The Bad Washington Privacy Act lets predatory corporations use, share, and sell your data without your consent.  It doesn't protect student or employee data at all.  Its "opt-out" model doesn't protect immigrant communities, survivors of stalking and domestic violence, disabled people, or anybody concerned about their personal data being disclosed.  And if companies violate the law and abuse your privacy, you can only sue them for "injunctive relief" – they have to stop doing it, but not pay you for any damages.  It's bad!  

But Rep. Shelley Kloba has just introduced a 'striker amendment', completely replacing the current text, and it's much much better!  It's opt-in.  It's got a strong "private right of action", so if you sue companies who break the law, they have to pay damages for the harms they cause.  And it's got lots of other improvements as well. 

So now's a critical time to ask your legislators to support Rep. Kloba's amendment – or vote no on the bill if the amendment doesn't pass.

One way to tell your legislators that's what you want them to do is to submitting a comment via the legisature's site. 

1. Click here

2. Type in your address
3. Click Verify District.  
4. You'll see are checkboxes for which legislators to contect.  Check them all!
5. Provide your contact information
6. Choose your "Position" on the bill – Other
7. Put your comment in the text box.
8. Click the Submit Comment button

If you prefer the phone, the legislative hotline at 1–800–562–6000 (TTY for Hearing Impaired 800.833.6388) lets you get a message to all your legislators at once.  It's available Monday through Friday, 8:00 am to 7:00 pm.  They'll ask for your address.  Then, tell them the bill number (SB 5062) and that you OPPOSE it. You can leave a comment as well – use any of the ideas below for a longer comment.

You can also call your legislators' offices directly.  Here's the legislature's directory page.

What to say in your comment?

It doesn't have to be fancy!   Your comment can be as short as

Rep. Kloba's striker addresses many of the current bill's problems.  Please support it!  If it doesn't pass, please vote NO on the bill.

Or you can go into more detail.  Telling representatives how a bill would impact your everyday life is the most convincing argument.  For example, if you're concerned about your information being used without your consent

I don't want my data being used without my consent.  Rep. Kloba's amendment is opt-in, which gives me what I want.  The current bill is mostly opt-out, so companies can use my data without asking.  Opt-out also puts immigrant communities and survivors of harassment, stalking, and domestic violence at risk.   Please support Rep. Kloba's amendment, and if it doesn't pass please vote NO on the bill.

Or if you're concerned about big companies getting away with breaking the law and not being held accountable, you can say something like this:

Rep. Kloba's amendment strengthens the private right of action so that companies that break the law have to pay damages if I sue them and win.  Those are the rules for everybody else, they should be the rules for big tech companies as well.  Please support Rep. Kloba's amendment, and if it doesn't pass please vote NO on the bill.

These are just a couple of ideas.  Really, anything that relates to how you feel about the need for strong privacy protections!   The important thing is that they hear from you, which lets them know that you care about privacy and want them to pass Rep. Kloba's amendment – or vote no.