Motherboard’s blockbuster story
about mobile carriers selling your realtime location data into a
marketplace where bounty hunters and other villains can buy it for just a
few dollars has triggered an urgent, national conversation about the
fact that, in the year since the first stories about this emerged, the
carriers have not only failed to live up to their promises to put a stop
to it, but seem to have made it even worse.
So naturally, the Congressional committee that oversees the FCC – which
regulates the carriers – wants to be briefed on this so that they can
do their job, serve the American people, and get this situation under
control.
But to do that, they need to hear from Ajit Pai, the former Verizon
executive whom Donald Trump installed as Chairman of the FCC. And Pai
says he’s staying in his office with his giant novelty Reese’s mug, and
Congress can go fuck themselves, because there’s a shutdown on, and this
isn’t “a threat to safety.”
What’s more, the FCC committee that has been investigating this issue
has stopped all work, because again, having the location of every US
cellular phone owner being tracked in realtime and sold for a few
dollars to any scumbag with a credit card “is not a threat to safety.”
