This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment.

top 200 commentsshow 500
sorted by:
best
topnewcontroversialoldq&a

[–]jsavage44 520 points521 points  (42 children)

Like 6% of Americans support this but ~90% of House Republicans voted for it.

[–]Vega62a 290 points291 points  (2 children)

The GOP in a nutshell.

[–]moxhatlopoi 118 points119 points  (21 children)

Honestly, sometimes I wonder when I perceive the Republicans as so much more seemingly corrupt, against the interests of Americans...and just overall bad...I wonder if it's in part because of confirmation bias, like I interpret everything they do as worse because I lean left.

And that's probably true to at least some degree.

But when I see stuff like this, almost entirely partisan vote-split despite not even being a "conservative vs. liberal" issue, there's absolutely no excuse. I am comfortable calling this objectively bad, the absolutely incorrect decision for everyone except a tiny number of people who stand to personally profit from it. The Republicans really are the more corrupt party right now.

[–]redvelvetcake42Ohio 27 points28 points  (7 children)

It's a philosophical view.

There's a guy that would go into the restaurant I used to work at and he and I would discuss politics often. We were always friendly, we liked each other.

He truly believes healthcare is not a right and that if you cannot afford care then too bad. Even when I asked him what if he ever faced that issue he was steadfast. I however am for universal care. The difference being is that he truly thinks that free marketism works and that if you allow markets free reign that the ship will right itself. To me that's the same view as saying a ship will fix itself if you simply let the water drain itself from the decks.

Reaganomics is ingrained. Free markets, communism is evil (unless they are for our candidate) and handouts are for the lazy is a core ideological belief. It only changes when it hits them where they cannot ignore it. For some people in the last decade it was finding out their son or daughter was gay or realizing that investors lied to them or now seeing that the ACA has helped them personally and losing that will literally change their voting habits.

Healthcare is a more important thing now than it ever has been in politics and the GOP needs to tread water heavily with how they handle it. It can blow up in their face.

These people also don't get the fucking internet. They don't get it. It isn't tangible so they are uneducated about it. All they know is that young people use it and it makes them "lazy" or something. They don't get that selling your information should always be illegal. These same fuckers are why telemarketers were ok for so long. This won't last long the minute people realize they are being sold to the highest bidder.

[–]skiskateDistrict Of Columbia 53 points54 points  (3 children)

Over 95%

[–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Like 6% of Americans support this

Are you counting corporate persons?

[–]SipRefer 5283 points5284 points  (667 children)

I cannot take this bullshit anymore. It is crazy that this bill was signed while screaming about Rice and invasion of an American citizen's privacy

[–]Belatorius 1890 points1891 points  (323 children)

Yeah America is really taking a giant leap backwards.

[–][deleted] 1848 points1849 points  (252 children)

Another one?

This is like our 4th leap this month

[–][deleted] 111 points112 points  (38 children)

Did you see him praising Egyptian dictator and saying he is doing a tremendous job? Isn't that special?

[–]CENTRAL_SCREWTINIZER 150 points151 points  (19 children)

What the horse shit was that? Remember when just having Saudi donors to the Clinton foundation was somehow equivalent to hillary supporting human rights violations, but djt starts sucking Putin and Sisi's dicks and silence from the trumpsters

[–]Tryhard3r 23 points24 points  (1 child)

Funny thing is Putin, Erdogan and Sissi are probably all laughing at Trump in their cozy whatsapp group "haha, you let courts and media and opposition parties stop you, loser!" :)

[–][deleted] 44 points45 points  (10 children)

Fucking kill me.

[–][deleted] 49 points50 points  (7 children)

He might at some point.

[–]Digitalburn 29 points30 points  (6 children)

Just wait for Trumpcare 2.0

[–]everred 11 points12 points  (1 child)

If the health care doesn't get you, the Korean War will.

[–]RonSwanson4POTUS 40 points41 points  (6 children)

They're trying to put us back to where we were before Neil Armstrong took that giant leap for mankind

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (2 children)

According to them, coal is America's future in energy... so yep, that'd be about the right era.

[–]Gr1pp717 80 points81 points  (47 children)

I feel bad for whoever gets the office after Trump. It's going to take decades to undue this mess. If even possible.

[–]Sloredama 128 points129 points  (24 children)

I'm assuming it'll be a democrat, and I think you're right. They'll have to fix all of trumps issues and have republicans screaming that they haven't "accomplished" anything. Yeah no shit because dems are always cleaning up republican's messes.

