New legislation allowing service members to cancel or suspend a service contract because of deployment or move Thursday passed the state Senate.

“The public should have a reasonable right to privacy online,” Fain said. “We wouldn’t tolerate the government selling our information because we visited a particular park, or a company selling our information because we looked through its shop window at the mall. We deserve the same right to consent in our digital lives as well.”

Fain, the only Republican to sponsor the bill, calls it “more of a values statement” than a practical piece of legislation. “I actually don’t have much fear that the federal government will embark on the path of a registration based on someone’s personal religious beliefs,” he says, “but since I find doing so completely objectionable, I don’t have any problem putting my name in opposition” by sponsoring the bill.