
Telecoms say they have a First Amendment right to sell private data - rahuldottech
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qjdza5/big-telecom-say-it-has-first-amendment-right-to-sell-your-private-data
======
Panino
The big telcos have always been horrible and they will never change. I used to
work for a small provider in that industry and always hated USWest because of
that experience. They will never change as long as they exist, whatever name
they go by.

Good to see Maine has a law protecting privacy. I agree with other commenters
that this kind of law should be broad-spectrum, affecting all businesses from
telcos to lemonade stands.

My ISP is a municipal fiber provider with strong and proud Net Neutrality.
Obviously NN isn't a privacy issue, but it's unlikely to pair with trying to
sell personal data (of our own neighbors!) for cash.

In addition to consumer protection laws, strongly consider supporting local
municipal FTTH. Compared to Comcast, I pay less money for unmetered symmetric
gigabit, it's run by ordinary people (not comic book villains), and the money
stays here in town. All it takes is determined civic engagement.

(And that includes voting out the people who support these attacks against
people.)

~~~
DailyHN
I would love to see a playbook on making that happen.

~~~
Panino
If you're asking how to create a municipal fiber ISP, take inspiration and
guidance from existing success stories. It'll vary depending on the state and
culture and require multiple steps. If telecoms have already bribed the state
govt to ban municipal Internet, collect signatures for a ballot question on
whether to allow municipalities to decide for themselves. Next, start a local
campaign to promote municipal FTTH. There, keep your messaging simple,
consistent, and on-point (see below).

Meanwhile, collect signatures for a small, non-threatening initiative like
whether the city should explore the possibility of creating FTTH. Be involved
in that process. Be helpful, positive, and patient. Contact other cities that
have done this and get advice from them. Get the study/plan published. If the
city govt is against it, vote them out and continue. Otherwise, encourage
local govt to promote the plan. Then have a ballot question on whether to
build the municipal fiber ISP.

Reasons to build a municipal fiber ISP:

    
    
      * lower cost Internet and money stays here
      * superior service
      * net neutrality and consumer protection
      * jobs, jobs, jobs
      * increased property values

~~~
jaybeeayyy
thank you! I hope my state (Virginia) can get on board with this because I'm
just so tired of comcast and verizon.

~~~
whafro
I could imagine the dynamics in Virginia being more challenging than other
states, given the relatively large size of municipalities (counties), where
other states often have another level lower (township, town, city).

If you're trying to get Loudoun County to provide municipal fiber, that'd be a
much bigger project/investment than a smaller municipality. Obviously some
independent cities in Virginia are smaller (especially Falls Church), but most
folks live in relatively large counties.

------
fossuser
For those that are unaware, if you live in California the recently passed CCPA
(California Consumer Privacy Act) gives you a lot of new power to force
companies to delete your data and let you opt-out of them selling it.

For Comcast:
[https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/ccpa](https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/ccpa)

It's a little tedious since you have to do it with each company, but so far
I've found that it largely works.

You can also do it for equifax, experian, and transunion (though when I tried
equifax it was unsurprisingly broken).

You can either request the data they have on you, ask for it to be deleted
(the parts they don't require for operation), or opt-out of resale.

This website [0] has a bunch of links to the CCPA pages for different
companies. The better companies have enabled this ability for all users, but
generally the companies you'd rather delete from have only enabled it for
California.

[0]
[https://caprivacy.github.io/caprivacy/](https://caprivacy.github.io/caprivacy/)

~~~
ouid
>You can also do it for equifax, experian, and transunion.

what, precisely, are the implications of this?

~~~
WrtCdEvrydy
Reset your credit completely... in the eyes of the corporations, you don't
exist.

~~~
willis936
I simply do not believe that one piece of legislation could accomplish this.
This is how money makes money. It will not stop for the law.

