“The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”

Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas


Monday, January 31, 2011

Obama wants an Internet kill-switch.....just like Egypt's

What's the first thing the Egyptian government did when the citizens rose up to oppose it's policies? Kill the Internet, cell-phone communications, Facebook, and Twitter so the rabble couldn't organize. Essentially the government wanted them to be more easily controlled. Well, there's a bill in Congress right now that would give Obama, or whoever the chief executive is, the same authority without judicial oversight or authority.....

From QandO -- A controversial bill handing President Obama power over privately owned computer systems during a "national cyberemergency," and prohibiting any review by the court system, will return this year.

Launching nuclear weapons requires at least two people. Should any one man have the power to shut down the Internet for what he alone perceives to be a "national cyberemergency"? No one man should have the authority to seize control of the Internet or communications between citizens and with the outside world. Even if you argue that he'd never use it, why grant the man occupying the white house that authority in the first place?

9 comments:

Bill Lockhart said...

If that happens and he throws the switch, then I think we will rise up and build a new internet out of government control. Egypt has done it already--and tells how it is done.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9207078/Without_Internet_Egyptians_find_new_ways_to_get_online

BelchSpeak said...

Obama may have the power over Federal and DOD ASN's- but not over the ASN's in the control of the majority of the .Com space.

I recently wrote about this- the fact that Egyptian govt actually owned the routers that controlled the internet traffic, they were able to do this. It is impossible to do that now in the US. Those ASN owners and operators are like digital cowboys, and they won't give up control of those routers they operate, especially not to the feds.

ed said...

Hey Pat, I saw that post of yours. So that poses the question of what would Obama control in the event of a "national cyberemergency"?

BelchSpeak said...

He wants the ability to do a "precautionary disconnect" of critical cyber components. The problem is that the feds only control the DOD and federal-civilian agencies.

They want the ability to do the same with banking and other private networks, but he will never gain the control. He can't seize the networks, only build "partnerships" and if you judge by the cooperation the feds received with DHS cyber security (none) then this bill is as good as dead already.

The biggest thing to watch out for is the Feds trying to make internet communication their sole purview under the commerce clause.

Ed said...

Thanks for clearing that up Pat. The feds use the commerce clause to justify every infringement on the citizenry they undertake.

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