{"id":9584,"date":"2018-04-13T14:50:55","date_gmt":"2018-04-13T19:50:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rud.is\/b\/?p=9584"},"modified":"2018-04-16T12:15:00","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T17:15:00","slug":"does-congress-really-care-about-your-privacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rud.is\/b\/2018\/04\/13\/does-congress-really-care-about-your-privacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Congress Really Care About Your Privacy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I apologize up-front for using bad words in this post.<\/p>\n

Said bad words include “Facebook”, “Mark Zuckerberg” and many referrals to entities within the U.S. Government. Given the topic, it cannot be helped.<\/p>\n

I’ve also left the R<\/code> tag on this despite only showing some ggplot2 plots and Markdown tables. See the end of the post for how to get access to the code & data. R<\/code> was used solely and extensively for the work behind the words.<\/p>\n

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This week Congress put on a show as they summoned the current Facebook CEO — Mark Zuckerberg — down to Washington, D.C. to demonstrate how little most of them know about how the modern internet and social networks actually work plus chest-thump to prove to their constituents they really and truly care about you<\/em>.<\/p>\n

These Congress-critters offered such proof in the guise of railing against Facebook for how they’ve handled your data. Note that I should really say our<\/em> data since they do have an extensive profile database on me and most everyone else even if they’re not Facebook platform users (full disclosure: I do not have a Facebook account).<\/p>\n

Ostensibly, this data-mishandling impacted your privacy. Most of the committee members wanted any constituent viewers to come away believing they and their fellow Congress-critters truly care about your<\/em> privacy.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, we have a few ways to measure this “caring” and the remainder of this post will explore how much members of the U.S. House and Senate care about your privacy when you visit their official .gov<\/code> web sites. Future posts may explore campaign web sites and other metrics, but what better place to show they care about you then right there in their digital houses.<\/p>\n

Privacy Primer<\/h3>\n

When you visit a web site with any browser, the main URL pulls in resources to aid in the composition and functionality of the page. These could be:<\/p>\n