Republicans using "human trafficking" as cover to ban Porn, Free Speech, Create Reporting Centers and Store Your Private Records if you remove Obscenity Filter.

After announcing the sale of our private internet surfing habits, the Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai announced the end of Net Neutrality a few days ago:

Pai, a former counsel for Verizon (VZ, Tech30), has slammed the FCC's earlier approach to net neutrality as a "mistake" and begun chipping away at the edges of it.

The FCC's action coincides with the following attempt to violate the First Amendment.

It looks like "freedom and liberty" loving Republicans have jumped on board the following plan for censorship. You can't make this stuff up:

More than a dozen state legislatures are considering a bill called the “Human Trafficking Prevention Act,” which has nothing to do with human trafficking and all to do with one man’s crusade against pornography at the expense of free speech.

More of the bills horrific details in a moment. First, who's the crusading man behind this hot idea?

Perhaps more shocking is the bill’s provenance. According to the Daily Beast the man behind the model legislation the state bills are based on is a disbarred attorney who has sued major tech companies, blaming them for his pornography addiction, and sued states for the right to marry his laptop.

No problem there? And yet not one red flag went off for our freedom/small government loving Republicans. You won't believe what passes for good ideas on the right. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

The bills would require device manufacturers to pre-install “obscenity” filters on devices like cell phones, tablets, and computers. Consumers would be forced to pony up $20 per device in order to surf the Internet without state censorship. The legislation is not only technologically unworkable, it violates the First Amendment and significantly burdens consumers and businesses.

Here are the states that have jump on board...don't worry Wisconsin, you'll probably be on it soon...

The bill has been introduced in some form Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, New Jersey, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, West Virginia. Wyoming and North Dakota, have already rejected it.

Just another Republican "small government" maze of regulatory hoops to jump through. And our anti-privacy Republican overlords will be keeping records on everyone:

Anyone who wants to unlock the filters on their devices would have to put their request in writing. Then they’d be required to show ID, be subjected to a “written warning regarding the potential dangers” of removing the obscenity filter, and then would have to sign a form acknowledging they were shown that warning. That means stores would be maintaining private records on everyone who wanted their “Human Trafficking” filters removed.  

There's more... 

The bill would force the companies we rely upon to ensure open access to the Internet to create a massive censorship apparatus that is easily abused.

Under the bill, tech companies would be required to operate call centers or online reporting centers to monitor complaints that a particular site isn’t included in the filter or complaints that a site isn’t being properly filtered. Not only that, but the bill specifically says they must “ensure that all child pornography and revenge pornography is inaccessible on the product” putting immense pressure on companies to aggressively and preemptively block websites to avoid legal liability out of fear of just one illegal or forbidden image making it past their filters. Social media sites would only be immune if they also create a reporting center and “remain reasonably proactive in removing reported obscene content.” 

When EFF went to two Republican lawmakers in South Carolina and told them who came up with the bill. Neither politicians cared, and despite being against taxes, they didn't mind this tax because they're just "making a statement." 

State Reps. Bill Chumley and Mike Burns co-sponsored the Human Trafficking Prevention Act in South Carolina. Chumley called human trafficking an issue that he’s “really concerned with,” so he helped introduce the bill along with Burns.

“Yes, he’s working with us on this,” said Chumley of Sevier. “I don’t know anything about [him] so much. It didn’t really matter to me. Burns said he’s “still behind the premise of the bill,” despite hearing about Sevier’s past. The centerpiece of the bill, the $20 fee, is now up for debate. “We do not want more taxes. Period,” he said. “But we are trying to make a statement, and $20 ain’t gonna kill anybody.”

Thanks to Trump and FCC: Internet and Student Privacy Gone, Schools and Library discounts disappearing!!!

Net neutrality is going away, along with your privacy, and it's going to cost Americans billions.

Remember when Republicans has a fit over collecting anonymous student data from our public schools? It was an invasion of our kids privacy.

Well, they have just reversed course on that, and targeted their own rural conservative areas for big program cuts that will cost their voters so much more. 

