Bill would give president emergency control of Internet
Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.
They’re not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.
The new version would allow the president to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” relating to “non-governmental” computer networks and do what’s necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for “cybersecurity professionals,” and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.
“I think the redraft, while improved, remains troubling due to its vagueness,” said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, which counts representatives of Verizon, Verisign, Nortel, and Carnegie Mellon University on its board. “It is unclear what authority Sen. Rockefeller thinks is necessary over the private sector. Unless this is clarified, we cannot properly analyze, let alone support the bill.”
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Bill would give president emergency control of Internet
Just in case anyone happened to miss this one, here it is in ALL of it’s glory. Spread it far and wide. While we still can.
If anyone still doubts that the Obama administration, or the evil minions of the Obama administration are not all about CONTROL of the American people, this should hammer it home for you. What’s to stop Obama from shutting down the ‘net if he felt he was about to lose control of the American people? What about a perceived threat that only existed in his mind?
A spokesman for Rockefeller also declined to comment on the record Thursday, saying that many people were unavailable because of the summer recess. A Senate source familiar with the bill compared the president’s power to take control of portions of the Internet to what President Bush did when grounding all aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001. The source said that one primary concern was the electrical grid, and what would happen if it were attacked from a broadband connection.
I have got to call BS on this one. What Bush did by grounding all the planes after the attacks of 9-11 was, he removed a threat that was real. A clear and present danger!
The next few paragraphs will illustrate even more why I believe that this idea of shutting down the Internet, and comparison to the actions of the Bush administration on 9-11, to be the BS we ALL know it to be.
When Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate Commerce committee, and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) introduced the original bill in April, they claimed it was vital to protect national cybersecurity. “We must protect our critical infrastructure at all costs-from our water to our electricity, to banking, traffic lights and electronic health records,” Rockefeller said.
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