Sohn: Failing to protect our privacy

What is happening in our Congress?

Since when did our elected officials - and Republicans, in particular - start selling away our privacy rights?

Since right now, that's when.

On Thursday, Republican lawmakers in the Senate voted 50-to-48 to begin the process of dismantling landmark internet privacy protections for individuals - rules that were created by the Federal Communications Commission during the Obama administration.

The vote fell largely along party lines.

"Senate Republicans just made it easier for Americans' sensitive information about their health, finances and families to be used, shared and sold to the highest bidder without their permission," Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., told national reporters.

The action means companies like Verizon or Comcast can continue tracking and sharing people's browsing and app activity without asking their permission. An individual's data collected by these companies also does not need to be secured with "reasonable measures" against hackers, according to The New York Times. The Obama privacy rules, which had sought to address these issues, were scheduled to go into effect at the end of this year.

They were common-sense rules - rules, no doubt, that lawmakers themselves would likely prefer to be in place for their own browsing.

But clearly there were two problems with those rules: First, they carry the mark of the Obama administration and heaven knows we can't have that. Second, the mighty telecom carriers and companies - consistently in the top 10 political campaign funders since 2011 - find the rules "innovation-stifling."

In other words, they find it stifling not to seek additional profits by selling our browsing habits and heaven knows what other data. Democrats on the Senate floor Wednesday and Thursday warned that without the rules, broadband providers will have free range to note and share when people wake up by when they check the clock on their smart phone, as well as where users go to lunch, whom they visit and if they might be sick by tracking browsing history, driving maps and medical websites.

Thursday's vote set the wheels in motion. Next week, the House is expected to take action through the same Congressional Review Act procedure and pass a resolution to overturn the new Obama rules. The resolution would then move to President Trump to sign.

Call your representatives today.