NEW YORK (AP) — Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer is urging President Donald Trump to veto a resolution that would kill an online privacy regulation, a move that could allow internet providers to sell information about their customers’ browsing habits.
The New York senator and 46 other Senate Democrats signed a letter calling on Trump to “tell us whose side he’s really on.”
The Federal Communications Commission rule issued in October was designed to give consumers greater control over how internet service providers such as Comcast, AT&T and Verizon share information. But critics said the rule would have stifled innovation and picked winners and losers among internet companies.
Both the House and the Senate voted this week to pass the resolution, sending it to Trump.
“If President Trump clicks his pen and signs this resolution, consumers will be stripped of critical privacy protections in a New York minute,” Schumer said. “Signing this rollback into law would mean private data from our laptops, iPads, and even our cellphones would be fair game for internet companies to sell and make a fast buck.”
The Trump-appointed chairman of the FCC, Ajit Pai, is a critic of the broadband privacy rules and has said he wants to roll them back. He and other Republicans want a different federal agency, the Federal Trade Commission, to police privacy for both broadband companies like AT&T and internet companies like Google, which do not have to ask users’ permission before tracking what websites they visit.
Trump is expected to make his decision soon.
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The unpresident has too much Luhhhhhve to veto it His corpulent bod is bursting with luhhhhve. His nipples are exploding with delight. He is overcome by the redolence of luhhhve…
And meanwhile, Adam Schiff, unburdened by luhhhhve:
Will 45 save Americans’ privacy when his own account data would write a best seller? Sigh. We’re boned.
…to the Russian mafia.
(h/t @stephen_maturin)
"OK, listen up. Who do we have on staff that can explain to Donnie what this bill will do? Anyone? Anyone at all?
Marge please get that IT guy that we purged on the line…"
Adam Schiff, on the mark once again; thanks for the link. (It’s almost good enough to make me forgive you for triggering my gag reflex with that first sentence…)