Source: o5com on Flickr

There's a new bill on the horizon from California Democrat Jackie Speier.

The Do Not Track Me Online Act claims to be the "Do Not Call" Registry of the Internet.

Sounds like a great idea, right? Unfortunately, it sounds fantastic. I say "unfortunately," because the proposed bill is incredibly dangerous.

There are few ideas coming from California lately that have worried me like this, and that's saying a lot. All this bill does is show just how clueless lawmakers are about technology. The concept itself is fundamentally-flawed, completely impractical, and will almost certainly do more damage than good.

First of all, there's no mention in the bill of how exactly this would be accomplished. It's not nearly as simple as the "Do Not Call" registry. Everyone has a phone number that - for the most part - never changes. Not so on the Internet.

People are using a growing number of diverse devices to access the Internet: Desktops, Laptops, Netbooks, Tablets, Smartphones, Webphones, Game consoles, and even TVs; just to name a few.

Almost every device has several browsers available to them, and I'm not even going to get into the varied ways these devices connect to the Internet in the first place (Cable, DSL, Satellite, business networks, Wimax, Cellphone connections, etc.).

A "Do Not Track" option has been on the wishlist of privacy advocates like Consumer Watchdog and the Center for Digital Democracy for quite some time, and eight such organizations have announced their support. The FTC also indicated that it would back a "Do Not Track" option in December report.

~Mashable

This has all the stink of the gun control ideology (or should I say "idiology"? /stupid pun). "The solution to gun violence is more gun control laws." Nope. Sorry. Wrong. Tell that to the poor victims of the Fort Hood shooting, the Virginia Tech shooting, or any other school shooting you can think of. Those "safe zones" only prevented the victims from being able to protect themselves.

Now, of course this isn't the same thing. Stopping ad companies from tracking people isn't going to put anyone in mortal danger. It will, however, cripple productivity and the Internet economy as we know it.

Why? Who follows the laws? People who follow the laws. Who breaks the laws? People who break the laws. Read that again in case you missed it.

I can absolutely guarantee that whatever method used to implement this list would be easily detected and bypassed by Internet tracking companies. The only way it couldn't is if the country spent every last dime on this effort and didn't eat for five years.

So what will happen then? The law-abiding companies will obey, stop making money, and go under. The less-concerned-with-legality companies won't obey, and will make a killing because their services will be in much higher demand by the people who use tracking information.

How would this affect the rest of the world? Would ad companies in China, Russia, or any other country really be concerned with our laws on privacy? Probably not.

All this bill could possibly do is hurt U.S. companies who follow the rules and provide more incentive for others not to follow the rules. Internet advertising (especially targeted advertising) literally makes everything we take for granted on the Internet possible. Without the current infrastructure, the Internet as we know it, would not exist.

Plenty of (free) tools already exist that effectively protect privacy: TOR, Adblock, Noscript, etc. Heck, every major modern browser even has a privacy mode built right in (I would highly recommend TOR for anyone serious about protecting their privacy).

Want to help people protect their privacy? Raise *awareness* about those existing options.

But please, please, PLEASE don't create yet another inefficient, ineffective bureaucratic placebo that kills productivity and the economy of the Internet.

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Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, has been at the center of this very heated controversy about health care. She has relentlessly pushed this legislation trying to "make history."

For those that don't know the history of this bill, I'll break it down for you:

• November 7, 2009 - The House - under enormous pressure from Pelosi - passed The Affordable Health Care for America Act H.R. 3962
  • This included the Stupak-Pitts amendment which enforced long-standing law banning federal funding of abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the life of the mother.
• December 24, 2009 - The Senate passes their version of the bill - The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act H.R.3590
  • This did not include the Nelson-Hatch amendment which contained the same language as the Stupak-Pitts amendment.
• February 25, 2010 - President Obama holds his "Health Care Summit" in which nothing is really accomplished. Well... almost. More on that later.
• The current strategy is to pass the Senate version of the bill through the House, which is supposed to happen in a vote on March 18, 2010

Nancy Pelosi is - of course - putting huge pressure on pro-life Democrats that voted for the Stupak-Pitts amendment to now support the Senate bill without the anti-abortion language included.

Now it starts to get ridiculous. The one thing that was accomplished at the Health Care Summit? The country got to see first-hand just how corruptly this entire proceeding has been handled.

At the Health Care Summit, Pelosi had this to say:

The current health care reform proposal:

• Includes government funding of abortion
• Imposes a brand-new "abortion fee" on taxpayers
• Directs $11 BILLION in new funding to groups like Planned Parenthood — the nation’s largest abortion chain that took in over $349,000,000 in tax funding last year while aborting 305,310 babies
• Would result in the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade

The Family Research Council does a great job of breaking down even further exactly how this bill provides federal funding of abortion:

Eight Reasons Abortion Is in the Health Care Overhaul

1. The legislation specifically includes it. The President’s bill to amend the Senate bill leaves several abortion provisions in place. In Section 1303 it allows tax credit subsidies for plans that include abortion and leaves the abortion surcharge in place. It maintains the proposal to create a multi-state plan that includes abortion in Sec. 1334. Even worse, it would increase the Senate bill funding from $7 billion to $11 billion for community health centers in Sec. 10503 without any abortion funding restrictions.  (H.R. 3590, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.)

2. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has said it is. “And I would say that the Senate language, which was negotiated by Senators Barbara Boxer and Patty Murray, who are very strong defenders of women’s health services and choices for women, take a big step forward from where the House left it with the Stupak amendment, and I think do a good job making sure there are choices for women. . .That would be an accounting procedure, but everybody in the exchange would do the same thing, whether you’re male or female, whether you’re 75 or 25, you would all set aside a portion of your premium that would go into a fund.”  (Sebelius: Everyone will pay into abortion-coverage fund.)

