don’t preempt me bro (2026 edition)

Allison Schiff asks, Does The New Federal Data Privacy Bill Have A Snowball’s Chance Of Passing? Right now, it looks like the answer is no. The Federal “SECURE Data Act” is not a real bill—it’s a piece of fundraising collateral.

The trade offer is on the table.

• The quid: Big Tech is being asked to fund a pro-oligopoly party to get enough of their people into Congress to actually pass legislation

• The quo: That larger majority in Congress will burn some of its political capital to squash the state privacy laws, which are one of the few bipartisan, popular political trends in an otherwise bitterly divided USA

Even companies and organizations that normally come out against privacy bills, and for bills that would weaken protection, are staying well away from this “bill”. For example, the Association of National Advertisers, which makes Federal preemption one of their bigissues, doesn’t even have this “bill” on theirFederal Legislative Tracking page.

The “SECURE Data Act” is an offer from the Republican Party to Big Tech, not a bill that’s going to pass. But it is a good guide to what politicians think Big Tech wants, and what some politicians are prepared to offer. But not only is Federal preemption a terrible idea, this bill has its own problems even compared to previous attempts to do something similar. InA Disastrous Federal Privacy Bill, Daniel J. Solove explains some of the problems.

• Copies the parts of CCPA that we know don’t work

• Meaningless language on data minimization

• Registration for data brokers but minimal regulation

• Relies on (already understaffed) FTC and state AGs for enforcement

• Broad preemption

Eric Null at CDT covers many of the same points in Congress’s New Privacy Bill Is Built on Empty Promises. And,

Unsurprisingly, and unfortunately, this draft also lacks meaningful civil rights protections, which were central to prior iterations of bipartisan federal privacy bills (namely the American Data Privacy and Protection Act of 2022 and the American Privacy Rights Act of 2024). We know that data is used in discriminatory ways, and that current law is insufficient to address this issue.

The real confusing patchwork

The bullshit argument for Federal preemption is that it would remove a “confusing patchwork” of state privacy laws.

We know this is a bullshit argument because there is a real confusing patchwork for anyone who has to deal with “privacy compliance.” But no advocates of a bill like this ever bring that one up. The confusing patchwork that really affects normal sites and businesses is coming from inside Google.

Seriously, read any of the PDFs or LinkedIn posts about privacy compliance. Or go to a compliance webinar. There is a little intro content on the actual state privacy laws, and then the bulk of the material is how to set up “compliance” with whatever Google is making you do. And even if you get all of that stuff right, it only holds up for a little while. Because Google,known for short attention spans and rapid deprecation of anything you managed to get working, changes their “compliance” rules. (For example, readthis post by attorney Sam Castic:

Google recently announced changes to its data controls that will become effective June 15, 2026….This can have significant impacts for how organizations using Google Analytics comply with comprehensive state privacy laws…

The law didn’t change. Google did, because they can. And Google’s code churn keeps causing “signficant impacts” in the form of extra work for sites using services like Google Analytics and Google Ads.

One of the best arguments for states not cloning CCPA is that Google (and other third-party services, but mostly Google) have figured out how to offload the “compliance taxes” onto smaller companies. State privacy laws have an opportunity to try a different direction—start by considering real-world privacy harms and work backward, don’t just impose a bunch of paperwork that Big Tech can turn into an ongoing workload for normal companies. More:Have you filed your compliance taxes?

Ignoring the national security issues

Privacy is more than just a personal or business issue. It’s a collective problem. One of the areas in which privacy issues are going to have the biggest impact is national security.

The best autonomous drones are now probably good enough to target an obvious tank on an obvious parade route.Russia is omitting military vehicles from an upcoming parade, on a Moscow route where Russia could heavily jam communications and GPS. Onboard AI would be needed in order to hit anything, and the Russians aren’t taking the chance. The parade isn’t just an under-reported AI story,icymi:‘Multiple waves’ of unauthorized drones flew over Barksdale AFB it’s a warning to get prepared for the next generation of the technology. Future drones will be able to target key people—such as first responders, military personnel, utility repair crews, and defense manufacturing workers—at home or in their cars. While a key facility like a factory or port can have point defense against drones, those facilities are useless without trained people. And those trained people spend much of their non-working time in neatly labeled boxes.

Research into drone defense is going in many promising directions. It’s a tricky problem, and the defender can lose even if they win—if attacking drones can be cheap and smart enough to require expensive systems to defeat them, it comes down to a production race that the attacker wins. State privacy laws are an essential part of solving a national defense problem where we already know that even if there is one right answer, we don’t know it yet. We need to experiment, not preempt. More:Surveillance risks and the TIDALWAVE report

Bonus links

California Privacy Protection Agency Releases Letter Opposing the SECURE Data ActThe more young people use AI, the more they hate it by Janus Rose. Far from the stereotype of lazy young people looking for shortcuts, Gen Zers have had some of the loudest and most detailed objections to generative AI use.

Aftermath: California Gas Prices Are Up, and It’s Not Just the War by David Dayen. But the real reasons for the sticker shock can be seen in a little-known measure of refinery profitability known as the crack spread. Where California refineries were making about 50 cents per gallon in profit just two months ago, the crack spread has ballooned to an estimated $1.50 per gallon. That means it accounts for more of the recent run-up in state gas prices than the hike in crude oil costs, which is adding roughly 66 cents per gallon.