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Emergency Government Control of the Internet?
TheZid writes "A newly proposed bill would give Uncle Sam the power to disconnect private sector computers from the internet in the event of a 'cyber security emergency.' As usual, our government is trying to take away our privacy by citing security. What actually counts as a 'Cyber-Security Emergency?' Does the president now have the option of disconnecting people when they disagree with his policies? How about disconnecting bloggers that criticize his health care reform? What counts as an emergency? Can political opponents be deemed a cyber-security emergency?"
Someone needs emergency control to disconnect Uncle Sam from the internet.
Meet the new boss...same as the old boss.
I'd be willing to bet that there isn't a single industry left that doesn't rely heavily on the Internet. Shutting down the Internet is the same as shutting down the economy.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
not only of our basic freedoms that we FOUGHT and DIED for
Then how are you posting?
I love the suggestion that this would be used to strangle public blogging against the plan to kill our grandmothers by forcing down their throats the unborn children of the last of our unsterilized white teen girls.
How perfectly nutty. And by "perfect" I mean overwhelmingly beautiful.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Disconnect bloggers that criticize his health-reform?
I think people who believe this level of stupidity deserve to be disconnected from the Internet. They are fucking damage, and I'm getting tired of routing around them.
Look, there are a TON of legitimate complaints about this bill.
Abuse of government powers in violation of free speech for political gain, etc, shouldn't be included. Those issues have already been addressed... the federal government already has the ability to step in and limit free speech in private channels if there is clear and present danger. The potential for abuse is already there, and has been there all along. This bill in no way affects that.
Your ridiculous leading questions detract from the real issues, which are outlined in TFA (for people that oppose a bill like this).
IMO, instead of "ZOMGWTF Totalitarian State Abusing Government Powers for Political Gain!", the real issue here is that critical infrastructure is in the hands of private for-profit corporations. These companies have the ability to hamstring the US economically through unilateral action (or even by accident). Critical infrastructure should be nationalized, in my opinion, or at the very least very closely supervised to ensure it is secure.
But I imagine that my views are contrary to the majority of slashdotters, and I expect to be modded into oblivion. No one wants the goobermint in their internets, even when oversight is necessary to maintain the integrity of our economy (such as it is), especially in the face of a directed and concerted attack on that infrastructure.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
A) Who defines a "critical system"? Whoever that is would be wielding some serious power.
B) Is the Internet itself (i.e. the backbones which carry most traffic) considered a "critical infrastructure information system"?
C) If so, they he would have the kill switch to Mae East, Mae West, etc.... That is for all effects and purposes the ability to shut down US access to the Internet.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
While it's quite a lot of things, being disconnected from the Internet is NOT a breach of my privacy. I hadn't heard that Echelon was dismantled, so I'm pretty sure that anything I send out unencrypted is being parsed (and anything encrypted stored for future reference) even without this particular emergency order. My stuff on my computer is still on my computer.
And I know I'm going to get flamed for this, but frankly it's about time that this kind of thing was talked about and put into law. The bits of the Internet that are on sovereign US territory are most certainly vital national infrastructure by now, and the law needs to be updated. It's long past time that the US government, and the US population woke up to the threat vectors presented by the Internet, and deal with the hard questions surrounding what to do when the "cyber war" eventually happens, whether it's concerted non-state entities mounting an attack against Internet connected infrastructure or government/military Internet areas, or state entities. If we have finally decided, or are close to deciding, what level of "attack" through networks constitutes a declaration of war (and if we haven't, we damn well should be doing THAT too), then the POTUS as Commander In Chief needs to be able to do the kind of crap you do in an attack on your country. And putting into law is a LOT better than letting whomever is the President at the time make up his powers in that situation from the ether like the Bush Administration did. This particular bill may or may not be the correct answer, I haven't read it. Something like this, however, is going to and should be put in place. I'm all for using the political process to make it the best possible bill, but acting like the government shouldn't ever be able to do this kind of thing is fantasy.
otherwise I might see some posts with wildly hysterical hypotheses of what is for sure gonna happen that have nothing to do with the actual bill in the article.
not only of our basic freedoms that we FOUGHT and DIED for, but also to our country as a whole. Look back in history and see how 'Empires' in their death throes squeeze more and more, tighten controls more and more to hold onto what is obviously disintegrating.
You know, after the Roman Republic turned into the Empire (with the attendant loss of freedoms), it survived for over 400 years. And we're nowhere near that point - no US presidents are ex-generals who conquered Washington, D.C. with their troops.
This is not the end.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
What you mean is, how did this stupid idea make it into the U.S. Senate?
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Sensitive facilities like power stations should not be directly connected to the internet in the first place!
Circumcision is child abuse.
I can not lay my hand on any part of the U.S. Constitution that allows a president or congress to declare martial law.
Nor should such a power ever exist. Time-and-time again the phrase "declared martial law" has prefaced the eventual takeover by dictators from the present-day, all the way back to the when Julius Caesar took-over Rome. The Declaration of War should be sufficient to indicate a state-of-heightened alertness. We don't need jackbooted thugs suspending the Constitution, and then quartering themselves in our homes, or other abuses of the citizens.
Just ask a japanese-American citizen circa 1944 how they felt.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
It seems very alarmist. I don't see how dropping private computers off the net is an invasion of privacy either. This type of law is created for a "worst case" scenario. While people might not think it very possible, you DO need to plan for it - not unlike disaster recovery in IT. Say we get in a war with China and they attack our power stations in the US via a massive cyber attack - do you want there not to be guidelines at that time? There is a balance between freedom and national security, and the original poster seems to be much more of a sky-is-falling type in regards to this type of law.
