
Members of congress who voted to reverse FCC web browsing privacy rule - aaronbrethorst
https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/29/15100620/congress-fcc-isp-web-browsing-privacy-fire-sale
======
jenga22
This is interesting. I wonder why only Republicans are targeted consistently
for these types of laws that are blatantly bad for consumers and why it works
on them. However, I am sure money has been offered to Democrats but what's the
reason it never sticks?

~~~
smallnamespace
The sad truth is that most politicians aren't going to win elections without
corporate money.

Think about it this way: the attention of voters is limited and expensive.
Therefore communicating with them is a costly commodity. Right now it is
controlled by media organizations, and the only way for politicians to pay
that cost is (1) out of their own pockets (if they're independently wealthy),
(2) out of corporate pockets, or (3) out of the pockets of excited and
motivated party partisans.

Most people don't like (1) for obvious reasons -- it's easy to bash the rich
as being elitist and out of touch. (3) has a chicken-and-egg problem of how a
politician can reach people if they don't have any money initially to
bootstrap the process. It also leads to politicians saying really
controversial and divisive things to get the base excited -- the base's
interests don't always align with the general electorate's.

So either we actually enact strong campaign finance reform (good luck getting
that past the Supreme Court), we stop electing politicians that took corporate
money, or we have robust public funding for elections so politicians don't
need corporate money.

~~~
danpalmer
That is, in the current system. In the UK there are strict limits on campaign
spending that get investigated and enforced, and the limits are low enough
that individual contributions are important and corporate donations can only
go so far.

~~~
laythea
Erm abuse of this happened recently with no consequences. Please don't speak
like the UK is any better. People are all the same.

See
[https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/16/conservativ...](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/16/conservatives-
fined-70000-for-campaign-spending-failures)

~~~
emn13
Just look at the amounts involved however - the UK is orders of magnitude
better.

Ignoring differences of degree like that is a sure way to end up in a terrible
situation: "it's bad anyhow, who cares if it gets worse?"

~~~
tolien
To be fair the UK is an order of magnitude smaller and election spending
hasn’t reached the stratospheric levels of the USA.

There’s also the example of a number of the pro-Leave campaigns in the EU
referendum receiving donations from unknown donors, then all spending it with
the same strategic communications company behind Ted Cruz’s primary and
Trump’s presidential campaigns [1]. In this cases, the sums involved were of
the order of millions of pounds — a bit more significant.

1: [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-
great...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-
british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy)

~~~
danpalmer
> and election spending hasn’t reached the stratospheric levels of the USA.

This is because election spending in the UK is limited by the Electoral
Commission. Also the spending must be published.

~~~
tolien
Assuming the parties correctly report the spending, or anyone bothers to
investigate. I think _that_ is the weak point - if it wasn't for a fairly
dogged campaign by Channel 4 the problem with the Tories overspending to
promote particular candidates might never have come to light.

For the record, the magic number is £30k per seat contested on "campaign
spending" (to promote the national party), and another about £10-16k of
"candidate spending" (to promote a particular candidate) depending on the size
of the constituency.

[https://fullfact.org/law/election-spending-rules-
conservativ...](https://fullfact.org/law/election-spending-rules-
conservatives-electoral-commission/)

~~~
laythea
Yep. It does make you wonder what else doesn't get out...

------
tomrod
The title made me think there was another vote. This is a dated article from
March, 2017 (though no less relevant today).

~~~
aaronbrethorst
Midterms are less than a year away.

~~~
static_noise
This foot of the goverment did their work to stomp freedom. Let the other foot
stomp again.

------
Camillo
> Additionally, it’s important to note that the communications industry is one
> of the largest lobbying groups in US history; internet providers and the
> telephone companies before them are notorious for spreading wealth across
> the aisle. Regardless, one party seems more responsive to the industry’s
> demands.

Ok, so ISPs give money to all of Congress, and every single representative in
the list is a Republican. Sounds like the vote happened along party lines,
then? But does that not invalidate the article's entire thesis? Maybe if they
listed the representatives who voted _against_ the bill, and showed that there
is a significant difference in contributions, it would support their thesis.
But they don't do that.

~~~
tzs
> But does that not invalidate the article's entire thesis? Maybe if they
> listed the representatives who voted against the bill, and showed that there
> is a significant difference in contributions, it would support their thesis.
> But they don't do that.

A significant difference would not so much support their thesis as fail to
support the negation of their thesis.

What articles such as this almost never consider is that donors might choose
which politicians to donate to and how much to donate based on the publicly
stated positions of the politician and the politician's party, that
politician's past votes, and the general political philosophy of the
politician and party.

If we banned all political donations, and put a limit on political spending by
the candidates or on behalf of the candidates, switching to funding campaigns
entirely out of public money, a bill like this would STILL be largely
supported by Republicans and largely opposed by Democrats because of their
philosophical differences.

------
w4tson
Forgive my ignorance, I’ve not been keeping up with this story. Is this just a
USA thing?

What way if any will affect non US residents?

