Here's another sticky wicket in the works that is sure to evoke strong emotions from all sides of the ideological spectrum.
Some in Congress and the Administration are wanting to give the President power to pull the plug on certain internet sites in times of national emergency.
I can already hear strong libertarian types advocating massive protests. Leftists will be on their soapboxes trumpeting the virtues of giving more essential powers to the central federal government. Conservatives will be wringing their hands at the predictable unintended consequences when a simple legislative power is reinterpreted for nefarious reasons.
And it is possible they will all be right. And it is possible they would all be taking different directions if it was a Bill Clinton or George W. Bush in the oval office rather than Barack Obama.
What say you?
Some in Congress and the Administration are wanting to give the President power to pull the plug on certain internet sites in times of national emergency.
I can already hear strong libertarian types advocating massive protests. Leftists will be on their soapboxes trumpeting the virtues of giving more essential powers to the central federal government. Conservatives will be wringing their hands at the predictable unintended consequences when a simple legislative power is reinterpreted for nefarious reasons.
And it is possible they will all be right. And it is possible they would all be taking different directions if it was a Bill Clinton or George W. Bush in the oval office rather than Barack Obama.
What say you?
January 24, 2011 10:12 AM
Renewed Push to Give Obama an Internet "Kill Switch"
by Declan McCullagh
A controversial bill handing President Obama power over privately owned computer systems during a "national cyberemergency," and prohibiting any review by the court system, will return this year.
Internet companies should not be alarmed by the legislation, first introduced last summer by Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), a Senate aide said last week. Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, is chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
"We're not trying to mandate any requirements for the entire Internet, the entire Internet backbone," said Brandon Milhorn, Republican staff director and counsel for the committee.
Instead, Milhorn said at a conference in Washington, D.C., the point of the proposal is to assert governmental control only over those "crucial components that form our nation's critical infrastructure."
Portions of the Lieberman-Collins bill, which was not uniformly well-received when it became public in June 2010, became even more restrictive when a Senate committee approved a modified version on December 15. The full Senate did not act on the measure.
The revised version includes new language saying that the federal government's designation of vital Internet or other computer systems "shall not be subject to judicial review." Another addition expanded the definition of critical infrastructure to include "provider of information technology," and a third authorized the submission of "classified" reports on security vulnerabilities.
The idea of creating what some critics have called an Internet "kill switch" that the president could flip in an emergency is not exactly new.
A draft Senate proposal that CNET obtained in August 2009 authorized the White House to "declare a cybersecurity emergency," and another from Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) would have explicitly given the government the power to "order the disconnection" of certain networks or Web sites. House Democrats have taken a similar approach in their own proposals. . . .
Renewed Push to Give Obama an Internet "Kill Switch" - Tech Talk - CBS News