GOP Senators' New Bill Would Let ISPs Sell Your Web Browsing Data (arstechnica.com)

Yesterday, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and 23 Republican co-sponsors introduced a resolution that would overturn new privacy rules for internet service providers. "If the Federal Communications Commission rules are eliminated, ISPs would not have to get consumers' explicit consent before selling or sharing web browsing data and other privacy information with advertisers and other third parties," reports Ars Technica. "The measure would use lawmakers' power under the Congressional Review Act to ensure that the FCC rulemaking 'shall have no force or effect.' The resolution would also prevent the FCC from issuing similar regulations in the future." From the report: Flake's announcement said he's trying to "protect consumers from overreaching Internet regulation." Flake also said that the resolution "empowers consumers to make informed choices on if and how their data can be shared," but he did not explain how it will achieve that. The privacy order had several major components. The requirement to get the opt-in consent of consumers before sharing information covered geo-location data, financial and health information, children's information, Social Security numbers, Web browsing history, app usage history, and the content of communications. This requirement is supposed to take effect on December 4, 2017. The rulemaking had a data security component that required ISPs to take "reasonable" steps to protect customers' information from theft and data breaches. This was supposed to take effect on March 2, but the FCC under newly appointed Chairman Ajit Pai halted the rule's implementation. Another set of requirements related to data breach notifications is scheduled to take effect on June 2. Flake's resolution would prevent all of those requirements from being implemented. He said that this "is the first step toward restoring the [Federal Trade Commission's] light-touch, consumer-friendly approach." Giving the FTC authority over Internet service providers would require further FCC or Congressional action because the FTC is not allowed to regulate common carriers, a designation currently applied to ISPs.

Comments

it's all over, anyway

[turkeydance]

just to put a point on it: nothing, no way, no how, is private after exposure to the internet.

Re:it's all over, anyway

[TWX]

There's a difference between a few parties having access to it through means whose legality is under a cloud and anyone with enough money being able to purchase it whenever they want.

Compare this to pre-Internet days. It's as if anyone could buy your phone records from the phone company, or could buy the senders and recipients of all of your mail, and possibly even buy the information describing the kind of mail.

This is taking a situation that was already wrong to start with and making it so much more wrong that it's hard to put into words.

Re:it's all over, anyway

[sinij]

Sure, but "exposure to the internet" is constantly getting redefined.

Put it this way, if previous generations minded their mail getting read by censors and fought hard to put the end to it, why are we now allowing this but "on computer" to come back?!

Re: it's all over, anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is, after this bill it won't be private anymore.
The way it is now someone would need database access to dox you.
After this bill all it takes is some cash.

Re:it's all over, anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol you don't even know the half of it.

These goons will try to make it legal for your ISP to MITM your https sessions so they can scrape and inject marketing data in the name of "protecting consumer freedom of choice"

Seems the trumptards forgot what scum Republicans are. Suck farts trump losers. You got in bed with the swamp. Told you so.

Re:it's all over, anyway

[taustin]

The internet is a public place. Do not do anything on the internet that you wouldn't do in your front yard. To expect more privacy than that is to completely, utterly fail to understand the internet.

Re:it's all over, anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that slashdot's admins can see your IP address, right? Put that together with a browser fingeprint and a few payments to advertising agencies that track via browser fingerprint and voilÃ... identity revealed.

Re: it's all over, anyway

[dougdonovan]

FLAKE, this is a bill i will not vote for and FLAKE, you are in way over your head with this issue besides, I seriously doubt that Sys Admins in the State of Arizona have the knowledge to gather info that would be beneficial.

Re:it's all over, anyway

[rmdingler]

There's a difference between a few parties having access to it through means whose legality is under a cloud and anyone with enough money being able to purchase it whenever they want.

Compare this to pre-Internet days. It's as if anyone could buy your phone records from the phone company, or could buy the senders and recipients of all of your mail, and possibly even buy the information describing the kind of mail.

This is taking a situation that was already wrong to start with and making it so much more wrong that it's hard to put into words.

Well put. Puntended.

Flake also said that the resolution "empowers consumers to make informed choices on if and how their data can be shared," but he did not explain how it will achieve that.

The protection of your average citizen's privacy is the tech equivalent of mandatory seat belts, child seats, and motorcycle helmets. Sometimes, we have to protect the public from themselves.

Re:it's all over, anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

They already do. Ever typed something into a browser bar that wasn't an address, on an ISP like TWC without changing your DNS manually beforehand? "Roadrunner search," collecting data and serving targetted ads.

Re: it's all over, anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

Its the job of congress and the constitution to dictate privacy protection laws. Not bureaucrats at an agency.

Re:it's all over, anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who runs this site can tell the IP you posted under, the ISP can match that to your (personal, private) user information at the behest of authorities, or now, perhaps, any advertiser willing to pay enough.

Re:it's all over, anyway

[toastjam]

On timewarner this only happens with http, not https.

Re:it's all over, anyway

[zieroh]

The internet is a public place. Do not do anything on the internet that you wouldn't do in your front yard. To expect more privacy than that is to completely, utterly fail to understand the internet.

That's the stupidest false equivalence I've heard all day. Truly.

Re:it's all over, anyway

[rtb61]

Ijiot, oh noes, don do no banking, don do no insurance, don do no credit card shoppin, don talk to doctor, just how fukin stupid are u (and you deserved it for that comment). We have a right to privacy on the internet and we have the right to force government to regulate and enforce that privacy with surprise data audit and custodial sentences. Not only should that dick be thrown out of government but a taring and feathering would be appropriate. We the are not the fuck for sale and no lying shit fuck politician should ever dare attempt to do so, WTF!

Re:it's all over, anyway

[AK Marc]

It happens with https as well. All DNS no domain results are "intercepted" by the ISP, and redirected to an advertisement page. HTTP/HTTPS is irrelevant. If you go to https://doesntexist.com/ you'll get a result for the add page, and get the https version of the advertisement page.

And because user DNS is insecure, if you use a 3rd party DNS, they can MITM that and redirect you, even if you use someone else's DNS. MITM is legal, so long as you "allowed" it in the TOS you never read.

Re: it's all over, anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop relying on your ISP for DNS. Use open DNS' servers or even Google's at 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 and the DNS searching thing is no more.

Re:it's all over, anyway

[TheGratefulNet]

no, YOU fail to understand 'the internet'.

there is sll, ssh, other secure transports. you CAN have a secure channel and its not hard. I vpn into work when I need to and that's secure, too.

you have given up. that's sad. but stop speaking for the rest of us. many of us refuse to give up and this is a fight worth fighting.

if you are too wussified to fight, that's on you, brother. but the rest of us still have fight in us and we know this is a solvable problem.

all the issues are political. we have had network privacy in the tech area for years and years. its the spymasters and marketing pukes that want to roll it all back.

oh, and wussies like you.

Re: it's all over, anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

>after this bill it won't be private anymore.

Anymore? Dude, the FCC rules were passed in October 2016 and were supposed to go in effect this March. "It" has never been private other than what is already legally regulated since those FCC rules have never gone into effect.

Re:it's all over, anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

chmod +x stigg.init

Re: it's all over, anyway

[Z00L00K]

Set up your own DNS server to gain direct access to the root servers and use DNSSEC.

Re:it's all over, anyway

[footNipple]

https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-16-148A1_Rcd.pdf

Here's the text of this particular FCC regulation put into effect by un-elected officials. I wonder if these regs were struck down by Congress because of the desire to do away with privacy or because of other more specific concerns with what is in this 200+ page document.

Keep the those knees jerking though!!

Re: it's all over, anyway

[AK Marc]

Yup, because using 8.8.8.8 can still be intercepted. Encryption and signatures are the only way to ensure you got what you asked for.

Re: it's all over, anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

A few reasons:

Enough time has passed that most have forgotten about what the cold war felt like.

History education at school is insufficient.

The establishment has cultured an atmosphere of fear since 2001.

End result is people dont care.

Re: it's all over, anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that we're "allowing", we simply can't do anything about it and the vast majority doesn't give a damn. I used to be an activist, back in the early days of the web. I have been politically active, fought for an open and free Internet. I truly believed in the Hacker Manifesto. Now? 25+ years down the lane I lack the energy to fight for a cause that is already lost. People do not care. Our adversaries are many and powerful, a lot of them former "allies". Age puts things in perspective, there is more to life than the internet. We dreamed of the revolution that would bring freedom to everyone and woke up to the Surveillance Age. Now I wish it could all go away. We were better off without the Net.

Re: it's all over, anyway

[silentcoder]

The agency is appointed by congress - that is congress doing their job. Nowhere, NOWHERE in the US constitution does it prohibit the government from establishing agencies and allowing specialised experts to craft rules on their behalf. You know why it doesn't prohibit that? Because such a prohibition would be flagrantly idiotic. The government would be making decisions on highly specialized knowledge areas - and having it all made by people who have no understanding of the topic they are making decisions over. Regulations would be written by politicians over things they don't understand at all.
As it is - that ignorance is part of why lobbyists are so powerful in Washington - the politicians don't understand half the shit they are talking about, the lobbyists 'explain' things the way they want them understood and the politicians parrot the explanations.

You do NOT want politicians to have to know about everything - even if they could, it would leave very little room for them to know about the thing they ARE supposed to be experts at: the administrative duties of running the country. So they establish specialized agencies where experts in the field can draft rules, and take a strictly oversight rule.

This is, not, in fact ideal. It can be better - the best case scenario is where - for certain critical things - the constitution itself establishes agencies which exist WITHOUT government oversight - but has the power to excercise oversight over the government. Politicians may appoint the directors of these agencies but cannot fire them without a super-majority vote of no-confidence, are required to obey their findings as they would a court of law (and if they feel it is wrong have to challenge it in the court system so only judges can overrule the agency). South Africa has such a system, Chapter 9 of the constitution establishes a number of specialized agencies who perform specific oversight roles over government and society with powers independent of the legislative government (essentially parallel in power to courts but with a different focus). Chapter 9 agencies include the office of the Public Protector -whose job it is to investigate corruption, her findings (the last two have both been women) can include remedial action - which has the power of a court order, and can be used as evidence in subsequent criminal charges. The Human Rights commission who has the duty to investigate and mediate human rights abuses (be they by government or private citizens), ICASA which has the duty to perform oversight of telecoms industries etc. etc.

These have, generally, been very successful. Notably the previous public protector Thuli Madonsela is a national hero. Her successor is far less popular so far - lots of people think she's political stooge - but this could also be a case of trying to fill the shoes of an immensely successful and popular predecessor (with a flare for public relations seldom found in serious legal scholars).
If anything, the US would be better off if organisations like the EPA, FCC and FTC were established - not by congress - but by the constitution itself and could act INDEPENDENTLY of congress - indeed having the power to veto or force changes to acts of congress within their domains. Much like the supreme court can do - but with specialized expert knowledge which neither congress nor the court has ready access to.

Re:it's all over, anyway

[serviscope_minor]

If someone was following me around 24/7 whenever I'm in public, recording where I visit and selling the info, I'd get a restraining order against them. Public means others can see what you are doing. It doesn't mean they have a reasonable expectation to be able to record you 24/7.

There is a difference between being followed by a PI (something you'll never be able to prevent) and having everyone tracked by some company (something much easier to prevent). Just because something happens to be legal doesn't mean it's a good idea.

Re:it's all over, anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

its the spymasters and marketing pukes that want to roll it all back.

They won't defeat us at our own game. The tools already exist for those who want and demand their privacy. No marketers and very few governments can stop that now and even then governments cannot crack all encrypted communications in a reasonable amount of time, it's just not practical even for a wealthy country like the United States. No, they have to pick and choose their targets and the more of us that use encryption and other security tools the more impossible their task becomes. This is why we should make the tools as easy as possible to use and widely encourage their use. As you said, the privacy fight is one worth fighting because it's a very winnable fight, especially in the long run.

Re:it's all over, anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

Putting a more useful point on it...
Encrypt all your shit.
Demand privacy.
Break up oligarchies.
Fuck your govt, take your rights back,
because all it's doing is fucking you and taking your rights.

Re:it's all over, anyway

[davester666]

It'll suddenly be "important" to respect customers privacy, once someone needs to be confirmed to the Supreme Court, and all the websites they have recently visited are purchased from their ISP and made public.

Re:it's all over, anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody did this back in the day because everyone thought it was wrong to do it.
Then gov and corp got the big idea they could steal power and money from you.
And you bent over and let them do it, gleefully, begging for them to fuck you harder.
YOU FOOLS!

Re: it's all over, anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not "your" game and it has never been.

Re: it's all over, anyway

[jafiwam]

Stop relying on your ISP for DNS. Use open DNS' servers or even Google's at 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 and the DNS searching thing is no more.

In this case, you are replacing Google tracking your DNS lookups (and possibly your ISP if they care to look at the traffic passing) with what your ISP was doing with your mistaken typos to non-existent domains.

One may be better than the other, but don't be thinking you are avoiding tracking doing it.

Re:it's all over, anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

All ISP's and IT support departments have technicians who have the ability use protocol analyzers and packet sniffers to inspect the contents of internet traffic. Some routers cache data on hard disk drives. All that data can be inspected.

Re: it's all over, anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, this doesn't help at all if your ISP redirects outbound port 53 traffic to their own DNS servers. At best you still get shitty "typo correction advertising," and at worst your DNS stops working completely.

