Tomorrow, the House of Representatives will vote on whether to strip you of privacy protection from your Internet Service Provider (ISP).

Call to Action: The House may vote as soon as tomorrow upon the measure. We urge you to contact your member of Congress and ask them to vote No to weakening consumer privacy (S.J. 34). Find your Rep. Find your Senator.

Last Thursday, March 23, the Senate voted along party lines to eliminate Obama-era privacy rules meant to protect you from invasive surveillance by ISPs like Comcast and Time-Warner. 50 Republicans (with two abstaining) voted against all 48 Democrats to kill the rules established by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The vote was conducted using the Congressional Review Act, which has the power to nullify federal regulations and, furthermore, to prevent similar rules from ever being introduced again.

The privacy rules had required that ISPs give consumers meaningful notice about privacy surveillance and the ability to opt into providing their data to the ISP, before providers could share or sell their data. The rules also created stricter requirements for cyber security and notification in the event of a data breach. Moreover, the rules took a light touch approach to privacy; they did not prevent ISPs from selling customer data, they only required meaningful notice and opt-in consent before doing so.

With this vote, ISPs can now sell data from your browsing history to the highest bidder. As a result, this vote is a blow to consumer privacy and further demonstrates how Republicans have aligned themselves with business interests to the detriment of consumers. ISPs had decried the rule as unfair because it did not apply to other data-collectors like Google or Facebook. However, rather than strengthen privacy protection across the board for everyone, Republicans chose to set the bar back at the low mark. Furthermore, the vote prevents the FCC from ever raising the issue again.

As privacy comes under attack from all quarters, lawmakers should be strengthening our rights, not weakening them. Rise Stronger calls upon all lawmakers in the House of Representatives to do their duty and protect us, their constituents, from unfair and dangerous breaches of privacy.

The House may vote as soon as tomorrow upon the measure. In the meantime we urge you to contact your member of Congress and ask them to vote No to weakening consumer privacy.