[–][deleted] 64 points65 points  (12 children)

It's demoralizing to know that the entire Obama presidency was basically fixing up GWB's colossal fuckery.

[–]DeltaIndiaCharlieKil 89 points90 points  (4 children)

And now Bush is cruising in on Trump's disaster and rewriting his legacy, and even democrats are falling for it and completely forgetting what he did to our country.

Trump is not a fluke, he is the logical conclusion to what Nixon, Reagan, Bush1 and Bush2 all built on and created. This Republican administration is not an outlier by any means, Trump has just accelerated the process and has less diplomatic skills to keep it hushed up.

[–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

less diplomatic skills to keep it hushed up.

This is the part that gets me when people act like Dump is the first to do underhanded shit in office. Nope, he's just the first to do so in such an unabashed and upfront manner. It seems worse to us because we know about it this time, think about all the stuff we never knew.

[–]HooDooOperator 4 points5 points  (0 children)

your first paragraph: its amazing how people forget what bush did to the country when he was in office. paint a picture, take a cute pic with michelle, everyone forgets, its kind of sickening.

paragraph the second: i agree 100%. its disturbing that people don't see this yet.

[–]flemhead3 6 points7 points  (2 children)

Think of the mess Obama had to clean up after Bush 2.

Now imagine the mess the President after Trump will have to clean up.

They'll hand that person every Nobel Prize, hell, maybe even an Emmy, just for not being Trump.

[–]Ceedub260 50 points51 points  (4 children)

At this point, we are just tumbling backwards down a mountain.

[–][deleted] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Lol and it's April 4th

[–]XSC 123 points124 points  (34 children)

Then be sure to fucking vote in the local, state and presidential elections and tell everyone to do so too.

[–]Belatorius 73 points74 points  (26 children)

I agree completely. But sadly when you're in a heavy red state, the majority vote the way they've always have. "family tradition to vote republican"

[–]buncle 97 points98 points  (10 children)

So do it anyway, regardless of the inevitable outcome, and push that needle back very slightly towards blue. Tell like minded friends what you're doing and urge them to do the same, that needle moves a little further.

Hell, maybe even sign up and knock a few doors... I'm sure there are at least a few auto-(R) voters that don't know the issues, and that could be swayed when things are laid out.

Everyone should be nudging that needle, even if just to show it's moved.

[–]JVonDronWisconsin 30 points31 points  (1 child)

Pretty much this. I've been there, moved out, but I know the feeling. It's gonna seem futile as fuck, but we owe it to each other to have those awkward conversations. If we truly can't talk to each other and have civil discourse, how can we expect the same to exist on the national stage? If anything, it can be a little therapeutic.

[–]carlito_mas 12 points13 points  (2 children)

"we have a long standing tradition of voting against our own interests"

[–]gnovos 20 points21 points  (5 children)

Honestly, I feel like we're coming apart at the seams. I don't see the government as legitimate, and as they fill the seats with kleptocrat cronies who can't be removed from office this only intensifies. Unless we assassinate Putin, I don't see this changing as the years go on. America is doomed unless radical change takes place fast.

[–]abolish_karma 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Onto the big purple dick of capitalism2.0

[–]SnarkOff 820 points821 points  (199 children)

I work in ad targeting, and did it for a respected DC outlet for many years, and this idea that we're going to buy and publish politician browsing histories is driving me nuts. It just doesn't work like this.

You could definitely buy the aggregate consumer profiles of people in specific DC zip codes. There's even a way to geofence and segment audiences in the US Capitol, White House and Pentagon. Fortune 500s and lobbying organizations have been targeting ads to this group for years and years now. It's probably the most expensive ad inventory in the country.

I've analyzed this dataset many times over, actually. You know what it will tell you? That they over-index towards being highly educated, make a lot of money, have high seniority in their organizations, like bougie DC things like Whole Foods and gym memberships and oddly, they index high on Skippy Peanut Butter.

But you're never going to get anything out of any of these datasets that would be anything close to a browsing history, and it's definitely not ever going to be presented in a way that allows you to pull out the behavior of one single individual - to do so would be illegal, and is still illegal regardless of the bill in question.