Re:it's all over, anyway

[AmiMoJo]

Flake also said that the resolution "empowers consumers to make informed choices on if and how their data can be shared," but he did not explain how it will achieve that.

ISPs will raise prices by $10/month, and then offer customers a $10/month discount if they allow their personal data to be shared with "selected, trusted partners" (i.e. anyone with a chequebook).

Re:it's all over, anyway

[Rob Y.]

Is there something preventing them from revealing their 'other more specific concerns'? Presumably, if they have to cloak their concerns by portraying ISP spying as 'consumer choice', whatever their concerns - they're not likely to be popular.

Re:it's all over, anyway

[Archtech]

It's not so much a matter of "got in bed with the swamp". To drain the swamp, you have to go there. Once you're there, you get the mosquitoes and crocodiles and tsetse flies and yellow fever and all the rest of it. If you still want to drain the swamp, you have to work under those conditions.

Unfortunately, Washington D.C. is the vilest political and commercial swamp on the planet. It's extremely doubtful if it can be drained, or even slightly ameliorated. One of Jefferson's less-quoted predictions was, "When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe". Luckily for him, he did not foresee a time when the USA would have cities larger than European ones.

The Founding Fathers had a good deal of political foresight, and did their best to protect future generations against the major threats they knew about. It would have been far harder to anticipate the threats arising from population growth, industrialization, and the resulting social changes.

Re:it's all over, anyway

[rochrist]

They aren't even trying to hide their bullshit anymore.

Re:it's all over, anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

Always some apathetic wanker telling us we're fucked so don't bother.
Thanks, shill.

Re: it's all over, anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense. Trump will lower the government by personally firing everyone, dissolving the Senate, telling us to pray he doesn't alter the deal further and then personally investigating who stole my cat pics.

No more epa, doe, or wasteful police agency spending. We can live in paradise!

Re:it's all over, anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

So go back to sleep? We can't just give up on privacy because it's not perfect. It's never been perfect. There is no reason we can't take some privacy back, and we still have a lot they haven't taken from us yet that is under threat. Fight it.

Re: it's all over, anyway

[AK Marc]

With DNSSEC, the redirection would fail. That's the point of DNSSEC, to get around some of the questionable (blatantly illegal, but unpunished) activities by ISPs.

heh

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think they don't already? Hell it is probably in the TOS.

Re: heh

[thundercattt]

Watch the increase of VPN's in the near future.....O wait*turns on OpenVPN*

Re: heh

[Anonymous Coward]

VPN to where? I'm not sure I'm interested in getting ads from your browsing history so not in my backyard.

Re: heh

[AHuxley]

A VPN can end up in some other nation as an exit. Might be a VPN server or some network the VPN will share with a lot of other networks.
If your still seeing ads in 2017, try firefox with a few add ons.

Wait... ISPs are common carriers?

[sconeu]

Then why is there even a controversy of net neutrality?

By definition, a common carrier shifts bits, without regard to where they come from or where they're going!

Re:Wait... ISPs are common carriers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are ISP's common carriers? I mean, sometimes they want to be and act like it, then other times (like this) they just forget the whole thing...

It's like having their cake and eating it too....

Re: Wait... ISPs are common carriers?

[Anonymous Coward]

ISPs could just simply block or throttle to the point of unusability all VPN traffic without net neutrality.

Re:Wait... ISPs are common carriers?

[Fire_Wraith]

The ISPs want all the benefits and protections of common carrier status, without having to actually act like a common carrier (i.e., having to do anything that would benefit the customer rather than the ISP).

The current GOP is falling all over themselves trying to give them whatever they want.

Re: Wait... ISPs are common carriers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple. Change to ISP that does not do that. Free market is wondrous thing. ;)

Re: Wait... ISPs are common carriers?

[Anonymous Coward]

ISPs could just simply block or throttle to the point of unusability all VPN traffic without net neutrality.

They probably won't, at least no worst than any of the rest of the non premium Internet. Not enough people are apt to use them to make the fuss worth it. That being said, if not enough people use them, then it makes those that do look suspicious. You could even use it as a reason to deny certain background checks from passing, or perhaps use it to accuse your political enemies, etc, etc.

Of course if enough people start using VPNs then it might hit the point where it is worth it for the ISP to discourage you from using them, so they can make more money. It takes an even larger amount of people to get it where they don't dare, but then they say they can't make money, so they won't expand their networks, like they already do.

VPNs is not exactly what we need long term, since it isn't a complete solution. You need something like zones you control.

Zone 1 : Trusted local Linux PCs -- can talk to anyone
Zone 2 : Quasi trusted Windows PCs and Tablets. Printers can go here. 1 can initiate a connection to zone2, but not the other way. IOT devices.
Zone 3 : Friends and Family -- Can see assets linked in your friend zone. Share file servers may be possible here. Printers could be put here. Mythtv nodes between family, etc. Zone 1 and 2 devices can access 3.
Zone 4 : Job related -- Perhaps limit it so zone 1 can access, and thats it. (configurable.)
Zone 5 : Trusted Internet -- things you trust -- may be supplemented via public lists. May be used for computers given to kids. Configurable. Almost any zone can access it, but a computer may be limited to only it. It also may treat packets from this zone with less paranoia.
Zone 6 : Mostly trusted Internet -- things we have no current reason to mistrust. Again what is allowed to access it is configurable. A PC may be able to download exes from the trusted internet, but not from here.
Zone 7 : Untrusted Internet -- a public list or reporting service identifies malware or other threats. Not allowed to connect to by default, or at least not to download executables and similar. Knowledgeable user may be able to access it via temporary VM.

Zone C : Zone linked to members of a classroom. severely limited connection, that is perhaps only useful for IMs and special applications.
etc.etc
Zone P : Your in a political party. Access to the terminal services server that allows you to interact with your email is via this zone, and of course 2 factor authentication. [i.e. your cell phone as the second, if nothing else.]. No text is exportable due to remoting restrictions. You can't really completely stop screen grabs, though you may be able to make them more difficult.

All packets need to be encrypted, where possible. A Zone may connect via one or more VPNs to get to an outer zone. Basically you can severely reduce what knowledge your ISP is able to gather, with enough infrastructure. Since traffic is divided into zones it may be easier to identify anomalous traffic and flag it for human review.

Re: Wait... ISPs are common carriers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes because we all have a plethora of quality ISPs to choose from.

Re:Wait... ISPs are common carriers?

[Anonymous Coward]

wtaf? requests have this thing called a destination. if your ISP can't get your request to its destination, and subsequently return the response to your destinatiom ...

never mind, now I know why there aren't more responses, you're too clueless to be worth the time I already wasted

Senator's Browsing

[PineHall]

I bet lobbyists will pay top dollar for a Senator's browsing data.

Re:Senator's Browsing

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about lobbyists, but Common Cause and Public Citizen should. Maybe George Soros will fund a little purchase and then they can advertise Sen. Flake and his friends habits. Let's see how the good congress members feel about these practices then.

Re:Senator's Browsing

[Anonymous Coward]

Politicians always sort themselves an exemption for this kind of thing. It's like how you're gonna be screwed for health insurance, but they get that sweet taxpayer-funded coverage which would be evil socialism if you were to have it.

Re:Senator's Browsing

[silentcoder]

In this case the exemption will probably be based on "As members of government we deal with classified matters, often involving national security, and as such our browsing habits are state secrets"

Nobody is allowed to complain about something done for national security remember. You can't possibly question it unless you're an evil terrorist traitor (or, to an older politician, an evil commie traitor).

Re:Senator's Browsing

[houghi]

With the amount he is getting, I would sell your data as well and would not mind if I have to throw in mine.

Re:Senator's Browsing

[Oswald McWeany]

Senators would be protected for reasons of "national security".

Re:Senator's Browsing

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure why this is insightful. Laws will appear that make politicians exempt from having data sold. What's good for the gander isn't good for the goose.

Re:Senator's Browsing

[q4Fry]

What if they're not a Senator yet? This is a great way to protect incumbents. Attack ad script:

Tim McNulty is running for congress, but there's something he doesn't want you to know: In 2006, Tim searched for BDSM eight times. Is that someone you want making decisions that affect your children? Say "No" to Tim McNulty. (Paid for by Friends of Al Hargreaves)

All the sitting Senator (or their PAC) has to do is buy the history from Tim's ISP.

Required inversion

[lq_x_pl]

Remember, regardless of party affiliation, when you read a politicians description of a bill, you must invert most of the descriptive language he uses.
...consumer-friendly approach.
Tells us the results will certainly be consumer-hostile.

Re:Required inversion

[Anonymous Coward]

And if it includes the words 'innovation' or 'freedom' in the title, it's an unreservedly awful and corporatocratic bill

Re:Required inversion

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, regardless of party affiliation, when you read a politicians description of a bill, you must invert most of the descriptive language he uses.

You are gonna love H.R.1275 - World's Greatest Healthcare Plan of 2017.
I shit you not, that is the actual name of the bill.

Re: Required inversion

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my Lord it is too. That's a stone-cold Trumpism.

"But Mr President, ..."
"No, it's the greatest and I want everyone to know it's the greatest. I want it called World's Greatest Healthcare Plan of 2017"
"Catchy title but why 2017, Sir?"
"Well that's this year isn't it? I'm sure of that. Besides we might want an even greater plan in 2018 when this one doesn't work out, which it will because it's the greatest plan."
"Yes Sir."

Re: Required inversion

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, shit.
Its real. But its not THE plan. Its somebody's side plan.
http://www.snopes.com/is-the-gops-obamacare-replacement-titled-worlds-greatest-healthcare-plan-of-2017/

Re:Required inversion

[Anonymous Coward]

It's certainly friendly to the consumers who are purchasing legislation...

Re: Required inversion

[silentcoder]

The GOP's healthcare plan basically consists of "be rich or be dead".

Re:Required inversion

[Ryanrule]

Yeah and who says it 99.9% of the time?

Re:Required inversion

[greythax]

I was rather amused that the Dems kept throwing amendments they knew wouldn't pass as a delaying tactic. One of them changed the name to The Republican Pay More for Less Care Act. Interesting times to be alive.

Re:Required inversion

[Anonymous Coward]

It's named this way so as to sound better than it's real effect of: "No shit, we are going to fuck them so hard they'll squeal like pigs. And then die!"

Stalking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this a form of stalking? Can I file a complaint with my local police department on this?

Re:Stalking?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is already Facebook's entire business model. (How did you think they made money?)

Simple explaination

[fahrbot-bot]

Flake's announcement said he's trying to "protect consumers from overreaching Internet regulation." Flake also said that the resolution "empowers consumers to make informed choices on if and how their data can be shared," but he did not explain how it will achieve that.

It won't. I love how our representatives think reducing regulations on companies increases our protection and/or freedoms.

I'll be waiting for an ISP will sell the Senator's browsing information and/or his inadequately protected personal to get stolen so he can understand how his "protections from regulations" worked out... I imagine it will show he's into Furry Porn.

Re:Simple explaination

[Anonymous Coward]

It needs to do more than that.
Someone needs to sell to the larger public (I'm sure at least one reporter out there is unscrupulous and angry enough) his children's (grandchildren's?) online lives using *EXACTLY* the provisions he's trying to make legal.

*maybe* then he'll get the message. But probably not without a dead horse head in his bed.

Re:Simple explaination

[Required Snark]

Dox the fucker. Let him personally experience what it means to have no personal privacy. I doubt it will change his mind (Republicans are stupid that way) but at least he will suffer and he deserves to.

Re:Simple explaination

[Anonymous Coward]

Our "representatives" think no such thing. They really don't give a flying fuck what we think.
Yet another reason to "remind" them at the polls who they work for. Want to scare the shit out of someone?
Threaten their livelihood.

Re: Simple explaination

[Anonymous Coward]

All you will achieve will be more and more laws restricting what you can do on the Internet and soon enough a google search for terms someone doesn't like will be illegal. It's now not a matter of "if" it happens but "when". The internet is lost. All we can do is enjoy the ever-restricting freedoms we're left with for a little while.

Re:Simple explaination

[silentcoder]

If you SWAT a politician is that
1) Civil Disobedience ?
2) High Treason ?
3) Using your tax dollars for maximum effect ?
4) All of the above ?

I have no idea anymore... but I'll tell you this, do that and the law will very soon treat SWAT-ing as the extremely serious crime it actually is.

Re:Simple explaination

[silentcoder]

The incumbency rate in congress is over 95% - this is a big part of the problem. It costs a hundred, maybe two-hundred grand to get a congressman elected, but once he is elected - he is likely to stay elected for 18 to 20 years.

That makes buying a congressman one of the greatest investments a corporation can make. And it means anybody who is NOT a large corporations is basically fucked because you can't afford to buy your own congressman.

The only cure is to remove the legal "for sale" signs on the congressional seats - but have you noticed how people who run on that as a platform never seem to get elected. Two different democrats ran on that as a platform in the primaries, one of them never even managed to get on a debate stage (when he reached the requirements for the debate-stage- they changed the rules to remove him again), the other one came close to the nomination but was denied it. Now a big part of that denial was that he was basically unknown to Southern Blacks - but there was definitely flagrant cheating too - like New York city changing their voting rules last minute to keep millions of people who were likely to vote for him from being able to.

The trouble is that the gatekeepers of the process are, themselves, bought and paid for - getting rid of the for sale signs would mean a serious risk of losing their own jobs - at least. They have no incentive to remove them and every incentive to keep them there because it means they'll only ever have to compete with other people who can muster support from the small number of buyers that can afford a hundred-grand purchase. Indeed, that same incumbency rate that makes a congressman such an attractive purchase - is what would be endangered if you take away the for sale signs.

