Trump Rolls Back Online Privacy in Regulatory Shell Game

[lovinthehd]

Trump has a hair across his ass for Obama. He is trying undo everything he did while in office..

A hair across his ass? I've not heard that one before...any history to it or is it a translation? It's not so much Trump but all those who helped him to the "throne" as to what is being undone, after all he can barely read or write or even sign in some cases....it would be funny if he weren't our actual president. The need to roll back the privacy thing is simply purchased government.

 

[rnatalli]

At least there are things you can do to mitigate some of this. Get a reputable VPN provider, install HTTPS Everywhere, use DuckDuckGo as your search engine, etc.

 

[highfigh]

Look, Fox News, we all agree that there are reasons not to deify Obama. But going out of your way to hate everything he did just because it's he who did it demonstrates nothing but a closed mind, is useless in intelligent debate, and makes you look like the GOP blacktrackers who once endorsed Merrick Garland until Obama had the audacity to agree with them.

Don't change the subject. We're not talking about the ACA. There's already another thread somewhere for that. In this thread, we're talking about net neutrality and personal privacy online. Regardless of your prejudices, privacy rules were scheduled to go in effect in favor of the public, and now the GOP are tipping the scales back toward corporate interests. Does this rollback benefit you personally somehow? Aren't you at least a little indignant about relinquishing your privacy without your consent?

If you're calling me 'Fox News', don't- I haven't watched that in years and I don't go out of my way to hate everything ANYONE does out of any prejudice, so take your claim and use it on someone for whom it applies. You have a lot of balls telling me that my opinions are based on race!

You actually think we already had privacy online? What rock have you been living under?

I mentioned the ACA, and didn't call it 'Obamacare' because, like so many other bills, it has provisions that don't apply to health care and it's one of the reasons I think Congress needs a major reset and re-tooling; they're shoving crap into Bills when it's totally unrelated. In a Bill that's as important as Health Care, it should be ONLY about health care- anything else forces division and resistance to it being universally accepted and as much as I think we need a great program, I really don't think this meets that goal. Not out of anything to do with race- when Obama started his original campaign and he said he wanted to fix Social Security and Health Care, I was all ears but once he added "through wealth redistribution", I was done with him as a candidate. No President or Congress has the right to mandate that people give up anything so it can be given to others but that's exactly what they did, especially when Congress was in Democratic hands. They rammed bills down our throats, created division and his claim that his would be the most open and transparent administration- hardly.

Penalizing people who don't buy insurance via fines imposed by the IRS? That's a load of BS! The whole campaign for the ACA was lies! "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor" and "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan"- let's just say that if they know as much as they think they know, these were lies.

Health care should have been handled long ago, but politicians are too willing to care for the party, rather than the people. They make sure they jam their pet projects through by helping their opponents achieve the same, all in the spirit of "Bi-partisanship" and "working across the aisle".

Honestly, I don't like what either party has done to us but I don't see them stopping anytime soon unless something drastic happens.

 

[little wing]

A hair across his ass? I've not heard that one before...any history to it or is it a translation? It's not so much Trump but all those who helped him to the "throne" as to what is being undone, after all he can barely read or write or even sign in some cases....it would be funny if he weren't our actual president. The need to roll back the privacy thing is simply purchased government.

Hair Across Your Ass
This expression is akin to "Woke up on the wrong side of the bed" or "Who pissed in your Cheerios?" To have a "hair" across ones ass means to be overly sensitive to irritation. Usually one who over-reacts to a situation because there is already an issue afflicting them.

Sound familiar now?

 

[lovinthehd]

Hair Across Your Ass
This expression is akin to "Woke up on the wrong side of the bed" or "Who pissed in your Cheerios?" To have a "hair" across ones ass means to be overly sensitive to irritation. Usually one who over-reacts to a situation because there is already an issue afflicting them.

Sound familiar now?

LOL no, thanks for the explanation but that was the first time I'd run across that phrase. Hair up one's ass I've heard, just not across. Not up with my urban dictionary slang I suppose

 

[lovinthehd]

At least there are things you can do to mitigate some of this. Get a reputable VPN provider, install HTTPS Everywhere, use DuckDuckGo as your search engine, etc.

What is the advantage of duckduckgo?

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Oh, now it's only happening because Trump is in office? This is a roll-back of an Obama order- why wasn't it a problem when it was written?

Stop thinking that only one party or person is doing this.

