Laws are meaningless without enforcement, and good luck getting US law enforcement to enforce laws that they themselves are breaking routinely. We need a whole culture shift in government if we're going to have any hope of fixing this.
I generally agree, but that's no reason why we shouldn't push for a law banning use of private data like this now. It seems like a first step towards that culture shift we want. And even if enforcement of this new law is lacking, I bet in the TikTok situation the US gov we be happy to enforce it.
Selective enforcement and laws that are designed not to be enforced degrade the very rule of law and rules-based order that we're supposedly trying to protect here.
US states can take action, and California is. The new CPRA that takes effect Jan 1 2023 establishes a state funded agency to enforce the laws that have effectively only been able to be enforced by civil lawsuits by the people whose privacy is violated.
At the same time, TikTok is much more likely to follow the laws of China than the US, while Facebook is the reverse. China is an adversary of the US that does things like let fentanyl flow unfettered here and withhold vital data on Covid, if it were Spotify (based out of Sweden) it would be very different
This is so far from the truth in how you're stating it and in this context.
* Tesla is only alleged as having hired PIs, and the claim came from a disgruntled former employee that was fired for cause. Let's not treat this like fact. There is zero evidence other than this person's claim.
* The alleged target of the alleged investigation was a Tesla employee, not a journalist, that was actively leaking confidential information (and admitted to doing so) with deliberate intent to harm his employer. The SEC also declined to provide the leaker with any sort of whistleblower status.
* There is no evidence Tesla used data outside what was freely accessible on company devices, which literally every large corporation on the planet monitors.
* The leaker was later successfully sued for $400,000 by Tesla and found guilty of several criminal offenses. It was also revealed (and admitted to) that his legal defense was bankrolled by The Funicular Fund, which is a known Tesla short-seller.