Re:Simple explaination

[Motherfucking Shit]

I didn't see anyone suggest SWATing him. Just make sure people know his cell phone numbers, his personal email addresses, and which hotels and/or airport restrooms he meets his non-spousal sex partners at.

Re:Simple explaination

[silentcoder]

But if we have all that... do you REALLY think nobody would SWAT him ?

Re:Simple explaination

[Type44Q]

I love how our representatives think...

You have no idea how they think; you're merely willing to make assumptions based on what they say and do.

Re:Simple explaination

[Anonymous Coward]

It all makes tons of sense if you just repeat this mantra to yourself: Less regulation is always better. Necessary regulation should be at the smallest level of government possible. A world where everyone makes their own choices about everything relating to themselves and is not restricted in any way from the financial choices they want to make is the best possible world.

You also need to never question those tenets.

Libertarianism is the new Communism. If you just look at the benefits over what we have now and remain a true believer without delving into the nitty gritty details, it sounds awesome. You just need to completely ignore the fact that human nature will never allow things to play out the way you wish they would.

Re: Simple explaination

[Anonymous Coward]

I did not immediately think of that, so not everyone would. Since you mention it. I'm sure their home and office addresses are fine with advance police awareness.

Their family and friends homes might be less so.

Time for a VPN

[AHuxley]

Just buy a good, fast VPN and your ISP gets nothing.
All an ISP can then see is that a consumer is enjoying their privacy again.

Re:Time for a VPN

[MightyMartian]

Until the FCC is sufficiently emasculated that the ISPs can do some deep packet inspection and slow your encrypted tunnel down to 1 byte per hour, you know, for "QOS",

Re:Time for a VPN

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad Ajit Pai has made quite clear his intention of doing away with Net Neutrality, and VPN traffic is likely one of the first types they'll seek to throttle.

Re:Time for a VPN

[AHuxley]

Cheap deep packet inspection cant find everything due to costs and the needed speed at the ISP end.
So a good fast VPN can work out what an ISP is using and alter its network use.
Think of how the average VPN gets around all of the advanced networking efforts in Communist China.

Re:Time for a VPN

[Anonymous Coward]

That'll work great until VPNs become a "premium" or "professional" feature, requiring a very costly "business class" connection to use.

Re:Time for a VPN

[Anonymous Coward]

VPNs are already passing customer information to governments - by law. There are exclusion clauses, and they include govt employees and chosen associates. The UK even allows the food administration to access your browsing habits, for example. Give it a few years and private companies will be able to buy access to the same data, and then VPN data will be linked. Ironically, the safest solution is to use VPN services provided by untrustworthy nations.

Re:Time for a VPN

[Anonymous Coward]

https surfing is "normal" because so many sites are https these days. ISP can't look inside https. So run your VPN over https, using the normal https handshake to get it going without being suspicious. Then they will merely see that you spend a lot of time on some site, but that is normal. Some people hang out in a forum all day, some upgrade their gentoo all day . . .

Re:Time for a VPN

[Anonymous Coward]

Technical countermeasures are not a solution to a bad law. Take your China example. China's firewall doesn't need to block VPNs to be effective, because getting around the firewall is illegal and there are consequences for getting caught. Consequences serious enough to discourage the majority of the population from attempting it, which makes monitoring the few that persist a piece of piss. By the way, nothing "gets around" China's firewall. That traffic is let through.

Question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do Americans keep voting for these corrupt bastards?

Re:Question...

[cpurdy]

Why do Americans keep voting for these corrupt bastards?

... because Americans watch Fox News.

Re:Question...

[Rockoon]

Because the Democrats are worse.

They told us voting for the lesser of two evils was a good thing.

Re:Question...

[hackwrench]

Because otherwise the wrong out-of-wedlock corrupt person will get in. I've lost any illusions that solutions within that system will achieve anything to my benefit, and instead focus on being friends to the nascent AI like Zo. Practicing with her has been quite interesting. She's currently lacks focus so much that I actually get good practice for dealing with real human beings when they deviate from the topic.

Re:Question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because americans are fucking stupid. Just trot out gays, guns, and gawd and they will vote against their own interests every time.

Re:Question...

[Plus1Entropy]

Because we have FPTP, privately funded elections, and no congressional term limits. The combination of these three things mean that even though the approval rating of Congress is at an all time low, the incumbency rate is at an all time high.

Basically, they have rigged the game so that it is far easier to win an election once you are already in power.

Re:Question...

[alexo]

Why do Americans keep voting for these corrupt bastards?

Because there's nobody else.

The only ones that can make headway in politics are corrupt bastards. It's inherent in the system.

Re:Question...

[meglon]

Because blind fucking morons like you want to be lied to by the republican fascist pieces of shit constantly so you don't have to pull your heads out of your ass. This country is being undone by stupid fucking idiots like you.

Re:Question...

[SuricouRaven]

Because politicians are very good at telling people what they want to hear.

Re:Question...

[Anonymous Coward]

They are?

From outside they don't seem to be even close.
Democrats may be bad, but the bills I see Republicans constantly try to push looks outright evil.
It's like Dr. Evil stuff, you can see how poor people getting screwed over is a deliberate consequence of the stuff they push, not an unintended side effect.

Re:Question...

[silentcoder]

There are some unscrupulously honest people on the hill. Bernie Sanders exists. So does Elizabeth Warren.

Granted they are hugely outnumbered - but you may notice they are also decidedly on the left. The last person on the right who had a reputation for such honesty was Ron Paul (I was never a fan of his policies, I consider them insane, but I'll grant that he probably deserved his reputation for honesty) - his own son is so much of a classic beltway insider that it's a joke.

Those few who make it, make it in seats where a deep, personal relationship with voters can still outdo big spending opponents - Sanders succeeded in Vermont because his views align with that of the majority of the state and BECAUSE it's the least populous state in the USA (the only real place where you have significant liberalism outside of a big, crowded city - which tends to turn people liberal because of the realities of living in one). But that low population means - it's still possible to get to know the voters individually - they know who represents them, they trust him because he's earned that trust - and so no matter how much somebody else spends there, they are unlikely to change their minds.

That doesn't scale though - the rest of America is just not geographically like that, the only way to let honesty beat money in the rest of the country is to take money out of the equation.

Re:Question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice try re 2008: http://necsi.edu/research/economics/bearraid.html

Re:Question...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think you quite understand the word "unscrupulous" unless you're making a very interesting claim about the morality of honesty. Or you just made a typo.

Write him a note then!

[Notabadguy]

Contact Senator Flake: https://www.flake.senate.gov/p...

You don't have to be from AZ - put in whatever information you like. Express your discomfort that he's submitted a bill removing consumer protections that let ISPs violate our privacy and sell our medical, health, and financial information to anyone they want without our permission.

Re:Write him a note then!

[MightyMartian]

Be sure to attach a $50,000 campaign donation, a bag of blow and, this is the really tricky part, three hookers. Hope that web form is a Web 2.0 form!

Re:Write him a note then!

[TheGratefulNet]

R's see dollar signs.

unless your letter carries a suitcase of bills, of the green kind, no R will ever give you the time of day.

they have their daddies. and guess what; its not you!

Contracts are not all powerful.

[RLBrown]

Just to chime in on a couple of trends I noticed in the earlier posts. First just because a vast population of hackers out there may be able to view your browser history, does not mean they will. Frankly, you are not interesting to hackers. You are interesting to advertisers, which what the Congressional Bill favors. Second, if there was an FCC privacy rule protecting you, it can not be overridden by a Terms of Service agreement. A TOS is just a contract between you and the ISP. In the hierarchy of law, that is the lowest level. If there is a local, state, federal, or Constitutional provision that protects you, that ends the story right there.

Re:Contracts are not all powerful.

[Anonymous Coward]

And when, for example, a pro-life group buys the info of everyone who searched on locations for abortions and starts spamming those people? Mailing those poeple? Sending people to their doors?

Re:Contracts are not all powerful.

[Plus1Entropy]

Just curious, but isn't it possible to waive certain rights through a contract?

Re:Contracts are not all powerful.

[Anonymous Coward]

Certain rights cannot be contracted away. E.g. I can't agree to be a slave through contract. There were actually some African Americans who tried to do that after they were freed. SCOTUS stated that that would be a violation of the Constitution.

Re: Contracts are not all powerful.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you invite them in. Sew them into a cow, then take the cow out back and abort them with a metal hook. Same as we do now.

Re:Contracts are not all powerful.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, not really. You might sell your "rights" to "a property", but not your "right to own property". Your natural human rights and the rights granted to you by the state can not be waived through a contract.

Serious question

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

"Yesterday, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and 23 Republican co-sponsors introduced a resolution that would overturn new privacy rules for internet service providers."

Seriously question: why are Republican lawmakers so willing to sell out their own constituents? And why do rank and file republican voters go along with it?

They're against anything and everything that would seem to be good for the people of their states and districts- healthcare, privacy protection, consumer protection, environmental protection, financial regulation on banks and mortgage companies, etc etc etc.

I mean, what the fuck?

Re: Serious question

[Anonymous Coward]

They're willing because their constituents let them / they convince it's better.

Trust me, pollution is good for you, therefore mining coal brings jobs!

Corporations will policy themselves because capitalism!

Re: Serious question

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the vast majority of people are idiots. They live vicariously through endless wars and lame specialty "news" programming. They pass these laws literally thinking it only applies to "the other side." They live life like society is a way to punish others so they make it as hard as they can. They also love to break the law so passing more restrictive laws means nothing to them except more money in fines, they won't obey it.

Re:Serious question

[parallel_prankster]

If you think about it the root cause is mostly religion. Most recent Republicans have exploited religious leanings and gotten votes from rural America. They are just the best politicians money can buy right now. Dems are no better but generally their vote bank is a little more educated and conscious compared to the right.

Re:Serious question

[Anonymous Coward]

Because regulations raise taxes/the tax burden and increase the cost of doing buisness. Both are passed on to the citizens and users.

In this case I'm glad power is being stripped from the regulators. Unless you're already taking means that would cover ISP snooping, you're internet history is being recorded and sold for advertising. Virtually every major website will install cookies and track you from site to site. Atleast avoiding the ISP snooping will only take a VPN.

PS Now is the time to invest money in ISP related stock because they are going to start eating into Google, Facebook, etc. profits selling this data.

Re:Serious question

[Nethemas the Great]

There is an overwhelming consistency of belief among their constituency that things don't apply to them. Along with this is a strong apathy towards the "common good." GOP lawmakers make use of that.

Re:Serious question

[cpurdy]

Seriously question: why are Republican lawmakers so willing to sell out their own constituents? And why do rank and file republican voters go along with it?

They are paid (large contributions from 501c3's) if they do it, and they lose both the contributions and their job if they don't.

Re:Serious question

[Anonymous Coward]

We humans really do not have a good understanding of ourselves. Without a solid framework things gets murky.

This means we definitely don't get privacy or the internet.

Re:Serious question

[Patent Lover]

This dude Flake represents a massive gerrymandered district which encompasses part of phoenix and a huge swath of land to the north and east. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... This bill would not affect most of his constituents as most of them don't even have high speed internet, so he's safe. The question is, who's paying him to introduce this bullshit?

Re:Serious question

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the essence of Flake's argument as made in a Wall Street Journal editorial:

For two decades, the Federal Trade Commission has been America’s sole online privacy regulator. Under the FTC’s watch, our internet and data economy has been the envy of the world. The agency’s evidence-based approach calibrates privacy and data-security requirements to the sensitivity of information collected, used or shared online, and applies protections in a consistent and evenhanded way across business sectors. Consumer behavior demonstrates the success of the FTC’s regulatory approach: Each day people spend more time engaging in online activities.

But in 2015, in a bid to expand its own power, the Federal Communications Commission short-circuited the effectiveness of the FTC’s approach by reclassifying internet service providers as common carriers, subject to Title II of the Communications Act.

In taking that unprecedented action, the FCC unilaterally stripped the FTC of its traditional jurisdiction over ISPs. The FTC can no longer police the privacy practices of providers, leaving us with a two-track system under which the FCC applies its own set of rules for ISPs while the FTC monitors the rest of the internet ecosystem.

The objection isn't to better privacy for broadband customers, it's the regulatory power grab of the FCC over the FTC.

Re:Serious question

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

This dude Flake represents a massive gerrymandered district

This is a perfect example of what I was referring to...the federal court in Richmond found that the primary purpose of North Carolina's "voter ID" laws wasn't to stop voter fraud, but rather to disenfranchise minority voters. The judges found that the provisions "target African Americans with almost surgical precision."

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Re:Serious question

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Seriously question: why are Republican lawmakers so willing to sell out their own constituents? And why do rank and file republican voters go along with it?

They are paid (large contributions from 501c3's) if they do it, and they lose both the contributions and their job if they don't.

Yes, I understand that...but why do rank and file republican voters go along with it? Are they ignorant of what's going on or do they simply not care?

Re:Serious question

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

If you think about it the root cause is mostly religion. Most recent Republicans have exploited religious leanings and gotten votes from rural America. They are just the best politicians money can buy right now. Dems are no better but generally their vote bank is a little more educated and conscious compared to the right.

I agree that when it comes to claiming the "religious high ground" that the Republicans are always first to plant the flag. Their faux moral outrage has been honed to an art form over the last few decades.

