Related stories...
1. "Internet Kill Switch"...I hope not!
2. Senate Cybersecurity Act of 2009 Could Shut Down the Internet
3. Don't give UN control over Internet
As one from Europe says, "Should he decide to make this policy, he would be no better than the regimes of China and Iran about which he and his colleagues so often complain."
Source: Mail Online
Friday, Jun 18 2010Obama to be given the right to shut down the internet with 'kill switch'
President Obama will be given the power to shut down the Internet with a 'kill switch' in a new law being proposed in the US.
He would be able to order popular search engines such a Google and Yahoo to suspend access their websites in times of national emergency.
Other US based Internet service providers as well as broadband providers would
also come under his control in times of a 'cybersecurity emergency.' Any company that failed to comply would be subject to huge fines.
Critics of the new law, which has been proposed by former presidential candidate Joe Liebermann, said it would be an abuse of power to let the White House control the internet.
TechAmerica, one of the largest U.S. technology lobby groups, said the new law had the 'potential for absolute power.'.
The proposed legislation, introduced into the US Senate by Lieberman who is chairman of the US Homeland Security committee, seeks to grant the President broad emergency powers over the internet in times of national emergency.
A sustained terror attack on multiple cities would be considered a national emergency as would a cyber attack by 'hackers' on the US financial system.
The director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair warned earlier this year that the US is 'severely threatened' by malicious cyber attacks.
The number of attacks on Government departments has increased by 400 per cent in the last three years.
Under the proposed bill, which has been dubbed an Internet kill switch', the US Government would effectively seize control of access to the internet.
Lieberman argued the bill was necessary to 'preserve those networks and assets and our country and protect our people'.
He said: 'For all of its 'user-friendly' allure, the Internet can also be a dangerous place with electronic pipelines that run directly into everything from our personal bank accounts to key infrastructure to government and industrial secrets.
Traders work on the New York Stock Exchange floor. US senators fear a cyber-attack on the US could paralyse the nation
'Our economic security, national security and public safety are now all at risk from new kinds of enemies--cyber-warriors, cyber-spies, cyber-terrorists and cyber-criminals.'
His bill is formally titled the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, or PCNAA.
While the US Government would not be able to control the internet in other countries access to the most popular sites would be cut off.
Google,Yahoo and YouTube, the top three most visited sites, are all based in the US.
Google logs an estimated two billion hits a day from 300 million users.
Under the cyber law any company on a list created by Homeland Security that also 'relies on' the Internet, the telephone system, or any other component of the U.S. 'information infrastructure' would be subject to command by a new National Centre for Cybersecurity and Communications (NCCC) that would be created inside Homeland Security.
Google, the world's most popular search engine, refused to comment. A spokesman said the law was not yet Government policy.
Comments (53)
I've sat here this weekend and all week trying to get my mind about the speed at which this government is heading toward the cliff. Reverting back to the last 18 or so months I have to say the progressives, socialist, or whatever name you'd like to call them, have shown their hate for this country, it's founding documents, and the citizens who love her.
ReplyDeleteThey have been berating our country and now pushed exceptionalism aside with this new crisis in the Gulf. 13 countries offered help and the Oval Office turned them down. Entrepreneurship might as well be a four-letter word as men with real ideas have step forward to help and been shuffled aside as kooks. The Oval Office has used their various agencies to stymie any endeavors and turn aside any request by the governors of the coastal states.
Yes, the man needs to go and so do so many of his friends on the floor of the Senate and the House, and his thuggish friends and czars.
The guy is pushing us into Civil War Part II...and he will never, NEVER, come out the victor...
ReplyDeleteMy earlier predictions stand! Anarchy and violence coming to a theatre near you...(theatre as in neighborhood)
Good information here sir and I'm with you, he's trying his best to stoke civil unrest and I'm glad to see the African Americans aren't taking the bait
ReplyDeletebut the Hispanics are and I hope we can unite to run the illegals out of the country thanks to Jan Brewer
Nov will usher in the Era of the Conservative women coast to coast which I'm for the first time all for as most of the men have F'd it up
Furthermore, Obama 'seals the deal' that another AA won't get elected for another 230 years sadly.
They don't deserve it but they got suckered by the 'first one that came along' they're so desperate for a leader, since they have trouble trusting whitey still, thanks to the Rev Wrong's, the Obama's, the Van Jones's and the rest of the racial rabblerousers.
We'll win this battle but we need generational changes to un'doctrinate' all the loser lefties.