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Lobbyists rewrote Washington state’s privacy law

106 points by Svip 8y ago

blub 8y ago
"In the final draft circulated among local lawmakers last week, which was obtained by POLITICO, Ryan Harkins, a senior public policy director at Microsoft, also wrote notes in the margins, often chiding lawmakers for their legislative approach and deleting sections of the bill that he viewed as unsatisfactory." Lobbying is pure corruption. No individual citizens or even organizations have such power to strike paragraphs from a draft law. Even assuming that those edits would be ignored, they bias the legislators against public interests.
- rayiner 8y ago
  That’s a perverted view of the “public interest” as being diametrically opposed to corporate interests. Microsoft is a major employer in Washington. Not to mention, it’s one of the nation’s major innovators, making products everyone uses. It’s views on proposed legislation are extremely relevant and helpful and it’s in the “public interest” for legislators to consider them. Note that some of the provisions in question would have been a huge boon to plaintiffs’ attorneys: > While the state's attorney general had called for the inclusion of a right for individuals to sue companies for potential wrongdoing, such a provision was eventually not included in the final proposals. Financial penalties — much-needed teeth to ensure compliance — were capped at just $7,500 for each intentional violation and $2,500 for any unintended infractions. Violations are generally construed to be “per user.” So a single unintentional error could result in a huge penalty. Creating a private cause of action would have created a huge incentive to turn every unintentional error into a class action lawsuit.
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    It's in the public interest for legislators to consider those views alongside the views of the general public. Unfortunately the latter does not have the resources to lobby as effectively as Microsoft does…
    - rayiner 8y ago
      Draft legislation in Washington is publicly available. Anyone (including privacy groups) could submit a redline markup. To the extent that the legislature might prioritize the views of Microsoft isn’t corruption, it’s common sense. The EU created a heavy handed data privacy law because it would be American companies that would feel most of the compliance burden. When you are Washington state and one those companies is in your own back yard, the calculus is different. This is the exactly sort of scenario where lobbying is important. “Privacy” sounds good in the abstract. It’s like “think of the children.” Who could be against more privacy? But what’s going to be the impact on local businesses? On the products people buy?
      - danek_szy 8y ago
        > because it would be American companies that would feel most of the compliance burden. How so? You seem to be just repeating the common narrative in US, which isn't based in any factual data.
      - robert_foss 8y ago
        A draft being publicly available does not in any way mean it has the influence of a highly paid, well connected lobbyist. The point being that lobbying is highly effective, and the public has little chance of having it's voice heard. I hear you say: 'the voice of the people is heard at election time'. This would be the case if the very same lobbyist didn't fund the campaigns of politicians. If money can buy influence in policy making, that is textbook corruption. The other part to this is that the current (American) political system is built on top of this form of corruption, it is an integral part. I would draw a parallel to the Brazilian political system, which simply couldn't function without the corruption it is built upon. Of course the American case isn't as bad, but nor is it particularly good.
        rayiner 8y ago
        Lobbying isn’t “fund[ing] the campaigns of politicians.” It’s about making PowerPoint presentations to politicians’ staff.
  - deogeo 8y ago
    > That’s a perverted view of the “public interest” as being diametrically opposed to corporate interests. The goal of corporations is to extract as much money as possible from the public. So in a very real sense, they are opponents, even if sometimes their interests align.
    - rayiner 8y ago
      Corporations give people goods and services in exchange. (And almost everyone gets the money in the first place by working for a corporation.) Their interests are highly aligned.
      - JohnFen 8y ago