3.  Senate Democrats refused to ban it. Instead of allowing for an up or down vote on a Senate amendment similar to the Stupak Amendment in the House which bans federal funding of abortion, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) “tabled” the amendment, effectively killing it.  This was the only amendment dealt with in this way. (Vote No. 369 S.Amdt. 2962 to S.Amdt. 2786 to H.R. 3590)

4.  House Pro-life Democrats, who support a government takeover, say it is. “The Senate language is a significant departure from current law and is unacceptable.” (House Representative Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), February 23, 2010, CBS News)… “I think abortion’s wrong. The problem is that I’ve lived too long. When they say they can keep this money separate, I just don’t believe it.” (House Representative Marion Berry (D-Ark.), March 6, 2010, Arkansas News.)

5.  House Pro-abortion Democrats say it is. “The good news is that the Senate bill does allow [abortion coverage],” (Chairwoman of the House pro-abortion caucus, Dianne DeGette (D-Colo.), March 5, 2010, Washington Post.

6. The Abortion industry has sent out alerts in favor of it. The abortion giant Planned Parenthood sent out alerts on March 6, 2010: “President Obama’s health care reform proposal would make a real difference for the women and families who rely on Planned Parenthood. . . . and [the bill] significantly increase access to reproductive health care.” (Planned Parenthood alert, March 6, 2010.)

7. Candidate Obama said it would be included, and the Obama administration includes it in its definition of reproductive health care. Presidential candidate Barack Obama stated he “believes that reproductive health care is basic health care.” (Rhealitycheck.org questionnaire, 2008.)  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton followed up on this in 2009:  “Reproductive health care includes access to abortion.” (Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, April 22, House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing)

8. House Democratic Majority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) has indicated he wants to “fix” the abortion coverage problem in the Senate bill. “House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Thursday that lawmakers could draft separate pieces of legislation with abortion language to earn the support of anti-abortion rights Democrats on healthcare reform legislation.” (March 4, 2010, The Hill)

For more resources in the health care debate, check out FRC Action’s resource page: “Standing Against the Government Takeover of Health Care.” Also check out why the Hyde Amendment does not apply to the current bill by reading “Q and A: Government Health Care and Abortion.”

At the very least, even those who support abortion should be concerned about such a blatant lie from one of the largest supporters of this bill about the most controversial issue in it!

We need to stop this bill now, before it's too late.

Tell them we don't want this bill! And hurry! We only have until March 18th to make our voices heard.

Possibly Related posts:

1. Senator Nelson Responds to Health Care Concerns
2. Sen. Bill Nelson did NOT represent us today
3. My Open Letter to Senator Bill Nelson

This evening, President Barack Obama addressed a joint session of Congress about the country's health care system. As everyone expected, he gave a great speech. He said a lot of things people like to hear, expressed his passion for helping every citizen, raised his voice, and lied directly to our faces.

It's unbelievable.  After 15 minutes of scare-tactics about how urgently-needed a drastic change is, he complained about his opponents' scare-tactics.  "NOW IS THE SEASON FOR ACTION!" he screamed.  Yes, but what action?

The Lie

At about the 20 minute mark, he says, "No federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place." I'd like to know what he's talking about.  He suspended a very important conscience law his second day in office; the Mexico City Policy.   And make no mistake: every health care plan in Congress right now would mandate federally funded abortion.  Don't believe me?  There's an entire rundown here.

Finally, after rallying everyone with scare tactics, Obama reveals a piece of his agenda.  He pushes having a "public" (government-provided) option.  So tax-payer dollars would pay for whatever his non-elected committee decides falls into healthcare.  Again, there is no doubt that abortion will be covered in such a system.  Here is a video of Obama promising exactly that:

After 45 minutes of blathering, Obama says he won't "waste time with those who think it is better politics to kill this plan than to approve it. … I will not accept the status quo as a solution." Yeah, why let reasonable, legitimate, and justifiable questions get in the way of your mission?

Am I the only one who thinks this country has gone insane?  Why would anyone think it's a good idea to force taxpayers to directly pay for one person to kill another, perfectly innocent, person?  Don't we imprison those who hire hitmen?  I believe it's called "conspiracy to commit murder."  Why isn't Obama - or any other official who has legalized the worst holocaust in human history - in jail?  Why do we stand for this?

Beyond that, why on earth are we moving towards socialism, especially in health care?  Has nobody else taken note of what's happened to European socialized health care?

I defy anyone to name one system or business that has been improved by the government taking it over.  The government is, by far, the least efficient organization to handle anything it has its hands in.  The government is there to run the country and listen to the citizens.  Anything more than that is exactly why we declared our independence from England.

This is the part that's really unbelievable to me: a poll done by Zogby International last November found that:

71% of U.S. citizens oppose government-funded abortions

(Source) EDIT: there's something wrong with National Review's website. Fortunately, there's an exact copy of the article.

Apparently, Obama either can't or - at worst - won't listen to the citizens he so passionately "defends" in his speeches.

Visit AUL’s RealHealthCareRespectsLife.com for the truth about how all the current health care reform proposals on Capitol Hill threaten the elderly, the ill, and the unborn.

Possibly Related posts:

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2. Nancy Pelosi is a liar, and I can prove it (stop the health care bill)
3. Sen. Bill Nelson did NOT represent us today