SACRAMENTO, CA — Today, Pulitzer Prize Winning LA Times columnist Michael Hiltzik published a new column pulling back the curtain on the opposition to the California Privacy Rights Act, Prop 24.
Hiltzik on Prop 24:
“A ballot initiative to strengthen the law and inoculate it from the mischief of business lobbies…. Consumers should be very nervous about any effort to block an upgrade to California’s groundbreaking privacy law at the ballot box that welcomes contributions from its own targets.”
“Make no mistake: If Proposition 24 is defeated, the beneficiaries would be businesses that want to exploit your privacy without your consent.”
Hiltzik on the deceptive opposition:
“It’s impossible to know who else is behind Ross’ No on 24 campaign because the campaign hasn’t filed a single donor disclosure report with the California secretary of state’s office.”
“Yet someone must be bankrolling the campaign — it has hired campaign consultants, created a website and issued press releases.”
“Ross declined to tell me what businesses or individuals she has approached for contributions through a pitch letter seeking $500,000 to carry the campaign through July and August. She says she’s not averse to taking money from the tech industry, even though it’s a central target of the privacy law.”
Read the full Los Angeles Times column here.
The Yes on Prop 24 campaign is proud to have the endorsement of Congressman Ro Khanna, Consumer Watchdog, Common Sense Media, California NAACP, California Professional Firefighters, AFSCME California, UA Local 38 Plumbers and Pipefitters, California State Building & Construction Trades Council, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, Local 21 (Bay Area), privacy advocates and more than 930,000 Californians who signed to support the measure on the November ballot.
The California Privacy Rights Act would:
- Protect your most personal information, by allowing you to prevent businesses from using or sharing sensitive information about your health, finances, race, ethnicity, and precise location;
- Safeguard young people, TRIPLING FINES for violations involving children’s information;
- Put new limits on companies’ collection and use of our personal information;
- Establish an enforcement arm—the California Privacy Protection Agency—to defend these rights and hold companies accountable, and extend enforcement including IMPOSING PENALTIES FOR NEGLIGENCE resulting in theft of consumers’ emails and passwords;
- MAKE IT MUCH HARDER TO WEAKEN PRIVACY in California in the future, by preventing special interests and politicians from undermining Californians’ privacy rights, while allowing the Legislature to amend the law to further the primary goal of strengthening consumer privacy to better protect you and your children, such as opt-in for use of data, further protections for uniquely vulnerable minors, and greater power for individuals to hold violators accountable.
Recent polling by Goodwin Simon Strategic Research (July 27-31) shows that Californians overwhelmingly support Prop 24, as detailed in the November voter guide, with over 81% of likely California voters saying they will support the measure.
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About Californians for Consumer Privacy
Californians for Consumer Privacy is the same group that authored the first-in-the-nation California Consumer Privacy Act, which was passed unanimously by the California State Legislature and signed into law by California Governor Jerry Brown. Now the group is backing Prop 24, the California Privacy Rights Act on the 2020 ballot, to expand and enshrine privacy rights for all Californians.