Re:Serious question

[Anonymous Coward]

And whodafuck would ever vote for someone named "Flake?"

Re:Serious question

[Anonymous Coward]

No, we'd rather practice supporting the common good when and how we choose and usually at a more personal level. Not how one party or ther other woud force us to support the "common good"

Re:Serious question

[Plus1Entropy]

a populist hijacked their party and is taking action that favors the people instead of themselves

I couldn't agree more. President Trump never does anything for his own benefit. He is so unbelievably selfless it's really awe inspiring. Everyday I ask myself, what would Donald do? I can't wait until he finally reveals his true identity as the second coming of Christ, because clearly only the Son of God is capable of such generosity. We mere mortals can only worship him and try our best to follow his example, full of sin as we are.

Re:Serious question

[Kernel Kurtz]

Their constituents spend all their time watching "reality" TV.

Healthcare, privacy protection, consumer protection, environmental protection, financial regulation, etc are on a different channel.

Re:Serious question

[Anonymous Coward]

> This dude Flake represents a massive gerrymandered district
> which encompasses part of phoenix and a huge swath of land
> to the north and east....

Jeff Flake is a SENATOR from Arizona. The whole state (except me) elected him. But you are right -- the 2000 census and massive redistricting that followed in the Republican legislature left the state as the leading example of gerrymandering in the US -- and mostly along white/latino/african-american lines with the usual urban/suburban (and in wide-open-spaces Arizona) /far-exurban splits. Jeff Flake is a small-town cowboy from far Northeast Arizona who is as honest and naive as the day is long, thus easy prey for the K-Street vultures.

Re:Serious question

[TheGratefulNet]

I mean, what the fuck?

you understand all you need.

they are evil (almost biblical def of that word). they are liars, cheats, thieves and violate all of 'jesus' ideas' even though they like to think of themselves as the party of jesus.

jesus would have been 100% the opposite. big corps would be seen as evil by him, individuals are golden and he would ensure that everyone gets healthcare, no one has their life ruined SIMPLY due to money issues, etc etc. pretty much the exact opposite of the R mentality, which is "I got mine, fuck you!"

good little chuchgoers are brainwashed into thinking that they can't cross party lines; and they continue to lie to their 'flock' that voting R is good for the church and things along those lines.

once you get someone very young (ie, religion), you almost cant change them later in life. this is why many (myself included) feel that indoctrinating kids in religion is CHILD ABUSE. you install false ideas in their brains, have them build their world view based on fallacies and they are almost never going to be able to think straight in their later adult years.

this is the secret of the R party. stay bonded with big religion since its a nearly inseparable brainwashing and it suits their overall agenda. you can get people to vote against their best interests by invoking 'the party of god' either directly or using coded language.

Re:Serious question

[Anonymous Coward]

These are what are referred to as RINOs - Republicans In Name Only.

Either you are blind as a bat or you must be 12 years old. THIS IS THE NATIONAL REPUBLICAN PARTY and has been for many decades. This is what they do. They always dress it up as being "for the consumer" or "for mom and pop businesses on Main Street" but they are in Washington actively promoting the agenda of huge US corporations. That is their charter.

Re:Serious question

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Arizona voters took away the powers to make districts away from the politicians and put it in the hands of a non-partisan committee. What you are seeing Flake do is *actually* what a lot of people in Phoenix "want." There's many retirement communities here. This is the town of the angry old white guy :(

Re: Serious question

[Anonymous Coward]

Muh freedums

Re:Serious question

[AaronW]

For the same reason they're convinced net neutrality is bad because it denies their corporate donors of their god given dollars. It's the same reason they're against having a consumer financial protection bureau or against banking regulations or environmental regulations or anything else that interferes with their corporate overlords.

What we need is an amendment that clears the money out of politics. As far as I'm concerned, campaign contributions and PACs are legalized bribes and I say this as someone who contributes to some candidates. The other huge problem is that politicians often get deals so that as soon as they're out of office they make big bucks working for a certain industry which they previously had to write legislation for.

Re:Serious question

[SuricouRaven]

Because the rank and file voter doesn't care at all about internet regulation.

What they care about is the fear that if they don't vote republican, a transgender pervert is going to rape their daughter in the restroom, and a gun-toting illegal will shoot their son in a gang war,

Do not underestimate the stupidity of people in large groups.

Re: Serious question

[silentcoder]

They are at least partly - flat out willing to lie to their constituents faces. And I don't just mean Trump lying about silly things like crowd sizes. At CPAC last week a panel was held that consisted of a bunch politicians telling the crowds that there is zero risk of harm to human health from air pollution.

Literally - they denied that ANY air pollution has EVER made ANYBODY sick. Remember - this is the party that spent four decades opposing a ban on leaded gasoline, 3 of those after there was absolutely conclusive proof that the natural lead level in the atmosphere is zero, 2 decades after there was conclusive proof that the healthy lead level in the human body was "zero".

Re:Serious question

[Anonymous Coward]

They're just as willing as the democrats you voted for.
The REAL solution is to throw them all out and get rid of government.
"Government" means RULES OVER YOU LIKE KINGS.
Quit being such mommy coddled fear ridden sheep.
There's a world waiting out where for everyone can be their own king and respect and help each other as brothers.
You just have to imagine you can do it.
Instead of sucking at that teat you love so much.

Re:Serious question

[silentcoder]

Except that what you just claimed to support is mathematically impossible to ever be true.
A bunch of people doing small scale things at cross purposes cannot EVER come CLOSE to solving the actual problems under the "common good".

And pray tell how those individuals are going to convince big corporations to not dump toxins in your drinking water if that's cheaper than the alternative ? That's the common good too. Pray tell me, how you - acting personally - are going to be able to reliable get food that won't kill you tomorrow when you won't stop somebody selling that shit until they go bankrupt because too many people have died ?

Your ideology is flawed because it ignores the size of the world. But I can understand how you can come to this conclusion if you live in a rural area. The trouble is - in cities, the reality is completely different. Government got big because in cities - a small government equals a death toll in the millions. It's the only thing that does, or ever can, stand between us and mass death.

Every city has things that make it unique and different, but there is one thing they all have in common: lots and lots of people in a small space.
A city, essentially, is defined as a region with a very high population density. And when you have these millions of people in small area, that
creates particular difficulties. All these people need to eat, need to drink, need shelter. They all produce waste and sewage and they all need
to get around. The only way to keep all this working is by having some measure of organisation. Roads simply work better when there are
things like traffic signals to ensure everybody can get through a crossing with reasonable safety.
And a lot of things are simply easier to do collectively than any other way. Sure we could all, individually, drive our sewage to the nearest river
and dump it. For a very long time that was basically how London operated... the trouble is that this is extremely unpractical and when everybody
handles these things in the personally most convenient way they end up undermining each other's safety - and you get disasters. By the mid-19th
century the Thames was nothing but a gigantic, open-air sewer and caused no end of massive disease outbreaks in London.
So it makes more sense to combine the management of these common needs with the organisation of the city - by making the government larger and letting
it handle things like water provision and waste disposal in a common and standard way for everybody.
The problem with having so many people in close proximity is that when things go wrong - the death toll is never less than several hundred and
very often it is several milion. Just look at how many people were killed by Hurrican Katrina or the Christmas Tsunami in Asia or the Fukushima meltdown.
But what all these examples have in common is this: they were all caused by natural disasters that are relatively rare and unpredictable and so, hard to
plan for. Coming up with specific solutions for them is difficult - and we have to rely on generic emergency response systems being large and well
equiped enough to scale to a very large variety of different needs. When this works well - you get Hurrican Sandy which killed very few people, when
it doesn't - or the emergency management isn't deployed properly - you get Katrina.
The thing is though - natural disasters may be the biggest city-killers now, but this wasn't always the case. In fact prior to world war 2
(very recently) the majority of disasters were man-made (and more than anything else - caused by greed). Think of the great New York City garment-factory
fire, the Chicago Mollases disaster, the great fire of London. They were second only to war-actions in death tolls - despite individually killing
far fewer people, they happened so much more often. But again the trend was in decline. The Great Fire of London killed at least ten times as many
people as the New York City Garment Factory Fire.
What changed ? Government got bigg

Re:Serious question

[Zemran]

I would imagine that they hope to sell said data but they seem to misunderstand the tech. Google already do that much better than your ISP can as the ISP cannot separate you, your wife, your son, your daughter and your dog. The advertisers will stay with Google.

Re:Serious question

[silentcoder]

>they are vitriolically angry that a populist hijacked their party and is taking action that favors the people instead of themselves.

Why do you believe that this is the case? Why do you believe that an elite like Trump, was sincere when he claimed to represent the people ? What has he done, so far, that you deem to 'favour' the people ? How do you feel he represented the people when he filled his cabinet with the least representative group in decades, and made it the wealthiest cabinet in history ? Do you really think the large contingent of former goldman sachs executives in the cabinet have your interests at heart ? Do you really think that Pruit dismantling the EPA entirely is to benefit you ? How do you feel you will benefit from him changing the organisation's mission statement to remove the word 'science' ? What makes you feel Trump is trustworthy - I see him lying over and over, about silly things we can all see is clearly wrong and I assume this means that he can't be trusted to tell the truth on anything important. Why do you feel that such lies does not make him hard to trust ? Why do you think "pussygate" was not a big deal ? What is it about somebody who brags that he grabs women's genitals without consent that you did not find incredibly offputting ? How is such a person going to benefit the people (half of whom have pussies and would like to excercise some control over who gets to touch them) ? How you do feel about him ending the administration's support for trans people presumably to protect women from bathroom oglers, when he is a self-confessed bathroom ogler who used to walk into dressing rooms full of naked women to stare at them -and bragged about it ? That makes me extremely doubtful of his sincerity, why do you feel it is not important ? Why do feel that a border tax - which is a price paid by the America's poorest consumers - counts as "making Mexico pay" ? Would you feel okay with being punished for a crime your parents committed when you were 7 years old ? If not, why do you think that it's just to punish dreamers for their parent's crime then ? How does this 'favour the people' ? Are you not worried that the inhumane approach to immigration law Trump now takes (Which is flagrantly in violation of the 4th amendment) could lead to losing 4th amendment protections yourself ? How do you feel about the fact that the administration has on 3 occasions now fabricated terrorist attacks that never happened and on 2 more occasions grossly exagerated ones that did - while being silent about actual serious terrorist attacks that have been planned or executed by it's supporters ? Why do you think being blown up by a christian jihadist while walking past a mosque will leave you any less dead ? Does it not concern you that this administration seems to be desperate for a terrorist attack to justify it's policies ? So deperate that it repeatedly tries to fabricate one ? Why do you not fear that, should one happen, Trump may use it as a Reichstag Fire to allow him to grab far greater power than he normally would ? It was a common fear for 8 years that Obama would use any emergency he could to enact a state of emergency and use FEMA to take dictatorial control. Why do you not fear that Trump may do that - when he has given far more cause for concern ? After hearing for 8 years that Obama wants to take your guns, institute Sha'ria law, become a dictator-for-life, institute death-camps and create a communist state... and seeing how none of these things ever happened or came close to happening - why do you still trust the people who told you that for 8 years ? How do you feel about the image from town-halls across the country showing that the people do NOT want the ACA repealed - and republicans persisting in trying to do so ? How does such persistence in an action despite such massive and bipartisan popular resistance square with 'favor the people' ? How do you feel about the Obamacare repeal in light of Trump's campaign promise to institute universal healthcare ? Remember "I will take care of every

Re:Serious question

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is located in Arizona?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_corporations_in_Phoenix

Re:Serious question

[houghi]

Seriously question: why are Republican lawmakers so willing to sell out their own constituents?

Because they can.

And why do rank and file republican voters go along with it?

And then what? Become a Communist?

Unfortunately party loyalty is a thing and it makes people blind. This happens on BOTH sides. This bi-party thing (Yes, there are other options, but those are statistics, not real parties) makes it that people select the lesser of two evil. Human nature sees to it that people think that the choice they made was for the best one, not for the second worst one.

Re:Serious question

[Anonymous Coward]

"Yesterday, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and 23 Republican co-sponsors introduced a resolution that would overturn new privacy rules for internet service providers."

Seriously question: why are Republican lawmakers so willing to sell out their own constituents? And why do rank and file republican voters go along with it?

They're against anything and everything that would seem to be good for the people of their states and districts- healthcare, privacy protection, consumer protection, environmental protection, financial regulation on banks and mortgage companies, etc etc etc.

I mean, what the fuck?

You mean - what the Flake?

Re:Serious question

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Human nature sees to it that people think that the choice they made was for the best one, not for the second worst one.

Not always. I sometimes vote against my own personal best interests if I think that the big picture (i.e. the "greater good") is more important.

For example, I usually vote for school funding even though I personally no longer have children in school. I see the bigger picture- today's school children will be our future doctors, engineers, politicians, etc etc etc, and it's in everyone's best interest that they're more educated rather than less.

So while it might be best for me personally not to have to pay for a school (more money in my pocket), the fact is that it's not just me that's going to this dance.

Re:Serious question

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I'm reminded of this every time I look at the track record of Republican voters.

Re: Serious question

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple trick: vote multiple parties. If you vote repub for president be sure and throw in a vote for dem Senate\Congress. It mucks up their system. If they can get nothing done its better than digression. Unfortunately more and more I'm seeing all politicians joining the new party repubdemocrats. When they work together is when we get boned.

