President With Internet Kill Switch
Posted on 27 June 2010 by LynThomas in Technology
Independent senator, Joe Lieberman, chairman of the U.S. Homeland Security committee and former presidential candidate, is concerned about a ‘Digital Pearl Harbour’. Sen. John Rockefeller, first introduced the idea of a ‘kill switch’ in April 2009.
The amended bill, now approved by a Senate committee, would grant the President of the United States, broad emergency powers over the Internet in times of national emergency. The bill claims the Internet is a National Asset.
President Obama would be able to order search engines such as Google, Yahoo and YouTube, all based in the U.S., to suspend access to their websites whenever the government deemed there was a national crisis, or an emergency. There is no effort in the bill to define the exact nature of an emergency or crisis.
Game Over
The ‘kill switch’ would thus give the government control of access to the Internet. Google alone logs an estimated two billion hits a day from 300 million users.
If the bill succeeds the US government bureaucracy will be spending tax dollars to figure out private networks, find choke points and places where they can control the flow of communication. Furthermore, Internet companies are going to be required, by law, to supply the federal bureaucrats with whatever network, account, usage and history information they deem appropriate. All in the name of cyber safety.
The law would require companies, where the executive branch is deemed “critical”, to adopt restrictions on who it could hire to work with network security, to a limited pool of those who had undergone government training and certification.
The Internet is an important means of communication and self-organization among the population, allowing them to respond to any crisis or debate. Any move to limit this is perceived as a direct threat to the constitutional rights of assembly and speech upon which the government cannot infringe.
One Pew research study cites as many as 69% of Americans are now getting news from Internet sites. While another study states that the internet has overtaken newspapers and fast challenging television as themajor source of news and information. The internet has proven it can react faster and in many cases better than traditional media outlets.
Proponents of the new law say that the number of attacks on Government departments, from Cyber Space, have increased by 400% in the last three years.
China has tried for long enough to muzzle and control Cyber Space with only limited success. By its very nature, the Internet is not easily controlled by any government — it is the ultimate embodiment of free speech and free press. Changes in the proposed law are needed to ensure that cyber security measures do not unnecessarily infringe on free speech, privacy, and other civil liberties interests, not just in America but across the world.
Internet Muzzled
The question remains, will the new law turn Bill Gates into the new ‘007’, simply muzzle the Internet, or will someone end up with egg on his face?
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27 June 2010
[...] Joe Lieberman, Independent senator, chairman of the U.S. Homeland Security committee and former presidential candidate, is concerned about a ‘Digital Pearl Harbour’. Sen. John Rockefeller, first introduced the idea of a ‘kill switch’ in April 2009. Read how the US President will be given an Internet ‘kill switch’… [...]
I believe that the powers to control and kill the internet were flexed in Denver Colorado today september 27, 2011.
President Obama visited the state today at Lincoln High school. The time President Obama appeared in Denver our Quest/Centurylink internet connection slowed down to .05mbps, and I could not send or recieve email for more than 10 hours. My internet service provider said thay could not figure out what was going on, and all of my hardware was working properly. As soon as President Obama left the state, internet service was restored. this could be a fluke, or is it?
Andrew