Montini: Publicly shaming Flake over privacy sellout

Critics looking down on Sen. Jeff Flake are hoping Arizona voters will look up.

At a billboard.

At I-10 and Baseline Road.

Flake led the congressional charge to allow telecommunications companies like Cox Communications, Verizon, AT&T and Comcast to access and collect personal customer information, including web browsing data and app usage history – without asking your permission – and selling the data to advertisers and marketers.

The rule protecting us from this was put in place by the Federal Communications Commission during President Obama’s term and wasn’t popular with the telecommunications giants or their friends in Congress.

When asked about this in March, Flake told The Arizona Republic’s Dan Nowicki, "What we need with the internet is uniform rules, and not to regulate part of the internet one way and another part of the internet another way, just based on who provides the data. It ought to be the data that provides the basis for regulation."

That’s not how the organization called Fight for the Future sees it.

They chose Flake to be among the first members of Congress to be the subject of their crowdfunded “You Betrayed Us” billboards.

“Congress voting to gut Internet privacy was one of the most blatant displays of corruption in recent history,” Tiffiniy Cheng, co-founder of Fight for the Future, said in a press release. “They might think that they’ve gotten away with it, but they’re wrong. These billboards are just the latest example of the growing public backlash to these attacks on our Internet freedom and privacy.”

The fight for net neutrality could turn into a full-fledged war under the Trump administration.

Democratic Sen. Ed Markey said killing the FCC rule will “open up an unregulated Wild West where consumers would have no defense against abusive invasions of their privacy by their internet service provider.”

That’s not a good thing for those opposed to such an idea.

In a small but public way, however, things are looking up.

At a billboard.

At I-10 and Baseline Road.