With Friday’s deadline behind us, we know which bills are getting serious consideration in the California legislature. Any bill that didn’t make it through a full floor vote and get sent from one house to the other is now dead (with the caveat that death is never final so long as the California legislature is still in session).
Short answer: all the bills I’m still following and, for the most part, blogging about live on…
Muni broadband
- Assembly bill 1999 – specifically authorises community service districts and other agencies to offer broadband services, and requires all muni broadband systems to abide by network neutrality rules. Passed by assembly, assigned to the senate governance and finance committee and the industry-friendly energy, utilities and communications committee.
Net neutrality
- Senate bill 460 – resurrects net neutrality rules as consumer protection law; requires state and local agencies to buy Internet service from companies that follow those rules. Passed by senate, now assigned to the assembly communications and conveyance committee – which also defers to industry lobbyists – and the privacy and consumer protection committee.
- SB 822 – a stronger net neutrality revival, it was passed by the senate and is in the hopper at the assembly. Expect it to be paired with its weaker cousin, SB 460, in the committee process.
- Senate resolution 74 – a high sounding but completely meaningless endorsement of net neutrality principles by the California senate. Passed on a party line vote and is probably hanging on someone’s wall, somewhere.
Privacy
- AB 1906 – aimed at the Internet of things, it requires passwords on Internet-connected devices. Passed by the assembly, sent to the senate.
- AB 2511 – potentially the legislature’s most fraught Internet bill this session, it would require online merchants to “take reasonable steps to verify the age” of anyone who might purchase or view age restricted products or content. Also restricts commercial use of information posted by minors. Passed by the assembly, sent to the senate.
- AB 2935 – adds privacy protections to health monitoring programs, online and otherwise. Could have implications for fitness and athletic social media, such as Strava. Passed by the assembly, sent to the senate.
- SB 327 – another shot at requiring security features on connected devices. Passed by the senate, now with the assembly privacy and consumer protections committee.
- SB 1001 – requires bots – computer programs that mimic people, used by companies to chat with customers – to identify themselves as such. Passed by the senate, sent to they assembly.
- SB 1186 – requires local governments to disclose the types and uses of law enforcement surveillance technology. Passed by the senate, sent to the assembly.
- SB 1424 – formerly a far reaching attempt to police free speech on the Internet, it was neutered by senate committees and now just calls for the California attorney general to study “the problem of the spread of false information through Internet-based social media platforms”. Passed unamimously by the senate, sent to the assembly.
Emergency preparedness
- AB 2910 – a weak response to the fire storms that ravaged California last year, it would require the California Public Utilities Commission to file a report about restoration efforts
in the black hole of Sacramentowith the legislature. Passed by the assembly, sent to the senate. - SB 1076 – a rare attempt by the legislature to prepare for a disaster before it happens, it would require the California office of emergency services “to update the state emergency plan to include preparedness recommendations to harden the critical infrastructure of electrical utilities against an electromagnetic pulse attack, geomagnetic storm event, or other potential cause of a long-term outage”. Translation: start thinking about how to keep the lights on if a nuclear bomb explodes (possible, but not inevitable) or Earth is hit by another Carrington event (definitely inevitable). Passed by the senate, sent to the assembly.