According to this article in the Washington Post, Congress is once again considering data breach notification laws. The question, of course, is whether any laws passed by Congress will provide an incentive for companies to better protect customer data, or whether they will simply allow Congress to grandstand about consumer rights while actually stripping consumers of rights they already have by pre-empting tougher state legislation. While it's still too early in the process to definitively answer that question, my guess is that whatever eventually emerges from the legislative sausage machine won't have much happy news for the overwhelming majority of Americans.