Lawmakers That Killed Privacy Rules Get Shamed Via Billboards

Lawmakers That Killed Privacy Rules Get Shamed Via Billboards

Back in March you'll recall that both the House (215 to 205) and Senate (50-48) voted across strict party lines to kill new consumer broadband privacy protections, despite broad, bipartisan support for the rules. The tongue-lashing many of these lawmakers received at regional town halls hasn't been enough to stop many of them from shifting their attention toward killing net neutrality rules as well. And while giant ISPs like Comcast, Verizon, Charter and AT&T are thrilled by this brash example of pay-to-play governance, consumer ire is skyrocketing.

One consumer group has tried to put some of this outrage into action, and is now buying billboard ad time in some of these lawmakers' home states to shame them for selling out consumers in exchange for large ISP campaign contributions.

Fight for the Future says it successfully has crowdfunded placement of four such billboards so far (Dean Heller (R-NV), John Rutherford (R-FL) Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ)), which point out how much money these lawmakers have taken from giant ISPs.

You can see the one for Representative Marsha Blackburn above, left. Blackburn's no stranger to consumer ire, having backed AT&T on nearly every policy initiative in recent memory. That includes AT&T's ongoing attempts to pass state-level protectionist laws banning your town or city from upgrading its local broadband networks -- even in instances where AT&T refuses to.

"Congress voting to gut Internet privacy was one of the most blatant displays of corruption in recent history," said Tiffiniy Cheng, co-founder of Fight for the Future. "They might think that they’ve gotten away with it, but they’re wrong. These billboards are just the latest example of the growing public backlash to these attacks on our Internet freedom and privacy."

The FCC's privacy rules simply required that large ISP clearly detail what private consumer data is being collected and who it's being sold to. The rules also would have required that consumers opt in to collection of more private financial or browsing data. But with giant ISPs like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon increasingly getting into the media and ad sector, they obviously make more money when consumers are neither informed nor empowered.

"Members of Congress who help monopolies get richer while undermining our online privacy and attacking net neutrality will soon see that they can’t hide from the public on these issues," the group added, "Everyone who drives by one of these billboards will know exactly how much money these lawmakers took in exchange for selling off their basic right to use the web safely, and handing their most personal information to advertisers."

Whether this results in any substantive change isn't clear, but based on the tenacity with which these same lawmakers are going after net neutrality (and FCC authority over broadband providers overall), it seems likely that the only repercussions these lawmakers will face is at the polls -- if they face repercussions at all.