Somewhere Everywhere, Big Brother Is Smiling: Congress Sells Your Privacy For A Cool $84 Million

Monday, April 22, 2013
By Paul Martin

by Tim Cushing
TechDirt.com
Mon, Apr 22nd 2013

In case you were wondering why so many Democrats switched sides during the most recent CISPA vote, the answer is exactly what you think it is: $$$. And lots of it. Last year’s CISPA vote only managed to secure 40 Democrat supporters. This time around, the number leapt to 92.

[A] new coalition of special interests, which include America’s two largest cellular service providers AT&T, Inc. and Verizon Wireless — jointly owned by Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group Plc. — as well as two of the nation’s largest software firms Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp., came together to create a similar data grab bill (Microsoft has since renounced its support). Security firms like Symantec Corp. also backed the bill.

Pushing the bill through was $84M USD in funding from special interest backers.

$84 million is change-of-heart money, although one imagines those contributing checked and double-checked their “sponsored” representatives to make sure they were all on the same page. As DailyTech points out, nearly $86 million went into the SOPA push and most of that turned out to be wasted money.

The Rest…HERE

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