Previous congressional efforts to pass data protection laws have failed to advance, even in the wake of record-breaking data breaches that attracted widespread public condemnation, such as the massive Equifax breach disclosed last year, and Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal that broke in March. But both Democratic and Republican officials have suggested that the momentum has shifted. "The question is no longer whether we need a national law to protect consumers' privacy," Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., said in an op-ed last month. "The question is what shape that law should take."