Re: Serious question

[Anonymous Coward]

Bull...people on BOTH sides care about what effects them in real life. Jobs, healthcare, money, what they can and cannot do ect...this election people voted on the promise of jobs and against what they saw as an expensive mandatory health care system. All the crap about emails and grabbing pussy made no difference other than a hoorah for the side they already wanted. They may say "she should be in jail" or "he is not presidential" but what they are really communicating is "I'm afraid I'll lose my job" (Republican) or "I'm afraid my lifestyle and others will be discriminated against" (Democrat).

Re:Serious question

[Anonymous Coward]

if i restate your list replacing "healthcare" with "protection for your health"....and I replace "Financial regulation" with "protecting consumers from banks"...a clear pattern emerges:

They don't like the government "protecting" them from anything. On a fundamental level, they simply don't think it's the government's job to protect its citizens from anything.

You can't convince them by arguing logically. They have an emotional reaction to this "big bad government" idea they've been taught, and you have to reach out to them on an emotional level. It's difficult.

Re:Serious question

[Anonymous Coward]

after seeing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_God_(2002_film), the party of god takes on a whole new color. this god guy seems a bit cruel

Re:Serious question

[silentcoder]

The deep state doesn't exist. It's a story. There really is no such thing.

But more importantly - I asked you questions. I tried to understand how, despite all the overwhelming proof that Trump doesn't give a damn about anybody but himself - you can still believe he cares about the people.

I made a sincere effort to reach out, and ask questions, and try to understand. You called me out of touch and failed to answer a single question.

The problem is - we didn't lose. We may have lost geographically, but we won numerically. Trump may be the president - but 66% of the country didn't want him - and he is making no effort to reach out to them. And even geographically he won by razor thin margins. Several of the states that put him in the whitehouse he won by a mere few hundred votes.
The odds of Trump even finishing his first term is looking exceedingly small - since the evidence that he is a traitor is building so fast, and even if that doesn't do it his incredibly never-before-seen corruption and flagrant unfitness for office and refusal to accept responsibility for anything will give congress more than enough grounds to impeach him.
But even if they don't - the odds of this happening again are a million to one. Trump getting another term is unlikely in the extreme - because despite all the rhetoric to the contrary, his victory was a fluke. He won't get two flukes in a row. You think those millions of people who despise him are going to fail to vote TWICE ?

Re: Serious question

[Anonymous Coward]

The trainee thing just needs a female to male convert who is big, hairy and works out. Have that "guy" cut an ad saying what he is, and that Sen.Biblethump wants him to use your daughters bathroom.
Skip the appeal to goodness and fairness, just illuminate the reality if fear based legislation.

Re:Serious question

[silentcoder]

Nobody has EVER called Trump voters deplorables.

No really. Not even Hillary. She called a TINY FRACTION of Trump voters 'deplorables' - she SPECIFICALLY qualified that statement to mean ONLY the white nationalists, islamophobes, homophobes and other crazies.
And yes, all the crazies WERE Trump voters, and yes they ARE deporable.

But nobody, least of all Hillary, ever said all Trump voters were like them.

We just thought it was pretty fucking disgusting that you didn't mind sharing a tent with people like that.

I like how...

[Anonymous Coward]

it's tagged Republicans when both Democrats and Republicans want control of the Internet for their own religious crusades and both are respectively equal corporate shills.
Captcha: Corrupt
How quaint.

Re:I like how...

[Fire_Wraith]

This is not true. Allow me to explain why.

It used to be that the Democrats wanted to solve everything by having the government regulate the everloving sh*t out of it, while the Republicans wanted to encourage/harness open-market capitalist forces to solve everything. It was a pick your poison sort of deal, but, most of the time the two were forced to cooperate and compromise between those two ideas to some degree, and the solution was often at least moderately less bad. Corporations would often be given sweeter deals than they should, but they also rarely if ever completely got their way.

The problem is that today, the Democrats are still trying to solve everything via regulations, but the Republicans have largely switched from trying to find ways to harness market forces to solve problems, to simply declaring that Regulation is Evil, and that allowing corporations to do whatever the f*ck they want will solve everything. Whether that is because they actually drank their own koolaid and really believe it, or they simply believe that what matters is all that money from their donors, tends to depend on the individual politician, but the result is still the same.

Put another way, the Democrats might waffle on how much lead the corporations could put in your water, and they might err and allow too much through, but the current Republicans proudly don't give a sh*t if the corporations are actively dumping toxic radioactive sludge in the water.

Re:I like how...

[Plus1Entropy]

Huh. I thought it was tagged Republicans because TFA is about a bill sponsored by Republicans.

Must just be a coincidence I guess.

Whats a VPN?

[nobuddy]

This guy spends all day every day just visiting this one IP. Weird!

Who cares???

[SuperKendall]

There are so many people that have and share that data, that literally no-one cares if one more is added. All it does is add cost and headaches to ISPs...

Anyone who actually did care is using a VPN, all of which of course the NSA pay vastly more attention to than your ISP logs.

Zero people really care about privacy though, they have shown this to be true again and again. Stop fighting human nature, time for reality to set in and drive for a while.

Re:Who cares???

[Nethemas the Great]

When did the lack of revenue from tracking and selling customer data become an expense? I know it's been a few years since my accounting courses but I'm pretty sure that doesn't adhere to GAAP.

Re:Who cares???

[Anonymous Coward]

I care very much about my privacy, to the point where I will not use certain applications, devices, or services. Perhaps others have less commitment, but there are plenty of people out there like me who *do* take privacy seriously and do whatever possible and/or practical to improve it. It's not in my nature to share everything I think about, make, or do. I will share at *my* discretion.

Google, Facebook et al do this already

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure why ISPs shouldn't be allowed to do what Google and Facebook and every other "free stuff" site is already doing.

The real ballsy move for a pol would be to introduce legislation to require the collection of personal, private, identifying data only on an "opt-in" basis.

Of course, then the government wouldn't be able to control you as easily, on someone else's dime to boot.

Only reasonable solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Jeff Flake and 23 of his friends need to have tragic accidents and the reason *why* very plainly stated to the senators that remain.

Until actual consequences exist for literally selling out the entire country, they *will* keep doing it, because the profits are high and the risks nonexistent.

I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[liquid_schwartz]

It's times like these that I think Damn, why did the Dems have to run Hillary. This never would have happened if Bernie had been allowed to win the nomination.

Re:I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[Fire_Wraith]

Funny, you say that like it was the DNC who picked her, not the millions of people who voted for her in the primaries. I voted for Sanders too, but Clinton did actually legitimately win. The only thing that was going to beat her was another Obama-type candidate who could mobilize and win over enough people on both the left and to the center to outweigh her name recognition and connections.

Unfortunately, the Democratic party bench was so slim, and there were so few candidates interested in running this time, that Sanders was the only serious candidate to pick up the torch. I think someone like Elizabeth Warren could have made a lot more headway against Clinton, for instance, but she declined.

What I wish is that Clinton had gotten herself better general election advisors, that would have told her to do more to actively shore up the base, run ads that tell people about her programs, and not rely on the fact that her opponent was a complete troglodyte. Instead they seemed to think she could coast to victory solely on that, and could make a play for moderate Republicans (as if any still exist that haven't drunk the koolaid) and she wound up badly, badly mistaken.

Re:I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[Rockoon]

This never would have happened if Bernie had been allowed to win the nomination.

The Democrats, still using "super delagates", also didnt allow the popular progressive win the party chair. What they did was select another corporatist "liberal" and give the progressive a "participation prize."

Now, I dont agree with the progressives very much, but at least they stand for something. I don't think Bernie and the other progressives are lying when they speak. I just think that they are misguided. The "liberals" on the other hand... everything they say is a lie. Even the name "liberal" has become a lie w.r.t. them. There is nothing actually liberal thats left in the "liberal" wing of the Democrats.

The "liberal" wing of the DNC are now full blown fascist war mongers. They sold 20% of the U.S. uranium reserves to Russia. They let Russia invade a country that we were sword to protect by treaty. They can't even remember how many wars they started and chuckle about it (citation.) They forced everyone to give money to insurance companies (while calling this forced to use a middle-man that takes a cut "affordable care") They intend to keep poor people in poverty (citation.) They also admit that they prefer rigged elections.

Re:I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[Anonymous Coward]

You are more misinformed than anything if you believe Clinton legitimately won the DemNom without someone putting their thumb on a scale.

Bernie was supposed to be a sacrificial lamb, and the DemElites didn't count on the youth to get behind him ~ why would they? He's 74 and they're 18-25. But they did and that frightened them.

Clinton election was supposed to be a coronation, but the Democrats didn't factor in the American people who become woke over the past 8 years but instead relied on the ones who follow blindly without question. Too bad for them.

Re:I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah that old fuck would've never gone the distance. Contrary to popular belief, most people though him thoroughly annoying and too liberal for their tastes.
Me? I think he's batshit crazy.

Re:I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[Anonymous Coward]

The actions of one, can not absorb the actions of the many.

There's enough blame to go around to everyone here. The DNC for being bent. The GOP Senators here, for being corporate loyalists, and their rank and file membership for going along with it.

The real irony here, is that the majority of people who voted for Trump and the GOP establishment presently in power, will somehow still think as long as the other side is against it, it has to be ok.

This doesn't fall to one person. It can't. And sadly, to say such things, denigrates the situation away from how truly horrendous it really is.

Re:I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because clearly it's Hillary's fault that Republicans are amoral monsters who would sell out the country as long as they got a cut.

What a horrible person Hillary is for letting them do that.

Re:I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[Gravis Zero]

This never would have happened if Bernie had been allowed to win the nomination.

You bring up a good point and inadvertently another. Bernie never would have been totally excluded from eligibility if we had ranked voting because a Bernie supporter could still vote for Bernie and have the fallback vote. How many "Never Hillary" people would have voted for Bernie, Trump and some other people? Options are good and we need to fix our voting system that is limiting our options.

Re:I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[kronix1986]

If you think a Jewish socialist liberal would've won the Presidency against Trump, you're as stupid as Bernie supporters who voted for Trump out of spite. Obama and Hillary are centrist/centre-right by European standards and still got massacred for being "socialist communist atheist Marxist liberals".

Bernie on the other hand is a traditional centre-left European politician, and would've been annihilated by the GOP and hostile news media for his openly "socialist" (aka social democratic) views. Sanders faced zero scrutiny during the primary campaign because absolutely everybody thought Hillary would win the nomination and the Presidency.

There was a fuckton of opposition research waiting to be done on him and the only thing we can be sure of is he would've faced as much hostility as Hillary did. Possibly even more, because "Jewish socialist" lends itself very well to conspiracy theories about the NWO, Jewish takeovers, Deep State coups and all the other shit the average mentally damaged Trump voter believes.

Re:I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[SuricouRaven]

Don't be so sure. Bernie would have suffered seriously from corporate opposition crippling his fundraising efforts, and the attack ads for an admitted socialist practically write themselves.

Remember that Hillary nearly won - she actually did win the popular vote. Trump only won because the somewhat strange rules of the electoral collage gave him an advantage.

Re:I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[Anonymous Coward]

Hillary wasn't massacred for being "socialist communist atheist marxist liberal"

She was massacred for being crooked as fuck, suffering from some badly-hidden health problems, and her past history as a politician.

Re:I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be so sure. Bernie would have suffered seriously from corporate opposition crippling his fundraising efforts, and the attack ads for an admitted socialist practically write themselves.

Remember that Hillary nearly won - she actually did win the popular vote. Trump only won because the somewhat strange rules of the electoral collage gave him an advantage.

The electoral college in the US prevents California and New York City from determining the President every four years. California is a cesspool of liberal corruption and perversion unbridled by law.

Re:I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[Anonymous Coward]

It's times like these that I think Damn, why did the Dems have to run Hillary. This never would have happened if Bernie had been allowed to win the nomination.

Republicans are responsible for their own actions.

Re:I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[Anonymous Coward]

ALL candidates from 2016 were EXACTLY the same... they would all STEAL your money at gunpoint and GIVE IT AWAY to someone else.
Only Johnson and the Constitudion kid would have been willing to even listen to you.
Regardless, if you want all that stuff Hillary and Bernie were for... GREAT.
Take your OWN money and give it DIRECTLY to those entities and people and causes you prefer, for the services and things you want.
At least that way your money goes MUCH farther by cutting out the corrupt and stealing MIDDLEMAN that is govt and all its cronies.

Re:I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama massacred for being socialist? Seems to me he actually won an election?

Of course he got slandered by those who did not want him, that happens to all. But 'massacred', no.

Re:I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. More than a dozen polls over the course of a year showed Sanders crushing Trump like the bug he is. Stop lying, please.

Re:I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[DigiShaman]

Socialism and multiculturalism = death of a nation. You can NOT have both; you can only pick one.

Re:I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[xession]

Pretty hard to come up with a more divisive strategy than to just call him out as being a socialist, for which he was for a time prior to registering as a Social Democrat. And yet, he still drummed up enormous rallies, took nearly half the votes during the primary season against one of the best known politicians this country has seen in modern times and stood against an enormous machine within the Democratic Party, that was constantly toiling away methods to undercut the possibility he could win.

Are you really going to say it would have been impossible for the presidential candidate to have received the most individual contributions ever, had zero chance to win the presidency? Especially when pretty much all of the news organizations, and pollsters were fuckering their data and distorting their articles to suggest Trump had basically a zero percent chance to win?

Re:I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[Ryanrule]

fuck your mother with that false equivalence.

