Via Mother Jones:Read it all...Should President Obama have the power to shut down domestic Internet traffic during a state of emergency?
Senators John Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) think so. On Wednesday they introduced a bill to establish the Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor—an arm of the executive branch that would have vast power to monitor and control Internet traffic to protect against threats to critical cyber infrastructure. That broad power is rattling some civil libertarians.
The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (PDF) gives the president the ability to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" and shut down or limit Internet traffic in any "critical" information network "in the interest of national security." The bill does not define a critical information network or a cybersecurity emergency. That definition would be left to the president.
The bill does not only add to the power of the president. It also grants the Secretary of Commerce "access to all relevant data concerning [critical] networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access." This means he or she can monitor or access any data on private or public networks without regard to privacy laws.
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4 comments:
See, part of the reason why I don't comment all the time is I hate to always leave negative ones or ones where we're always disagreeing.
But if this measure had been proposed in the P-O (Pre-Obama) days, might not you have been a fan? That the President would have the power to protect against terrorist cyber-attacks? I mean, after all, in some ways, isn't attacking our computer systems really one of the most serious terrorist threats?
I seriously doubt if I would have ever been a fan of Obama's Pre-election or otherwise. Not because of his party. Because of his policies.
I would think that various federal agencies already have the power to protect important government data in case of a cyberattack.
The problem with this bill is that it gives the president and government power over all networks. They'll have rights to access any information...private or public. The Fourth Amendment would mean nothing as the bill will allow the government to go after private or public networks without a search warrant. It also gives Obama the power to deny access to public information (something China already does (ie Beijing Olympics).
Btw Miss M....I promise I'll try to keep a level head on my shoulders, k? Did I say it's good to see you here again? :)
LOL
I wasn't saying you would have been a fan of Obama's, I was suggesting you might have been a fan of the legislation if it had been suggested before Obama was the President (as in by the Republicans when Bush was the President).
I thought part of any potential terrorist cyber-threat was to the economy in the form of, for example, the financial services sector. Or just how much all of society relies on computers and the internet to make the world go round. It wasn't the government networks I was thinking about. Couldn't they deliver a crippling blow to our economy by attacking and shutting down other networks?
And wouldn't it be worth the potential risk to public or private info in order to protect ourselves against a cyber-attack? It's not so much I'm not so much that I'm necessarily a believer in that last one as just playing devil's advocate but still...
I had a feeling I misunderstood you since you already know how I feel about Obama. :)
I think the problem with this cybersecurity bill is that it will give the President the power to shut down any or all private or public networks. That would mean Obama can order AOL, Verizon, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo to limit, block or disconnect any traffic.
It would be a problem with the President having sole power to the internet. The president would set the standard on how to design security. Banks, air control, etc would have to meet those standards. Because the security would be running under the same (one) technology, that would weaken the infrastructure, giving terrorists the advantage.
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