The Tea Party and The Internet

Well, a little hope wherever we can find it, right?  Here's the email I received from Avaaz last night:

~~~~~~~~~

Right now, Congress is poised to pass a new law that would allow the government to spy on everything we do online. But we can stop them if we act now.

CISPA would permit corporations to share anything that we do online with US government agencies upon request, nullifying almost all other privacy laws -- and Republicans and Democrats are backing it. But Tea Party activist Eric Cantor represents a group staunchly in favor of small government and personal liberty. If we can swing his vote to protect our privacy, we have a good shot at turning all Republicans against the cyberspy bill and winning the vote!

We can unite the right and left in the fight to protect our privacy -- using the power of Tea Party to send every member of Congress running from the vote. Send a message to Cantor and his buddy Republican Speaker Boehner now and forward this email everyone you know:

www.avaaz.org/en/stop_cispa_us…

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) would allow companies to collect exact records of all of our online activities and hand it over to the government, without ever notifying us that we are being watched. No warrant, no legal cause and no due process required. To make matters worse, the bill provides the government and corporations with blanket immunity to protect them from being sued for violation of privacy and other illegal actions.

CISPA is being moved forward in the House of Representatives and will be voted upon in days, but the majority of Americans across the political spectrum oppose these types of infringements. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is a strong Tea Party representative and can sound the alarm among the extreme right -- likely allies in this fight. Speaker of the House, John Boehner holds sway with the old Republican guard and can bring them along under threat of losing their base support.

CISPA's supporters claim that consumer information will be protected, but the reality is that huge loopholes would make everything we do online fair game -- and nowadays, from banking to shopping, our private information is all stored on the Internet. Everyone agrees that we need strong cyber security. But this isn't it. There are other bills under consideration that address security needs without unnecessary civil liberties violations. Let's raise a massive outcry that we won't give government a blank check to monitor our every move. Take action and send to friends and family:

www.avaaz.org/en/stop_cispa_us…

This year, we helped stop SOPA, PIPA and ACTA -- all dire threats to the Internet. Now, let's use the power of our movement to block CISPA and end the government attack on our Internet. WIth hope and determination,

Dalia, Allison, Emma, Ricken, Rewan, Andrew, Wen-Hua, and the rest of the Avaaz team

More information:

CISPA: The internet finds a new enemy (Global Post)
www.globalpost.com/dispatches/…

CISPA protests begin amid key changes to legislation (Los Angeles Times)
www.latimes.com/news/politics/…

Cybersecurity Bill FAQ: The Disturbing Privacy Dangers in CISPA and How To Stop It (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/04/…;

New CISPA Draft Narrows Cybersecurity Language as Protests Loom (Mashable)
news.yahoo.com/cispa-draft-nar…

~~~~~~~~~

  Have at it my friends.  I wish you and all of us the best of luck in this.