American Enterprise Institute

While there is now a growing consensus among the tech industry, regulatory advocates, and policymakers on the need for comprehensive privacy legislation, a blueprint proposed in President Barack Obama’s 2012 Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights proved unsuccessful. Had Congress taken up legislation in 2012, it may have forestalled the egregious regulations the European Union and California adopted. In any case, the principles agreed on today generally align with those proposed in 2012.

Voters in elections tend to focus on topline policy issues such as the economy and health care, not tech policy, which enjoys considerable bipartisan agreement and offers little opportunity to highlight differences with opponents. Network neutrality internet regulation is an exception, as Democratic lawmakers use it both as symbolic politics at the federal and state level and as a wedge issue to bring millennial voters, a group with historically low turnout in midterms, to the polls.