But, remember, dissent was only the highest form of patriotism until 1/20/09:
Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.
They’re not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.
The new version would allow the president to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” relating to “non-governmental” computer networks and do what’s necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for “cybersecurity professionals,” and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.
“I think the redraft, while improved, remains troubling due to its vagueness,” said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, which counts representatives of Verizon, Verisign, Nortel, and Carnegie Mellon University on its board. “It is unclear what authority Sen. Rockefeller thinks is necessary over the private sector. Unless this is clarified, we cannot properly analyze, let alone support the bill.”
Now, most of the time the real reason people want privacy on the internet – other than protecting financial affairs – is to prevent the neighbors from finding out how many times a day they go to “bigjugs.com”. But this ability of the President to essentially disconnect private users from the internet goes far beyond snooping – it destroys the ability of the citizenry to communicate via the most modern means. To put it in perspective – this would be akin to George III asserting the right to stop the transmission of private mail in the American colonies. This is a bill which must not be passed.
That aside, where are our liberals on this? They went ballistic at the mere thought that the NSA might listen in to a conversation between a US citizen and someone in Waziristan – and now we’re getting a lot of silence about the prospect of people being cut off from one another?
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