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Should Obama Control the Internet?
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| Shakka |
My grains of salt are that this seems to be an Alex Jones site. However, if the content is indeed based on fact it could be concerning.
http://cdt.org/security/CYBERSEC4.pdf
Linker
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Should Obama Control the Internet?
By Steve Aquino | Thu April 2, 2009 12:33 PM PST
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.
Rockefeller made cybersecurity one of his key issues as a member of the Senate intelligence committee, which he chaired until last year. He now heads the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, which will take up this bill.
"We must protect our critical infrastructure at all costs—from our water to our electricity, to banking, traffic lights and electronic health records—the list goes on," Rockefeller said in a statement. Snowe echoed her colleague, saying, "if we fail to take swift action, we, regrettably, risk a cyber-Katrina."
But the wide powers outlined in the Rockefeller-Snowe legislation has at least one Internet advocacy group worried. "The cybersecurity threat is real," says Leslie Harris, head of the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), "but such a drastic federal intervention in private communications technology and networks could harm both security and privacy."
The bill could undermine the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), says CDT senior counsel Greg Nojeim. That law, enacted in the mid '80s, requires law enforcement seek a warrant before tapping in to data transmissions between computers.
"It's an incredibly broad authority," Nojeim says, pointing out that existing privacy laws "could fall to this authority."
Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that granting such power to the Commerce secretary could actually cause networks to be less safe. When one person can access all information on a network, "it makes it more vulnerable to intruders," Granick says. "You've basically established a path for the bad guys to skip down."
The bill's scope, she says, is "contrary to what the Constitution promises us." That's because of the impact it could have on Internet users' privacy rights: If the Commerce Department uncovers evidence of illegal activity when accessing "critical" networks, that information could be used against a potential defendant, even if the department never had the intent to find incriminating evidence. And this might violate the Constitutional protection against searches without cause.
"Once information is accessed, it can be used for whatever purpose, no matter the original reason for accessing something," Granick says. "Who's interested in this [bill]? Law enforcement and people in the security industry who want to ensure more government dollars go to them."
Nojeim, though, thinks it's possible the bill's powers could be trimmed as it moves through Congress. "We will be working with them to clarify just what is needed and how to accomplish that," he says. "We're hopeful that some of the very broad powers that the bill would confer won't be included."
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| Alex |
| The guy killed pirates. |
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| LazFX |
| quote: | Originally posted by Alex
The guy killed pirates. |
yeah he did.........
and this is starting to become very interesting..... |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
I'm of the opinion that the internet isn't a right to begin with, and we're not talking about eliminating access to it or limiting free speech.
Eh, I understand the argument against the bill (though it's not going to appear as law in anywhere approaching the form described), but I can understand the arguments for it as well. |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
I'm of the opinion that the internet isn't a right to begin with, and we're not talking about eliminating access to it or limiting free speech.
Eh, I understand the argument against the bill (though it's not going to appear as law in anywhere approaching the form described), but I can understand the arguments for it as well. |
It's hard to feel strongly about this issue because the bill, itself, is rather quite innocuous. So far as I can tell, it is merely a measure to shut down government-controlled intra-networks, which basically means it empowers them to pull the whole plug and run in offline mode should they detect a serious enough security breach. What it is doing is likely laying the ground to affect privately-run ISPs (likely the internet we are using right now), though I don't believe it makes any mention of such... yet, of course. This is probably the beginning of more encroachment, but it's not quite there just yet.
But I could be entirely off in how I am interpreting it. |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| No, I think you're right. And I also think monitoring of private ISPs is something that the Senate doesn't have the votes to do. |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
True... for now! Am I being foreboding enough?
They can, however, threaten ISPs to release personal information if the ISPs, themselves, detect anything fishy about their very own customers, which would be practically the same thing should they clench their fists tight enough. |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
Which is what Verizon and Sprint do now.
I'm all for protecting civil liberties, but I don't see specific rights being infringed in this case.
Everyone has a right to attend school, but that doesn't mean they have a right to say whatever they want there or carry weapons. |
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| Krypton |
| They should have to have a search warrant. |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
And it almost entirely depends on what they might decide to do with such information.
It's one thing if it's merely an upgrade to their existing networks to protect against hackers or terrorists... but it also seems that the power to completely turn off what is fastly becoming one of the most effective outlets for the mass dissemination of information could be used for means most would consider to be somewhat totalitarian.
Leaving such extreme measures in the hand of a single person is merely setting things up to be exploited. I realize this is tin-foil hat , and I do not truly believe that Obama has some secret agenda to turn off all of our interwebs because we download too much, but when you seat so much leverage in one person, I don't think it's crazy at all to question the extent of their intentions, especially when you consider that there will be people in the Oval office after Obama, and who knows how they like to handle things. |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| This just comes back to the point raised earlier: the man kills pirates. He's already all-powerful. |
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| Fir3start3r |
I'll be sure to send screen shots of your favourite websites to your emai.....wait....nm... :D ;)
/oh Canada? |
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