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November 22, 2003

Financial Privacy: GOP Assaults States Rights

I mean, the GOP talking about "states rights" is a joke at this point, after Bush gutting local civil liberties with the Patriot Act, passed his nationalized education policy, and promoted tort "reform" to gut state consumer rights, but just for a reminder, check out this
story on how the new "financial privacy" law is designed to gut tougher state laws, such as in California:

The news got worse Friday for advocates of California's groundbreaking financial privacy law.

In addition to previous votes that gutted state provisions to prevent financial institutions from sharing customers' information with others, the final version of the bill approved Friday afternoon by a House-Senate conference committee will roll back some of the state's anti-identity-theft measures...

The bill also includes Senate language that largely pre-empts California's new law that bars financial conglomerates from sharing customers' financial information with affiliated companies, which sometimes can number in the thousands.

Similarly, the new federal "anti-spam" bill approved in the House would kill the much tougher anti-spam law that was passed in California. In fact, the law is being pushed through quickly specifically with the goal of killing that California law:

Lawmakers raced to pass an antispam measure before recessing next week and before a California law takes effect Jan. 1 that online marketers complain will make it difficult to do business.

Let's be clear-- "states rights" when said by conservatives means "anti-black", nothing more, nothing less. For any issue other than civil rights, conservatives promote the destruction of state power on behalf of their corporate allies at every turn.

They have NO principled view of local control. The only time they like local control is when it means local bigots have more freedom to oppress the less powerful.

Posted by Nathan at November 22, 2003 10:58 AM

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