Sununu’s Ties to Telecom and Legislative History in Privacy
John Sununu, a former U.S. Senator from New Hampshire, is once again running for office, facing off against Democratic Representative Chris Pappas. Sununu, who served in the Senate from 2003 to 2009, holds a background entwined with major telecommunication firms known for their push to relax privacy regulations.
Upon leaving the Senate, Sununu joined Time Warner’s corporate board, earning $1.7 million over six years in fees and stock rewards. During his tenure, Time Warner, now known as Spectrum, lobbied for legislation such as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), and the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA).
SOPA and PIPA aimed to address online copyright infringement by empowering internet service providers like Time Warner to block or censor websites using copyrighted material unlawfully. However, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) cautioned that these bills’ broad language could allow companies to shut down websites without proper legal oversight, deeming existing procedures sufficient for handling such issues.
Similarly, CISPA, which proposed allowing internet providers to share user data with the federal government, was criticized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation for potentially compromising user privacy, and ultimately, none of these bills became law.
In 2011, Sununu became an honorary co-chair of Broadband for America, a telecommunications trade group. In this capacity, he opposed net neutrality, maintaining that internet service providers should not be mandated to treat all data uniformly. “Net neutrality supporters want to overturn a two-decade consensus of light regulatory touch,” Sununu stated during a press call in 2014.
Despite his corporate affiliations, Sununu promotes his record as a civil liberties advocate, often referencing his 2005 filibuster against the Patriot Act renewal. However, he tends to downplay his industry connections during his campaign trail appearances.
Recent polling conducted by The New York Times and Siena University indicates that Pappas currently leads Sununu by a margin of five percentage points.
The post Sununu worked for telecom giants that fought privacy rules appeared first on American Journal News.
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