Our privacy’s not Thompson’s to give
The truth matters. What counts in this world is what really happens.
Three weeks ago, Rep. Glenn Thompson quietly voted to wipe out our internet privacy protection rights, which President Donald Trump signed into law a week later.
It’s too late to do anything about this now, except to not vote for Thompson’s re-election in 2018.
His anti-privacy vote translates into a cash cow for internet service providers — like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon — as they receive unrestricted access into our homes and mobile devices, without our knowledge, permission or profit, to collect, package and sell every click of our internet browsing data, geolocations, search history, emails and apps usage.
Your financial, medical and personal data will be sold without your knowledge, for advertising and predatory marketing purposes, to marketers, foreign governments and hackers in sheep’s clothing.
Thompson’s vote not only grants carte blanche access to, but monetizes, our children’s internet data, to be used against them. For shame!
Google “internet privacy repeal” for the full story.
Thompson defended his vote by saying it encourages “free markets.”
In 2016, he received five-figure re-election campaign donations from the telecom industry.
Privacy is not a partisan value. Not only wasn’t our net privacy his to give away, but he neither asked, nor discussed it with us, due in large part to his bush-league tact of prolonged hiding from the good people he represents.
His inexcusable vote, obliterating our and our vulnerable children’s internet privacy, cannot be sugarcoated nor forgotten!
Andrew Yablonsky, Centre Hall
This story was originally published April 19, 2017 at 11:20 PM with the headline "Our privacy’s not Thompson’s to give."