House approves anti-consumer Y2K legislation!

I have not  verified this BUT it might interest some

Subject: House approves anti-consumer Y2K legislation!

The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday voted 236-190 to approve 
sweeping legislation that would grant special protections from liability to 
high tech companies, such as Microsoft and Intel, even if they are 
responsible for Y2K computer failures. The bill, H.R. 775, proposes 
unprecedented preemption of state consumer protection laws and would make it 
difficult, if not impossible, for individual consumers and small businesses 
to recover fair compensation and hold wrongdoers accountable for Y2K 
failures.

The biggest problems with this anti-consumer, anti-small business 
legislation are that it:

1). provides a disincentive to Y2K remediation by shielding those who sold 
non-compliant products from full liability.  Thus, they need not worry about 
making their best efforts to prevent these failures before January 2000.

2). will hurt small businesses and individuals that suffer the ill effects 
of Y2K failures by making it more difficult to receive compensation.

3).  does nothing to help consumers and small businesses. For example, there 
is no requirement to fix Y2K failures quickly and for an affordable price. 
The bill is solely designed to grant special protections to big business.

The Senate will soon resume debate on its Y2K bill, S.96.  Send your Senator 
a free fax from Public Citizen's website to let him/her know that you do not 
support granting special legal immunity to the high-tech industry.  
https://www.citizen.org/faxserver/letter2/step1.htm
For more information on this harmful, anti-consumer legislation, visit 
Public Citizen's "Y2K Liability" website at:
http://www.citizen.org/congress/civjus/y2k/index.html


=============================
      Andrew Englander
      Legislative Assistant
      Public Citizen's Congress Watch
      Washington, DC  20003
-------------------------------------------------------

Regards,

Glenn
_______________________________________________
Glenn Ericson,          IBM Certified Specialist  
Phoenix Consulting LLC
P. O. Box 701164         East Elmhurst NY 11370-3164 USA  
Phone 718 898 9805       Fax 718 446 1150
        AS/400 & Year 2000- - Solutions Specialists
 ©  copyright 1996 - 1999  all rights reserved
_______________________________________________


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