Republicans Are Taking Away the Few Online Privacy Protections We Have
Today, the Senate will vote on an online privacy bill — and with the Republicans’ support, it will pass. As soon as it does, internet service providers will be able to collect your browsing data and sell it.
Right now, there is a single federal agency that has the authority to protect consumers and their privacy when it comes to data collection by internet service providers — the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
But Republicans are proposing that Congress strip the FCC’s ability to protect your privacy. And when they succeed, the American people will lose the very few federal protections they have when it comes to online privacy.
When you think about how much of your life is online today — banking, health, even information about your kids — it’s incredibly personal. It’s not just confidential information — it’s a complete picture of everything you are. And that’s why it’s worth fighting over. It’s worth protecting.
That’s why the FCC made these rules — to recognize that we live so much of our lives online that we — consumers — deserve some basic protections.
Not only do Republicans want to get rid of this rule. But they want to do it in a way that will ensure that no federal agency — not a single one — will have jurisdiction over privacy for consumers using broadband. They are trying to take this referee off the field for good.
The problem is that there are only two federal agencies that could have jurisdiction over your privacy online. The Ninth Circuit Court made a ruling that removes jurisdiction from the FTC over online privacy in the broadband space. That leaves the FCC.
If we repeal the FCC rule, the law prevents us from addressing this ever again. So this is not about agreeing or disagreeing with this rule. Neither the FCC nor the FTC will be the cop on the beat after this passes.
So what’s the solution here? We should work with the private sector, the FCC, and the FTC so we can find a comprehensive approach to privacy online. That’s what the Senate should be doing.
Instead of aggressively digging into this issue on behalf of consumers, we’re blowing up the only thing we’ve got. And by using the Congressional Review Act, Republicans are forever preventing the FCC from protecting people’s broadband privacy.
I want to end by noting that 55 years ago this month, President Kennedy gave a seminal speech about consumer rights. He spoke about the march of technology, how it had outpaced old laws and regulations, and how fast that progress occurred.
He noted that, in just a few decades, supermarkets went from carrying 1500 products to more than 6,000. Doctors wrote 90 percent of their prescriptions for drugs that no one had even heard of 20 years before.
Let’s fast forward to present day, and we have blown those numbers out of the water. The average supermarket carries 40,000 products. In 2015 alone, the FDA approved 51 novel drugs. Of course, we now have the internet, which in the United States grew from 148 million users to nearly 240 million in just 15 years. And the next non-incremental changes in technology will be the Internet of Things, in which we will have tens of billions of devices connected to each other and interacting with us — whether we like it or not.
So the march of technology goes on. But what stays the same is the bedrock principle that President Kennedy outlined — that consumers have the right to be safe, the right to be informed, the right to choose, and the right to be heard.
Those rights are in jeopardy. The FCC took a small but important step. And now, Republicans are walking it back.
Let me be clear: this is the single biggest step backward in online privacy in many years. We have failed the American people on privacy. We should be staring this problem in the face. What we are doing today is making it worse.
