H.R. 1865, the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, would (despite its noble-sounding name) harm the very people it purports to protect. How? It would allow folks to sue internet service providing corporations for virtually any sex trafficking that happens on their network, rather than just the sex trafficking they knew about and failed to report -- which means that social workers and victims won't be able to (for example) use message boards to talk about their experiences, since ISPs won't want to take the risk of being hauled into jail. ISPs would more likely just censor such content, even though it isn't sex trafficking -- and, now that the FCC has repealed net neutrality, ISPs will be able to censor folks a whole lot more easily than they previously could. Didn't conservatives used to say we should only go after the people who actually do wrong? The Electronic Frontier Foundation helps you call your Senators and tell them to reject H.R. 1865.
While you've got your Senators on the phone, you may want to remind them to reject H.R. 620, the so-called ADA Education and Reform Act. Why? Because instead of focusing on punishing corporations that discriminate against the disabled, H.R. 620 would force would-be plaintiffs in a lawsuit against a business that discriminated against them to tell the businesses first and cite, in copious detail, the specific laws they've violated (like how the bill makes victims "educate" their attackers?), and then give them six months to come up with a "plan" to stop discriminating and make "significant progress" toward executing that plan. Remember: when Our Glorious Elites whine about TEH FRIVOLUSS LAWSUITZ!!!!!, they only mean lawsuits filed by people against corporations. When a corporation sues you for no damn good reason, they don't give one rat's hind-quarter about it. So don't let them have all the say about the things that affect our lives.
Finally, while you still have your Senators on the phone, you can tell them to support S.J.Res. 54, which would stop our government from aiding and abetting the Saudi war on Yemen -- which war, as you no doubt remember, has the added bonus of killing some of the best fighters against al-Qaeda in the whole world! Remember hearing that our President would bring "different thinking" to foreign policy, with maybe a little less indiscriminate war-making? Then again, you heard that from Candidate George W. Bush before he became President George W. Bush, too. Don't buy any bridges from the Department of Defense about how our work against Yemen doesn't constitute "hostilities" (I wish I were joking about that!), nor should you take any guff about "hamstringing the President in foreign policy-making." Congress is supposed to hamstring the President in foreign policy-making! It's a feature of our Constitution, not a bug.
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