~~~
pkaye
Do you use any websites located in the US? What if they close down?

~~~
briandear
Are we guilty of hyperbole?

------
tudorw
Good job the Internet is only a beta right :) I think the Meshnet will win in
the end.

------
srj
Unless pure exposure is your goal it seems counterproductive to associate an
issue with a political party. As with climate change, people who might
otherwise be open to hearing arguments now turn their brains off and don't
engage with the topic beyond pushing what's supported by "their side".

------
microcolonel
Side note: encrypted DNS is looking quite attractive right now.

------
booleanbetrayal
Campaign finance reform is the issue that predicates all other issues.
Lawrence Lessig was right.

------
cjoh
While I generally agree that members of Congress listen more to lobbyists than
to constituents, the idea that money flows this transactionally is just
absurd.

You yourself have probably given to a member of Congress because they _did_
something rather than _so that they will do_ something. I gave to a member of
Congress because they spoke out for Gun control, not because I called them and
told Them that if they speak out I will write them a check.

That’s what makes this kind of uncontextualized data pretty disheartening.
You’re showing some correlations, conflating it with causation, and
disaffecting the electorate (which, in turn makes the lobbyists more powerful)

------
rayiner
This is a little bit less comic book villain-y than it seems. This is an
attempt not to get rid of privacy protections, but to return to the status quo
circa 2014, where privacy was handled using more general laws enforced by the
FTC. This is typical in other countries, where the telecom regulator usually
does not take a leading role in consumer protection, leaving that to the
appropriate agency. Many countries, for example, have an agency focused on
privacy. Historically, that role in the US has been filled by the FTC.

~~~
tzs
> This is an attempt not to get rid of privacy protections, but to return to
> the status quo circa 2014, where privacy was handled using more general laws
> enforced by the FTC.

Wasn't there a ruling by the 9th Circuit that said the FTC does not have
jurisdiction over common carriers, and so, at least in the 9th Circuit, this
does not return to the 2014 status quo until after the FCC completes their
killing of the 2015 Open Internet Order?

------
_pdp_
Maybe this is an opportunity for some of you to setup the next gen of ISPs
that do not track. I am not sure what is the feasibility for this in the
states but it is certainly possible in UK (I think). This is a nice niche to
carve and build from there with services that cater to the customers broadband
needs and not to milk more money from personal data. For people like me, this
is going to be an easy sale.

~~~
ealexhudson
A&A already market themselves on this basis. The problem is it's not cheap,
and they're constrained by the RIP type acts too, so pure "no track" is
actually illegal.

~~~
_pdp_
Of course - such service will not be mainstream. Gmail is free but we know
what we pay with.

------
animex
Well, there's got to be a way to avoid this by VPNing, and using DNS not owned
by ISPs right?

~~~
losteric
The way to avoid this is vigorously campaigning for better representatives,
removing the sellouts from office

~~~
drieddust
Absolutely but for some reason American are more interested in "keeping the
markets regulation free".

Natural monopolies like telecom need to be heavily regulated.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
Because they’ve been sold a bill of goods by people like the Koch brothers.
[https://www.npr.org/2016/01/19/463565987/hidden-history-
of-k...](https://www.npr.org/2016/01/19/463565987/hidden-history-of-koch-
brothers-traces-their-childhood-and-political-rise)

------
throw2016
A perfect example of democracy not working and corporate capture in full
display. You are sold some idealized version of an enlightened progressive
society where your one vote in 4 years is of fundamental value when in the
real world something altogether regressive is in action, and this is on
display across industries.

Its appears it's not your vote but money that influences outcomes on a day to
day basis, so back to quasi feudalism dressed up. Adam smith spoke about this,
anti-regulation propaganda is transparently self serving by entrenched
interests. Markets are not magic, there is no invisible hand and there is no
perfect information.

Markets are created by people and like everything else in civilized life they
need rules and regulation and if you want to adhere to democratic principles
and build progressive societies they need to reflect the wishes and interests
of the people.

------
alexanderdmitri
This probably doesn't have to do 100% about money. When the govt wants some
data, there aren't as many doors to knock on now.

------
thrillgore
>Republican establishment screams about small government and yet they're the
ones expanding the scope

One day, GOP, this will haunt you.

------
shmerl
Such blatant corruption is sickening.

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danielovichdk
Is this being passef through you think? It seems totally crazy for me, but I
am also northern europe where this would not happen.

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free_everybody
I'm never voting for any of these POS public servants. Just unforgivable.

------
ispeakcomputer
Even tried to vote this time around. Popular vote didn't count. I tried.

~~~
smt88
A lot of democracy is just showing up. Even if your side loses, you may be
building momentum that leads to a victory. Please keep showing up.

~~~
pdkl95
Unlike most previous systems of government, in a democracy, _you get to try
again_.

Divine right was inconvertible by definition (after being defined by fiat).
Throughout history, being on the losing side of a political conflict resulted
in slavery or death. In a democracy, we have the _privilege_ of trying again
next year.

Change doesn't happen overnight. It happens when people refuse to give on
their 99th loss and continue to apply all available pressure until the status
quo finally cracks.