~~~
jayd16
No credit is already somewhat worse than bad credit so I don't quite see it as
implausible.

~~~
exclusiv
Yep. I also heard a podcast about a woman who was born at home and never got a
social security number. So to the government and to creditors she didn't exist
and it was a nightmare for her to do anything financially that most people
don't even think about.

------
ipython
Sounds like I have an equal first amendment right to publicly expose the
personal cell phone numbers and home addresses of every lawyer, corporate
executive, and lobbyist who think this is a good idea.

~~~
sophacles
No you don't. Those folks are a different class of people than you, a better
class, a class that deserves privacy - us peons aren't important enough to
have to worry about that stuff.

That's what they'll argue anyway. They'll use different words, but whatever
words they use will carry that message.

~~~
gruez
Defeatist attitude aside, what would happen if we crowd funded a wikileaks-
type organization that operates "as an ISP" and doxxed
politicians/lobbyists/lawyers/isp executives?

~~~
sneak
You’d go to jail like weev did.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weev](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weev)

AT&T put hundreds of thousands of subscriber emails on the web with no
password or firewall or meaningful authentication of any kind. (They were
server-sent autocompleted values in the username field of a login form that
had a sequential integer URL argument.) He and a conspirator downloaded them
all and sent them to the media to run stories about AT&T’s negligence (instead
of, say, selling or publishing the list, or emailing them malware, et c).

He did a few years in federal, mostly in solitary.

I witnessed the terrible effects it had on his health and psyche. He was never
the same person again after he got out. Solitary confinement is torture.

sophocles is right. There are two sets of laws in America, and the bigger one
applies to you and not them. If you don’t show sufficient respect for their
authority and the more restrictive set of rules they apply to your lower-
status group, they will stretch their own rules to the point where you will be
railroaded and subsequently tortured.

~~~
fl0wenol
Please let's not use weev as a cautionary tale.

The guy had been baiting people to clock him in the face for his anti-social
behavior on the internet since forever. I don't think it was what he did to
AT&T that got him sent up, he'd been on the feds' radar since at least the
Sarah Palin email hack.

~~~
sneak
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio)

Perfect example of a guy just a little bit too far outside of the circle to
get away with ignoring the inner party’s mandates.

They cooked up some insider trading to throw him in federal, too. He’s out
now, I understand.

------
kitteh
When I worked at a large telco/broadband provider in the 90s and onward such
concepts of selling this data was forbidden and you'd get funny looks for
suggesting it. Our leadership chain - comprised of a mixture of long tenured
employees with mostly engineering backgrounds supported not wanting to sell
this data as well. It wasn't until the mid 2000s when our leadership got
swapped out with younger executives who'd do 2 year rotations across the
company and were looking to do a fast big bang to wow others that would go
down this road. It wasn't just selling data this new gang wanted, but DNS
redirection (think for nxdomains), and ad insertion thru TCP seassion
hijacking platforms. There were a number of startups who were happy to give us
free gear to sniff & manipulate customer traffic and we'd get a cut of the ad
money.

------
rs23296008n1
Sure. Just get the corporate entity to say a single word. No representatives.
No notes. No proxies. No robots. No automated voices. The actual corporate
legal entity. Not even the CEO. No clever stand-ins with same name.

Just one mouthed, audible word to confirm the entity can qualify for speech.
Then we can consider "free speech" for that entity.

I can only dream this would hold up even as I know there are likely dozens of
loopholes to render it irrelevant. Not to mention specific exceptions and
allowances already in law.

~~~
Misdicorl
How do you handle the us government censoring newspapers, Wikipedia, etcetc if
this is your demand?

~~~
rootusrootus
...

~~~
Misdicorl
> Wikipedia can fall back on the individual editors' rights

Can it? Then why couldn't any other company similarly fall back on to the
rights of their employees. e.g. whoever is compiling the data being sold in
the telecom case.

~~~
rs23296008n1
Employees would be seen as acting on behalf of the corporate entity. So really
they are proxy and/or talking for the corporate entity. Not themselves.

