WASHINGTON -- Rep. Cliff Stearns has made online privacy the No. 1 priority of the Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection subcommittee he heads. The Ocala Republican has held four hearings on the subject and hopes to have a bill to protect consumers drafted by June.
But he's making no promises that his colleagues in Congress are ready to take action.
"Other than me," Stearns said, "I don't see any urgency."
In polls, public support for online privacy ranks high, and an increasing number of lawmakers appear convinced that letting businesses regulate themselves will not give consumers enough protection. But the odds of passing a major bill this year appear slim at best.
Consumer advocates say they are being shut out of the debate by Republican leaders. Industry groups say lawmakers are starting to realize how complicated this issue is. And the White House? It says very little.
"Privacy is going to be big in 2001 although I'd say legislation won't pass," said Brian Adkins, director of government relations for the Information Technology Industry Council, which represents technology giants such as Cisco Systems and Microsoft. "At the end of the last Congress, there was an urgency to get something done. Now there's a sense of inevitability, but less of a sense to get it done."
Tech company executives, who once wanted nothing to do with politics or the federal government, have become major contributors to political campaigns and retain platoons of lobbyists on Capitol Hill to watch out for their interests. If that doesn't give them enough clout, many lawmakers heed the tech lobby's contention that government tinkering could frustrate the development of e-commerce and the new economy.
A memo written by House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, this month took that tack, warning that privacy laws could hamper emerging technology fields.
Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director for U.S. Public Interest Research Group, which lobbies for privacy legislation, blamed the Republican leadership. He said members are in the back pocket of giant corporations.
"If there are no crises it's very difficult for us to win," Mierzwinski said.
A crisis could mean another incident like the uproar two years ago over the Internet advertising company Double Click. The company admitted it planned to match the information on Web users' habits online with marketing databases that tracked their purchases and interests in the bricks-and-mortar world. The company backed down, but the controversy energized consumer groups and helped ignite the debate on Capitol Hill.
Privacy advocates had hoped that the 2000 election would spur lawmakers to act. But bill after bill languished.
Despite the struggles, some influential members, such as House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Billy Tauzin, R-La., began advocating legislation. So 2001 was expected to be the year of online privacy on Capitol Hill.
So far, that hasn't happened. Since the dot-com bubble burst on Wall Street, some lawmakers are reluctant to make moves that might further depress online business. Issues such as taxes and campaign finance reform have pushed online privacy off the radar.
"People's attention has gone to other issues," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the author of a privacy bill that experts on both sides of the issue say has one of the best chances of passing. "But it'll be back."
The Bush administration remains a wild card in the debate. The administration waited until late April to fill a privacy adviser position at the Department of Commerce.
Privacy advocates say the president is on their side based on strong pro-privacy comments he made on the campaign trail. But the president's allegiance to business interests is well-known so he would be an unlikely champion of broad consumer privacy protections opposed by business groups.
"Since he took office he's been relatively silent about this issue," said Shane Ham, a technology policy analyst at the Progressive Policy Institute, a moderate Democratic think tank. "He's the big mystery in this debate."
McCain, the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, is planning to hold a hearing and offer his bill with Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., in May or June.
The McCain-Kerry proposal would include "opt-out" language such as the provision in a new law governing the banking industry. Under opt-out, companies can collect personal data unless an individual specifically forbids them from doing so.
Consumer rights groups say the bill doesn't go far enough.
"The McCain bill is a joke," Mierzwinski said. "It's an industry win."
Consumer groups want a bill that allows consumers to see the profiles companies keep on them and dispute the information in them. And if their information gets out and causes them damage, they want a way to seek retribution against a company.
They want a bill like the one offered by Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., which generally prohibits companies from culling personal data unless authorized by an individual to do so.
Not surprisingly, companies are strongly against Hollings' proposal, arguing that it will cripple the growth of their industry and lead to higher prices for consumers.
