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Tag: Sherrod Brown

  • Senate Banking Chairman Opens Door to Banning Crypto

    Senate Banking Chairman Opens Door to Banning Crypto

    In the wake of the FTX crypto meltdown, Senate banking chairman Sherrod Brown has opened the door to banning crypto.

    The FTX meltdown is being credited with tremendous harm to the crypto market and has led to widespread calls for greater legislation. According to The Hill, Brown told NBC’s Chuck Todd that banning was an option.

    “Maybe banning it, although banning it is very difficult because it will go offshore and who knows how that will work,” Brown said

    At the same time, Brown acknowledged that the crypto market represents a “complicated, unregulated pot of money.”

    “So we’ve got to do this right,” the senator said, adding that he has talked to the Treasury Department to do a related assessment across regulatory agencies.

  • Coronavirus: Senators Express Privacy Concerns Over Google Screening Site

    Coronavirus: Senators Express Privacy Concerns Over Google Screening Site

    It was bound to happen: Senators have expressed concern about Google’s role in developing a site to help screen potential coronavirus patients.

    Google was caught off guard last week when President Trump said the company had 1,700 engineers working on a website designed to help screen potential coronavirus patients. In spite of the surprise, Google quickly got on board with the project and vowed to develop the site Trump had promised.

    Unfortunately for the company, however, Google doesn’t have the best track record with privacy and security. As a result, several senators have raised concerns about the project, in a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Joining Sen. Bob Menendez in sending the letter were Sens. Sherrod Brown, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris and Richard Blumenthal.

    “There are numerous privacy concerns about such an endeavor, including: whether people will be required to sign waivers forfeiting their privacy and personal data in order to access the questionnaire; whether Google or any of its subsidiaries will be prohibited from using data received through the website for commercial purposes; and whether Google and any of its subsidiaries will be prohibited from selling any data collected through the website to a third-party.”

    The letter goes on to highlight the valuable nature of the data that will be collected and how much of a target it will be for hackers.

    “To state the obvious, the information Americans enter on this website will be highly valuable to potential hackers, foreign state and nonstate actors with nefarious intent, and other criminal enterprises,” the senators continue. “We are concerned that neither the Administration nor Google has fully contemplated the range of threats to Americans’ personally identifiable information.”

    Both points the letter raises are extremely pertinent. It was recently discovered that Google partnered with the Ascension healthcare group to collect the medical records of millions of American patients, without their knowledge. If patients are going to trust a website Google creates, they need to know their data is going to be used for the advertised purpose and not swallowed up into one of Google’s other commercial endeavors. Likewise, the data will represent a goldmine for hackers, requiring the very best in security technologies and processes.

    The senators certainly aren’t the only individuals questioning whether Google is up to the task—on both fronts.

  • Elizabeth Warren Calls For Probe Into The Federal Reserve Bank of New York

    Elizabeth Warren, United States senator from Massachusetts, has called for an investigation into the relationships the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has with the financial institutions it regulates. Whistler-blower Carmen Segarra gave secret tapes to “This American Life”. The program published them, and they seemed to suggested that the Fed has been far too deferential in its regulatory duties.

    “Congress must hold oversight hearings on the disturbing issues raised by today’s whistle-blower report when it returns in November — because it’s our job to make sure our financial regulators are doing their jobs,” Warren said according to Bloomberg.

    Sherrod Brown, her fellow Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, has come to Warren’s side. He called for “a full and thorough investigation”, according to CNN.

    What does the Fed have to say for itself? The institution has released a statement to “This American Life”:

    “The New York Fed categorically rejects the allegations being made about the integrity of its supervision of financial institutions. The New York Fed works diligently to execute its supervisory authority in a manner that is most effective in promoting the safety and soundness of the financial institutions it is charged with supervising. To accomplish this important task, the New York Fed employs and trains a large workforce of examiners and specialists and works with the Board of Governors, which sets supervisory policy, and other experts throughout the Federal Reserve System.”

    Segarra is holding her ground in the matter. “The audio on the tapes speaks for itself. Regardless of whether our case proceeds on appeal, we are gratified that Carmen is vindicated by the recorded words of employees of Goldman Sachs and the New York Fed,” she said according to Reuters.