I live in Austin and my fuckwit texas senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn sponsored this lovely bill. I’m glad that for all their hard work, they both got a little side bonus from ISP lobbyists out of the deal. In total, $8,121,535 was donated across the house and senate to make our representatives continue to ignore their sense of ethics and vote for a bill that rolls back basic online privacy rights.
Part of the problem with the privacy debate in general is that it’s a difficult issue to explain to someone in terms of why they should care about it when it might not affect them right now. Humans are notoriously bad at responding to large, slow moving threats, and it’s easy for the privacy and net neutrality debate to feel less important than that overflowing inbox of !!urgent emails.
What we need is a boiled down phrase that really compels people to care. Something that sparks outrage. The republicans have been great at this in the past with all sorts of issues. With planned parenthood: “they’re killing children!”. With the initial pass of the ACA/Obamacare: “There will be death panels!”, but we’ve got nothing for privacy.
May I suggest: “The government is watching you masturbate.”