This activist is collecting money to buy senators' browsing histories—and everyone is donating

Daily Kos Staff

Wednesday March 29, 2017 · 10:48 AM PDT

2017/03/29 · 10:48

WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 16: Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) speaks to members of the media flanked by Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) (L) and Sen. John Thune (R-SD) during a news briefing after the weekly Senate GOP policy luncheon at the Capitol November 16, 2016 in Washington, DC. Senate Republicans gathered at the weekly luncheon to discuss the GOP agenda. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) — Privacy schmivacy

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell voting

Tuesday, Republicans in the House of Representatives joined Republicans in the Senate to get rid of consumer privacy rights. With the election of Trump and other Republicans, the chance to do some real schilling for big telecoms at the expense of citizens was too great for them to pass up. When the Republican Senate voted last week to do their part, a net neutrality advocate in Chattanooga, Tennessee named Adam McElhaney decided to start a GoFundMe page. The page was hoping to collect around $10,000 in order to:

Campaign Action
Thanks to the Senate for passing S.J.Res 34 , now your Internet history can be bought.

I plan on purchasing the Internet histories of all legislators, congressmen, executives, and their families and make them easily searchable at searchinternethistory.com.

Everything from their medical, pornographic, to their financial and infidelity.

Anything they have looked at, searched for, or visited on the Internet will now be available for everyone to comb through.

Help me raise money to buy the histories of those who took away your right to privacy for just thousands of dollars from telephone and ISPs. Your private data will be bought and sold to marketing companies, law enforcement.

Let's turn the tables. Let's buy THEIR history and make it availble.

As of this diary, McElhaney has raised almost $50,000. When asked for a response, this was all Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had to say.

Thursday, Mar 30, 2017 · 3:07:50 PM +00:00 · Walter Einenkel

As has been pointed out below in the comments and elsewhere, buying a specific person’s web browser history is not a possibility. You can get good explanations on what the ISP privacy bill actually means here and here.

There have been a variety of these types of GoFundMe pages started and right now, I know of two that seem on the up and up—meaning they have 1) an alternative plan of where to put the monies if not towards the headline-stated goal, or 2) they acknowledge and are publicly available online in such a way that they can seemingly be kept accountable.

Mr. McElhaney’s GoFundMe has exploded since I first wrote this diary and now stands above $150,000. He has updated his explanation of intent. Personally, I like the idea of scaring these legislators since so many of them voted on this bill probably thinking they were selling out your personal browser history.

This activist is collecting money to buy senators' browsing histories—and everyone is donating

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