Equifax knew about the data breach for three damn months before they made it public. During those three months, all their executives unloaded their stock.
They should go to prison. But, Republicans in Congress? Republicans in Congress should go to hell.
It’s hard to miss the irony. Last Thursday, on the same day Equifax announced its massive data breach, Congress held a hearing on a bill that would roll back regulations on the nation’s credit bureaus.
Get this – the legislation would cap actual damages and totally eliminate punitive damages.
What this means is that credit bureaus can play fast and loose with your data and face a very low risk of being sued. And even if they are sued, the damages are far less than the money they would spend actually protecting your data.
The only way to keep businesses from killing you is punitive damages.
Do not talk to be me about the purpose of this legislation being to “curb abuses in the court system.” There’s already remedies in place for that.
All this does is gives permission to credit bureaus to not be accountable.
“These bills not only hurt consumers, they ultimately have a negative impact on the marketplace by, for example, removing incentives for credit bureaus to ensure accurate information in credit reports.”
And if you don’t think the timing on this legislation means congress (at least the Republicans) knew about the breach before we did, you can kiss my butt.
Y’all, I hate these people. I really do.
Crossposted at juanitajean.com
