The reason Arnie came to that decision is that....

Yes he's a ROBOT... GIGO.

It seems bizarre to me that one man has this incredibly powerful veto (even if he is from the future).

Here we see an actor / bodybuilder elected to one of the most senior positions in the US using the power of veto to kill what is clearly a much needed law, because it might inconvenience the private sector.

What do you do when your country is so clearly sick? Wake up USA, wake up.

This bill could have been easitly accomodated if it was managed properly.

Give a time schedule for compliance; but add to that a time frames dependant upon the size of the business.

So, any new application released within the next ~three-months, should be compliant.

Give six/nine-months to make existing products compliant (for large corps).

Give smaller companies 18-24-months to become compliant.

Bottom line, none of them need to retain creditcard details.

Those (like Amazon) that like to retain the Creditcard details for the sake of re-orders should be forced to follow strong Encryption regimes.

In Summary:

a) Either stop storing the creditcard data.

b) Or encrypt the shit out of it and wrap it in all other layers of security that the Financial Services institutions would be expected to.

In AB 779, proposed Civil Code Section 1724.4(b) was poorly drafted and confusing. It was not clear whether 1724.4(b) covered Internet and mail-order merchants (although the legislature probably did desire to cover those merchants). 1724.4(b)(2) was muddled about what does and does not constitute "sensitive authentication data" that a merchant would have been forbidden from storing. A literal reading of the words of 1724.4(b)(2) would forbid merchants from storing zip codes, even though Internet and mail-order merchants need to store zip codes for operational purposes. Proposed Section 1724.4(b)'s poorly crafted language would have been a roadblock as innovators try to invent the next PayPal. See detailed analysis at http://hack-igations.blogspot.com

The fewer laws, the more responsibility individuals must retain. And who wants that? Want to buy things without being tracked? Introducing this fabulous new concept - CASH.

No conscious politician would ever do anything to defend the regular working citizen at the cost of the corporations. It's that simple. It's called uncontrolled capitalism in a country that has given corporations more rights than people.

Just stay on your side of the oceans, and I'll be happy.

//Svein

The USA definitely needs some decent consumer protection laws.

Also national health care, and some strong new anti-trust laws to create a more independent media.

But I don't see big business paying for the TV ads that will tell people that they think those issues are important.