New CyberSecurity Bill Raises Privacy Questions

Nicolas Dawson points out coverage in Mother Jones of the early stages of a new cybersecurity bill that conveys sweeping powers on the President. Quoting: "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 ... 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."

Comments

Mr President...

[isotope23]

You can take my connection from my cold dead SANs!!!!

Or

All yer Pix is belong to U.S.

Or

HSRP - Homeland Security Routing Protocol

Or

TCP/IP - Total Control President/Internet Precedent

Re:wow

[geobeck]

We trust him, right?

What, like he's President Google or something?

Actually, if there's any organization that already has the power to "shut down the Internet," Google comes pretty close. It's not like they could seal off the tubes, but it's an interesting mental exercise to imagine just how much Internet traffic would be curtailed if Google suddenly ceased all of its operations.

Then again, Microsoft could kill a lot of Internet activity if it suddenly activated whatever remote kill switch it might have in every legitimate Windows install. The only country largely unaffected would be China. ;)

Re:wow

[Red Flayer]

They will just sign over any oversight they have to the president and be a bunch of rubber-stamping pantywaists

That's why we should remove the oversight responsibility from Congress and assign it to the Union of Retired Postal Workers. Then we could have rubber-pantied stamp wasters.

It just sounds like a lot more fun to me.