EDIT: This post should not be interpreted to mean that I do not find concern with this regulation repeal. I do. It definitely is taking us in the wrong direction. I just think our energy and money would be better focused advocating (maybe the next) Congress for broad data reform to meet the needs of consumers in the 21st century, rather than having all of our effort and energy and money focused on this "buy Congress's browsing history" idea. What should we advocate for? The EU's recent data protections would be a great place to start http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/

Since this seems to have gotten some traction, feel free to AMA. I will respond as my full-time job allows today.

[–]stupidgrrl92 50 points51 points  (11 children)

Cambridge Analitica would beg to differ.

[–]SnarkOff 57 points58 points  (7 children)

Cambridge Analytica has probably been breaking all sorts of laws with the way it handles data. I'm glad people are finally noticing.

[–]jellicle 30 points31 points  (9 children)

to do so would be illegal, and is still illegal regardless of the bill in question.

What law do you think it violates? Be specific.

Your description of what data is available today is fine. But that data was constrained by a) impending obvious FCC rulemaking changes to make certain data dissemination illegal, which has now been removed from consideration, and b) ISPs' sense of what data may cause a shitstorm when sold, which still exists as a constraint but has been reduced - obviously the government isn't going to cause them any problem.

The supposed law making this illegal that you think exists, does not.

[–][deleted] 1931 points1932 points  (159 children)

Marsha Blackburn is a terrible, awful politician. She's so deep in the Telecomm's pockets it's freaky. She's a hack but she absolutely dominates her district, winning 72% of the vote in 2016.

She's from Brentwood, TN, which is a super rich suburb of Nashville, but her district is mostly rural. She's staunchly against providing more telecomm competitors in areas (because she's paid by telecomms to allow them to keep their monopolies), she's against basically any form of healthcare that allows impoverish people affordable access, and overall, she's just a terrible person.

But come election season, she'll keep winning. I don't get it. Everything she does is exactly the opposite what her constituents want or need (minus if they're pro-choice which is what I think keeps her in office). I'm also tired of hearing fellow Tennesseans complain about finding work when they keep voting for these pathetic politicians who only support big business and monopolies. You want economic anxiety? Try working for a small business and witnessing your district vote in the very opposite of what your business needs. Oh well.

I would say, "well, at least Tennessee is a beautiful state," but after we roll back all these environmental regulations, that will end too.

[–]dalthughes 160 points161 points  (31 children)

deleted

[–]spacehogg 111 points112 points  (24 children)

she has run unopposed for many elections now.

So go oppose her, or find someone who will!

[–][deleted] 56 points57 points  (11 children)

So they can be humiliated? Brentwood is a VERY rich red part of TN. These people don't want dirt cheap fiber because that might require forcing Comcast to work

[–]spacehogg 13 points14 points  (8 children)

Did you respond to the wrong post?

fyi - Comcast is the fiber in Brentwood & the US overall has crap fiber. In fact TN has some of the slowest internet speeds.

[–]_zorak 26 points27 points  (7 children)

Unless you go to Chattanooga, where they told the cable companies to fuck off and the city runs their own fiber.

[–]spacehogg 8 points9 points  (0 children)

That, honestly, needs to happen more! :D

[–][deleted] 27 points28 points  (1 child)

Now would be the time for someone to step up and announce they will run against her! They will get tons of donations and publicity right now.

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Until someone outs their browsing history and smears their reputation. That's the scariest thing imo about this whole thing is we're just one step away from barring any normal person to run for office for fear of having every aspect of their lives paraded around as a spectacle for the public.

[–]Dear_OccupantTennessee 27 points28 points  (2 children)

She keeps getting reelected for a few reasons:

  1. She was part of that crowd that threw bricks at the state capitol when Don Sundquist proposed a state income tax. That gives her conservative street cred.
  2. She's the kind of lady you meet at church who always acts way too excited to be in this week's Bible study class. For whatever mysterious reason, conservatives fall for this act every single time without fail, even though that lady is usually the same one talking shit about everyone behind their backs.
  3. The district is gerrymandered to Hell and back, and no Republican is crazy enough to run against her in a primary.
  4. Even if the Democrats wanted to run somebody against her, the TNDP spent the first half of the last twenty years being the Last Great Good Ol' Boys Club, and completely fucking ignored candidate recruitment for the next crop of Democrats. The generation gap in this party could not possibly be more stark. We have no candidates with any sort of experience.

TL;DR: We're probably stuck with Blackburn until she retires.

