I mean, I shouldn't be surprised, but somehow I am surprised that Cruz stopped us from having more privacy.
From the article:
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has blocked an effort to pass legislation that would have extended data privacy protections for federal lawmakers and public officials to everyone in the United States.
On Monday night, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) asked the U.S. Senate for unanimous consent from fellow senators to pass his legislation, S.2850, or Protecting Americans from Doxing and Political Violence Act.
Wyden’s bill, if passed, would have taken bipartisan-passed provisions designed to protect government officials, lawmakers, and their families from having their personal information sold or traded by data brokers, and extend them to every American and person living in the United States.
Cruz was the sole objecting senator, who claimed without evidence that Wyden’s bill could disrupt law enforcement, “such as knowing where sexual predators are living.”
Data brokers are part of a worldwide multibillion-dollar industry of companies that profit from hoarding and selling access to huge amounts of Americans’ personal, financial, and granular location information, often collected from phones and other devices connected to the internet. This data gets sold, including to governments, which don’t need a warrant for commercially obtainable data.