Yes, it's both Trump and his cronnies

What is the advantage of duckduckgo?

Mostly for privacy reasons:
http://nerdbusiness.com/blog/10-reasons-why-duckduckgo-awesome/

 

[little wing]

LOL no, thanks for the explanation but that was the first time I'd run across that phrase. Hair up one's ass I've heard, just not across. Not up with my urban dictionary slang I suppose

LOL, no problem..Just a little Sunday morning humor in a mad world. I guess that's why I enjoy music so much, it takes me away.

 

[rojo]

If you're calling me 'Fox News', don't- I haven't watched that in years and I don't go out of my way to hate everything ANYONE does out of any prejudice, so take your claim and use it on someone for whom it applies. You have a lot of balls telling me that my opinions are based on race!

You actually think we already had privacy online? What rock have you been living under?

I mentioned the ACA, and didn't call it 'Obamacare' because, like so many other bills, it has provisions that don't apply to health care and it's one of the reasons I think Congress needs a major reset and re-tooling; they're shoving crap into Bills when it's totally unrelated. In a Bill that's as important as Health Care, it should be ONLY about health care- anything else forces division and resistance to it being universally accepted and as much as I think we need a great program, I really don't think this meets that goal. Not out of anything to do with race- when Obama started his original campaign and he said he wanted to fix Social Security and Health Care, I was all ears but once he added "through wealth redistribution", I was done with him as a candidate. No President or Congress has the right to mandate that people give up anything so it can be given to others but that's exactly what they did, especially when Congress was in Democratic hands. They rammed bills down our throats, created division and his claim that his would be the most open and transparent administration- hardly.

Penalizing people who don't buy insurance via fines imposed by the IRS? That's a load of BS! The whole campaign for the ACA was lies! "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor" and "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan"- let's just say that if they know as much as they think they know, these were lies.

Health care should have been handled long ago, but politicians are too willing to care for the party, rather than the people. They make sure they jam their pet projects through by helping their opponents achieve the same, all in the spirit of "Bi-partisanship" and "working across the aisle".

Honestly, I don't like what either party has done to us but I don't see them stopping anytime soon unless something drastic happens.

I still maintain that you're prejudiced against Obama -- not because of his race, though, and I apologize for implying otherwise. That wasn't my intent. I don't apologize for the Fox News label though. Your deflection away from an untenable position toward a more comfortable topic to regain the offense was worthy of Kellyanne Conway.

By the way, I wholeheartedly agree with you on riders attached to legislation, but I guess such riders are necessarily for bipartisan support.

So back to the topic of discussion, regardless of your prejudices, privacy rules were scheduled to go in effect in favor of the public, and now the GOP are tipping the scales back toward corporate interests. Aren't you at least a little indignant about relinquishing your privacy without your consent?

 

[MR.MAGOO]

 

[rnatalli]

Amazingly, this is one topic where Dems and Repubs voters agree. The last poll I saw had 72% of Dems and 72% of Repubs against the rollback.

 

[shadyJ]

Amazingly, this is one topic where Dems and Repubs voters agree. The last poll I saw had 72% of Dems and 72% of Repubs against the rollback.

My question is, who in hell would be for the rollback? What is wrong with these people? It is because of people like this that the USA will never be better than a democracy barely held together by duct tape.

 

[Irvrobinson]

...I think Congress needs a major reset and re-tooling...

Unfortunately, that's not enough. The Constitution needs a reset too. The 4th Amendment does not guarantee privacy, no matter what a bunch of web sites and people with an agenda say. All the 4th stipulates is what the government can do to citizens, like about search and seizure, though there are some important exceptions. (For example, as was in the news recently, border agents can force you to allow them to search your phone or other electronic devices.)

Nor does the 1st Amendment specify separation of church and state either. It just says the government can't establish a state religion. (Like the Church of England.) Many US citizens think they have rights that they really don't.

We don't really have a right to free speech in every situation either. Your employer can fire you for exercising it, if they don't like what you're saying. My point is that lots of people mix up what the government is allowed to do, and what private citizens and companies are allowed to do.

We're trying to stretch a Constitution created mostly in the 18th century by a bunch of men that thought religion was paramount, but holding slaves and treating women like second-class citizens was perfectly okay. I suspect that if any of us could go back in time and meet the founding fathers we wouldn't like them much.

So all we have is the hope that the Supreme Court will be biased in their interpretations of an ancient Constitution the way we like.

