Since every Senate Republican and all but 15 House Republicans voted to dismantle your online privacy this week, what can you do to fight back? You can start by tweeting at popular vote loser Donald Trump and telling him to veto the bill, since we know he's on Twitter—a lot. But that's probably not going to work because, face it, it's Trump.
In just a matter of 36 hours, there were 20,000 calls made to the House on this, a bill that they jammed through in the aftermath of Trumpcare, rushing it through before serious opposition could be raised. So this will be a political fight, and it will be one we take to Republicans in 2018, particularly Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, who is up for re-election—and just happens to be the guy who introduced this terrible bill in the Senate.
In the meantime, though, we all need to figure out what actions we can take to protect our data—including our Social Security numbers, our financial records, and our web browsing histories. Here's one a good place to start, at #GetSafe, Fight for the Future's simple guide that walks you through protecting your devices with simple steps and strategies.
Get Safe shows you what you can do to start securing your most private information. Protecting your privacy can feel overwhelming. Get Safe makes it easy--like taking a simple online survey. We'll walk you through some basic steps that will dramatically increase the safety of the personal information stored on your phone and computer. It's quick, you don’t need to be tech savvy, and it’s worth it just for the peace of mind.
Get Safe is just a starting point. There are many digital security tools and best practices that are not listed here. If you are at high risk for being spied on or having your information stolen, you should seek out more advanced materials or get expert advice. To learn more, visit the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s comprehensive Surveillance Self-Defense site here.
(Speaking of EFF, they've got an important post on maximizing your privacy on Facebook that's worth checking out. That page has links to other Facebook settings you should be using.)
But back to the political fight: Evan Greer, an activist, musician, and campaign director of Fight for the Future, helps points the way.
[I]n the end, even the most tech-savvy among us are not safe in a world where the companies that connect us to the internet are allowed to profit by spying on us and selling the information they collect. A Virtual Private Network (VPN) will protect you from a lot more of the freaky stalking than your ISP, but not all of it.
That’s why, while it’s critical that we all educate ourselves about the simple things we can all be doing to secure our phones and computers, the most important thing we can do is to build a mass movement with real political power that can hold corporations and the government accountable, and demand that they respect our basic right to use the internet without fear of being watched. […]
At its best, the internet makes our society more open and democratic. We need to fight to make sure that lawmakers don’t use it for the opposite: To spread totalitarianism, corporate scams, and fear. This vote in Congress was a blow to our basic rights, but it’s what we do now that matters most.
We've fought and won before—on SOPA/PIPA (remember that? No? That's because we killed it!) and on net neutrality. We'll win this one too—and we'll take some of those Republicans down, while we’re at it.