I would like your commitment that you will impose civil penalties in these areas and others.
Richard Blumenthal
The Public Record
Richard Blumenthal is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Connecticut since 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, Blumenthal has focused on issues such as consumer protection, healthcare, and veterans' affairs during his tenure. He previously served as the Attorney General of Connecticut from 1991 to 2011, where he gained recognition for his advocacy on behalf of consumers and his efforts to hold corporations accountable. Blumenthal has been an active voice in the Senate, participating in various committees and addressing key national issues.
I have been frustrated by Facebook's apparent reluctance to be more transparent to the American public about what it knows, where it acquires information, and what it uses it for.
I'm not advocating that we follow the GDPR simply because it's there. If we can improve on it, so much the better.
There's no question that Facebook's model is immensely powerful and unchecked right now.
There may be grave consumer harms, not only in privacy, but, as you suggest, in monopolistic practices that antitrust law is designed to prevent.
For Facebook, consumers are the product, so to speak. Their information is monetized.
One of our challenges is to reveal it fully and the way that it is using private confidential information--in fact, monetizing it--for its own self-purposes.
If indeed Facebook wishes to become a nation state, then first it must decide what kind of nation state it wishes to be.
One of the central challenges of our time is becoming the potential threats posed by the Internet, such as data brokers, terrorist recruitment, Russia's continued interference in our elections.
Consumer information is the new class of currency. In effect, we are the currency.
I happen to believe that those sorts of standards are the minimum that we should be adopting.
A privacy bill of rights is a term, and we need to make it real in ways that are enforceable and, really, protective of consumers without unintended consequences.
I will be introducing a bill that will, in effect, provide a privacy bill of rights.
I'm concerned that the Federal agencies with a role... are not doing enough to protect our privacy and our democracy.
The American public trusted Facebook with personal and intimate information, and it broke its trust.





