In the age of the internet, our online privacy is crucial. Let’s pray for God’s protection and that there would be accountability.

From The Federalist. On Jan. 4, the EU fined Meta (Facebook) $414 million for illegally forcing Facebook and Instagram users to consent to personalized ads based on data collection. Yet Facebook is still trying to avoid asking users for consent. The law in question was the 2018 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the toughest privacy and security law in the world. The right to privacy is part of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights, which states, “Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.”

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Just prior to this, in November last year, Google agreed to pay nearly $392 million in a settlement with 40 states (plus an $85 million settlement with Arizona) over allegations that the company tracked people through their devices after location tracking had been turned off. Google was not fined for breaking U.S. privacy laws, which are weak compared to the GDPR. Instead, they were charged for breaking consumer protection laws by misleading users about when it secretly recorded their movements and then offered the surreptitiously harvested data to digital marketers to sell advertisements. …

Why would Facebook and Google go to such lengths to spy on their customers? These companies have a business model that is heavily based on targeted advertising that is most profitable if they know everything about you. …

Privacy is not a sexy topic. Why should we care about data collection if we have “nothing to hide?” Because unconstrained collection, analysis, and use of personally identifiable information have also enabled the political censorship, harassment, and persecution of conservatives by left-leaning companies such as Google, Facebook, and many others. Privacy legislation is a practical necessity if the Republican Party is to survive the onslaught of Big Tech targeting. …

Modern-Day Tyranny

According to Andrew Ferguson, a professor of law at American University, “the January 6 cases are going to be used to build a doctrine that will essentially enable police to find almost anyone with a cellphone or a smart device in ways that we, as a society, haven’t quite grasped yet. That is going to undermine the work of journalists, it’s going to undermine political dissenters, and it’s going to harm women who are trying to get abortion services.” …

The largest private misuser of personally-identifiable information is Alphabet (Google and YouTube), which manipulates individual search results, suppresses conservative emails sent via Gmail, and uses personal information to shift voting preferences to Democrats. …

Big Tech’s Cost-Benefit Analysis

Financial discrimination has become another widespread result of the misuse of personal data. Paypal has been accused of waging war on conservative businesses that provide services they oppose, as have many other financial institutions. GoFundMe blocked donations to the Freedom Convoy and to conservatives in need of legal representation, thus undermining the ability of presumed-innocent citizens to obtain a fair trial.

There is a real risk today that all financial transactions will be aggregated, monitored, and used against us by those with political motivations. This is especially true for legal activities such as buying a gun, since gun control is a major objective of leftist activists. According to Philip Watson, founder of Washington Public Relations and a Second Amendment advocate, “Financial activism by banks is by far one of the largest emerging threats against Second Amendment rights.” …

Failing to Act Is Political Suicide

Even though there is bipartisan support for better privacy legislation, Congress has failed to enact a comprehensive national data privacy law, and only five states, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, and Virginia, have enacted such laws. The most recent attempt to pass strong national privacy legislation, the American Data Privacy Protection Act (ADPPA), failed last year after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opposed it.

Any Republican who accepts donations from Big Tech yet promotes the interests of an industry that primarily supports and colludes with Democrats to win elections is foolishly putting his party on the road to political suicide. The new Republican-led Congress should pass an enhanced ADPPA that is stronger than the GDPR not only because it would help to protect our rights, but also because it would damage the business model of the left-leaning, activist monopolies most involved in misusing our data against us for political purposes. …

The ADPPA should be enhanced to ban the use of private data to discriminate on the basis of political or religious beliefs or affiliations. It should also reaffirm that it is illegal for employers to demand private medical information and use it to exclude or fire those who do not comply with medical mandates of dubious legality. …

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(Excerpt from The Federalist. Photo Credit: Canva)