March, 27 2017, 12:00am EDT
Fight for the Future to Unleash Billboards to Expose Congress Members Who Vote to Gut Internet Privacy Rules
House of Representatives expected to vote tomorrow on Congressional Review Act resolution to slash FCC rules that prevent ISPs from selling customer data to advertisers
WASHINGTON
Digital rights group Fight for the Future, known for organizing massive protests against SOPA and for net neutrality, has announced that -- if the bill passes -- they will unleash billboards with the names of every member of Congress who votes to gut the FCC's Internet privacy rules that prevent Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Comcast and Verizon from selling their customer's personal information to advertisers without their consent.
The group released a draft mock-up of what the initial billboard -- which will be unveiled in Washington, DC and in select districts -- will look like, with the names of the 50 Senators who voted for the bill last week. They plan to launch a crowdfunding campaign to place additional in-district billboards in key lawmakers back yards, which will also include information about how much money in campaign contributions key lawmakers took from the telecom industry.
"Congress should know by now that when you come for the Internet, the Internet comes for you," said Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future, "these billboards are just the beginning. People from across the political spectrum are outraged, and every lawmaker who votes to take away our privacy will regret it come election day."
The House of Representatives is expected to vote on the measure as soon as tomorrow.
By using the CRA to gut the FCC broadband privacy rules, lawmakers are voting to allow ISPs to:
- Monitor and sell customer's location data, search history, app usage, and browsing habits to advertisers without your permission
- Hijack customer's search results, redirecting their traffic to paying third parties
- Insert ads into web pages that would otherwise not have them
Fight for the Future was instrumental in the massive grassroots campaign that successfully pushed the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to enact the strongest net neutrality protections in US. history last year. They built the page BattleForTheNet.com, which was responsible for more than 1/4 of all the net neutrality comments received by the FCC during its feedback process, and were behind the Internet Slowdown protest, which was supported by more than 40,000 websites including some of the largest on the Web like Kickstarter, Etsy, Netflix, and Tumblr.
The group also helped take the fight for net neutrality into the streets with creative protest campaigns like Occupy the FCC and the nationwide Internet Emergency protests.
Fight for the Future is best known for their role in the massive online protests against SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, and continues to organize many of the largest protests in the history of the Internet. Over the summer, they organized the high profile Rock Against the TPP tour featuring many celebrities and well known musicians. Learn more at FightFortheFuture.org
Fight for the Future is a group of artists, engineers, activists, and technologists who have been behind the largest online protests in human history, channeling Internet outrage into political power to win public interest victories previously thought to be impossible. We fight for a future where technology liberates -- not oppresses -- us.
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Watchdog Urges FEC to Investigate Trump Campaign Over Scheme for Legal Fees
"By not disclosing the vendors that actually provided legal services, the Trump-affiliated committees effectively blocked the public from knowing which attorneys and firms are being paid—and how much."
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A campaign finance watchdog on Wednesday filed a Federal Election Commission complaint accusing former President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign, affiliated political groups, and an accounting firm of violating U.S. law in a scheme "seemingly designed to obscure the true recipients of a noteworthy portion of Trump's legal bills."
The Washington, D.C.-based Campaign Legal Center (CLC) said that "evidence appears to show an illegal arrangement between several Trump-affiliated committees and a compliance firm named Red Curve Solutions that is designed to obscure the identities of those providing legal services and how much they are being paid."
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Trump—who is the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee—faces 91 federal and state felony charges related to his role in the January 6 insurrection and his organization's business practices. He is currently on trial in New York for allegedly falsifying business records related to hush money payments to cover up sex scandals during the 2016 election cycle. The twice-impeached former president has been open about his use of campaign donations to pay his legal costs.
The new CLC filing comes a day after the watchdog filed separate FEC complaints urging investigations into a pair of Trump-affiliated "scam PACs," which "pretend to fundraise for major candidates or issues while secretly diverting almost all of their donors' money back into fundraising or the fraudsters' own pockets."
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"Somehow I don't think the U.S. State Department would defer to Russia as a credible source to investigate itself if a mass grave were discovered in Ukrainian territory it had occupied," said one legal expert.
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While continuing to give Israel billions of dollars in support to wage war on the Gaza Strip, the Biden administration this week has declined to join the growing global demands for an international probe into mass graves discovered at hospitals in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
Two journalists on Tuesday questioned Vedant Patel, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, about the administration's response to the hundreds of bodies found at Gaza City's al-Shifa Hospital and Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis as well as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk's call for an independent investigation.
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"Somehow I don't think the U.S. State Department would defer to Russia as a credible source to investigate itself if a mass grave were discovered in Ukrainian territory it had occupied," Finucane said on social media in response to Stanage's questioning.
Meanwhile, European Union spokesperson Peter Stano made clear Tuesday that the E.U. supports an independent probe.
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