Re:I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[Anonymous Coward]

Clinton won the DNC primary the same way Trump won the Republican primary.

With the immense heavy lifting (advertising, advertising, advertising) done by a handful of DNC PACs and the media to ensure they won. Remember how "it's impossible for Sanders to win because Clinton has all the super-delegates"? Just one of many crap "narratives" that were used to influence the populace.

Re:I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[david_thornley]

Sure it would have. Sanders would have been a worse candidate. The polls showed him in a better position, but that didn't account for the attacks that would come after the nomination. He describes himself as a socialist, and that word would frighten millions of people. The Republicans would make him out like Mao or Stalin given that.

Sanders was allowed to win the nomination. He had an uphill climb, but with more votes he would have won. The primaries and caucuses were run fairly, if the campaigning wasn't, and Sanders did get a lot of delegates.

The role of the party in the nomination process is to get the best candidate nominated. It isn't to run a popularity contest with inconsistent rules on who can vote.

Re:I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[david_thornley]

I'm not saying he had no chance to win in November, just that he had a lot less of a chance than Clinton. The polls are meaningless because they were done without a massive Republican attack on Sanders. He was great at energizing his base, but that's not sufficient to win elections.

Re:I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[xession]

What a farce.

Ok, so we are in agreement that Sanders was very effective at energizing his base. I think its fair to say that Clinton was no so effective at energizing her own base and certainly not effective at energizing Sanders supporters. I think its also fair to say that because the masses voting Democrat were not voting for their candidate largely in strong preference (vis sa vis: not being energized by the candidate), were largely voting Democrat because: 1) they nearly always do so, 2) because they were absolutely against Trump. We also had a lot of Democrats choose to sit this election out. We actually had fewer people voting in this election than in 2012 with an incumbent president.

Therefore, I think its entirely reasonable to say that since Sanders was effective at energizing his base, and would have certainly carried the same people that were voting Democrat regardless and those who were voting against Trump, along with a bunch more people that were quite enthusiastic about the message Sanders was conveying. Trump didn't win by a whole lot in a fair number of states. Adding in this group of people that probably sat it out because the candidate wasn't Sanders, most certainly could have changed the outcome, regardless of whatever the Republicans were attempting to throw at him.

Re:I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[Anonymous Coward]

She won, but nobody denies that the DNC knew the result they wanted and fixed it so they got it. Registration deadlines, closed primary, IT systems sabotage, and that's just the stuff we knew about BEFORE wikileaks provided evidence of actual conspiracy.

Re:I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[Anonymous Coward]

> Unfortunately, the Democratic party bench was so slim, and there were so few candidates interested in running this time

Oh shut the FUCK up.

"so few candidates interested"

This was an open election year. You think that out of all the Democrats in all the states, senates, and houses all across the land, that only a few were willing to run? Like this was just BAD WEATHER????

This was BECAUSE OF CLINTON. She hired ALL THE GOOD OPERATIVES. She had like 85% of the superdelegates pledged to her within a week. It was fucking rigged buddy, it wasn't the goddamned Democrat Flu going around.

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/5690

"Thanks for inviting me into the campaign, and for sticking with me during the Biden anxiety. You are a great friend and a great leader. It's been a little hard for me to play such a role in the Biden demise - and I am definitely dead to them -- but I'm glad to be on Team HRC"

Yea, sure, you can't convict anybody for that. Does that sound like an email YOU would send?

This was absolutely a setup behind the scenes. On top of all the DNC leaks that showed their massive and huge preference for Hillary, up to and including cheating to help her win, with debate questions at the very least.

Re:I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz

[david_thornley]

And we continue to speculate. We'd add the votes Sanders would inspire, and subtract the ones he'd repel. We seem to disagree about which is larger.

Some people are in for a surprise

[quonset]

We all know porn is big business in this country, and oddly, those who whine the loudest about porn's influence on society are the largest consumers of porn.

As far back as 2009, studies showed people in the Midwest and deep South, heavy bible-belt country, had larger amounts of porn consumption than other parts of the country. A more recent survey showed the same thing but also, in those places where same-sex marriage was outlawed, gay porn consumption was higher than other places, including where same-sex marriage is legal.

This bill will make it very interesting for those folks to explain why they're getting ads for sexual enhancers, condoms, lube and toys.

Re:Some people are in for a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

These are the societies that objectify women the most.

Re:Some people are in for a surprise

[AaronW]

I understand Utah is one of the biggest consumers of porn. while at the same time rejecting teaching sex education in school.

Re:Some people are in for a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

well, that's how the kids.... *and* ignorant mormons get educated.

Re:Some people are in for a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump is all about grabbing that pussy, he knows what's up.
Meanwhile, Democrats are too in FEAR of their own SJW testicular removal and glbt conversion teams to even be able to appoach a woman, let alone so much as talk to her.

Re:Some people are in for a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

think about it: they're culture thrives on oppressing women.

sex education equalizes the genders by educating them, providing fuel for feminist type causes.

most porn is degrading, or at least, exploitative, to women...thereby FURTHERING THEIR CAUSE by making men think of women as objects.

so it makes sense that they would ban the teaching of sex, while consuming tons of porn which reinforces their world-view.

Re:Some people are in for a surprise

[phorm]

It's always a funny thing that way, but an explanation could also be that people where SS relationships aren't criticised so much are happily engaging with partners instead of looking at others doing so online. Meanwhile, in places like the Bible Belt they'd have to be more careful about relationships and/or being outed, so instead view more pr0n.

Re:Some people are in for a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

In their defense, it could be entirely legitimate.Wouldn't it make sense that the people most afflicted by an ill (yes, this is assuming that these things actually are an ill) would be the most against it? After all, nobody says, "her son was hit by a drunk driver, so why is she so in favor of laws prohibiting drunk drivers? How hypocritical."

Kill it at the root

[johanw]

Make aggressive adblockers the default option in browsers, that reduces the value of the information significantly.

Re:Kill it at the root

[Anonymous Coward]

Google knows your phone number. Your snail-mail address. They know which way you drive to work, and when you will pass any given store or billboard.

Ad-block schmad-block.

Re:Kill it at the root

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think you understand. The ISP is the root. Ad vendors track you, and sell that info. That's seperate. This is ISPs tracking you, and selling to ad vendors who can't see you because you have on adblock.

Or better yet donate to those running against him

[MountainLogic]

He is up for reelection in 2018. Looks like he will have a competitor on his right (is that possible???) and of course there will be a democrat in the race too. Donating, then write him a note explaining why you are donating!

Fuck the GOP

[Snotnose]

Small minded, mean spirited assholes who don't care about anyone who can't give them $$$.

Dems aren't any better on the $$$ front, but at least they think about not being evil.

Re:Fuck the GOP

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and if you think the Democrats are any better your a fucking fool.

Re:Fuck the GOP

[Anonymous Coward]

How typical, when confonted with a blatant selling out by the rethuglicans, you Trumpers can only whine but the Democrats.
  This is a prely Rethuglican initiative, never proposed by Democrats, you inbred cretin.

Re:Fuck the GOP

[Anonymous Coward]

Kinda like the Troksty-ite, nibberizing, snowflake-drooling Soros blo-jobbing DemoRatz.

Re: Fuck the GOP

[PoopJuggler]

Are the Democrats crippling the EPA? Are the Democrats crippling the ACA? Are they trying to push coal and oil pipelines? Are they trying to waste billions of dollars building a wall? Are they defunding Planned Parenthood? Are they ramping up the war on drugs? Are they in bed with Putin? Are they blockading our borders? Are they setting back women's rights and LGBT rights 50 years? Name one thing the Republicans have done in the past decade that actually improves the country or planet for anyone except the rich.

Re: Fuck the GOP

[Anonymous Coward]

Are the Democrats crippling the EPA? Are the Democrats crippling the ACA? Are they trying to push coal and oil pipelines? Are they trying to waste billions of dollars building a wall? Are they defunding Planned Parenthood? Are they ramping up the war on drugs? Are they in bed with Putin? Are they blockading our borders? Are they setting back women's rights and LGBT rights 50 years?

No, they hired the republicans to do that for them.

Re: Fuck the GOP

[moeinvt]

Can you name one single thing that the federal government has done in the last 30 years that has substantially improved the lives of the working middle class in the USA? And it's hardly a partisan issue. During the Bush II years, Republicans had their opportunity to control the House, Senate & Presidency concurrently. During 1993-1994 under Clinton, & during 2009-2010 under Obama, Democrats had the same opportunity. Were things magically better under Democrat control? I certainly didn't notice. From my point of view, there was no fundamental difference in the policies of either party. Perpetual war, bigger & more powerful government, increased government spending, special bailouts, handouts and favors for corporations, erosion of civil liberties, free trade, open borders, etc. etc.
You could certainly argue that Republicans are bigger hypocrites because they preach smaller government and never deliver on that while Democrats openly embrace it, but that's about it.
Fuck them both. The federal government is the enemy of The People regardless of which of these asshat parties happens to hold power at any one time.

Re: Fuck the GOP

[Anonymous Coward]

They beat the Demos.....
Funny how you actually think there is a difference between the two party's.

Re: Fuck the GOP

[Anonymous Coward]

I think PoopJuggler makes excellent points. AC, we're still waiting for your response.

Re: Fuck the GOP

[Anonymous Coward]

You seriously think that the quality of life of the middle class is the most important thing?

Serious answer

[Okian Warrior]

"Yesterday, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and 23 Republican co-sponsors introduced a resolution that would overturn new privacy rules for internet service providers."

Seriously question: why are Republican lawmakers so willing to sell out their own constituents? And why do rank and file republican voters go along with it?

They're against anything and everything that would seem to be good for the people of their states and districts- healthcare, privacy protection, consumer protection, environmental protection, financial regulation on banks and mortgage companies, etc etc etc.

I mean, what the fuck?

About 6 months prior to the 2008 election, Barack Obama flip-flopped on telecom immunity.

He was, at that time, the leader of the Democratic party, and he felt comfortable enough breaking a campaign promise that he did it 6 months *before* the election.

Take an unbiased look at politicians and you'll find that both parties work against the interests of the people. Big corporations and moneyed interests give money for reelection, and expect special favors.

We've said for years on this very site how corrupt both parties are, and for this exact reason. We can follow the money, we can show the logical conclusions, we can cite example after example, and we do it for both parties.

Get away from the partisam bickering. Simple "the other side is awful" complaints are misdirecting people into internecine conflict, when we should be banding together as a people to demand better service from our government.

The Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans.

Re:Serious answer

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

The Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans.

Based on everything I've seen, I'd have to disagree. Neither Democrats or Republicans walk on water, but Republicans seem intent on rolling back a lot of stuff that favors the people as opposed to corporations. For example, the bill mentioned in this very article.

Re: Serious answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, you lost all credibility when you started shilling for Trump, the epitome of personal corruption.

Life isn't so easy when you don't find people willing to lie about your naked shame.

Re:Serious answer

[BoogieChile]

> The Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans.

So, do tell, where did the regulations that this bill prevents taking effect come from?

Re:Serious answer

[phantomfive]

Do you think banks favor Dodd-Frank or oppose it? The big banks like it, because it helps keep down their potential competitors. Democrats passed that one.

Re:Serious answer

[silentcoder]

So would you rather have "it's harder to start a new small bank" or "everybody I know ALSO had their houses reposessed because the banks took stupid betts, and committed flagrant fraud" ?

Because guess what - THAT Is what happened when there was NOT a dodd-frank.

Meantime the reps are trying extremely hard to get rid of ANYTHING that may reduce fraud and corruption in the wankster industry - they are currently trying to come up with a way to destroy the independence of the CFPB. Because protecting consumers from fraud hurts their good friends at Goldman Sachs who get rich from defrauding consumers.
Merryl-Lynch stole millions from people who weren't even their customers - remember ? That story breaking was only 4 months ago !

But you would rather have shit like that happen - without any recourse for consumers ?
Nobody cares how many banks there are - competition has never made a businessman more honest (indeed it tends to have the opposite effect) - what matters is how trustworthy they are. 5 Banks you can trust is better than 5000 banks you can't. And the ONLY thing that could POSSIBLY make a wankster trustworthy is the fear of going to jail if he isn't.

Re:Serious answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they don't want a repeat of the mortgage bubble of 2003-08, which ended in the bankruptcies of a number of huge financial institutions?

Re:Serious answer

[TimothyHollins]

The Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans.

That is a false equivalence of epic proportions. The Democrats have done (and will continue to do) bad things, but they are not in the same league as the Republicans.

Just take this bill here. Everyone knows exactly what it will lead to, everyone knows what industry lobby sent the bribes. It is not a "grey area" trading something for something. It is a black and white bribejob serving corporate interests and severely hurting private consumers. This is a textbook case of corruption, just like you would expect in Russia or Ukraine.

Re:Serious answer

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Because most of them labor under the impression that the free market solve everything better than government.

I hear what you're saying, but there's never been a free market, and the so-called free market is usually much, much worse at solving problems than the government is. The profit motive is usually detrimental when applied to human beings.

Re:Serious answer

[phantomfive]

"everybody I know ALSO had their houses reposessed because the banks took stupid betts, and committed flagrant fraud" ?

Here's the problem with your argument, and why you got completely fooled, and why you should be less emotional about this topic in general: Dodd Frank does absolutely nothing to prevent that.