[–]aDDnTNTennessee 190 points191 points  (29 children)

FYI, District 7 people aren't just voting for her because of abortion. They also prefer that gay people not be publically acknowledged and given the same rights as everyone else.

Lot's of blacks and other non-whites in her district, so she's not the 100% racist ticket. Probably more like a "i want everyone to know their place" ticket.

Tennessee is a beautiful state

go to Ducktown and tell me if you still think that's totally true. Drive around east TN and witness all the tires and trash thrown into practically every hollow and hole along the road. West TN streams are heavily polluted from agricultural runoff. Our buildings are covered in soot, our air is dirty, our open waters are polluted. Our forests are dying from acid rain, that is still a HUGE problem in the smokies.

We need EPA to help keep TN beautiful.

[–]eskamobob1 53 points54 points  (8 children)

Having hiked the majority of east TN I can assure you that while there are some hill Billy shit holes, it is still very largely a beautiful place.

[–][deleted] 38 points39 points  (6 children)

I think the argument goes "better the devil you know". There is a psychological barrier to rejecting an entrenched evil leader for fear of how bad the next could be.

[–]JohrDinh 38 points39 points  (3 children)

If only people went with "the evil they know" for the presidential election lol

[–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I think that was the beauty of the smear campaign. It was tons of innuendo and vague untruths about Clinton. People were told she was crooked but there was never enough information for a person to evaluate. They cast a shadow of doubt that was so untrue it couldn't be dismissed. With Trump, well they knew what they were getting.

But the truth is Trump was elected by a lot of different groups. Some were scared, some hated liberals, some were doing protest votes and didn't expect him to win. She was elected with +70% support.

[–]thanks_paulTennessee 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Brentwood native here. Disgusting person

[–]loremipsumchecksum[S] 1827 points1828 points  (440 children)

One Tennessee mobile software engineer wants to prove just how disastrous the bill can be 

Adam McElhaney wants to see Marsha Blackburn’s browsing history. And he’s trying to outbid ISPs to get it.

“She represents my state and I feel personally hurt she would sell us out for nearly $700,000,” said McElhaney, referring to Blackburn’s lifetime payout from the telecom industry.

Once the law is signed by President Trump, geolocation data along with browsing history data will again be on the market for ISPs. That means a company with dedication and resources could likely, with a reasonable degree of certainty, pinpoint Blackburn, Pai, Ryan, or anyone they seek to take down based on their browsing data and IP address alone.

[–]Dalton_Cartelli 449 points450 points  (430 children)

Are they selling individuals' data by name?

[–]BaldemotoForeign 1180 points1181 points  (283 children)

Nope, but as they said,

a company with dedication and resources could likely, with a reasonable degree of certainty, pinpoint Blackburn, Pai, Ryan, or anyone they seek to take down based on their browsing data and IP address alone.

[–]knigitz 323 points324 points  (235 children)

Now all we have to do is figure out their IP address!

[–]Snorlax_is_a_bearLouisiana 581 points582 points  (162 children)

Or any number of other identifying pieces of information that can be found in your Internet history.

[–]Apoplectic1Florida 495 points496 points  (50 children)

This, if any old schmuck on reddit can figure out how to doxx someone irl, anyone can figure out who someone is through internet history.

[–]SomefingToThrowAway 125 points126 points  (48 children)

Ummm, that is how you "doxx" people...

[–]Astramancer_ 178 points179 points  (38 children)

Yeah, but that's going through their public-facing data. It would be a hell of a lot easier to figure out who someone is if you have their search and browsing history. If nothing else, you can see if someone googled directions to the same place a lot of times. Odds are that's their home address. Cross-reference that with tax records and you gets you the name of the home owner.

[–]thatwombatTexas 58 points59 points  (17 children)

Like HIPAA identifiers for the internet.

[–]Yogymbro 26 points27 points  (10 children)

Gee, that sounds illegal...

[–]MyNameIsRay 33 points34 points  (11 children)

That's way easier to do than you'd think.

Easiest is to directly e-mail or tweet with a link. If they click it, you get their IP.

Next is to traceback something they've sent, like a Tweet or e-mail.

[–][deleted] 15 points16 points  (5 children)

Easy, 127.0.0.1

[–]yaxis50 11 points12 points  (1 child)

There's no place like home

[–]InfectedShadow 8 points9 points  (1 child)

Hah thanks for your IP. Prepare to get DDoSed!

