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House Schedules Vote on Eliminating Consumer Online Privacy Rights Next Week

MARCH 24, 2017 | BY ERNESTO FALCON

Majority Leader McCarthy Confirms House to Immediately Act on Behalf of the Cable and Telephone Industry Following the Senate Vote

Yesterday, the U.S. Senate by a razor thin margin of 50 to 48 voted to take away the privacy rights of Internet users as a favor to the cable and telephone industry. Now the House is planning to take up the legislation immediately next week before people can discover the damage they are about to inflict to consumer privacy online.

These Are Our Legal Rights To Privacy They Are Dismantling

Americans have enjoyed a legal right to privacy from your communications provider under Section 222 of the Telecommunications Act for more than twenty years. When Congress made that law, it had a straightforward vision in how it wanted the dominate communications network (at that time the telephone company) to treat your data, recognizing that you are forced to share personal information in order to utilize the service and did not have workable alternatives.

Now Congress has begun to reverse course by eliminating your communication privacy protections in order to open the door for the cable and telephone industry to aggressively monetize your personal information. Proponents of such a drastic course change in law would have you believe that a repeal of the Federal Communications Commission's updated privacy rules for broadband providers would still leave your privacy protections intact. This understates the gravity of what H.J. Res. 86 and S.J. Res 34 may do to consumer privacy. Make no mistake, if Congress decides to codify a repeal of consumer privacy under the Congressional Review Act (as opposed to simply amending the law or the FCC changing the privacy rules again), it can have a serious impact on your legal right to privacy in your communications over broadband.

Proponents of eliminating consumer privacy will go even further and say that it is the FCC's fault that they must harm the legal protections you have enjoyed for more than twenty years by stating it was the agency that overreached its legal authority and acted in a manner that was unconnected with the law. But when Congress actually wrote the law, the charge it gave the FCC seemed fairly clear.

The Senate Commerce Committee, for example, expressed a clear intent of specific legal obligations for the communications provider by stating the following:

“In general, a Bell company may not share with anyone customer-specific proprietary information without the consent of the person to whom it relates. Exceptions to this general rule permit disclosure in response to a court order or to initiate, render, bill and collect for telecommunications services.”
The House Commerce Committee in their own report indicated a similar line of thinking:

“This section defines three fundamental principles to protect all consumers. These principles are: (1) the right of consumers to know the specific information that is being collected about them; (2) the right of consumers to have proper notice that such information is being used for other purposes; and (3) the right of consumers to stop the reuse or sale of that information.”
In essence, the FCC has done the job Congress told it to do many years ago. However, the cable and telephone industry have sensed an opportunity to exploit the flurry of repeals Congress has taken up and laid out a series of misleading arguments to convince Congress to proactively do harm to your privacy. They were successful at convincing 50 U.S. Senators to go along with their plan. Now the fight has moved to the House of Representatives.

There is only one way to stop them from winning.

We must speak up and call our elected officials to reject H.J. Res 86 and S.J. Res 34 and preserve our legal rights to consumer online privacy.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/03/co...acy-protections

So... basically this gets rid of the Do Not Call Registry?

this sucks

Any business that collects personal information will have the right to use this information without your consent to sell to others, aggressively market to market, or otherwise profit from the information you have given them. This would also include information gathered from your web surfing habits.

This applies to online and offline companies.

They already track what we do. The ads that show up are all things I have looked into.

Seems to me this just means more companies will be doing it.

The House passed the repeal, now Trump will sign it. ~ smh

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-internet-idUSKBN16Z2JI

The opposition to the regulations was led by Republicans and the telecom industry, who argue that they are too costly and confusing. They say the rules would have subjected internet service providers to restrictions that do not apply to websites like Facebook and Google, which also collect consumer information for data-driven ads.

Isn't there something in the constitution about 'being secure in your property' or something like that?

Someone should take this to the Supreme Court.

this sucks. as now republicans are wanting to sacrifice citizens privacy for profits.

How do we go about shouting this down?

Hype in my opinion. This is already happening at Facebook, Google and others.

Then they should be adding the restrictions to Facebook and Google as well, not going the other way.

You can start by shouting down Facebook, Google and others who have been doing this for years.

Ok, I don't have a position on this issue. Just want everyone to realize this is really nothing new. It has been going on for years and it is not seen as fair to those who have been cut out.

The difference is that you can avoid google, facebook and others by using other products or not using the products at all. Or you can not use cookies and some of that goes away.

This you can't avoid - 100% of what you do on the internet can be sold to anyone that wants it.

Speaking of, someone started crowdfunding to start buying the internet history of all of those that voted for this, it is at $30k already (and going up $2k very 20-30 minutes). I suspect that some congressfolk may be regretting voting for it

And who cares if they have our info? Lots of them already do.
They even know where are vehicles are at all times.
What exactly is it you are trying to hide?

It is good they passed this so now they can find out who gave to the Crowdfunding and make their lives miserable. Can you say IRS investigation? (tongue in cheek)

I have nothing to hide, and I proudly gave to the crowdfunding. Bring it on.

$30,000 dollars worth of Spite could have fed a lot of hungry children.

Don't worry, people who actually care about others instead of just themselves are donating to other great things like feeding children, Planned Parenthood, LBGTQ organizations, ACLU, the Arts, etc... in record numbers. As a matter of fact, I think I'm going to donate to the ACLU on your behalf right now. You're welcome.

You speak as if I don't give to some of these charities myself.

You would be wrong.

I do not give to things involving spite or hate though. I leave that to the Liberal/Progressives.

#TrueColors

There is only one of these Organizations that's legit. The Others are nothing but dumpster divers. IMO

I don't speak that way at all. I clearly stated "people who actually care about others instead of just themselves". Kudos to you if you do care about others and donate to some of these charities.

You're entitled to your opinion. Mine is that you don't care about women's health, or arts, LBGTQ members of our society, civil liberties, etc... but I think it is great you care about feeding kids.

Fair enough. Were done

Donate to Bernie in his name, lol.

Not hype - this is a de facto end to any/all consumer privacy.

Facebook, etc.... you have the option of not using those services.
With this repealed, every ISP out there will be collecting ALL of this data (which means the gov't will also have ALL of this data without having to get warrants), and if you want to be on the internet, you have no options. None.

And that is bad, because lots of jobs in many industries these days cannot even be gotten without an internet connection.

If your employer wants to know EVERYTHING you do online - even on your own time - they will be able to get that information.


This is nothing short of being an unmitigated crapfest that moves us closer to being a perpetually monitored society with zero expectation of privacy instead of protecting privacy and the freedoms of citizens. Anyone that loves the Constitution should abhor everything about this.

40's just trolling.

I don't even know his name, I'll just donate generically or on behalf of trump

Well now that you put it that way, I can see a problem.

No one else took the time to go into it like you just did.
I was under the impression it was for directing ads and monetizing them.

People calling Troll educates no one.

I wish congress would pass something productive like legalize payments for organ donations.

100k starting bid for a kidney, what's up

well written, thank you

Maybe Purp could explain how much of a threat Trump's entire presidency is... maybe then you will get that too.

Trump is a threat to your beloved Socialism.
You should be afraid, very afraid.

Fake News.

I never typed that. Its a lie, not a quote.

Fox News told me.

FDR picked up a country broken by corporatist greed, installed social programs, infrastructure, saved capitalism, and then fought and won a world war... He believed that liberal socialism is a necessary part of American democracy. And he was president for the better part of two decades.

News flash. This isnt the 1930s.

Well go dig him up then cuz Trump is gonna starve you out.

Nobody is starving me 40. Nobody.