Most random employees have no usefully unrestricted free speech when their
contract often deliberately punishes them if they say the wrong word. Those
people working for companies shut up about their work unless they are willing
to go whistleblower / they reveal a workplace safety issue / have legal advice
etc.

------
comis
> “Maine's decision to impose unique burdens on ISPs' speech—while ignoring
> the online and offline businesses that have and use the very same
> information and for the same and similar purposes as ISPs—represents
> discrimination between similarly situated speakers that is impermissible
> under the First Amendment,” the lawsuit claimed.

I agree. The law should apply to everyone, not just ISPs.

~~~
turc1656
Haha yep. It's lovely when the filer of the lawsuit raises a great point on
how to throw out their case and further citizen protection, isn't it?

------
CaptArmchair
That's not how "free speech" works. That right isn't violated by privacy
protection laws.

Free speech states that a state isn't going to prosecute you directly for
whatever you may say. But that doesn't mean you are free from the consequences
of what you're saying.

Privacy protection simply states that any legal person who feels that your
actions violated the consent they gave, is free to sue you via the legal
system for compensation for damages incurred. Which has little if anything to
do with free speech.

If a telco uses the "free speech" argument, they essentially argue "we're a
media company and we are accountable for what we publish".

If we're discussing media companies, it's interesting to note that these pull
the "freedom of press" card to defend divulging person or confidential
information in news outlets.

At this point, the entire discussion becomes rather silly semantics.

Interestingly, many EU countries also have "secrecy of correspondence"
enshrined as a fundamental principle into their constitutions. The U.S. does
not:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrecy_of_correspondence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrecy_of_correspondence)

~~~
bluGill
The US has the ninth amendment
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninth_Amendment_to_the_United_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution)
which is the out for anything the founders didn't think of. (There is a
massive amount of controversy around this, Wikipedia just scratches the
surface)

------
34679
There's a pretty big difference between the qualifiers used in the 1st and 4th
Amendments.

The 1st begins with "Congress shall make no law.."

The 4th states "..shall not be violated"

This is important because the 1st restricts what the government can do, while
the 4th restricts what anyone can do. In other words, Congress need not pass a
law restricting the collecting and sale of private information because that
activity is already banned by the 4th. This is a job for the courts.

~~~
turc1656
I don't believe that's accurate. I've heard first hand from lawyers that the
bill of rights guarantees protections from government action, not other
citizens or entities like corporations. That's why, for example, we have to
have laws that make it illegal for people to break into your home and steal
stuff. Otherwise, we could just apply the 4th amendment.

No individual or company has to necessarily "respect" your first amendment
right to free speech, as that is something that can _only_ be violated by the
government or a government affiliated entity for which these protections also
apply.

------
AdmiralAsshat
First Amendment seems to mean whatever the hell we want it to mean, these
days.

A group of gun's rights advocates marching in Virginia recently argued that
_not_ being allowed to brandish assault weapons at the capitol was violation
of their "symbolic" speech.[0]

I'm just waiting for the point where someone tries to make the defense in
court that shooting another person in the head was an exercise of their
freedom of speech.

[0][https://wtop.com/virginia/2020/01/gun-groups-want-
firearms-b...](https://wtop.com/virginia/2020/01/gun-groups-want-firearms-ban-
at-virginia-rally-overturned/)

------
mfer
I wonder...

Do the big telco's remove the history of their own execs when selling it?

What would it cost for someone to buy the browsing histories of the execs at
these companies ... or that of politicians and their staffs.

------
gumby
Great: furniture movers should also have the free speech right to talk about
my address, describe all my possessions, etc.

I hire those assholes to transport my bits, unmodified except for TTL, from my
endpoint to a peer, no more, no less. Since they have a de facto monopoly I
don’t even have the ability to choose an alternative. This exploitative crap
must be stopped.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
Furniture movers do have that free speech right. It's completely kosher for
them to chat with some friends in a bar about how weird your possessions are
or how hard it was to get to your address. Maybe ISPs should have special
restrictions the same way medical providers do, but there's no general
principle that people who discover private things about you aren't allowed to
talk about it.

