I understand that cyber-security is an important issue, but I really don’t like the sound of this. A bill that some say would give the president and “internet kill switch” has been approved by committee in the senate and will advance to the floor for a vote.
Tech World: The bill, introduced earlier this month, would establish a White House Office for Cyberspace Policy and a National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications, which would work with private US companies to create cybersecurity requirements for the electrical grid, telecommunications networks and other critical infrastructure.
The bill also would allow the US president to take emergency actions to protect critical parts of the Internet, including ordering owners of critical infrastructure to implement emergency response plans, during a cyber-emergency. The president would need congressional approval to extend a national cyber-emergency beyond 120 days under an amendment to the legislation approved by the committee.
The legislation would give the US Department of Homeland Security authority that it does not now have to respond to cyber-attacks, Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, said earlier this month.
I’m not alone. A group headed by the ACLU has written a letter to the senators on the committee expressing concerns over the bill. The Competitive Enterprise Institute is a co-signer of the letter, and a spokesman addressed his concerns in the article linked above.
One critic said Thursday that the bill will hurt the nation’s security, not help it. Security products operate in a competitive market that works best without heavy government intervention, said Wayne Crews, vice president for policy and director of technology studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, an anti-regulation think tank.
“Policymakers should reject such proposals to centralize cyber security risk management,” Crews said in an e-mail. “The Internet that will evolve if government can resort to a ‘kill switch’ will be vastly different from, and inferior to, the safer one that will emerge otherwise.”
Cybersecurity technologies and services thrive on competition, he added. “The unmistakable tenor of the cybersecurity discussion today is that of government steering while the market rows,” he said. “To be sure, law enforcement has a crucial role in punishing intrusions on private networks and infrastructure. But government must coexist with, rather than crowd out, private sector security technologies.”
Personally, I wonder why the president would only need approval from congress to extend the “cyber-emergency” beyond 120 days. They’re putting an awful lot of power into the hands of one person, yet I’m hearing little about this from the media.
This should scare every non-communist American.
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The same powers were and are used by the Chi-Comms with their “Great Firewall of China”, Iran, during their last uprising when they shut off Twitter and the vile despot, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela seizing telecom sector businesses. Again, the same leftist formula used worldwide; a phony crisis to impose phantom protective security for your liberties. All Americans that believe in freedom should be outraged at these heinous and traitorous, police acts.
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This isn’t worth getting in a sweat over, they can already shut down cellphone service, do you think they’ll stop there? It’s TOO LATE to get your panties in a wad now, they’re going to do it. Most probably under the guise of safety, the same way they shoved the cellphone hysteria up our arses, and guess what, most people are willing to give up their liberty for some perceived safety.
People, get your heads out into the fresh air.
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Once again a BIG GOVERNMENT PROGRAM…….Put forth by a BIG Government Democrat(Lieberman) giving the BIG GOVERNMENT more BIG POWERS to Be even BIGGER then they once were.
The march continues unabated.
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It is funny seeing a bunch of people outraged at a bill that nobody has read.
Typical right-wing bullcrap really
We have no idea what is in the bill (just what Fox News told us) BUT DAMMIT, WE WON’T TAKE IT!
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You might want to read the concerns of the ACLU in the letter that LC linked in the post. I would go out on a limb and be judgmental enough to say that the ACLU is not “Typical right-wing bullcrap really “. Your foolishness in this matter is not well suffered.
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