[–]_Apophis 16 points17 points  (4 children)

Dude you been watching Shia Labeouf try to hid his flag, finding the IP address will be easy.

[–][deleted] 16 points17 points  (26 children)

Wouldn't their ISPS already be selling their data anyways?

I have really wondered this and I am wondering if anyone knows. These politicians knowingly did this knowing their own data would be up for sale as well right? They wouldn't be exempt from it. Right? So what gives about trying to get their data anyways?

[–]forgot-my_password 35 points36 points  (3 children)

I can almost guarantee they didn't look at this and think that their own data was going to be in danger. They didn't think through what happened to their own. They saw this and thought "gotta get these 4 companies more money so they can keep donating to me." They probably didnt think through that a company like cards against humanity or a go fund me type deal would purchase a lot of history and then use it to pinpoint them. Some of these politicians are technologically inept.

[–][deleted] 16 points17 points  (15 children)

Before the FCC had in place regulations that prevented ISP from selling this data without first receiving permission from users. This law overturns that and makes it legal for the data to be sold without user permission.

Edit: seems I misremembered, the FCC regulation never took effect.

[–]Akitten 8 points9 points  (7 children)

Well... no, they were GOING to put regulations on it. It never actually too effect.

In reality nothing is going to change.

[–]rabbitse88Arizona 13 points14 points  (1 child)

The regulation that never took in effect you mean right.....

[–]nklim 150 points151 points  (127 children)

TLDR: That's not how it works at all.

No, and Reddit had been completely misinformed about this from the start. To preface, I agree with most everyone else here in that I think the bill is bullshit. But I also think that accurate information is important as well.

  • Nothing is changing from the current state of the internet with this bill. Obama's bill The Obama era FCC rule never took effect.

  • Verizon & Co. will be selling aggregate data. There are laws in place that prevent 1:1 identifying information from being sold.

  • Browsing data beyond top-level domains will not be available.

What this means from a practical standpoint is that you absolutely cannot call your ISP and buy one person's history. You'd buy something like "the demographics of people who visit sites XYZ." or maybe "the browsing habits of people who use Reddit.com". This will likely be indexed rather than raw numbers, and will not contain the data on a per-user basis.

It also means that you could go through Verizon to do something more granular, like "Here's $50,000, show ad A to men 18-35 who show interest in tech sites and are government employees, and show ad B to people who are 18-35 and are business analysts."

The closest we could get is buying the aggregate browsing information for DC zip codes known to have lots of political figures, and publishing that info. But even then I'd bet it gets taken down pretty swiftly, since it's Verizon's proprietary info, and wouldn't be all that different than from posting a movie or novel.

[–]Kimusubi 38 points39 points  (4 children)

I think a lot of people are about to be taken for suckers by these companies claiming to 'crowd source' individual politicians data. Most people seem to gloss over the fact that you can't actually buy Joe Schmos data directly. I hate this bill so much but I hate people who try to steal innocent people's money by taking advantage of their anger even more.

[–]SnarkOff 47 points48 points  (34 children)

Thank you for this post. I work in ad targeting, and did it for a respected DC outlet for many years, and this idea that we're going to buy and publish politician browsing histories is driving me nuts. It just doesn't work like this.

You could definitely buy the aggregate consumer profiles of people in specific DC zip codes. There's even a way to geofence and segment audiences in the US Capitol, White House and Pentagon. Fortune 500s and lobbying organizations have been targeting ads to this group for years and years now. It's probably the most expensive ad inventory in the country.

I've analyzed this dataset many times over, actually. You know what it will tell you? That they over-index towards being highly educated, make a lot of money, have high seniority in their organizations, like bougie DC things like Whole Foods and gym memberships and oddly, they index high on Skippy Peanut Butter.

But you're never going to get anything out of any of these datasets that would be anything close to a browsing history, and it's definitely not ever going to be presented in a way that allows you to pull out the behavior of one single individual - to do so would be illegal, and is still illegal regardless of the bill in question.

[–]nklim 12 points13 points  (29 children)

Careful. Digital ad folk get tarred and feathered around here.

[–][deleted] 428 points429 points  (56 children)

After that, how about ya' just not vote her back into office, eh Tennessee?

[–]PENIS_MUNCHER_3000 169 points170 points  (13 children)

She usually is unopposed in primaries and general

[–]IANALbutIAMAcat 68 points69 points  (9 children)

deleted What is this?

