Open thread for night owls. The GOP just pirated your internet privacy and fenced it to you-know-who

In case you missed the news, Congress screwed us royally today. It’s really the perfect 21st Century upgrade of the fascist state: a law that promotes profit obtained via theft and gives the government access to data it has no legitimate reason to be interested in. Ernesto Falcon at the Electronic Frontier Foundation tells it like it most unfortunately is in “Repealing Broadband Privacy Rules, Congress Sides with the Cable and Telephone Industry”: 

Putting the interests of Internet providers over Internet users, Congress today voted to erase landmark broadband privacy protections. If the bill is signed into law, companies like Cox, Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T, and Verizon will have free rein to hijack your searches, sell your data, and hammer you with unwanted advertisements. Worst yet, consumers will now have to pay a privacy tax by relying on VPNs to safeguard their information. That is a poor substitute for legal protections.

Make no mistake, by a vote of 215 to 205 a slim majority of the House of Representatives have decided to give our personal information to an already highly profitable cable and telephone industry so that they can increase their profits with our data. The vote broke along party lines, with Republicans voting yes, although 15 Republicans broke ranks to vote against the repeal with the Democrats.

Should President Donald Trump sign S.J. Res. 34 into law, big Internet providers will be given new powers to harvest your personal information in extraordinarily creepy ways. They will watch your every action online and create highly personalized and sensitive profiles for the highest bidder. All without your consent. This breaks with the decades long legal tradition that your communications provider is never allowed to monetize your personal information without asking for your permission first. This will harm our cybersecurity as these companies become giant repositories of personal data. It won't be long before the government begins demanding access to the treasure trove of private information Internet providers will collect and store.

While today is extremely disappointing, there is still tomorrow. Without a doubt Internet providers (with the exception of the small providers who stood with us) will engage in egregious practices, and we are committed to mobilizing the public to push back. EFF will continue the fight to restore our privacy rights on all fronts. We will fight to restore your privacy rights in the courts, in the states, in Washington, D.C., and with technology. We are prepared for the long haul of pushing a future Congress to reverse course and once again side with the public.

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QUOTATION OF THE DAY

“The administration's Back to the Future environmental policy might be funny if it were a movie, but it's real life. [...] They want us to travel back to when smokestacks damaged our health and polluted our air, instead of taking every opportunity to support clean jobs of the future. This is not just dangerous; it’s embarrassing to us and our businesses on a global scale to be dismissing opportunities for new technologies, economic growth, and US leadership. Our drinking water and the air we breathe will directly suffer in response to this executive order. It flies in the face of EPA’s mission and the whole basis for action on climate in the first place—protecting public health. Simply put, you cannot defer climate actions and say you are committed to clean air and water.”  
               ~Gina McCarthy, former EPA administrator, responding to Trump regime’s announcement Tuesday that it is rolling back several more of President Obama’s climate-related actions.

TWEET OF THE DAY

BLAST FROM THE PAST

At Daily Kos on this date in 2005—Dog whistle politics: 

Over the past few weeks, a new expression has entered the Westminster lexicon: dog-whistle politics. It means putting out a message that, like a high-pitched dog-whistle, is only fully audible to those at whom it is directly aimed. The intention is to make potential supporters sit up and take notice while avoiding offending those to whom the message will not appeal.

We saw the Republicans employ that in 2004 to some degree. For example, Bush's puzzling debate diss of the Dred Scott decision left the vast majority of people scratching their heads, but the anti-abortion movement knew exactly what he was saying. It's Religious Right code for attacking Roe v. Wade.

On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Remember when Republicans had to “show that they can govern?” Wasn’t that cute? Well, they can’t, and we discuss why. Manifort’s problems multiply, manifest. Devin Nunes: WTF with this guy? Russian corruption disrupts Russia, for a change.

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