Sununu worked for telecom giants that fought privacy rules

Republican U.S. Senate candidate John Sununu worked for big telecommunications companies that tried to loosen privacy laws.

Sununu represented New Hampshire in the U.S. Senate from 2003 to 2009 and is attempting a comeback this year. His Democratic opponent is Rep. Chris Pappas.

The same year he left office, Sununu joined the corporate board of Time Warner (now Spectrum). The company would pay him $1.7 million in fees and stock rewards over the next six years.

Time Warner was lobbying the government during this period in support of three bills: the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), and the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA).

SOPA and PIPA were companion bills that sought to combat online copyright infringement by letting internet service providers, like Time Warner, block or censor websites that improperly use copyrighted material.

The ACLU warned that the language of the bills was too broad and they would essentially let these companies shut down any website they want with no legal input or oversight. The group also noted that the laws were redundant, given that there was already an effective legal procedure for flagging and removing copyrighted material online.

Neither bill became law.

CISPA, which would’ve allowed internet providers to hand over private user data to the federal government, didn’t become law either. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit digital rights group, said CISPA would “undermine the privacy of millions of internet users.”

In 2011, Sununu was named an honorary co-chair of Broadband for America, a trade group for the telecommunications industry. In this role, he advocated against net neutrality, the idea that internet service providers should treat all data equally without blocking, slowing down, or giving preferential treatment to certain websites.

“Net neutrality supporters want to overturn a two-decade consensus of light regulatory touch,” Sununu said in a 2014 press call.

Sununu often touts himself as a champion for civil liberties on the campaign trail, citing his 2005 filibuster of the Patriot Act renewal as proof, while omitting his private sector experience.

A New York Times/Siena University poll from last month shows Pappas leading Sununu by five percentage points.