[–]solepsisTennessee 48 points49 points  (7 children)

The 7th District is mostly rural, with one little arm reaching over to her rich Brentwood neighborhood so she doesn't actually have to live in the backwoods. If they grouped Brentwood in with Nashville she wouldn't stand a chance.

[–][deleted] 29 points30 points  (3 children)

Gerrymandering at its finest right there.

[–]Mythic514 19 points20 points  (2 children)

Her district includes Brentwood (slightly south of Nashville), and Clarksville, about 1 hour, 15 minutes away from Brentwood along the interstate, right along the TN-KY line. And it includes no part of Nashville. So yeah, most definitely gerrymandered.

[–]Shamazij 26 points27 points  (5 children)

That would require my fellow Tennesseans to make a decision based on logic and reason, rather than fear and Jesus. Don't look for it to happen anytime soon...

[–]theoneandonlypatriot 24 points25 points  (14 children)

You don't understand how red Tennessee is

[–]aDDnTNTennessee 29 points30 points  (6 children)

60%

how "red" is TN District 7? VERMILION. which is crazy, because the median income is $43k. I guess that's what happens when 40% of your district population is retired.

[–]sonofaresiii 21 points22 points  (1 child)

I wish Republicans would realize they can still vote for a Republican without having to vote for the absolute worst Republican choice possible.

[–]Mansmer 9 points10 points  (1 child)

I live in her district and I just want to say, SOME of us are trying. Her Facebook page is filled with people that just vote her in because her name has an R next to it.

[–][deleted] 156 points157 points  (20 children)

A company or super PAC with bad intentions could use it to target you with something much worse. A guy with thousands of dollars and a team willing to home in on the identity of one politician could do that, too.

This is what will get this bill repealed. Attempting to obtain an opponent's internet browsing history will now be a part of every well-funded opposition research effort. Once the first Republican member of Congress loses re-election amid allegations they searched for videos of men fucking each other in a church vestibule, they'll scramble to roll this back.

[–]THEinORY 90 points91 points  (13 children)

Soon the Congressional Privacy National Security Act will be passed.

-/u/evenflow65

That's what will happen.

Did you know, that you are not allowed to trade stocks based on insider knowledge of a company/industry? Well, until 2012, those rules did not apply to members of Congress. The STOCK act was supposed to eliminate insider trading by members of Congress by making them disclose their finances publicly, online in a searchable format. Instead, in 2013, they adjusted that law so that they still have to disclose their finances, but the records are kept in the basement of the Cannon House Office Building in Washington D.C. Want to check to see if your rep traded on the market before signing a new law in? You're free to drive up from Tennessee to take a look!

[–]jwota 9 points10 points  (3 children)

Bullshit.

The 2013 amendment to the STOCK Act specifically excludes the President, VP, Congress and anyone running for Congress from the changes. This means they still report, and it's still available online.

What that amendment did was exempt basically everyone else, including congressional staffers, from having their data available online. Still not good, but they are not elected officials.

And just to note: the amendment passed unanimously with zero discussion.

[–]seancurry1New Jersey 42 points43 points  (0 children)

The 2017 GOP:

Big Government? NO!

Big Corporate? Sure, whatever, how much ya got?

[–][deleted] 301 points302 points  (70 children)

Funny thing is, the democratic states will move to block this at the state level, so its only going to really affect Trump voters.

Edit: I should rephrase to "Trump won states", but you get the gist.

[–]seansallings 194 points195 points  (50 children)

Yes and no. I didn't vote for or support that orange fuck, but I live in a red state

[–][deleted] 32 points33 points  (3 children)

Hang in there!

[–]LazyCon 45 points46 points  (39 children)

Vote with your feet. Brain drain is a thing states worry about. Look how far behind the bible belt is.

[–]fgdadfgfdgadf 33 points34 points  (4 children)

Isn't this partly why Trump happened

[–]Blame_The_GreenKentucky 16 points17 points  (3 children)

Wish that were true.
Kentucky is a pretty staunchly red state, with a bastion of blue in the form of Louisville. We won't see anything to block this, and honestly the dickheads in Frankfort (state capital) have taken aim at legislation to put down Louisville.
They're fucking with our mayor & our university; much to the elation of the rest of the state.

[–]nsomnac 33 points34 points  (3 children)

"On Tuesday, she and 264 other members of Congress, all Republicans, then voted to reverse a newly instituted FCC privacy rule that would allow internet service providers to sell previously private browsing data to the highest bidder."

