MESSAGE
| DATE | 2017-04-03 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout of NYLXS] The Conservative Case Against Trashing Online
|
https://www.wired.com/2017/04/conservative-case-trashing-online-privacy-rules/?mbid=social_fb_onsiteshare
rotecting internet privacy should be a bipartisan issue, right? After
all, Americans seem united in their dislike of the phone and cable
behemoths that dominate internet service in the US.
More importantly, the principle of protecting your personal online data
from snooping wouldn’t seem to break down along tidy partisan lines.
Democrats want to protect the little guy from exploitation by corporate
interests. Republicans believe in individual liberty. And yet, the
decision to revoke Federal Communications Commission rules that would
have stopped internet providers from selling your data without your
permission followed party lines almost perfectly. Almost.
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The Senate Prepares to Send Internet Privacy Down a Black Hole
No Democrat in either the House or Senate voted for the resolution that
repeals Federal Communications Commission rules prohibiting ISPs from
selling your browsing history without your opt-in permission. No Senate
Republican voted against it. But 15 House Republicans bucked their party
to join a unified Democratic caucus to vote against the resolution. Call
it online profiles in courage.
“At the end of the day, it’s your data,” says representative Warren
Davidson (R-Ohio), who voted against the repeal. “I don’t see how it
could be anyone else’s.”
Davidson says ISPs tracking your web surfing habits to target ads is
like the postal service or FedEx snooping through your letters to figure
out what junk mail to send you. “If a guy could carry a letter on a
horse for weeks and not open it, why can’t [internet providers] carry it
for three seconds?” he asks. “What’s changed? It’s just that it’s easier
now.”
For most Republicans, it seems, someone else’s private property rights
took precedence: the cable and phone companies themselves. Davidson says
he believes most of his colleagues subscribed to the free-market
reasoning that because the ISPs built the networks, they could do with
them what they pleased. But many people don’t have access to more than
one home broadband provider–particularly in many of the rural districts
that Republicans represent. That limitation was not lost on Republicans
who broke rank.
“Consumers have little—if any—choice of internet service providers,
because government severely restricts competition,” representative Tom
McClintock (R-California) said in a statement. “As long as free choice
cannot protect the consumer, rules like this are necessary.”
The Great Polarization
Money would seem to be another obvious driver of partisanship, but in
the case of rescinding internet privacy protections, its influence
wasn’t necessarily decisive.
The telecommunications industry has more than doubled its lobbying
spending since 2000, and some of the resolution’s biggest backers, such
as representative Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee), have reportedly raked
in hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the
industry.
‘At the end of the day, it’s your data. I don’t see how it could be
anyone else’s.’ Warren Davidson (R-Ohio)
But telcos also heavily lobby the other side of the aisle. Congressional
Democrats received about $6 million in donations from the industry in
2016, according to the site Open Secrets, while Republicans received
$6.8 million. Many Democrats who voted against the measure received more
from the industry than some of the Republicans who voted for it.
Democrats may or may not have been more motivated by party politics than
principled opposition to the resolution. But if the vote came down to
lobbying dollars alone, it surely would have passed with overwhelming
bipartisan support.
If money can’t really explain the polarization on internet privacy, then
what?
Republicans traditionally recoil from government regulation—but the
FCC’s regulations carried a special taint: the agency passed them under
the Obama administration. President Obama, faced with an uncooperative
Congress, relied heavily on executive orders and federal agencies to
advance his agenda. Now that the GOP controls the White House and both
houses of Congress, it’s working quickly to dismantle as many Obama-era
rules as possible.
wired_president-barack-obama-on-fixing-government-with-technology.jpg
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Even distrust of red tape and the former president wasn’t enough to
convince Garret Graves (R-Louisiana) to vote for the resolution. “Think
how you would respond if you hired a plumber to fix your sink and you
later found him or her digging through your file cabinet, perusing your
checkbook or reviewing credit card statements,” he said in a statement.
“You would be appalled—and should be. To a large degree, that is what is
happening with our use of the internet.”
Of course shipping companies and plumbers have a strong market incentive
not to snoop through people’s stuff. No one would hire them if they had
a reputation for violating their customers’ privacy. But as long as
consumers have so few option when it comes to paying for internet
access, they’ll have little choice but to invite that nosey plumber in.
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