        > Their interests are highly aligned. It sure doesn't seem like it to me. Corporations are about maximizing profits, which in part means soaking people to greatest degree possible. It would be easier to support the notion that their interests are "highly aligned" if corporations had an incentive to make a reasonable profit rather than the most profit they can get away with.
        rayiner 8y ago
        Corporations make a profit by giving people what the people want. Apple makes tons of profits because it innovates and gives people products they love. Same thing for Walmart and Amazon. (It turns out that what people love is cheap crap delivered instantly, but that is what it is.) Same thing for Exxon. (People love cheap gas so they can drive their SUVs to Chipotle and Exxon delivers that.) It’s entities that don’t have s profit motive that tend to be the least customer focused. If you rely on the New York or DC subway, it will become quite apparent that those organizations are focused on maximizing value for their respective labor unions rather than for their customers. Same thing for schools. (There is a reason people send their kids to private school even in places where the public schools are good.)
        deogeo 7y ago
        Microsoft makes a profit by charging for secret patents on Android, and by pushing the use of patented FAT and exFAT filesystems, instead of patent-free alternatives. Google makes a profit through pervasive spying. Pharmaceutical companies make huge profits by forbidding the import of medicine from abroad, even when it's the exact same medicine they sell. Or by selling HIV-tainted blood (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_haemophilia_blood_products https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_haemophilia_blood...). Tobacco companies made billions by pervasive advertising to convince people smoking is cool. Banks profited by re-ordering payments so they could charge more overdrafts (https://medium.com/@harvestplatform/re-ordering-transactions-absolutely-affects-everyone-with-a-bank-account-f13b9a587de6 https://medium.com/@harvestplatform/re-ordering-transactions...). And all companies make a profit by paying their workers as little as they can, while charging as much as they can for their product. There are ethical and unethical ways to turn a profit, and large companies tend to ignore the distinction. So it's difficult for me to imagine the degree of willful blindness required to say that the interests of people and corporations are mostly aligned, or that that is "what the people want".
  - mac01021 8y ago
    I don't know anything about the pros and cons of this bill. The fact remains that a corporation's interests are frequently not aligned with other people's and in the long run, the ability for corporation's to have this kind of relationship with legislators may do great harm to the Democratic process.
  - JohnFen 8y ago
    > That’s a perverted view of the “public interest” as being diametrically opposed to corporate interests. It's hard to see that as perverted when it is so often true.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    Mocrosoft’s views on legislation are already throughly represented through the voting power of its shareholders, employees, and anyone else who is affected by them. Are you saying they should have unequal influence beyond that?
    - rayiner 8y ago
      The right to participate in a democracy isn’t limited to voting. The first amendment guarantees the right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.” The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights contains a similar provision. If the government proposes to build a highway through my town, I can go meet with a legislator and express my disapproval. (And people do stuff like that all the time.) I’m not limited to just voting after the fact. To the extent that a legislator might take account of Microsoft’s view more than that of a random citizen, it’s because Microsoft represents a really big and economically important group of citizens. At the end of the day, the number one mandate for any legislator is jobs. (“It’s the economy, stupid!”). Job losses are one of the few things over which Americans will vote incumbents out of office. Things that are bad for Microsoft are bad for the citizens of Washington. Microsoft not only has the right to make its views known (as a proxy for its shareholders, employees, and officers) but it’s entirely proper for Washington legislators to account for those views.
      - mikeash 8y ago
