Congresswoman Kristi Noem joined her Republican majority yesterday in voting to take away more of our privacy and to allow Internet service providers to sell our data. Senators Mike Rounds and John Thune voted similarly in the Senate last week. The White House says Trump will sign this erosion of privacy… because hey—he won’t have the NSA and FBI at his beck and call forever; he’ll want to be able to buy our complete browsing histories for revenge Tweets after he leaves the White House.
As you go looking for browser privacy extensions and paid virtual private networks, be sure to bookmark The Verge‘s table of how much the telecommunications industry poured into the campaign coffers of the Congress critters who voted for telecom profits over their constituents’ privacy. The numbers here cover just the last election—2016 for Thune and Noem, 2014 for Rounds:
- Senator John Thune: $215,000—second most among the Senate ayes, behind only Majority leader Mitch McConnell.
- Senator M. Michael Rounds: $40,166 (32nd out of 50 Senate ayes)
- Representative Kristi Noem: $38,200 (49th among 215 House ayes)
I guess seeing the amount of money paid for their votes, there would be no earthly reason to ask who the three amigos are working for. What was I thinking?
Sweet, we can now purchase the web browsing habits of everyone in the legislature, the governor, his son-in-law and our own John, Kristi and Mike…and their staffs. Oh…wait…so can the Chinese and Russians.
Troy, Lee,Hoffman, MC, Coyote and and other GOP friends. Reconcile this vote with this from the Republican Party Platform. Pay special attention to the last sentence.
“We believe the strength of our nation lies with the individual and with each person’s dignity, liberty, and integrity. We support our nation’s heritage of religious freedom and personal responsibility and recognize we must be proactive in defending freedom at every level.”
So who’s freedom is being served? South Dakotans or businesses who wish to exploit them?
Now what happens when China, Russia or Iran buys our ISPs?
There’s a crowdfunding effort that’s been quite successful that is going to buy the data on Ryan’s personal browsing habits and publish it online — ..I think they’re taking suggestions for which legislators should be next.
Yup. It’s going to make opposition research on these slimy politicians very, very easy. Been visiting porn sites, Johnny? We are going to find out, so you best start going into full Jim Baker crying mode now.
They need to be made to wear NASCAR-like jackets labeling their sponsors because they are not working for us.
Are you beginning to understand now why a little anonymity is a good thing? Evil people exist who want to punish dissent, public criticism, and the free flow of ideas.
No on the NASCAR John….conservatives can’t turn left ;^).
The first crowd-funded ISP data buy needs to be the records of everything accessed from Trump Tower over the last two years.
John, Dr. McTaggart and I are scientists who are Righter than right, but we don’t watch the NASCAR goofiness and wear silly hats with numbers of cars on them. Golly. That seems just silly.
Dr. McT is probably into chess, and my old sport of chess boxing, but I think fencing is probably a lot more of an intellectual sport than this race car driving. I can’t speak for Dr. McT other than I know he is a chess animal.
Why is our Republican Congress more concerned about all of our browser histories, than Trump’s taxes?
Why is our Republican Congress more concerned about our browser histories, than Trump’s taxes?
South Dakota republicans have long championed profits over and above everything else in telecommunications. https://books.google.es/books?id=3IFTnkrQlMAC&pg=PA5&lpg=PA5&dq=LARRY+pressler+and+the+telecom+act+of+1996,+how+much+did+he+get&source=bl&ots=hYm9TsX-Bs&sig=ChFsxf4d9MmSBFFqquBEOm9UTq8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjF8YzI-f3SAhVMPhQKHaH0BRMQ6AEITzAJ#v=onepage&q=LARRY%20pressler%20and%20the%20telecom%20act%20of%201996%2C%20how%20much%20did%20he%20get&f=false
No surprise here on how our fly over state continues to support the racketeering of telecommunications.
Thune, Rounds, and Noem have clearly shown us who they represent and it’s not the people of South Dakota. Remember that on election day.
If you have done nothing wrong, you shouldn’t worry about yer privacy.
Why is that good enough for us rabble but not Drumpf and wingnut pols?
Will the Danes utilize their “Troll Trace”?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douche_and_a_Danish
Well they all just lost my vote
The republicans next step in this saga will be to pass legislation to make it illegal to collect the browsing histories of federal legislators.
Opera has built-in VPN functionality (free and easy as flipping a switch). But VPNs are less than ideal, and some services (like I believe Netflix) do not work if you are on one.
An individual listed his browsing history on Ebay in an effort to sell it direct and cut out the middlemen(ISP’s). Ebay removed the ad. The individual has sent a letter to Ebay asking why he cannot sell something he definitely owns, but the ISP can.
You would think the repubs would be 100% against this when you consider their SOP is “hide and sneak”.
Tyler, explain that Opera-VPN option to me. How does it keep my ISP from gaining useful/sellable information about the data I’m receiving in my house through its pipe?
I’ll try not to go into too much detail. When you connect to a VPN, you are typically making a secure, encrypted connection to a private server. While your ISP has access to everything going to and from your device, if you are on a VPN, all they can see is that you connected to the VPN server. Any data they try to view will be encrypted. There are some drawbacks, but I have been happy with what Opera provides.
Tyler, your VPN allows you to mask your web activities from the ISP, but your VPN provider can see all of your activity. Haven’t you traded one company that knows your business for another company that knows your business? Maybe the VPN provider will agree to keep all of your web activity private and confidential. It is probably more in their best interest to sell their services as private and confidential as opposed to an ISP who really wants to profit off your internet activity, not just provide the internet access.
That is a risk, and there are scammy VPN providers. But yes, typically the service they are providing is privacy focused. Some have ‘no-log’ policies. I wouldn’t necessarily trust a random ‘free vpn’ that routes through China and inserts random ads into content. But a paid service with a decent reputation I would certainly trust more than the ISPs. Opera is using a no-log service from SurfEasy, a Canadian company. It’s free in Opera, but they offer paid services for other browsers.
I have downloaded the Opera browser. I may not use it all the time, but if I’m feeling antsy about my records or about certain political websites, I may give it a shot. Thanks, Tyler!