The internet has always had a let-the-user-beware foundation. It would be nice to have 21st century laws to provide freedom and privacy on a 21st century technology the country can't really run efficiently without anymore, but we don't elect congressmen based on how smart they are.

Perhaps we need to go back to the old scheme where the state legislatures elected senators, and then changed the system to empower the senators elect a president, and the House would be the only body sullied by populism. Only joking... or maybe not...

 

[highfigh]

Unfortunately, that's not enough. The Constitution needs a reset too. The 4th Amendment does not guarantee privacy, no matter what a bunch of web sites and people with an agenda say. All the 4th stipulates is what the government can do to citizens, like about search and seizure, though there are some important exceptions. (For example, as was in the news recently, border agents can force you to allow them to search your phone or other electronic devices.)

[It's supposed to force a government to have a warrant before searching and it's supposed to bar seizure of property without returning it or compensation, too. The latest "violations" (arguably not a violation of the requirement for probable cause if someone has been chased on suspicion of being involved in a crime) are often in cases of people who are in the country illegally which is, itself, a crime. They're allowing warrantless searches on a larger scale- deep down, I still believe that we don't have much to worry about as long as we're not doing anything wrong but once they start, it's like a vacuum cleaner salesman getting their foot in the door- pretty soon, they're sitting at the kitchen table asking for more coffee.]

Nor does the 1st Amendment specify separation of church and state either. It just says the government can't establish a state religion. (Like the Church of England.) Many US citizens think they have rights that they really don't.

[It's supposed to prevent an official religion and from that religion having a say in how the government operates and another goal was to allow people to observe their religion freely. The Pilgrims left their homelands to get away from anything Catholic and this is a clear sign of the wishes to leave the power wielded by the RC Church. The Church of England wasn't like the Catholic church, which hoovered money from people to pay "indulgences" in hopes of securing a place in heaven and it certainly wasn't responsible for the inquisitions.]

We don't really have a right to free speech in every situation either. Your employer can fire you for exercising it, if they don't like what you're saying. My point is that lots of people mix up what the government is allowed to do, and what private citizens and companies are allowed to do.

We're trying to stretch a Constitution created mostly in the 18th century by a bunch of men that thought religion was paramount, but holding slaves and treating women like second-class citizens was perfectly okay. I suspect that if any of us could go back in time and meet the founding fathers we wouldn't like them much.

[Some of the early settlers didn't practice and it wasn't necessary to observe a particular religion, although members of the Free Masons are supposed to believe in a higher power, in whatever form they prefer. The thought of a government forcing people to observe one religion would make me want to move away, too.

WRT freedom of speech- in public and off of company time, we're still pretty free to say what we want but nobody ever said that a job is a democracy. Whether people should say and write everything they do is up for debate.]

So all we have is the hope that the Supreme Court will be biased in their interpretations of an ancient Constitution the way we like.

[As long as it isn't biased against personal freedoms, we should be OK. What I don't like is when a tiny group gets all butthurt about being "oppressed" when it's more a matter of not many people caring one way or another and will probably never run into one of them, anyway. If some group is truly being victimized and oppressed, it should stop unless they instigated the problems, IMO.]

The internet has always had a let-the-user-beware foundation. It would be nice to have 21st century laws to provide freedom and privacy on a 21st century technology the country can't really run efficiently without anymore, but we don't elect congressmen based on how smart they are.

[That may be, but it wasn't as full of malicious dirtbags writing viruses, bots and Trojan Horses. Compared with the original intent, it went off the rails a long time ago. OTOH, I have heard that the first e-mail was porn, so....]

Perhaps we need to go back to the old scheme where the state legislatures elected senators, and then changed the system to empower the senators elect a president, and the House would be the only body sullied by populism. Only joking... or maybe not...

[With people buying influence, are we really far from that?]

 

[highfigh]

I still maintain that you're prejudiced against Obama -- not because of his race, though, and I apologize for implying otherwise. That wasn't my intent. I don't apologize for the Fox News label though. Your deflection away from an untenable position toward a more comfortable topic to regain the offense was worthy of Kellyanne Conway.

By the way, I wholeheartedly agree with you on riders attached to legislation, but I guess such riders are necessarily for bipartisan support.

So back to the topic of discussion, regardless of your prejudices, privacy rules were scheduled to go in effect in favor of the public, and now the GOP are tipping the scales back toward corporate interests. Aren't you at least a little indignant about relinquishing your privacy without your consent?