        Legislators give Microsoft more weight just because of jobs? You don’t think campaign contributions play a part? And are you implying that Microsoft represents its employees when you say it represents a large and economically important group of citizens? Because it definitely does not. It pays its employees. It represents its shareholders.
        rayiner 8y ago
        I don’t think campaign contributions play a significant part. In Washington state corporations are limited to donating $1,900 per candidate (and corporate donations are illegal at the federal level). So there just isn’t very much money in play. Bedsides that, I have some exposure to lobbying at the state level. (When I was at Northwestern, our legal clinic lobbies on environmental issues.) it was common knowledge that the legislators took what Excelon has to say very seriously. But if you look at the records, Excelon employees just don’t donate very much money. (And again, corporate donations are banned.) I don’t have state records, but it’s just a couple of million dollars nationwide at the federal level, including Excelon’s PAC. This is a company with $33 billion in revenue and 35,000 employees. It’s chump change compared the to influence they have. The influence is because Excelon employees tons of people in rural Illinois, where a disproportionate share of the voting power happens to be.
  - samirillian 7y ago
    Perverted is strong. You might say that there are no specific guarantors of a democracy, and that "one person, one vote" can be interpreted in many ways. But considering regulatory capture by corporate interests undemocratic is a totally fair point, agreed-upon by leftists and free market evangelists alike. There is nothing inherently perverse about this claim.
- SaltyBackendGuy 8y ago
  > Lobbying is pure corruption I never understood why more people don't see it this way. You literally pay money to get X bill passed. If that's not corruption I don't know what is.
  - colejohnson66 8y ago
    Because no one wants to think that “their side” is corrupt. It’s always the other side.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - skrebbel 8y ago
    I think much of Europe is looking at the US that way. It's mind blowing, especially how much it happens in the open. We have lots of corruption too, but it's mostly hidden and if it gets out it's a scandal. In the US it appears to be just normal matter of fact stuff. Company funds politician; politician gets elected; favourable law gets passed; nobody bats an eye.
    - rayiner 7y ago
      Much of Europe must be very ignorant about American law then, because it is illegal here for companies to fund the election campaigns of candidates.
      - geofft 7y ago
        Are you arguing that Google NetPAC giving money to candidates' election campaigns is in some meaningful way not Google giving money to candidates? If so, what is that meaningful way? (I realize that this is very different in a legal way, i.e., it would be illegal for money from Google to go to candidates without first being routed through employees' salaries and then to NetPAC, but because it is, it's quite legal and it's totally fine that donations from NetPAC are still decided by senior Google execs and the PAC represents itself to candidates as supporting Google's interests. I'm asking if this is different in a practical way.)
- hammock 7y ago
  >No individual citizens or even organizations Isn't that exactly what a lobbyist is??
Proven 8y ago
Really? How does it matter who wrote it? Who voted to force that shit on the people? What about the corrupt moron legislators elected and paid to do their job and work for the voter? Enjoy your democracy.
rbritton 8y ago
The text and history of the bill is available here [0]. It does not appear to have made much progress in the House, so they may run out of time to pass it at all. [0]: https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=5376&Year=2019 https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=5376&Year=2019
samirillian 7y ago
Did Jay Inslee invite these people? I'm not clear on that point.
Despegar 7y ago
Microsoft could have thrown their lot in with Apple, but I guess they're going to look more like the ad-tech giants than Apple and need to preserve the status quo. Apple should assemble a separate coalition of businesses that would lean just as hard as the ad-tech coalition in favor of privacy in all these state legislatures. I'm pretty sure most enterprise SaaS companies that charge money for their product would have similar interests.

106 points by Svip 8y ago

blub 8y ago

"In the final draft circulated among local lawmakers last week, which was obtained by POLITICO, Ryan Harkins, a senior public policy director at Microsoft, also wrote notes in the margins, often chiding lawmakers for their legislative approach and deleting sections of the bill that he viewed as unsatisfactory." Lobbying is pure corruption. No individual citizens or even organizations have such power to strike paragraphs from a draft law. Even assuming that those edits would be ignored, they bias the legislators against public interests.

rayiner 8y ago
That’s a perverted view of the “public interest” as being diametrically opposed to corporate interests. Microsoft is a major employer in Washington. Not to mention, it’s one of the nation’s major innovators, making products everyone uses. It’s views on proposed legislation are extremely relevant and helpful and it’s in the “public interest” for legislators to consider them. Note that some of the provisions in question would have been a huge boon to plaintiffs’ attorneys: > While the state's attorney general had called for the inclusion of a right for individuals to sue companies for potential wrongdoing, such a provision was eventually not included in the final proposals. Financial penalties — much-needed teeth to ensure compliance — were capped at just $7,500 for each intentional violation and $2,500 for any unintended infractions. Violations are generally construed to be “per user.” So a single unintentional error could result in a huge penalty. Creating a private cause of action would have created a huge incentive to turn every unintentional error into a class action lawsuit.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  It's in the public interest for legislators to consider those views alongside the views of the general public. Unfortunately the latter does not have the resources to lobby as effectively as Microsoft does…
  - rayiner 8y ago
    Draft legislation in Washington is publicly available. Anyone (including privacy groups) could submit a redline markup. To the extent that the legislature might prioritize the views of Microsoft isn’t corruption, it’s common sense. The EU created a heavy handed data privacy law because it would be American companies that would feel most of the compliance burden. When you are Washington state and one those companies is in your own back yard, the calculus is different. This is the exactly sort of scenario where lobbying is important. “Privacy” sounds good in the abstract. It’s like “think of the children.” Who could be against more privacy? But what’s going to be the impact on local businesses? On the products people buy?
    - danek_szy 8y ago
      > because it would be American companies that would feel most of the compliance burden. How so? You seem to be just repeating the common narrative in US, which isn't based in any factual data.
    - robert_foss 8y ago
      A draft being publicly available does not in any way mean it has the influence of a highly paid, well connected lobbyist. The point being that lobbying is highly effective, and the public has little chance of having it's voice heard. I hear you say: 'the voice of the people is heard at election time'. This would be the case if the very same lobbyist didn't fund the campaigns of politicians. If money can buy influence in policy making, that is textbook corruption. The other part to this is that the current (American) political system is built on top of this form of corruption, it is an integral part. I would draw a parallel to the Brazilian political system, which simply couldn't function without the corruption it is built upon. Of course the American case isn't as bad, but nor is it particularly good.
      - rayiner 8y ago
        Lobbying isn’t “fund[ing] the campaigns of politicians.” It’s about making PowerPoint presentations to politicians’ staff.
- deogeo 8y ago
  > That’s a perverted view of the “public interest” as being diametrically opposed to corporate interests. The goal of corporations is to extract as much money as possible from the public. So in a very real sense, they are opponents, even if sometimes their interests align.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    Corporations give people goods and services in exchange. (And almost everyone gets the money in the first place by working for a corporation.) Their interests are highly aligned.
    - JohnFen 8y ago
      > Their interests are highly aligned. It sure doesn't seem like it to me. Corporations are about maximizing profits, which in part means soaking people to greatest degree possible. It would be easier to support the notion that their interests are "highly aligned" if corporations had an incentive to make a reasonable profit rather than the most profit they can get away with.
      - rayiner 8y ago
        Corporations make a profit by giving people what the people want. Apple makes tons of profits because it innovates and gives people products they love. Same thing for Walmart and Amazon. (It turns out that what people love is cheap crap delivered instantly, but that is what it is.) Same thing for Exxon. (People love cheap gas so they can drive their SUVs to Chipotle and Exxon delivers that.) It’s entities that don’t have s profit motive that tend to be the least customer focused. If you rely on the New York or DC subway, it will become quite apparent that those organizations are focused on maximizing value for their respective labor unions rather than for their customers. Same thing for schools. (There is a reason people send their kids to private school even in places where the public schools are good.)
        deogeo 7y ago
        Microsoft makes a profit by charging for secret patents on Android, and by pushing the use of patented FAT and exFAT filesystems, instead of patent-free alternatives. Google makes a profit through pervasive spying. Pharmaceutical companies make huge profits by forbidding the import of medicine from abroad, even when it's the exact same medicine they sell. Or by selling HIV-tainted blood (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_haemophilia_blood_products https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_haemophilia_blood...). Tobacco companies made billions by pervasive advertising to convince people smoking is cool. Banks profited by re-ordering payments so they could charge more overdrafts (https://medium.com/@harvestplatform/re-ordering-transactions-absolutely-affects-everyone-with-a-bank-account-f13b9a587de6 https://medium.com/@harvestplatform/re-ordering-transactions...). And all companies make a profit by paying their workers as little as they can, while charging as much as they can for their product. There are ethical and unethical ways to turn a profit, and large companies tend to ignore the distinction. So it's difficult for me to imagine the degree of willful blindness required to say that the interests of people and corporations are mostly aligned, or that that is "what the people want".
- mac01021 8y ago
  I don't know anything about the pros and cons of this bill. The fact remains that a corporation's interests are frequently not aligned with other people's and in the long run, the ability for corporation's to have this kind of relationship with legislators may do great harm to the Democratic process.
- JohnFen 8y ago
  > That’s a perverted view of the “public interest” as being diametrically opposed to corporate interests. It's hard to see that as perverted when it is so often true.
- mikeash 8y ago
  Mocrosoft’s views on legislation are already throughly represented through the voting power of its shareholders, employees, and anyone else who is affected by them. Are you saying they should have unequal influence beyond that?
  - rayiner 8y ago
    The right to participate in a democracy isn’t limited to voting. The first amendment guarantees the right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.” The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights contains a similar provision. If the government proposes to build a highway through my town, I can go meet with a legislator and express my disapproval. (And people do stuff like that all the time.) I’m not limited to just voting after the fact. To the extent that a legislator might take account of Microsoft’s view more than that of a random citizen, it’s because Microsoft represents a really big and economically important group of citizens. At the end of the day, the number one mandate for any legislator is jobs. (“It’s the economy, stupid!”). Job losses are one of the few things over which Americans will vote incumbents out of office. Things that are bad for Microsoft are bad for the citizens of Washington. Microsoft not only has the right to make its views known (as a proxy for its shareholders, employees, and officers) but it’s entirely proper for Washington legislators to account for those views.
    - mikeash 8y ago
      Legislators give Microsoft more weight just because of jobs? You don’t think campaign contributions play a part? And are you implying that Microsoft represents its employees when you say it represents a large and economically important group of citizens? Because it definitely does not. It pays its employees. It represents its shareholders.
      - rayiner 8y ago
        I don’t think campaign contributions play a significant part. In Washington state corporations are limited to donating $1,900 per candidate (and corporate donations are illegal at the federal level). So there just isn’t very much money in play. Bedsides that, I have some exposure to lobbying at the state level. (When I was at Northwestern, our legal clinic lobbies on environmental issues.) it was common knowledge that the legislators took what Excelon has to say very seriously. But if you look at the records, Excelon employees just don’t donate very much money. (And again, corporate donations are banned.) I don’t have state records, but it’s just a couple of million dollars nationwide at the federal level, including Excelon’s PAC. This is a company with $33 billion in revenue and 35,000 employees. It’s chump change compared the to influence they have. The influence is because Excelon employees tons of people in rural Illinois, where a disproportionate share of the voting power happens to be.
- samirillian 7y ago
  Perverted is strong. You might say that there are no specific guarantors of a democracy, and that "one person, one vote" can be interpreted in many ways. But considering regulatory capture by corporate interests undemocratic is a totally fair point, agreed-upon by leftists and free market evangelists alike. There is nothing inherently perverse about this claim.
SaltyBackendGuy 8y ago
> Lobbying is pure corruption I never understood why more people don't see it this way. You literally pay money to get X bill passed. If that's not corruption I don't know what is.
- colejohnson66 8y ago
  Because no one wants to think that “their side” is corrupt. It’s always the other side.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- skrebbel 8y ago
  I think much of Europe is looking at the US that way. It's mind blowing, especially how much it happens in the open. We have lots of corruption too, but it's mostly hidden and if it gets out it's a scandal. In the US it appears to be just normal matter of fact stuff. Company funds politician; politician gets elected; favourable law gets passed; nobody bats an eye.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    Much of Europe must be very ignorant about American law then, because it is illegal here for companies to fund the election campaigns of candidates.
    - geofft 7y ago
      Are you arguing that Google NetPAC giving money to candidates' election campaigns is in some meaningful way not Google giving money to candidates? If so, what is that meaningful way? (I realize that this is very different in a legal way, i.e., it would be illegal for money from Google to go to candidates without first being routed through employees' salaries and then to NetPAC, but because it is, it's quite legal and it's totally fine that donations from NetPAC are still decided by senior Google execs and the PAC represents itself to candidates as supporting Google's interests. I'm asking if this is different in a practical way.)
hammock 7y ago
>No individual citizens or even organizations Isn't that exactly what a lobbyist is??

Proven 8y ago

Really? How does it matter who wrote it? Who voted to force that shit on the people? What about the corrupt moron legislators elected and paid to do their job and work for the voter? Enjoy your democracy.

rbritton 8y ago

The text and history of the bill is available here [0]. It does not appear to have made much progress in the House, so they may run out of time to pass it at all. [0]: https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=5376&Year=2019 https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=5376&Year=2019

samirillian 7y ago

Did Jay Inslee invite these people? I'm not clear on that point.

Despegar 7y ago

Microsoft could have thrown their lot in with Apple, but I guess they're going to look more like the ad-tech giants than Apple and need to preserve the status quo. Apple should assemble a separate coalition of businesses that would lean just as hard as the ad-tech coalition in favor of privacy in all these state legislatures. I'm pretty sure most enterprise SaaS companies that charge money for their product would have similar interests.