The following actions by Trump and the now conservative “free market” FCC will result in the loss of internet privacy, especially for our kids, and cost taxpayer billions. EDWEEK:

1. On February 3, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai reversed an earlier FCC decision to approve nine companies as eligible broadband providers under the federal Lifeline program, which provides low-income consumers with a monthly subsidy of $9.25 to help offset the cost of phone or internet service.

2. A week later, Pai quashed an internal report documenting the success of the multibillion dollar E-rate program (which) provides discounts on certain services and products that are essential for classrooms and libraries to receive Internet connections (discounts depend on the level of poverty and location). Discounts range from 20% to 90% of the cost of eligible services.

3. In late March, Pai announced that the FCC would relinquish responsibility for designating eligible Lifeline providers to states.

As you can see, the costs for schools and libraries could suddenly skyrocket if the E-rate program is no longer supported, just so internet providers can rake in huge profits. Thank-you free market Republicans. 

And since this is insider stuff, American won’t directly see how the FCC’s irresponsible moves today will hike costs. Republican lawmakers will then use that to turn taxpayers against those costly government libraries and schools. Hey, it’s worked so far.

But giving up privacy was another profit driven move by Trump and the FCC:

On April 3, Trump signed a law overturning internet privacy protections. The former FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said: 

“Every student ought to be worried about that. And every school ought to be worried about that. Because suddenly, all of the information that goes across the network is available to be sold.

Let's go back. So the first thing [the new administration did] was come in and pull back on the E-rate report. The second thing was make it harder [for companies to get designated as a Lifeline provider.] The third thing was gut the privacy protections. The fourth thing is the Trump administration proposes a budget that cuts back heavily on education. And we're supposed to sit here and think that this is a benign environment? 

The most important part of the Open Internet Rule was that we put a referee on the field. Because who knows how the internet is going to evolve? You need to have somebody there to throw a flag and say, "No, that's not just and reasonable."

I think the people who don't support Lifeline in the first place, or don't support E-rate in the first place, always go and hide behind the ‘waste, fraud and abuse’ smokescreen. I wish they had an agenda in which they were looking forward and saying, ‘Here's some of the new opportunities and new challenges of the new connected society.’ Instead, they seem to be looking backwards and saying, ‘How do we undo everything we voted against when were in the minority?’"

Republicans give up their Voters privacy, offer up your Surfing to Businesses that are always getting Hacked!!!

Where are conservative radio fear mongers now? Am I dreaming or are these typically paranoid small government "leave me alone" voters okay with having their internet surfing stolen and spread out to businesses that are always getting hacked? 

Heck, thanks to Republican sellouts and Trump, anyone can get your information now for a few bucks, all your information open for the hackers.

Maybe the Republican and Democratic Party can get this public information and target you everywhere you go, or threaten you from running for office or voting differently with incriminating information.

The House on Tuesday voted in favor of blocking internet privacy rules passed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last year, sending the bill to President Trump, who is expected to sign it into law.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said, “Your broadband provider knows deeply personal information about you and your family – where you are, what you want to know, every site you visit, and more. They can even track you when you’re surfing in a private browsing mode. You deserve to be able to insist that those intimate details be kept private and secure.”

Republican voters are good with this? Really?

ACLU legislative counsel Neema Singh Giuliani said, “It is extremely disappointing that Congress is sacrificing the privacy rights of Americans in the interest of protecting the profits of major internet companies including Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon.

In a major down-the-rabbit-hole twist on logic, defending "economic growth" known as profits....

“Today’s action is another step to remove unnecessary rules and regulations that handicap economic growth and innovation, and moves the country one step closer to ensuring that consumers’ private information is protected uniformly across the entire internet ecosystem," countered Jonathan Spalter, CEO of USTelecom.

But Pelosi countered with this...

“Americans learned last week that agents of Russian intelligence hacked into e-mail accounts to obtain secrets on American companies, government officials and more,” Pelosi wrote in letters to 11 companies.

“This resolution would not only end the requirement you take reasonable measures to protect consumers’ sensitive information, but prevents the FCC from enacting a similar requirement and leaves no other agency capable of protecting consumers.”