Privacy rights in the Trump administration and California Legislature
Voter privacy
Re “Donald Trump’s voter fraud panel wants your personal information. It’s ridiculous.” (Editorials, July 5): In a bid to substantiate Donald Trump's claims of rigged elections, the Trump Administration’s Commission on Election Integrity is soliciting voter registration information from all 50 states. The leader of, Kris Kobach of Kansas, is known for acts of voter suppression. Voter suppression is aimed at minorities who are believed to vote Democrat. They want names, addresses, party affiliation, voting records and last four digits of Social Security. Fortunately, 40 states have refused to cooperate. Probably the only thing that saved us from further Russian meddling is the fact that our records are not centralized. I hope we can continue to stop a national database, which would allow outside meddling and voter suppression. All Americans should be permitted to vote.
Georgia P. Swan, Sacramento
Worker privacy
Re “In the name of helping workers, this bill would strip them of basic privacy” (Dan Morain, Jly 11): While the ACLU sued to get President Trump’s election commission to back off on demanding voter information from states, the California Legislature is going full steam ahead in passing a bill that demands the California Department of Social Services give registered home care aide names, email addresses and cell and residential phone numbers to unions. This information is tied to the all the home care agencies the aides work for so it exposes confidential information on more than 100,000 home care aides and 1,200 agencies. As the bill states: the information is to be used for organizing attempts. Who will be next? assisted living facilities, retail, churches and schools. This surely is not what our Constitution is all about.
Kathy Janz, Atherton
Cap-and-trade
Re “Halt to California fire prevention fee part of new climate change plan” (sacbee.com, July 10): Your article fails to point out the hypocrisy of Gov. Jerry Brown’s actions on cap and trade. After traveling the world talking a good game on climate, he came home to drop a Chevron-inspired wish list on us. His bill is designed to keep compliance costs low for refiners and other industrial polluters. That’s great for their shareholders, but removes the pressure on them to cut emissions, which is what cap and trade is all about. Adding insult to injury, his bill restricts the power of regional air districts to set clean air rules. Meanwhile, there’s a serious cap-and-trade bill sitting in Senate, SB 775 by Sen. Bob Wieckowski, D-Fremont, which would ensure reductions in greenhouse gases while issuing rebates to protect lower income families from the economic effects. The governor should be pushing SB 775 and not this give away to his oily friends.
Dan Brotman, Glendale
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This story was originally published July 11, 2017 at 10:15 AM with the headline "Privacy rights in the Trump administration and California Legislature."