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pocksuppet 3 hours ago

The Video Rental Protection Act was passed when a video rental employee blackmailed a congressman and there was no law against it. So it's clear how to make congress write new privacy laws.

ipython 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Psst anyone at Covenant Eyes[0] want to sign up for the obvious assignment here??

[0] https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/mike-joh...

hn_throwaway_99 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That doesn't appear to be accurate, at least from the Wikipedia article.

Robert Bork (sorry to add my personal commentary but an absolute shit stain of a human being) was nominated for the Supreme Court (which, thankfully, he always not confirmed), and a reporter went to a video rental store and asked for his rental history, which there was no law against. The published article didn't include much, as Bork hadn't rented any particularly salacious material, but there was bipartisan outrage that this had occurred.

Just goes to show how far we've fallen when there was once bipartisan outrage over accessing your Blockbuster rental history, when tech giants now have 10 times as much surveillance on you - your 1 am "shower thoughts" in your search history, all the websites you've visited, all your social media posts, and even social media posts about/including you posted by someone else, everything you've ever commented on a blog forum, your location history, etc.