Republicans Vote Overwhelmingly Against Internet Privacy

Exactly a week ago I put up a post called Job Applicants Are Being Asked To Turn Over Their Facebook And Twitter Log In Info... Or Else and it was part of a firestorm that exploded inside American consciousness. People from all walks of life got really angry. Except from one walk of life-- Republican congressmen. Small government Republicans don't believe in protecting the public from predators-- so they defeated a motion by Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) to protect online privacy as part of an effort to reform the FCC. the only Republican to stand up for privacy was Walter Jones (R-NC)-- although in fairness, I should mention that Ron Paul, who would have probably supported it as well, was on the campaign trail. Meanwhile two of the worst corporate whores on the Democratic side of the aisle, Bill Owens (D-NY) and Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-NC), currently auctioning himself off to the highest bidder on K Street for his post-congressional career as a sleazy lobbyist, voted with the Republicans. The motion failed 184-236. This was what Perlmutter asked Congress to consider before the Republicans voted it down:

"People have an expectation of privacy when using social media like Facebook and Twitter. They have an expectation that their right to free speech and religion will be respected when they use social media outlets. No American should have to provide their confidential personal passwords as a condition of employment. Both users of social media and those who correspond share the expectation of privacy in their personal communications. Employers essentially can act as impostors and assume the identity of an employee and continually access, monitor and even manipulate an employee’s personal social activities and opinions. That’s simply a step too far."

One of the Republicans-- whose entire life is based on crass, glaring hypocrisy-- pushing most aggressively against Perlmutter's motion was nasty little GOP corporate lapdog Patrick McHenry (R-NC). McHenry claims to want to protect privacy-- unless it's in regard to women-- but his idea of "freedom" is the freedom of big corporations to insert themselves into everyone's life and dominate society entirely. Of course these same big corporations pay him handsomely for this efforts. He has two serious opponents (plus an echo). The echo who tends to agree with him on almost everything controversial is Terry Bellamy. But his Republican primary opponent, Ken Fortenberry, was on the same page as Walter Jones-- leave people alone! Fortenberry had a bit of a sense of humor about it in a statement right after the vote:

"McHenry's position on Facebook password security is yet another example of his hypocrisy. How can anyone who honestly believes in respecting the rights of citizens to free speech be in favor of robbing them of their Constitutional rights through this invasion of privacy? Maybe we should ask McHenry for the passwords to his social media accounts."

And then McHenry's most credible Democratic opponent, state Rep. Patsy Keever, was just as incredulous when she heard about McHenry's role against online privacy.

"Today the Republican majority in Congress voted to allow big corporations to infringe on the rights of their employees. I have been following this issue closely the past few weeks and this seems like a 'no-brainer' to me. It’s a fundamental violation of privacy for a corporation to demand that employees surrender their Facebook passwords. Never, ever should an employee be forced to share their private information or personal lives with an employer. People trust that their privacy will be respected when using social media and that their right to free speech will be maintained. When I'm in Congress I will always fight to protect online privacy."

By the way, it's the end of the quarter and if you can afford to, please consider making a contribution to Patsy Keever's campaign through our Blue America ActBlue page. If you're a Republican and you wandered over to this blog by accident but realize that Ken Fortenberry would be a better nominee for your party than McHenry... well there's no ActRed but I'm sure there's some way to contribute to his campaign on his website.