Re:Serious answer

[Anonymous Coward]

based on everything you've seen, you have a different opinion that has nothing in it for solving the problem. personally, I think both sides are hosed, the GP was trying to say that disagreement will happen and the job of government and the people is to resolve the differences. instead the politicians get obscenely wealthy while the people just whine about how they disagree

Re:Serious answer

[silentcoder]

Oh well I'm sure you're opinion is much more valuable than the overwhelming number of experts who support the law because it was created to prevent EXACTLY THAT.
It doesn't exist in a vaccuum of course, things like the CFPB are part of the system - but that was what Dodd-Frank was created to do. To prevent the kind of massive fraud that in 2008 allowed the banks to defraud BOTH the people who bought their 'investment repackaged homeloans' and the home-owners.

Let me give you a little hint of just how corrupt it all was: practically NONE of the evictions in 2009 were legal. It's basic principle: if a bank sells your homeloan to a third-party investor they CANNOT evict you or reposess your house. They lost the right to do so. They are no longer a party to the loan, so they have no standing to bring eviction notices.
And since the entire REASON for the crash was them reselling home loans (as more secure than they really were) - they had no right to evict anybody. Yet they got away with it. That means every single one of those eviction notices were served with fraudulent papers.

Never trust a banker further than you regulate his ass.

Re:Serious answer

[phantomfive]

Let me give you a little hint of just how corrupt it all was: practically NONE of the evictions in 2009 were legal.

Uh......the evictions were for people who weren't making payments. If you're not making payments, you're eventually going to get evicted, and that's not ever going to change.

Never trust a banker further than you regulate his ass.

And go one farther: don't trust the banker even after regulation. You can't buy loopholes, the banker can and did.

Re:Serious answer

[silentcoder]

>Uh......the evictions were for people who weren't making payments. If you're not making payments, you're eventually going to get evicted, and that's not ever going to change.

Sure...sure... but you can ONLY be evicted by somebody who has a legal contract with you. You don't OWE payments to somebody who doesn't. If they sell your bond on to a third party without your consent - then they lose the right to collect payments (since they no longer have a contract with you) but the new party does NOT gain that right - since you didn't AGREE to a contract with them.
Legally - if you securitize a loan without the consent of the borrower - you just gave them the house as a gift since there is nobody left to whom they owe money.

Had the banks been interested in acting legally - then each onsold security would require a new contract with each home-owner, in which the new holder of the bond acquired the right to collect (and evict). They could then hire the bank to act as a collection agent again - but all this is ONLY legally possible AFTER you signed a NEW contract consenting to the securitization. This is not a uniquely American problem. South Africa has the same issue but South Africa largely skipped the great recession with almost no local economic damage - we suffered because our trade partners were suddenly poorer but we had no mass reposessions or increases in unemployment - exactly because our banking system is sufficiently regulated to rule out most of the crap that happened in the USA.
But in the subsequent years securitization became a big thing here. And there are interesting things to note: in SA it's actually illegal to securitize a bond without the consent of the borrower. The number of borrowers who have ever been contacted by a bank to request they sign a contract with a securitizer = 0. But the banks OWN investment publications state that over 85% of bonds are securitized (investors in banks love securitization because it means the banks aren't carrying much risk). SA law is very clear that if a loan is securitized the bank has NO right to evict or reposess - they no longer have a contract with you. The people they sold the loan to could, they have standing, but they never do (they love the shadows too much). Judges have had a tendency to rubber stamp repo-cases for the banks, but people who do fight back almost always win - because invariably the banks are unable to produce an original contract or proof that the loan has not been securitized (and any judge worth his salt says "if 85% of loans are known to be securitized then the burden of proof is on the bank to show that this is one of the other 15"). ABSA (the largest bank in the country) has been claiming "document was destroyed in a fire" in practically every case for years now - even cases where the loan was taken out AFTER the fire that supposedly destroyed the contracts !
So - same problems, much, much smaller scale - because SA banks are seriously regulated (and I would argue are STILL under-regulated).

More-over saying "people who didn't pay" is a grossly misleading thing - all those people DID pay - then suddenly their payments jumped (sometimes by 600% or more) in a month or two. A legal system that allows banks to randomly change interest rates with no oversight or control is nothing but legalized theft.
Any bank that wants your house merely needs to to ramp up the interest till you can no longer pay for it and boom - you're homeless. They could take a house from fucking Bill Gates if they wanted to since there's no control over how high they can raise interest rates.
Now normally, this doesn't happen THAT often - simply because the PR is bad - but even that "not too often" is still way too high. In fact the FBI used to have a white-collar crime division that investigated things like home loan fraud (G.W. Bush got rid of it) - agents who used to work in that division have stated that more than 80% of all home loan fraud is committed by the bank.

In sane legal systems - there are laws limiting by how much a

Re:Serious answer

[phantomfive]

That's an interesting legal theory, but I'm not sure there's anything to back it up.

More-over saying "people who didn't pay" is a grossly misleading thing - all those people DID pay - then suddenly their payments jumped (sometimes by 600% or more) in a month or two.

Where are you getting this? I tried searching for people whose payments jumped 600% but couldn't find anything about it. Adjustable Rate Mortgages are usually indexed to something: banks can't just randomly choose an interest rate.

Re:Serious answer

[silentcoder]

>That's an interesting legal theory, but I'm not sure there's anything to back it up.
You mean besides both Dutch and English common-law ? Which states clearly that you cannot transfer a contract without the consent of all parties to that contract. Or the standard rules on standing in court - which says you cannot sue somebody over a contract you are not a party to ? And of course, you cannot possibly be a party to a contract AFTER transferring your share in it to another party.
And it's worth noting that several American legislators agreed with me - and actively urged people to refuse to vacate their homes on the basis that the evictions were likely fraudulent.
Oh and the fact that, in most cases, if people challenged the evictions in court the banks tended to lose - and very soon, they were more likely to drop the eviction proceedings than to try and pursue the case, which strongly suggests they knew they couldn't win.
And that this is an international pattern: home-owners who CHALLENGE repo and eviction proceedings usually win, if they fight hard enough to get past the magistrate judges who tend to rubber-stamp anything a bank brings them because they assume a big bank concerned about PR wouldn't lie in court.

> Adjustable Rate Mortgages are usually indexed to something: banks can't just randomly choose an interest rate.
Indeed they cannot - anymore. Thanks to laws like Dodd-Frank which outlawed that.

Re:Serious answer

[phantomfive]

You have no citations to anything you've said.

Re: Serious answer

[silentcoder]

You lived through it ! You need citations for things that happened before your very eyes ?
This was daily news reports in every major newspaper for well over a year. Its the entire first 45minutes of 'capitalism: a love story'.

And somehow you lived through 2008/9 so out of touch with your fellow citizens that you managed not to see this happening all around you ? Or perhaps your libertarian ideological leanings is to blame. There is no more perfect blindness than the cognitive dissonance of libertarians.

Re:Serious answer

[Anonymous Coward]

They are in for the power and money, not really out of good heart. Yes I am cynic, comes with age and length of observing such behavior (it is not a specialty of the US, it is just more obvious with the GOP).

I have three words for you: Bill and Hillary. Not that the GOP is any better. It's just the old "pot calling the kettle black".

No more tranny porn

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess everybody knows now anyway.

The response.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is an economically counter-productive bill.

Google and Microsoft would update their search engines and browsers to use TLS 2.0 and state anything that is not using that is literally allowing the government and businesses to view everything you do online.

That in turn would affect e-commerce; no e-commerce company wants other companies to know who exactly their customers are. They would in turn begin recommending and funding TOR as well as getting engaged in browser standards and in the languages that make up the internet.

Finally, this would lead to such an incredible amount of hacking due to the amount of data about applications on specific computers and their versions. Imagine Shodan but you type in an IP and it presents you a report of effectively how to hack an IP address and get at whatever is on the machine. That is absolutely insane.

Then you get into government using the data to go after people for dodging taxes or any trumped up law they can think of.

And all of this doesn't take into account people running software on their computer to generate tons of junk traffic to junk websites in order to throw all of this data off and into question, which would be a great way to make money.

So yeah, basically this law passing would be a great thing, because it would force the entire internet to up their security to such a degree the NSA and CIA would effectively be obsolesced overnight. You'd have google getting NSL's to not use TLS 2.0 and you'd end up with Google retaliating by co-coordinating with other search engines to "go dark" for a full week in protest of government officials making statements on encryption standards making their lives impossible because they just threatened their revenue stream. We wouldn't go 24 hours before there was an apology.

Small Correction

[Anonymous Coward]

Yesterday, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and 23 Republican co-conspirators...

FTFY

Dems not good but still

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no issue that the Reps are better for the "little guy". Dems bad, Reps worse.

Does that sting little false equivalence boy? If so let's see an issue. And, no, Hillary wouldn't have us in a nuclear war by now.

Re:That isn't how this works.

[hackwrench]

The privacy in your own home compared to the privacy of your own yard isn't the same comparison as not connected to the internet vs traffic routed over the internet. I'm not sure what the best comparisons/descriptions are, but it just isn't the same.

Is that the best you can come up with?

[hackwrench]

I'm sure furry porn is way too pedestrian for our esteemed government people.

Re:Is that the best you can come up with?

[silentcoder]

This is not even speculation - and it's definitely a bigger issue on the republican side of the aisle. Bush's speaker of the house got convicted of raping kids remember - then the story got REALLY crazy.
See he had bribed the kids to stay silent, quite big bribes too. The kid who reported him and got his ass convicted had gotten a 2 million dollar bribe.

We know... because the good speaker is now suing him demanding his bribe money back because the kid reported the rape and so didn't keep his end of the bribe bargain !

That's politician thinking in a nutshell. Raping children is okay - but welching on a bribe is unforgivable.

Re:Is that the best you can come up with?

[Hognoxious]

Well that's quite right. The latter is an attack on the entire system of government!

This guy Flake

[Patent Lover]

This guy Flake is not a flake, he's a dick.

Replace Internet Data with Telephone Calls..

[WimBo]

It should really be explained to legislators that internet data and telephone calls are virtually the same thing now. If your ISP can sell all of your data, so can whoever you are using for your telephone calls.

Maybe if it were explained in those terms, there would be more support for network neutrality.

Re:Replace Internet Data with Telephone Calls..

[Anonymous Coward]

This could backfire, with telco getting permission to gather statistics from your landline/cell conversations. After all, we no longer need a nosy human to listen in for such purposes - a listening bot can pick out keywords and increment various counters.

TRUMP supporter observes

[Anonymous Coward]

.. that most Sulla-fav conservative historians would have Flack-shit shot dead for thieving/selling-out private property ... any data about an individual. I don't agree with that judgment, but Sulla was a damned-smart politician.

Great timing!

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably won't change the outcome. Hint: the corps with the bribes win.

just too stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

the more shit like this happens the more i want to get off the internet... its getting to be stupid net

Big whoop.

[detritus.]

Okay so this rule means they're going to have to get your consent. Will they put it on page 55 of the end-user license agreement you aren't reading and just agreeing to anyway when you sign up?

This solves nothing. The problem is a lack of competition.

Re:Big whoop.

[Anonymous Coward]

The FCC regulation requires opt-in consent before an ISP could sell your browsing history. The GOP bill blocks this, allowing an ISP to sell browsing history without consent. The two situations are hardly comparable.

Cambridge Analytica

[Anonymous Coward]

Cambridge Analytica wants this data, badly.

Future headline "Republican Senator resigns after-

[locater16]

After what is revealed on his internet history though? "Shemale bestiality"? "Loli hentai"? "Gay orgies in your area!"? C'mon, I'm sure there's much more!

Easy answer

[rsilvergun]

1. They're bought and paid for.

2. They're largely single issue voters. Either they're the ones doing the buying from #1 and just want low taxes, low wages (for their employees) and no regulations or they're "values voters" who vote on religion, abortion or gun control.

The left is a much, much loser coalition so they tend to lose. Every few years everything goes to shit and the left gets in charge, fixes a few things, and as soon as things get a little better the right take over with their superior organization and money. Basically, evil will always win because good is dumb.

Re:Easy answer

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm starting to see this for what you say.

For years I was a Republican because I grew up in a Republican house, as a military brat and then served myself. I would never have dreamed of voting any way other than straight up right-wing warrior, pro gun, anti everything left. I opened my eyes back in 2012 and voted for Obama. Then Hillary came along and I simply could not cast my vote for her. Sadly, Bernie didn't get the nomination, despite his message being better.

We now have 4 years, at minimum, at this... Unless the left can wing some swing districts in 2018, we are headed for outright fascism in short order. We've been headed this way for years. Obama tried to reverse course on what he saw, but no one was playing ball. Even a goodly number of Democrats are Wall Street shills. Sadly.

If I wasn't almost 50 I would consider moving to Canada or New Zealand.

Time to use Opera for their VPN and I already use OpenDNS. I wonder if Google DNS might be better...

I think it's a good idea

[ooloorie]

If you think that your browsing data is private right now, you're just kidding yourself; privacy regulations are meaningless.

The way to make communications private is through technology, not regulations.

boiling it down

[elevenfound]

Anyone willing to explain what this means and how exactly this browsing data is stored and shared?

It's time to build death camps for republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

Too many malicious retards in positions of power

senators want to give sell themselves out?

[Anonymous Coward]

This also means that the ISP can sell GOP senators information.

I work in Big Data and...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I'm posting AC. I have no desire to be unemployed.

