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Lessig Predicts Cyber 9/11 Event, Restrictive Laws

Posted by kdawson on from the waiting-for-the-other-shoe dept.

A number of readers are sending in links to a video from the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference last month, in which Lawrence Lessig recounts a conversation over dinner with Richard Clarke, the former government counter-terrorism czar. Remembering that the Patriot Act was dropped on Congress just 20 days after 9/11 — the Department of Justice had had it sitting in a drawer for years — Lessig asked Clarke if DoJ had a similar proposed law, an "i-Patriot Act," to drop in the event of a "cyber-9/11." Clarke responded, "Of course they do. And Vint Cerf won't like it." Lessig's anecdote begins at about 4:30 in the video.

3 of 479 comments (clear)

  1. Re:And that would basically mean the death of I.T. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah! Let's make our own Internet. With blackjack. And hookers. In fact, forget the Internet.

    And the blackjack.

    Ahh, screw the whole thing.

  2. Re:Just wait ... by Wandering+Wombat · · Score: 5, Funny

    Splenda?

    --
    I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
  3. Re:Just wait ... by Cassius+Corodes · · Score: 5, Funny

    It would have been more witty to say "and instead of massive loss of life there'd be a massive loss of file"

    --
    Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly