The Federal Trade Commission imposed a 20-year “consent order” on Twitter, claiming the company provided insufficient safeguards for consumers’ private information. No such rules apply to the FTC, which has a history of intentionally retaliating against individuals who refuse to sign consent orders by disclosing their private financial information.
Of course, there’s no agency with regulatory power over the FTC — not even Congress, which is poised to remove the only remaining restrictions on FTC power as part of unrelated financial services legislation. Once Congress removes those restrictions — and I’d say the chances of that are 99.9% — the FTC will control every aspect of the U.S. economy without restriction. The FTC will even have the power to silence its critics and the Internet; I know I’ll be closing up shop rather than face the inevitable seizure of all my records and (limited) assets that will inevitably follow.
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Excuse me, I’m off to go cry.
You and me both.
It was hard to gather a whole lot from the FTC article – what exactly will this consent order do?
The order basically puts the FTC in charge of how Twitter handles customer information. The order requires Twitter to implement an FTC-designed “comprehensive information security program” and requires the company to hire an FTC-approved consultant to oversee compliance. These requirements will last at least 20 years — possibly longer if the FTC decides it’s unhappy.
With the Twitter case as precedent, the FTC will now pressure other firms to adopt similar standards, making the FTC the de facto regulator of all computer security. This power will be used to censor websites the FTC disapproves of — something the FTC already does.
What would happen if Twitter just said, “No thanks, FTC. We don’t recognize your authority.”?
Question: to whom should we complain? For whom should we vote? (In my Congressional District, it’s Brian Miller, a “Constitutional Conservative.”)
Vote? Don’t make me laugh
Democracy is possibly the worst “solution” because it is never a solution. Never was, never will be because it is merely a cop-out that allows some to believe something “can be done”
Twitter just has to relocate its servers overseas and refuse to comply.
To where? The iron curtain is descending over the entire world. The most server relocation could do is buy them maybe 5 years.
The FTC — and its counterparts at the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division — have invested a great deal of effort building alliances with foreign governments to prevent such things. Heck, just recently the FTC admitted to writing large parts of China’s antitrust regulation. And the Russians recently gave their input on changes to U.S. merger rules.
ah, just shoot’em all bastards down and start over with libertarian way everywhere
Oliva,
I have to say, out of all the bloggers, you are the most depressing.
Maybe, but I don’t see much to disagree with here unfortunately.
Well, I can’t disagree with you there. We can’t all have Kinsella’s sunny disposition.
The headline for this post is great. Indeed, most news reports these days would be justified in beginning this way. Maybe someone could profit from this disaster by writing the book “FTC compliance for Dummies,” featuring all the blogging & creative “no-no’s” to avoid.
I just love Big Brother, don’t you?!?
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