~~~
gumby
But I suspect people would be perturbed if the moving _companies_ sold that
information.

~~~
kube-system
Of course, and many people are perturbed that telecom companies sell their
information. However, perturbed != illegal.

------
thepete2
How did we arrive at the situation where roads are public, but internet isn't?
I'd argue many more people use the internet than own a car.

------
awinter-py
I mean every platform is monetizing data. If the telcos are arguing 'google
and facebook are the same as us, we should have the same business models' I
kind of agree

Of course my version is that they're _all_ common carriers and have to comply
with some norms, but allowing platforms to do this but not telcos is
potentially silly

------
kabdib
Wasn't Apple using the same argument when they refused to make custom iOS
firmware with backdoors for the FBI a few years ago?

I could be wrong. I guess my point is, this is a double-edged sword, like most
freedoms.

------
volgar1x
I don't know if they are evil or just trying it anyway and seeing what
happens. French people have a saying for this

    
    
        You never know, on a misunderstanding it might actually work!

------
dredmorbius
Somewhat more information, including the plaintiffs (America's Communications
Association, CTIA, NCTA, and USTelecom), in the referenced Ars Technica
article:

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/isps-sue-
maine-c...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/isps-sue-maine-claim-
web-privacy-law-violates-their-free-speech-rights/)

------
m463
Note the word "privacy"

    
    
      California Constitution
    
      ARTICLE I DECLARATION OF RIGHTS
    
      SECTION 1.
      
      All people are by nature free and independent
      and have inalienable rights. Among these are
      enjoying and defending life and liberty,
      acquiring, possessing, and protecting property,
      and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness,
      and privacy.

------
bryanrasmussen
Do I have a first amendment right to sell pirated Disney cartoons?

on edit: obviously not because I'm not in the U.S but if I were?

~~~
kube-system
US courts recognize many exceptions to the first amendment. IP rights fall
into that category.

~~~
ceejayoz
Which rather demolishes the telecoms' argument.

Clearly, the First Amendment right to free speech isn't absolute and
unrestricted.

~~~
kube-system
The existence of intellectual property rights isn't really relevant to the
telecoms' argument here.

~~~
ceejayoz
The similar existence of privacy rights and their conflict with the telecoms'
right to free speech is, though.

~~~
SamReidHughes
There isn't a similar existence of privacy rights.

~~~
ceejayoz
SCOTUS begs to differ, in Griswold v. Connecticut. So do various state laws.

~~~
kube-system
It's a pretty big stretch to say that location and financial data is protected
by a right to marital privacy.

~~~
ceejayoz
It would be odd to think marital privacy the only right to privacy the
Constitution establishes.

~~~
kube-system
The constitution can't be used in this case to _support_ a right to privacy.
The argument for privacy here is that Maine's law _doesn 't infringe_ on the
1st amendment.

------
allovernow
That sounds like a pretty desperate argument. What proportion of their revenue
are they making from selling this data?

~~~
52-6F-62
I previously worked under the umbrella of a major Canadian telecom (though in
their media arm—radio, publishing, television).

I'd heard they gathered a _large_ amount of data, but more to do with the
trend of just hoovering up every bit possible and store it in their data
lakes.

My understanding at the time is they had _no_ idea what to do with it.

Some of these initiatives could be rooted in little more than some manager
wanting to stamp `mined data lake using machine learning and AI to generate
$(x) in $(m)`. It doesn't have to actually mean anything.

That said, maybe they've discovered a route to more revenue, hence the push.

edit: Should clarify this was in Canada when the linked article is about the
US.

