dollar, and that is just the banks I did ebnd-of-day for. For the government to blow it off, for the banks themselves to blow it off, for the FDIC to blow it off.... My God, they are insane. I did the end-of-days! Geez. Come on! My opinion is the heads of these entities should be criminally charged, if they do NOT act, and now. Its been months. I am stunned, and I am losing any faith I had in even the FederaL Reserve Baord! The Board is independant, or at least, as independant as they can be made, and still part of the US Government. I urge all the Board to declare this an emergency, and force the rest to get up and deal with it. I guarantee, irregardless of lawsuits, promises, and all the rest, when people lose their money, and even if they are eventiually compensated somehow, it wilol destroy people. I am simply of the belief that this is an act of criminal negligence, and at so many places that it is almost mind boggling. Thse leaders need to quit wqaiting for someone else to yell fire, and get out the damned fire hoses, while yelling Fire loudly, publicly, and defiantly. The ones who do so will go down as future leaders, and the ones who hope it goes away are the ones who should be fired, immediately. They need to act, to perform the damned jobs they were hired to do! If the FAA acted this way, its head would gert hung when planes fell out of the sky, and just go ask him, because he or she will nod furiously!