Internet Privacy: A New Bill Finally Offers Protections

It should not come as a surprise to anyone these days that Internet companies have “digital dossiers” on all of us — the websites we visit, the friends we’ve sent emails to, the photos we’re tagged in, the medical symptoms we’ve searched for. But there has never been any way for us to know just what these companies know about us — or who they’re selling our information to.

But that could finally be about to change — in California, which is on the cutting edge of technology policy, and perhaps, eventually for the whole nation. A long-overdue bill in the California legislature, “The Right to Know Act,” would force companies such as Google and Facebook to reveal what personal information they have collected and how it’s being used.

The public cares about Internet privacy — even though tech companies like to argue otherwise — and opinion polls show strong support for laws to protect it. In one national poll, respondents favored a law disclosing all information collected on users by a 69% to 29% margin. But this popular support for online privacy has not translated into strong legal protections — both because the public has not been good about demanding privacy laws and because industry has been very good at blocking them.

The Right to Know Act has been getting a great deal of attention. Civil liberties organizations, privacy advocates and women’s groups have been urging the state legislature to pass the bill — and if the will of the people were the only consideration, it would seem destined to pass speedily. But powerful tech companies are lined up against the bill — and it’s looking like it will be a tough fight.

Personal information has been called “the web’s new gold mine,” because it can be used to target personalized advertising to Internet users — a lucrative business — and it can be sold to an array of shadowy data brokers who have many ways of turning it into cash. Tech companies are not eager to part with their new-found riches. Some of the biggest ones such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft, are members of an industry trade group, TechAmerica, that is working against the bill. The San Jose Mercury News credits industry lobbying with getting a hearing on the bill, which was to have occurred this month, pushed into May.

Tech companies like to argue that laws like the Right to Know Act are a threat to their business models, and to their ability to keep providing services like Facebook and Google search for free. But the California bill only requires companies to be transparent about what they are doing — it does not limit their ability to collect or use personal information. And it includes business-friendly protections, including a provision that says that companies only need to provide each user with an accounting every 12 months.

After years of complacency, there are finally signs that the public is starting to demand greater privacy rights. Last week, in a long-awaited move, a powerful Senate committee endorsed an amendment to a key federal law that would give greater privacy protection by requiring the government to get a search warrant when it wants to read people’s emails. (Under current law, the government only needs a warrant when it wants to read email that has not been opened by the recipient and that is newer than 180-days old.)

The California bill — despite all the industry squawking — is fairly conservative. It does not give Internet users the right to correct or delete their personal data or to block companies from selling it to other companies — which are some of the real high-stakes issues in Internet privacy. In a perfect world, we would have put users in control of their information when the Internet was first created. But it will be a long time, if ever, before we get that sort of robust privacy. For now, California’s Right to Know is an important, if modest, first step.

Social Security Benefits to Go Up by 1.7 Percent

I am happy about the increase in Social Security but let's be honest here... it is one of the smallest increases since 1975. It is barely keeping up with inflation. Uggghhhhh....

 More than 56 million Social Security recipients will see their monthly payments go up by 1.7 percent next year.

The increase, which starts in January, is tied to a measure of inflation released Tuesday. It shows that inflation has been relatively low over the past year, resulting in one of the smallest increases in Social Security payments since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975.

This year, Social Security recipients received a 3.6 percent increase in benefits after getting none the previous two years.

About 8 million people who receive Supplemental Security Income will also receive the cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, meaning the announcement will affect about 1 in 5 U.S. residents.

Social Security payments for retired workers average $1,237 a month, or about $14,800 a year. A 1.7 percent increase will amount to about $21 a month, or $252 a year, on average.

Social Security also provides benefits to millions of disabled workers, spouses, widows, widowers and children.

The amount of wages subjected to Social Security taxes is going up, too. Social Security is supported by a 12.4 percent tax on wages up to $110,100. That threshold will increase to $113,700 next year, resulting in higher taxes for nearly 10 million workers and their employers, according to the Social Security Administration.

Half the tax is paid by workers and the other half is paid by employers. Congress and President Barack Obama reduced the share paid by workers from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent for 2011 and 2012. The temporary cut, however, is due to expire at the end of the year.

Some of next year’s COLA could be wiped out by higher Medicare premiums, which are deducted from Social Security payments. The Medicare Part B premium, which covers doctor visits, is expected to rise by about $7 per month for 2013, according to government projections.

The premium is currently $99.90 a month for most seniors. Medicare is expected to announce the premium for 2013 in the coming weeks.

“If seniors are getting a low COLA, much of their increase will go to pay off their Medicare Part B premium,” said Mary Johnson, a policy analyst at The Senior Citizens League.

By law, the increase in benefits is based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or CPI-W, a broad measure of consumer prices generated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It measures price changes for food, housing, clothing, transportation, energy, medical care, recreation and education.

The Social Security Administration compares the price index in the third quarter of each year — the months of July, August and September — with the same three months in the previous year.

If consumer prices increase from year to year, Social Security recipients automatically get higher payments, starting the following January. If prices drop, the payments stay the same, as they did in 2010 and 2011.

Since 1975, the annual COLA has averaged 4.2 percent. Only five times has it been below 2 percent, including the two times it was zero. Before 1975, it took an act of Congress to increase Social Security payments.

The COLA has played an important role in keeping older Americans out of poverty, said David Certner, AARP’s legislative policy director. Most older Americans rely on Social Security for a majority of their incomes, according to the Social Security Administration.

Over the past decade, the COLA has helped increase incomes for seniors, even as incomes have dropped for younger workers.

From 2001 to 2011, the median income for all U.S. households fell by 6.6 percent, when inflation was taken into account, according to census data. But the median income for households headed by someone 65 or older rose by 13 percent.