This wasn't even a debate two years ago. People were still complaining about Secure Boot and needing Microsoft's permission to install Linux, and about locked phone bootloaders. The fact that this "need" has been manufactured was the victory. Michigan holding back for a moment doesn't matter when they already took California, and Europe is actively hostile to privacy - advocating for it there is starting to verge on the criminal.

Now the claw is closing, and government and big tech are combining. We're either going to let this tiny inbred elite track, monitor and rule every portion of our lives, or we're not. There are no solutions through government, and there are no technical solutions.

Right now you should be buying more computers than you need and datahoarding.

It is disrespectful that they can pretend with a straight face that they've suddenly discovered privacy concerns. The people who pay them started by priming them with the best arguments and lines that their "media" guys could come up with to dismiss those concerns and to paint the people bringing them up as Chinese terrorist pedophiles. They probably just figured out that they need to wait after the midterms, eliminate a few people and get a few others in, then they could get it passed attached to something else. While they're consciously planning, we're simply reacting and ascribing to ignorance and incompetence what is far better explained by malice.

The entire purpose of these laws is to destroy privacy. It isn't churches and puritans lobbying for them. There's no visible constituency lobbying for this, just a bunch of people who have been softened into going "well, if it helps..."

People need to ask themselves who's getting this stuff done? There are so many things that 70-80% of the electorate are loudly clamoring for that can't even get acknowledged by anyone in power or in the mainstream media, but this stuff gets passed?

Michigan 'digital age' bills pulled after privacy concerns raised