Comcast announces huge data breach after Ted Cruz dismisses data security

On Monday, Comcast sent notices out saying that hackers had obtained access to the personal data of almost 36 million of its customers. According to Comcast, the “suspicious activity” took place between Oct. 16 and Oct. 19, wasn’t noticed by the big telecom until Oct. 25, and took another eight weeks for them to review. A statement released to media outlets from an Xfinity spokesperson claims, “We are not aware of any customer data being leaked anywhere, nor of any attacks on our customers.”

The timing could not have been more perfect as less than a week earlier, Sen. Ted Cruz and fellow Republican senators were publicly fighting against the Biden administration’s attempts to create more transparency and accountability by big telecommunications companies. On Dec. 12, Cruz, along with Sens. Mitch McConnell, John Thune, and Marsha Blackburn, sent an angry letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.

The right-wing senators claim that the FCC’s newly proposed “Data Breach Reporting Requirements” violates the Congressional Review Act. The CRA effectively killed an Obama-era attempt at very modest broadband privacy protections back in 2017. It passed along strict party lines in a Republican-led Congress.