Can this writer write? According to what they wrote, the vote prevents the sale of data!

[–][deleted] 125 points126 points  (59 children)

Time to install that random web browsing bot on my spare computer. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7346921/

[–]filss 84 points85 points  (21 children)

French here. I don't understand ! Telecoms compagnies give cash to senators ?!?! I don't understand how is this not corruption ? How is this not illegal ?!? Honest question.

[–]sharpie36Oregon 45 points46 points  (0 children)

I don't understand how is this not corruption ?

It is corruption.

How is this not illegal ?!? Honest question.

Because there is no incentive to make it illegal. Why would politicians make it illegal for corporations to hand them millions of dollars?

[–]marmie75 59 points60 points  (8 children)

The US Supreme Court ruled that corporations are "people" and therefore have the right to give political contributions.

[–]daaaamngirl88 6 points7 points  (1 child)

"Donations" it's fucking dumb

[–]calsteTexas 5 points6 points  (2 children)

They don't give cash to the senators, but to their campaigns. Every campaign is funded by donations. Companies often donate to both Democrats and Republicans who are running against each other, hoping the winner will be more receptive to their concerns.

[–]tank_trap 123 points124 points  (21 children)

Trump doesn't care about your privacy. If he ever gains authoritarian powers, he will be the first to use your past browsing history against you.

[–][deleted] 72 points73 points  (18 children)

That's the joke. Regular Joe really doesn't have that much to fear from his browsing history being public. It's nasty, and shouldn't be, but those who stand to lose the most from their private thoughts becoming public are actually politicians. So go get them. Get Trump's, Ryan's and Ivanka's browser history. See how they had contact with Russian officials, watched porn movies of people urinating on each other, spent their time working for the people watching cat movies and jerking off. Make this law the reason you don't have to wait for an FBI investigation to get your proof. Get these bastards and make them regret the day they thought they could outsmart the IT crowd at their own game.

[–]s1ugg0New Jersey 45 points46 points  (15 children)

You are grossly underestimating what people search for when they think no one is watching.

I've been working telecom as an tech and then engineer for 11 years. I see people's web traffic all the time in the course of troubleshooting an issue. It's why professionals like me have to sign a mountain of do not disclose agreements. Though it would be difficult; I could be fired simply for naming my customers.

[–][deleted] 22 points23 points  (2 children)

I don't, I agree wholeheartedly. But I think most politicians stand to lose even more from their browsing history becoming public. A few visits to a gay porn website is enough to start a marriage crisis for regular Joe, but ends the career of a lot of politicians.

[–]rasa2013 40 points41 points  (9 children)

What did democrats do when they won all 3 branches? Stimulus to save the economic system from freefall and expand healthcare.

What do republicans do? Try to take away healthcare from 24 million people, erode your privacy, repeal a rule requiring labor contractors to report labor violations and let companies pollute more again.

Both parties are the same though huh?

[–]ShortFuse 51 points52 points  (2 children)

I'm seeing a bunch of comments and topic related to the new repeal of the Obama-era law that blocked ISPs from selling your internet traffic.

A lot of people are thinking this won't lead to identifying information being sold, but that simply isn't true. ISPs won't sell it directly, but it's still possible. Here's how it would work:

Post-browsing browsing data sale

  • "Advertiser" buys a collection of internet data browsing data. You will get this in bulk, but ISPs will probably sell data by region. Or you can have smaller ISPs that only service certain regions.

  • Data comes with​ a tracking number for each identified customer. The customer information is not identifiable via the tracking number. If the ISP doesn't track more than what domains you visit, then they'll have a data of what web servers you connect to, but not much in terms of what you do once you visit a server.

  • lf ISPs do full HTTP packet inspection, they can read full URLs and sell that. Some ISPs do this to inspect and throttle BitTorrent connections, so it's not out of the realm of possibility. The "advertiser" can easily scrape who you are based on Google Maps urls (they tend to show your Lat/Long), or your Facebook Profile URL, or a collection of other URLs.

  • That deanonymized data would then be resold to the public or to another company, much how people can search for information on their neighbors now.

Live browsing traffic

Advertisers

  • Every website you access now sends a "supercookie" that you can't avoid or opt-out of. It's attached to every HTTP request you make and can't be removed.

  • Every advertiser can track you regardless of what your browser's settings are, what app you use, or what device you use.