You didn't imply anything- you came right out and said it! You think I didn't like hm before I knew anything about him and that's not true- I have written many times about listening to him and being interested until he started talking about doing what no POTUS should be able to. At that point, he was never going to be my candidate but I listened to a lot of his speeches before reaching that point.

I don't have to like him for any reason but race never entered the discussion, for me. I don't care what someone is, I just want them to be qualified and I don't think he was. A Jr Senator who said he wouldn't run until his first term was over, voted 'Present' or 'Abstain' on the vast majority of items tells me he didn't want to be seen as taking a stand one way or another, so it couldn't be used against his bid for POTUS. We used to call members of Congress, POTUS and other high offices 'Statesmen' and now, they're just politicians.

I don't like O'Reilly and the others on Fox- I don't listen to their radio or watch their TV crap. I prefer to consider myself a moderate who takes the issues one at a time and not a knee-jerker who goes nuts whenever I hear generalizations that bother me. Again, I don't like the ACA because it's just bad legislation. It has added provisions that have nothing to do with it and it uses the IRS to punish people who don't want to join. Insurance companies have left the exchanges and that has caused a lot of people to not only lose their insurance, it has driven the cost to unaffordable levels. It's a lot cheaper to pay the fines. I know people whose new premiums are more than their mortgage- I thought ACA stood for 'Affordable Care Act'- what happened? Have you heard Bill Clinton's comments about it? Hillary was in favor of it and he said it's a crazy plan.

One of the WI Senators voted against the Bill that increased veteran benefits and I wrote to him, to ask why. When I finally got an answer, it took close to seven paragraphs to get to my question and if he was telling the truth, I guess I'm OK with it because that really was filled with crap that I didn't agree with but he didn't respond to my question asking if it was just about the money.

Unfortunately, I think that Congress would grind to a near-halt if each Bill involved one item but I think it would be best if they were to group similar Bills, rather than do it in an a la carte manner where each has anything to do with the others.

The reason I mentioned the ACA is because of the rampant disfunction in Congress.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

the rampant dysfunction in Congress.

Alas something I 100% agree with you

 

[Irvrobinson]

I prefer to consider myself a moderate who takes the issues one at a time and not a knee-jerker who goes nuts whenever I hear generalizations that bother me. Again, I don't like the ACA because it's just bad legislation.

Me too.

 

[rojo]

@highfigh I think I understand your position now. Earlier in the thread it seemed that you supported the rollback of the privacy regulations simply because it was Obama who ordered the regulations in the first place. Was I mistaken? Are you instead saying you're suspicious of the consequences of the regulations, that maybe there were unrelated riders attached increasing taxes on the rich or drowning puppies or some other hidden treachery?

As long as I'm unable to dissuade you from ranting about the ACA in this online privacy thread, let me just suggest that the real problem with the ACA is that it does nothing to address health care affordability. I've always thought that efforts directed toward insurance companies to address exorbitant health care costs were about as useful as starting a war in Iraq in response to 9/11. It's a noisy and distracting effort directed at the wrong target.

Health care providers understand there's an inelastic demand for their services regardless of the cost, so they can get away with charging $100 for Tylenol or $3000 for two hours in the recovery room after surgery. And as long as insurance companies continue to sign blank checks to cover the claims, the cost of insurance will stay high. We need an advocate to negotiate the costs down to more reasonable levels before universal coverage can happen.

I wrote a letter to Bob Corker explaining this view a few weeks ago, but he didn't bother to respond. I also suggested that maybe if hospitals and clinics could post prices for their procedures in a common format similar to nutritional info on food, that patients would be free to bargain hunt for non-emergent services, saving their insurance providers money, which could in turn lower premiums for everyone. I don't think it's unreasonable to comparison shop within the region who charges the lowest fee for an endoscopy, or to know before you receive the bill how much to expect to pay for surgery to remove gall stones, and whether the cost is significantly less in the hospital in the next county. And maybe if the prices were made more public, then the free market could do a better job at controlling health care costs.

 

[3db]

No way! You think that? I'm astounded.

Remember, I'm Canadian and we Canucks tend to get our news through fake news outlets such as CNN.

 

[3db]

Trump has a hair across his ass for Obama. He is trying undo everything he did while in office..

Good luck with that Mr Trump. Obama caught Bin Laden and his administration brought the US economy out of a recession. Trump is nothing more than an ill tempered mouthpiece who is riding on Obama's coat tails as far as I'm concerned.