Well, in your scenario, wouldn't it be easier, faster and less intrusive if they just took the power stations of the grid (Internet grid, not power grid... that'd just be stupid)?
If they were attacking banks, ask the banks to go offline (trust me, they'll do this gladly in a heartbeat) and/or take the Fed off line.
If an attack coming from China or wherever is attacking everything... then take down the routers at our borders.
If they are attacking the nuke silo's... well hell I hope those are not on the grid anyway!!!
and so on.
Seriously, I can think of no national emergency that would require the entire Web going off line that couldn't be solved by some simpler and much less drastic means. Well, except for something like the blogosphere and some unnamed news network with FOXxy reporters is saying bad things about the President. Something tells me that is the emergency that this bill is intended for.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
But what I do want to know right now is where were you the past 8 years?
What the FUCK are you talking about? I would think you're a troll but your persistence makes that a little bit less likely.
Enlighten me on what sort of criticism free ride bush had during his 8 years? Excluding the few months after 9/11. And it's especially weird posting that on slashdot.
Where were you for 8 years? If you weren't submitting those stories or too busy stopping them to post, then go back under whatever rock you came from. The rest of us are trying to clean up that mess, and you're tracking it all over the floors.
You're trying to clean up the mess by giving the government more control or something? Because so far all I see is pretty much Bush 2.0, only Obama is better looking and charming and gives better speeches, which are pretty superficial reasons to like a guy, especially as our president. Let's go down a few points shall well?
- Iraq war policy? the same as Bush's
- Afghanistan? pretty identical to me. Wait, now we need more troops?
- Enemy combatants, can still be held indefinitely, but hey, we're closing down Gitmo!!! which changes nothing and is just a political maneuver.
- Money to big corporations? Well, I don't think this is hard to follow.
- Civil Liberties? The writing was on the wall before Obama was in office, he voted for that FISA bill or whatever the hell it was.
- Torture? Obama has left enough loop holes for plenty of this.
My question is, why hasn't Obama received the kind of criticism Bush did? But, to be fair, I think he's starting to get it.
The real question is how is it possible for there to be a "cyber-security emergency"? Not being able to reach youtube or google or slashdot or microsoft via the internet for a day or two isn't an emergency. If the counter example is not being able to reach a nuclear power plant's cooling control system or some other utility, then I have to wonder who put such a critical systems on an unsecured, unreliable network and why aren't those people in jail for being a bunch of incompetent twats?
As long as they aren't disconnecting me from the internet then fine.
As long as they aren't telling me I can't smoke, then fine.
... they're one and the same, and if we don't take care of each other in this regard, we all suffer.
As long as they aren't telling me I can't drink, then fine.
As long as they aren't telling me I can't vote, then fine.
As long as they aren't telling me anything, then fine.
Problem is, with that attitude it's guaranteed that sooner or later they're going to tell you can't do something that isn't fine with you. That's the nature of government, and the "fuck you, Jack, I"m all right" approach just doesn't work in the long run. You see, your rights don't end where mine begin
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
This and a bunch of posts above it that basically say the same thing are a big part of the problems we are having today. WE are Americans and, yes, WE fought and died for the right to be free.
"WE the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
The people who wrote that are as dead as the people who fought and died to make it happen. Nonetheless, they are us and WE are them. When you disconnect from that you lose sight of how important it is to maintain the freedoms afforded to us. The OP hasn't lost sight of that. Neither have I. WE are Americans. WE died for you and continue to do so whenever the situation merits.
The rest of the OP's post, which you may or may not have read, was concerned with the chipping away of our freedoms. That's what he/she meant by "one more nail in the coffin". You're rights won't be taken in a chunk. They'll be stripped away layer by layer. That way you won't notice.
And yes, sending packets and net access is one of those freedoms. To think that the only freedoms our consititution allows are for things that existed when it was written is a bit short sighted to say the least. Give the government this right and it will be abused. The Feds already have control over all their networks and systems and they have the ability to pull those plugs any time they feel threatened. No bill or law needed. A bill like this would give them power to unplug you, your company, your group, your town, your state, your country. WE fought and died so that our government could never have that type of control over our lives. If the Feds feel threatened, they don't need a bill, walk over to the router and unplug the fiber, but don't tread on my packets.
MG
Q: Can the the province of Gaul secede from the Roman Empire?
A: No the Roman Senate and Emperor determined they cannot, but they did it anyway circa 460 A.D.
Q: Can the American colonies secede from the British Empire?
A: No the British Parliament determined they cannot, but they did it anyway.
Q: Can members states like the UK secede from the European Union?
A: The EU probably would say no, but the outcome depends if the UK has a bigger army or not.
POINT:
Secession is not a matter of law, but a matter of force. He who has the most force determines the outcome. If the Southern states had been better organized and won, the U.S. Supreme Court could have issued all the verdicts they wanted, but it would not have changed anything. I recall at one point the U.S. Supremes said it was illegal to deport the Indians living in Alabama to Oklahoma, due to existing U.S. treaties, but the sitting president said, "They made their ruling; now let's see them enforce it," and he did it anyway. In cases like this force rules, not men in robes.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
If they didn't have to worry about getting reelected, what incentive would they have to do what their constituents want?
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
The U.S. government is very, very corrupt. Someone plans to use emergency powers to make money, probably.
How the hell did that get rated troll?
If you're a Democrat moderator, think about Evil Bush and Evil Chaney and their ability to listen in on phone calls or start wars for Haliburton.
If you're a Republican moderator, think about Axelrod and having the White House give his advertising company money to make the healthcare commercials / propaganda--some of which ended up back in Axelrod's pockets.
If you're a Libertarian moderator, is it really wise to be moderating Slashdot while trying to sight in your scope?
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