When foes of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) “light up” the Capitol in Washington, D.C., tonight as promised, most members of Orange County's congressional delegation will at least be there with them in spirit. Surprisingly, two of the congressmen who most vociferously advocate a free and open Internet and oppose mass surveillance are Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) and Darrell Issa (R-Vista).
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Fight for the Future, a Boston-based nonprofit “working to expand the Internet's power for good,” have given A+ grades and “Team Internet” membership to Rohrabacher, Issa, who is based in San Diego County but has a district office in Dana Point because he also represents parts of South County, and liberal pinko flag bearer Alan Lowenthal, the Long Beach-based Democrat who has Garden Grove, Los Alamitos and Cypress within his congressional boundaries.
The other Orange County members of Congress on “Team Internet” are Reps. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) and her lil' sis Linda Sanchez (D-Lakewood), whose district includes La Palma. Both got solid A's from Fight for the Future.
By contrast to those five members of the Orange County congressional delegation, Reps. Mimi Walters (R-Irvine) and Ed Royce (R-Fullerton) earned spots on “Team Surveillance” for their D+ and D grades respectively for supporting government control of the Internet, according to Fight for the Future.
As for the California senators who will actually vote on CISA, Barbara Boxer earned a B to make “Team Internet” while Dianne Feinstein's C placed her in that limbo known as “unclear.” Both are Democrats, of course.
Companies on “Team Internet” include Yelp, Apple, Reddit, Twitter and Wikipedia, while “Team NSA” has HP, IBM, AT&T, Comcast, Priceline, Verizon and Expedia because, Fight for the Future contends, “they are collaborating with the government to control the Internet.”
You'll find all the grades, which in the case of politicians are based on voting records, at Fight for the Future's Decide the Future page.
The nonprofit's CTO Jeff Lyon vows to join “nerds, activists, gamers and civil liberties proponents who oppose CISA” at NE 1st Street and East Capitol in Washington, D.C., starting at 6:30 tonight.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.