When the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on spyware, Barbara Boxer couldn’t help showing her grasp of … the Invisible Man?

“(Spyware) are “insidious programs that install themselves on users’ computers,” said Senator Barbara Boxer. “It’s hard to use analogies with this, but it’s sort of like somebody walking around your house, kind of invisibly.”"

That is a hard analogy to use. Especially since it doesn’t have the key element of an analogy: it should clarify. We’re also trying to figure out ‘kind of invisible’ — would it also be, um, kind of visible?

Even though the FTC has already brought suit against some spyware merchants under existing law, Boxer thinks the answer is legislation. But look at how ineffective the similar CAN-SPAM act has been. For instance, earlier today an Independent Sources operative received spam from … Senator Barbara Boxer! If only CAN-SPAM would have prevented that!

(Note to self: check the hard drive for malicious senatorial spyware)

Technorati Tags: Barbara Boxer, California, politics

This entry was posted on Friday, May 13th, 2005 at 4:45 pm by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under Barbara Boxer, Brilliant, but uncategorizable, California Schemin', Nemesises ... Nemesi?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.