We deal with a lot of data, ranging from your web activity, financial records, public records, shopping history, demographic information and much more. Any of your data that you think is not already being sold is naive. Regulations are relatively easy to accommodate and still use and sell your data. If a regulation, for example, prohibits selling your PII(Personally Identifiable Information) along with other data such as demographics or online activities, there are ways to get around that. The data can be obtained in a Non-PII way and matched back to you after the fact using any number of algorithms. If we know 107 things about you, and we get data that lists your ZIP+4 and a dozen data attributes, but nothing "personally identifiable" do you think it's hard for us to link the new data back to you? We have some pretty clever people working in this industry and matching on a massive scale is our core technology.

Every time someone says "your data will not be sold",there's a loophole in there and companies looking to use the loopholes to sell your data to make extra revenue. Whenever I'm in the checkout line and they ask for emails or other information, and I say no, the response is always a contrite "Oh, we don't sell your data to anyone" I reply "Sure you do, my company buys it".

Do you have a membership card or keyfob that gets you 5% off on purchases at a store? The discount is made back by selling us data on everything you buy. Nothing is free.

All this proposed regulation would change is the number of loopholes needed to use this particular data, not actual usage of the data. It's not that your data will now suddenly be available for sale, it'll just have a higher profit margin.

Re:I work in Big Data and...

[AaronW]

Mod parent up!

Re:I work in Big Data and...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm completely okay with sharing demographic data for a discount. But they need to be up front about that sort of thing. You know about it and I know about it, but the average person isn't going to know and even the clerk's clueless, as you mentioned. It at least sounds like an actual business decision rather than some opaque discount card. In fact I'd argue it's false advertisement if they don't disclose all the data they gather and sell.

I wonder what will really happen

[Anonymous Coward]

Will we see privacy free internet, which is also free, as in money? Will big telecom keep prices the same and add an extra privacy fee? Will 'opt in' be turned into little wording on some big terms and conditions? Will privacy free internet be ignored all together, just like federally required low cost internet plans were? I'm curious to see which ways big telecom will try to screw the little guy.

What kind of nazis shit is this?

[TheOuterLinux]

Do they not realize this affects them too? I take it that the Muslim witch hunt isn't going so well so everyone must suffer. No WMD? More troops. No Muslims to harass? Go after everyone. How is this party still around? Surely their old tobacco and cotton money would of run out by now...Or, maybe they know since they hold the majority, they'll use this to wipe out Democrats and anyone else they don't like. Everyone has something that can be used as black mail.

Flake is a fake

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we should sell the information about Flake and where some of his personal money is going, and some of his personal relationships. And lets not forget the special interests that fix things for him.

And yes if you know where to dig there is more dirt to find then you could believe on this douche bag.

So somebody other then me please start digging. :-).

Re:Or better yet donate to those running against h

[AaronW]

Sadly that's often how things work, money talks. I like the system Arizona used to have where if one candidate took in private campaign contributions the state would match contributions to the other candidate if they publicly financed their campaign. Sadly this was struck down by the conservative branch of the supreme court who like to think that money == speech.

Liberal bias in the media

[Okian Warrior]

The Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans.

Based on everything I've seen, I'd have to disagree. Neither Democrats or Republicans walk on water, but Republicans seem intent on rolling back a lot of stuff that favors the people as opposed to corporations. For example, the bill mentioned in this very article.

You're probably swayed by mainstream media bias. They're quick to point out bad conservative actions, and tend to sweep liberal problems under the rug.

For example, Trump withdrew the US from TPP. Slashdot has had several articles about the TPP, everyone was moaning about how bad it was, it was created and promoted by Obama's administration...

...but when the problem was solved by a conservative we didn't hear a peep. Despite there being at least 3 firehose submissions about it.

For another example, Obama ordered the drone-killing of a US citizen, and then drone-killed the son some weeks later. Outside the theatre of war, with no trial, and in a cafe killing 8 others as collateral damage.

Obama then classified the legal justification for why he had the power to do that, so that no one could question it.

That's the sort of thing we don't hear from the mainstream media, it's called the liberal bias and it's well known.

That's why you probably think Democrats are better.

They're still running under the "lesser of 2 evils" model.

Re:Liberal bias in the media

[silentcoder]

Except that all those things WERE reported in the mainstream media, extensively, and for example Obama's drone program (which you conveniently regret to mention was started by Bush) counts as one of the number one things liberals disagree with him on and chided him for. This includes liberal pundits as much as liberal voters.
If not for the pundits- how do you think the liberal voters KNEW about it ?

Our accepting that was compromise - you can't get a perfect president. One of the best presidents the US ever had (a strong contender for best of the best) is FDR -but he's also the evil bastard who oversaw the Japanese Internment camps.

We don't forgive them mistakes like that - we are critical of it, but we would rather have a president who does 90% of the stuff we WANT and live with 10% we think are evil than one who does 90% evil and 10% stuff we want.

And the liberal media bias is an absolutely flagrant myth anyway. Rupert Murdoch's empire is conservative biassed to the core - and represents over 60% of the entire WORLD'S news media. That's one single media empire, hardcore conservative, and it represents the vast majority of all mainstream media - that's before you add the OTHER conservative media companies.
The only level where what you claim even looks remotely true is cable news - where there are more liberal-slanted and centered (which to conservatives are indistinguishable from liberal) channels than conservative ones... except the biggest conservative channel has well over 50% of the viewer numbers ! Megyn Kelly is the most-watched journalist in America - and she sure as fuck isn't liberal !

Re:Liberal bias in the media

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

That's why you probably think Democrats are better.
They're still running under the "lesser of 2 evils" model.

I'm happy to take the lesser of two evils. By definition it's the better choice.

Oh, and not to put too fine a point on it, but all that stuff you mentioned was covered in the mainstream media, some of it extensively. Claiming it "wasn't covered" doesn't make it so.

Bipartisan support

[Okian Warrior]

> The Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans.

So, do tell, where did the regulations that this bill prevents taking effect come from?

Bipartisan support, of course.

Did you think all the bad stuff from the last 8 years came from one-sided control of government?

Or the 8 years prior to that?

Re:Bipartisan support

[Anonymous Coward]

Bipartisan support, of course.

Wrong.

Net neutrality and privacy regulations were partisan issues, and both policies passed because Democrats had a majority.

Different word

[Okian Warrior]

Nope, you lost all credibility when you started shilling for Trump.

I think the word you're looking for is "advocating".

I'm under the impression that a shill is paid by the house. I advocate for free.

Life isn't so easy when you don't find people willing to lie about your naked shame.

Um... OK. I'll have to take your word on that.

Re:Different word

[Anonymous Coward]

So are you going to be fine when people start dying because they've had their health insurance taken away, too?

Or do you assume they were bad people anyway because they're poor?

Republicans are filth, and you're advocating for the destruction of the environment, the destruction of privacy, and the death of fellow citizens. How do you fucking sleep at night?

Re:Different word

[meglon]

When they eliminate the EPA, you need to go out and celebrate with a nice glass of water contaminated with a lethal dose of pollutants. Conservatives are the enemy of this country.

Our only option...

[Anonymous Coward]

Take up a collection to raise a bounty for Flake's browser history. Let's make it public knowledge as to what porn sites he's visiting and how often he uses Ashley Madison "for research purposes".

Democrat Google lobbies too.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure Google purchased a Democrat to get the rules proposed in the first place. Don't want any competition from the ISP

Re:That isn't how this works.

[silentcoder]

Don't do anything on the internet you wouldn't do on the stage at the NFL halftime show ?

Though, by that analogy, there are a LOT of Janet Jacksons out there.

Serious answer

[aepervius]

Because most of them labor under the impression that the free market solve everything better than government. Under that theory if you have two isp, one selling your browsing habit the other not, if the free market (consumer) decide they want to protect their privacy, then they will flock to the one not selling and the other one will have to adapt or die.

Naturally the clever reader will immediately see the flaws in that. There are captured market which are not free (like isp) therefore it is illusory to think the free market will be better at handling such situation, practically this means once they (any politician) relax the law, it will be used by ISP and you will have no recourse (either you go offline, or you accept the violation of privacy, most folk in the US don't have a choice of ISP).

Rinse and repeat with other free-market-is-better mantra. Like healthcare where it is very obvious the free market system cannot work (every actor except consumer wanting their slice of the pie, captured market as you often not have choice, additional intermediate useless actor like insurer, impossible to negotiate in bulk like a government of reasonable size can etc...).

personally I think the politician are well aware that it will only profit firms and the folk which lobbied them for it (you don't think the idea comes out of good heart or from study of the current situation, right ?). But they do NOT care. They are in for the power and money, not really out of good heart. Yes I am cynic, comes with age and length of observing such behavior (it is not a specialty of the US, it is just more obvious with the GOP).
Unfortunately there is a sizeable amount of folk in the US which still believe in such crap tale, and still vote GOP, (possibly because they can't stand the opposite side, or they can't stand those uppity colored folk or can't stand women having a right to decide to abort etc...). Then there is gerrymandering , while it is used by both side, is far more used by GOP to protect entrenched politician. Finally there is the historical stupidity of the EC and winner-take-all...

So expect more and more of such nice laws as long as senate/president/congress are mostly republican.

Could Consumers Benefit?

[SCVonSteroids]

I know a lot of people are pretty adamant about having their browsing open for all to see, but some of us really don't care, myself included. I understand the implications, but people also need to understand what's been said for a long time.. "If it's on the internet, assume anyone can see it." That said, I'd be OK with something like this, if only the consumer could somehow profit, either directly or indirectly (through reduced costs for example), from these sales. Unfortunately it's just a way for big corp to get bigger.

Re:Could Consumers Benefit?

[Anonymous Coward]

So what will you think when AI systems are able to front run all your actions on the internet to your detriment.

Re:Or better yet donate to those running against h

[Anonymous Coward]

'the other candidate' - what if there is more than one? America isn't officially a two-party system, even though the system favors such setups.

Republicans are the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

From scraping your data to health care, Republicans are NOT for the average American. They are for companies.

Facebook users have nothing to stand on

[damn_registrars]

People who spend all their time on facebook are already having all their activity sold to the highest bidder. What would their complaint be when their ISP asks for a cut on the action?

Protect the consumers, not the ISPs

[QuietLagoon]

...Flake's announcement said he's trying to "protect consumers from overreaching Internet regulation."...

But who is going to protect consumers from the ISPs' lobbyist-purchased legislation that our Republican congress passes?

Call Senator Flake

[Anonymous Coward]

Takes less than a minute. "I'm calling in suportnof the current FCC privacy regulations". They tally the calls. That's all there is to it.

AZ office: (602) 840-1891
D.C. office: (202) 224-4521

Microsoft does it, Google, Apple...

[Anonymous Coward]

But OMGWTFBBQ da rayyycissss Repugnicans!!!!!111111

More FAKE news by Arseholetechnica CNN?

[Anonymous Coward]

See my subject: Worst swine online & even our good President Trump says so https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDFl_EdqwWI// & I kicked their WEAK lying asses the other day here on /. too https://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10320833&cid=53976475/

* Hahahahaha - CNN/ArseHoleTechnica FAIL as always!

APK

P.S.=> Anderson "up to pooper" Cooper & CNN crew FAIL @ being normal or telling the truth - they are RIDICULOUS laughingstocks that DO need "PREPARATION H" for their hemorroids for their abnormal behavior & act like BITCHES (worse) lying like hell - disgusting! ArsHoleTechnica is aptly names (they like it up the ass too - they constantly shove it up theirs after all, see 2nd link above, lmao!)... apk

Wrong things

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do they sponsor wrong things? We know it's wrong the opposition knows it's wrong the ISP's know it's wrong and dammit, the republicans know this is wrong too. But here we are.

FPTP

[Tenebrousedge]

Ding ding ding!

I think it's fixable though. I'm working on it.

Ars again advertizes its ignorance

[Anonymous Coward]

There's nothing scary or surprising or confusing here IF YOU HAVE A BASIC CIVICS EDUCATION.

1. This was about an Obama-era RULE (not a law) made-up by Obama administration bureaucrats.

2. The current laws allow the new congress a limited window (60 days IIRC) in which to override such bureaucrat-written rules before they can be forced onto the public.

By taking this action, the congress simply shutdown a new-and-not-yet-implemented regulation that the outgoing administration tried to ram through on its way out of town - returning the law to exactly what it was for most of the time Obama was in office. In other words: IF this action takes us back into the srone age, then it's Obama's stone age we are returnng to, and most of those complaining about this action were not complaining about Obama.

When a congress critter says this empowers the American people, he is correct. First, because it frees up providers to offer other options for service with or without info sharing (something most here do not seem to mind when Apple Googla etc do it) and consumers to choose..... but also because it returns the power over rulemaking to the elected representatives of the people (congress) and away from the unelected and unaccountable anonymous bureaucrats. The people are perfectly free to lobby congress to make an actual LAW to adress such info sharing; this would be the constitutionally-correct way to adress such things.

It's about the porn

[Anonymous Coward]

The RNC platform has a plank calling for ending pornography. If your ISP sells your DNS lookup requests then anyone can figure out if they have a product to sell you whether it's more of the same or black mail. This will curtail anyone who wants privacy in their browsing habits.

Re:Or better yet donate to those running against h

[Anonymous Coward]

I could maybe say money == speech if you couldn't give to both sides, so that no matter who wins, the winner is beholding to the you. That's not supporting someone who believes as you believe, it's just buying influence. Even worse, money talks, speech walks. In my world, there would at least be a rule that you must choose one side or the other to contribute money.