Blackburn Seeks to Remove FCC Authority Over Privacy
The FTC should have sole authority over consumer privacy, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., told us in an interview Friday. She previewed her speech scheduled for Thursday at the Telecommunications Industry Association conference in Dallas. Blackburn said she plans legislation later this year to remove the FCC’s authority over privacy by repealing Section 222 and 631 of the Communications Act.
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"The FTC has a history of dealing with these issues, and I think it would help the industry” to give the agency exclusive authority, Blackburn said. Splitting authority with the FCC wrongly emphasizes the means of transmission instead of the nature of the transaction, she said. Blackburn is a member of the House Communications Subcommittee and vice chair of the Manufacturing Subcommittee, which is considering data-security legislation in the wake of the Sony PlayStation Network breach.
Blackburn supports an industry self-regulatory approach and opposes “big government” solutions to privacy, and with her Dallas speech she hopes to send industry a “wake-up call” to get it moving to craft best practices, she said. However, policymakers do “owe the marketplace some clarity and some simplicity on this,” and that’s the goal of her planned legislation. Blackburn plans a series of roundtables on privacy around the country with technology stakeholders, she said, and hopes to get other members of Congress involved in the meetings. “I'm sure we're going to see many other pieces of legislation dropped by other members,” she said, but a “knee-jerk” reaction would be more likely to result in government overreach.
Blackburn supports some provisions of various data protection bills, she said. She doesn’t support do-not-track provisions in bills by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., she said. She likes the “safe harbors” in bills by Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., which “give less power to the FTC and require Congress to provide greater clarity,” Blackburn said. “I prefer having Congress provide that clarity as opposed to punting to the regulatory and rulemaking process at the FTC."
More consumer awareness could drive privacy legislation to the finish line this year, Blackburn said. “What has concerned people … is the amount of data and the time that that data is held by some of the virtual marketplace,” Blackburn said. They're also concerned about the “delay in consumer notification,” she said. “With the Sony breach, one of the items that concerned so many individuals was not only the delay, but the amount of information that was held.”
With House work finished on the resolution of disapproval to overturn FCC net neutrality rules, Blackburn hopes to move forward this summer on her legislation that would state that only Congress can make rules for the Internet, she said. The bill, HR-96, is pending before the Communications Subcommittee.
Blackburn said she’s skeptical that Congress will pass public safety legislation by Rockefeller and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. The bill will face difficulty moving through the House, she said. The Rockefeller bill would reallocate the 700 MHz D-block to public safety, but Blackburn believes “we're well served to auction the spectrum.” An auction will result in considerable investment by industry, she said.