~~~
kitteh
Was this Rogers New Media? Just curious because my recollection is that they
owned the network infrastructure for the cable internet side and were the
first folks in Canada to go big on deep packet inspection boxes (aka Cisco
pcube, which was from an acquisition of an Israeli compamy) to deal with
"undesirable" traffic but also mining customer data.

~~~
52-6F-62
I didn't work on that side of the company so I can't comment with accuracy
(the entire entity was around 25,000 people at the time). Only what I've heard
along the way. I know they wanted to leverage the data, but I didn't gather
they had necessarily developed much use at the time. They were definitely
interested in collecting data, however.

edit: I'd like to add a disclaimer that my comments are as good as hearsay. I
just wanted to add them for context.

------
TallGuyShort
I would be fine with that argument if they could get media companies on board
with fair use and more limited copyright again. At least that would be
consistent logic, but that won't happen.

------
pnutjam
I'm just going to leave this here, seems relevant:

[https://movetoamend.org/](https://movetoamend.org/)

------
ghastmaster
If municipalities stop giving them local monopolies they can have rights
again. Until then, they should be beholden to strict rules.

~~~
gumby
What monopoly? Here in Palo Alto I have full consumer “choice”: comcast or
att.

I have to use crapcast (though goes down each night) as att, despite their
ads, will only provision me 768kb DSL though I’m less than a mile from the
CO/DSLAMS (and the PAIX for that matter)

I assume elsewhere the two companies have a deal where comcast is slow and att
is faster. Of course the competition authorities and fcc are utterly supine.

Palo Alto used to run its own infrastructure but over the years stupid
privatization has gradually shed phone, TV, garbage collection, parking
enforcement and such for inferior, more expensive private services. I expect
power and water to fall next.

~~~
kube-system
You're lucky that you have that many options. You don't have to go too far
into rural areas to find places where there isn't any coax on the poles.

24 million Americans don't have any options that the FCC considers as fixed
broadband service (25/3mbps)

~~~
ghastmaster
I lived in one of those areas in the 90s. We had dial-up. I was incredibly
happy when we moved to the city and were able to get broadband. I was shocked
when I found out a friend who lives in my city today was still operating with
broadband. He complained about his wife having trouble using voip while
watching netflix, so I suggested he upgrade his router or move it. When I went
over to install the new router I found a broadband modem...! His street is
serviced by the same companies as mine. He is in an arguably affluent
neighborhood. He had to switch companies to get to 50mbit+.

------
ptah
watering down freedom of speech because why not

~~~
takk309
As soon as companies and businesses were considered "people" and got the same
rights, it all became a farce.

~~~
strictnein
Corporate personhood is a centuries old idea. It is what enables you to sign a
contract with a company, for example.

As a counter example that shows they are still not fully "people": a
corporation cannot adopt a child or get married.

~~~
jessaustin
_It is what enables you to sign a contract with a company, for example._

We'd be better off if we couldn't do this. Predatory credit would disappear.

~~~
stordoff
How do I order something if I can't make a contract with a company? It's a
contract of sale.

~~~
jessaustin
It doesn't have to be. Fraud is still a crime. If I send the firm a BTC and
they don't send me back a BTC worth of goods, how long will they remain in
business?

------
12xo
How perverted. They claim that the entity has a right to free speech? And
worse, that somehow that entitles them to do as they please? Is Alan
Dershowitz behind this?

------
aswanson
This is insane.

------
auiya
The US needs GDPR-equivalent laws ASAP.

~~~
xxpor
If this argument succeeds, even GDPR wouldn't save us since they're making a
constitutional argument, not an argument based on the US code.

~~~
zahma
Certainly a court challenge would pit the 1st Amendment rights of the consumer
against that of a corporation. Something along the lines of citizens have the
right of freedom of expression that is not accumulated and traded. In a sane
world, a corporation would not trump the rights of a private citizen: the
purveyor of goods and services meant to improve the lives of citizens.
Right..? right?! But after Citizens United, who could really be sure that the
average citizen is any more important than a corporation's personhood.

------
clSTophEjUdRanu
I think it's funny how high and mighty so many are on this site but if you
look to your left and right YOU are the ones building this dystopia.

