These are the 17 House Representatives that introduced a bill to let telecoms sell your personal internet history
Most Americans don’t know that telecoms and internet service providers store the internet history of their users; even more don’t know that recently introduced legislation aims to do away with privacy protections on this high value data. For years, the telecom industry has lobbied the government for the ability to sell your internet history to the highest bidder. On 3/7/17, Senator Jeff Flake and 22 other co-sponsors introduced S.J.Res 34, which would use the Congressional Review Act to strip away privacy protections voted in by the FCC last year and allow telecoms to sell the private internet history which they have on each of their Internet subscribers. One day later, on 3/8/17, Representative Marsha Blackburn introduced the House version of the bill (H.J.Res 86).
17 House Representatives that support a bill to let telecoms sell your internet history
Including the bill’s headliner, Representative Blackburn, the 17 House Representatives are:
– Rep. Flores, Bill [R-TX-17]
– Rep. Blackburn, Marsha [R-TN-7]
– Rep. Olson, Pete [R-TX-22]
– Rep. Lance, Leonard [R-NJ-7]
– Rep. Scalise, Steve [R-LA-1]
– Rep. Latta, Robert E. [R-OH-5]
– Rep. Guthrie, Brett [R-KY-2]
– Rep. Kinzinger, Adam [R-IL-16]
– Rep. Johnson, Bill [R-OH-6]
– Rep. Long, Billy [R-MO-7]
– Rep. Brooks, Susan W. [R-IN-5]
– Rep. Walters, Mimi [R-CA-45]
– Rep. Cramer, Kevin [R-ND-At Large]
– Rep. Collins, Chris [R-NY-27]
– Rep. Costello, Ryan A. [R-PA-6]
– Rep. Bilirakis, Gus M. [R-FL-12]
– Rep. Shimkus, John [R-IL-15]
Before the (I’m just a) bill is presented to President Trump to sign into law, both S.J.Res 34 and H.J.Res 86 need to make it through their respective chambers of Congress. Letting your House Representative and Senators know to vote against H.J.Res 86 and S.J.Res 34, respectively, might be the only chance to keep your personal internet history private.
Through coordinated action in both houses, the anti-privacy camp has made their move. The only thing that can hold these politicians accountable for their actions against the best interests of their constituents, is the mass action of the people. Join Private Internet Access in supporting the EFF in calling on all Americans to heed the call and make the call: “Don’t let Congress Undermine Our Online Privacy.” When both H.J.Res 86 and S.J.Res 34 come to a vote, make sure to take note of which House Representatives and Senators vote which way. It is important, now more than ever, to hold politicians accountable for their stances and their actions.
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Featured image by Gage Skidmore.
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69 Comments
All republicans, of course.
Sickening.
they already do this its called data mining, but the isp does not benefit.
Nor should they
A specific person’s internet history with their name attached has not been available for sale previously. It’s actually pretty scary.
If it passes, you should just go and buy the data of these politicians and publish it on billboards in their districts.
Obviously politicians will be exempt because ‘national security’
Through all sources of public information, find close relatives of theirs and post their scandalous internet history!
Except they aren’t or aren’t supposed to be exempt. This is considering that they use the same companies that us public citizens use. At this point the government is basically saying “in order for us to keep your data private and make you use VPNs or similar we are going to introduce a bill that would give telecoms the right to sell your data. However, this highly illegal because we are treating the people we should be protecting like a product or farm animal.”
Dam neoliberalism !
So, other than this one blogger’s slanted view of the bill, are there any news outlets who’ve done their homework and can explain why this bill was introduced? Why are there 17 Representatives supporting it? None of this lobbyists pay them, “blah, blah, blah”. If you can prove that through reporting, then you do that. But this lazy reporting where you simply state what you think is garbage.
I’m interested to know the origins of the bill, it it’s been introduced previously, and what — in its entirety — it would do.
How do you know its a slanted view if you yourself don’t even know what the bill would do?
Why not read the bill yourself? Its linked in the article.
The bill is seeking to nullify privacy protections on consumers, the very rule that prevents your ISP from selling your browsing history. https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-12-02/pdf/2016-28006.pdf#page=1
That’s actually a relief, I thought they already did that.
Ew, fuck Vigillink, I can’t even view that link because i’ve blocked them for malicious activity
What are you talking about?
All the bill does is undo the FCC rule. Google H. J. RES. 86.
This is a privacy centered website and blog, why would it take a view that undermines that?
Did you follow the link to the bill that the blogger posted in the article? Cause it straight up goes right to the bill on the congress.gov and shows a resolution to end the FCC’s “Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunications Services” regulations. It’s also really difficult to see if a bill has been introduced previously because the bill itself will likely intentionally not mention if it has, because they want people to vote for it, and they don’t want people to bring up the failure of the previous bill. You’re asking this blogger to do their research, but they have. You’re just not looking through the links of the article.
Do you even have a brain you piece of shit?
the article was written so we would know that it was introduced . like all articles , its up to us to do research after that . the author never promised to spoon feed you.
There are no logical reasons for this other than greed.
There’s A LOT that can be done with your name attached to your internet history and it’s not all about money. Employers could possibly access it. Law enforcement agencies would certainly get access to it. Religious organizations have strong influence in politics so I could see screenings done at your churches and they don’t keep your secrets silent and are all about judgement. Remember The Fappening awhile back? Imagine more data like that with your name all over it neatly bundled up on a server ready to mine for doxxing or other malicious reasons. Of course this is all speculation but there’s little trust in the government today and the motives of the corporations.. oh, I mean our Glorious Leader.. er, the billionaire club now in control of the US.
Just to add – I have my doubts this will happen.