The U.S. Finally Passes An Internet Privacy Law… For Rich Jet Owners
The U.S. yet yet to pass even a basic internet-era privacy law — or regulate data brokers. And while there’s a lot of misdirection and pretense to the contrary, the primary reason is (1) because the U.S. government is too corrupt; and (2) because the U.S. government really enjoys being able to purchase massive amounts of sensitive citizen data from data brokers without having to get a pesky warrant.
The end result has been just a parade of dangerous scandals in which dodgy companies hoover up oceans of sensitive user data, then sell access to any nitwit with two nickels to rub together. Given foreign intelligence can easily buy this data, our corruption poses a severe national security threat; but instead of fixing it, Congress likes to distract folks with endless hysteria about a single app: TikTok.
But it’s amusing to see the government work quickly when they think it’s something that might impact the affluent personally. Case in point: Congress is too corrupt to protect consumer privacy, but they did manage to pass a new privacy law specifically designed to protect the privacy of affluent jet owners:
“The latest Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill contains a pointed amendment within it—the government is making it much more difficult to monitor and track private aircraft travel. The new law passed last week will almost exclusively benefit the nation’s wealthiest flyers and obscure public attempts to hold them accountable for their disproportionate carbon emissions.”
The new law lets private jet owners censor most meaningful travel details (call signs, flight numbers, travel patterns) through a new application process in which they claim the data must remain confidential due to ambiguous “safety or security” needs. Folks over at Bluesky dug into the specific language of the reauthorization bill and found it was inserted by Republican Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas.
Jack Sweeney, the jet tracking student who made Elon Musk cry like a baby, says the law won’t completely block the tracking of jets, given they can still glean a lot of detail from general contextual clues. But it’s still amusing how quickly and easily Congress is able to shore up lax U.S. privacy safeguards when it’s to the specific benefit of the rich.
The thing is, letting dodgy, unregulated data brokers monetize everybody’s sensitive movement and behavior data harms poor people, rich people, and everybody in between. Right now most members of Congress view these privacy issues as somebody else’s problem, but at some point there’s going to be an unprecedented privacy scandal tied to data brokers that shatters that delusion in very painful ways.
The government has repeatedly made the choice to prioritize making money over consumer and market health, public safety, and national security. And eventually, an event is going to come along that makes the kind of scandals we’ve seen so far (from stalkers abusing cellular location data to right wing activists abusing abortion clinic visitor data to send targeted misinformation) look like a grade school picnic.