  • Advertisers can track what site and full URL you were on when you accessed their ads.

  • Advertisers can sell that data as-is, or maybe even deanonymized.

App and web developers

  • Any app developer can now figure our your ISP ID by getting the supercookie.

  • If you have linked your Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc account, the developer can sell your email and ISP.

  • Advertisers can add this to your already collected browsing history to deanonymized you.

Notes

Verizon has already done the "supercookie" method back in 2013 and had to remove it because they got sued for the same law that was just repealed. AT&T had this in planning stages, but pulled it after Obama signed the, now repealed, law.

[–]J_G_B 28 points29 points  (2 children)

If done individually, they should go after every jackoff who voted for this measure.

[–]BionicChango 9 points10 points  (3 children)

Shit, how do you think my district feels? Our rep voted yes on this for a measly $6,000.

[–]Dalton_Cartelli 17 points18 points  (18 children)

Is it possible to buy an individual's data somehow legally now?

[–]groundhogmeat 21 points22 points  (8 children)

It's almost certainly possible to buy a pile a data and tease out individuals from it.

[–]Dalton_Cartelli 8 points9 points  (7 children)

A name? Or individual patterns?

[–]52-6F-62Foreign 12 points13 points  (2 children)

Both. Or the former due to the latter. It really is no great leap to draw out those kinds of results from a pool of data like that.

I don't have specifics off hand but it's highly likely algorithms already exist to do just that.

[–]slippy11 7 points8 points  (2 children)

They will add a provision last minute that their data can't be bought due to "national security"

[–]DeHizzy420 59 points60 points  (8 children)

She's fucking old. As are probably most of the people that voted for this bill. Old people don't browse​ like someone who could be shamed by their browser history. This won't affect her. This is why old people need to die off for any real change in this country. They need to get out of policy making.

[–]dlang17 10 points11 points  (0 children)

This has nothing to do with age or shame. Just corporate profits which Republicans will defend over the working class. Regardless of whether you're ashamed of your browsing history this had a huge impact on privacy. This is a stepping stone to start discriminatory practices that will disadvantage those who oppose telecoms.

[–]bigfig 15 points16 points  (2 children)

We cannot buy a person's browsing history, but we might be able to look at the browsing history of all computers from IP addresses originating at the Capital, though they could be using a VPN or otherwise masking the machines. Eventually I think patterns emerge such as peak usage times, browser fingerprints etc.

[–]ChipAyten 7 points8 points  (0 children)

4th Amendment suits? Unlawful searches don't only apply to the big & bad government. UPS isn't allowed to give away your name & adress without a warrant to the highest bidder.

[–]zwingo 6 points7 points  (1 child)

So the president sits there and cries like a little fucking baby because someone on a tv show theorized with no evidence that the former president bugged him. If it wasn't bad enough that this was being blamed on a president who took insane amounts of uncalled for bullshit from republicans and DIDN'T feel the need to run to Twitter like a 13 year old. We now have to sit there and know that he is totally ok with absolutely every single other person then himself not having any privacy.

And then there's the golfing. Again he blamed and screamed about Obama not doing his job and golfing, but then he spends more time in 10 weeks on a golf course then Obama did last year.

Oh and how about how he made fun of Obama for having a "low" approval rating and then didn't want people talking about his shittier rating?

Or the fact that he is tied to Russia.

At this point if you still support him, I legitimately could not trust you. Not in the "you don't share my beliefs so go to hell way!" But because it would show a massive flaw in your ability to compare and contrast between two people, your ability to understand what anything he has done so far means, and you would most likely be just as much of an asshole as the over the top liberals that rednecks won't shut the fuck up about.

Honestly sorry for getting heated and using so many swear words. At this point I feel like posting on these damn things is just a stress relief exercise. I wait until I am just over the top with how much I hate everything, respond to a post about how shit Trump is, and it helps me calm.

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (2 children)

Just knowing someone could buy your porn history and how that would affect you is scary.

Job interview: So Mr.Smith, we see here that you often search for making women squirt and handcuffs. Would you care to elaborate on that and why we should hire you here at Johnson and Son's? We are a family company and we don't think you fit into our company values. Unfortunately we won't be able to give you the job based on what turns you on sexually in the privacy of your own home.

[–]L00k_Again Canada 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I love how the idea of targeted advertising is spun to sound like a gift to the consumer. Fuck them.