Legislative proposal sent to my Congressman

Wed Oct 5 16:46:05 UTC 2016

Can we please not get the government ( who's gov ) involved. I fully agree
that it will not only not help, but will make some things worse.  This is
why we can't have nice things.

On Tuesday, October 4, 2016, Anne Mitchell <amitchell at isipp.com> wrote:

> (Interesting and inarguably well-intentioned, and possibly even sound,
> idea snipped, but noted.)
>
> There are a handful of reasons that this will never happen (well, I'm 98%
> certain it will never happen, nothing is every 100% sure when it comes to
> the law, and legislation)... among them the manufacturer's lobby is much
> more well-girded than is the   'home internet security' lobby;  the
> cyber-security concerns of the Federal government are focussed on other
> things (whether they should be or not, they are);  and for the most part
> legislators are still fairly unsavvy about tech in general, and these
> things make their eyes glaze over.
>
> That said, there are already tort (negligence, etc.) laws and precedents
> under which such manufacturers can be sued, along with things like breach
> of contract between the manufacturer and consumer, and breach of implied
> warranty of fitness for a particular purpose and breach of implied warranty
> of merchantability.
>
> A couple of winning lawsuits against manufacturers under these laws and
> theories - which judges *already understand* - is, I think, not only a more
> likely, but a much faster, route to industry reform.
>
> All that said, much of this faces the same issues that spam lawsuits faced
> - the people who care the most about it are not the ones who can afford to
> finance such lawsuits.
>
> Anne
>
> Anne P. Mitchell,
> Attorney at Law
> Legislative Consultant
> CEO/President, Institute for Social Internet Public Policy
> Member, Cal. Bar Cyberspace Law Committee
> Member, Colorado Cyber Committee
> Member, Asilomar Microcomputer Workshop Committee
> Author: Section 6 of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (the Federal anti-spam law)
> Ret. Professor of Law, Lincoln Law School of San Jose
> Ret. Chair, Asilomar Microcomputer Workshop