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Senate Panel Approves Cybersecurity Bill
GovTechGuy writes "A Senate Committee approved a bill that would give the president an emergency 'kill switch' over the Internet, but added some restrictions to the bill. The president may no longer simply assert that the threat remains indefinitely, he must now seek Congressional approval after 120 days. Still, privacy advocates are concerned about the government's ability to shut down private networks. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) 'said she was disappointed to read reports that the bill gives the White House a "kill switch" for the Internet, an authority she says the president already has under a little-known clause in the Communications Act passed one month after the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. ... Collins [argued] the new bill actually circumscribes the president's existing authority and puts controls on its use.'"
...as if the U.S. Government actually follows the Constitution anyway. (I'm lookin' at you, 10th Amendment) I have little faith that anything can really hold the U.S. federal government back from doing whatever the heck it wants to do.
I'm probably crusin' for a brusin' by saying this, but there probably should be some form of last defense for computer systems throughout the nation. In the event of a highly-destructive fast-spreading virus, being able to shut off all connection at the ISP level would buy enough time for security researchers to find a way to negate the threat.
That said, I have qualms about the implementation. Some proposals:
1) The killswitch needs to be an all-or-nothing proposition. Either all ISPs are mandated to shut down or none. The economic magnitude of such a decision would force any internet shutdown to be only used in the face of an even worse threat.
2) The requirements for activating the shutdown need to be more specific than "an emergency." Japan was able to spend itself into debt by repeated use of "emergency" spending. The requirements for a shutdown of the internet should be a clear and widespread danger to computer systems.
3) 120 days is far too long of a time to have before the decision should come up for review. Four months without computer-to-computer communication that has become integral to the economy is far to long to be granted without oversight.
I have not yet had a chance to read the PROPOSED bill. Note that this story is about the bill making it out of committee, not becoming law. Does anyone have a link to the text of the proposed bill?
Obviously the simplest way to implement such a 'feature' is to go after the ISPs, set some sort of a coordination framework among the ISPs, mandate that those ISPs set up a bunch of new hardware/software/whatever it takes to cut out subnets/IP addresses/entire cables from the rest of the Internet. This is not going to improve the democracy of the country of-course, but that's the point, remove the dissenting voices, and of-course the motives are as always 'pure' - there is a cyberwar going, didn't you know? USA was always in this cyberwar. Just like it was always in the drug war and what seems like a never ending war in Afghanistan.
As always a bunch of people stand to make a bunch of money from such endeavors, and in this case there is also the nice side-effect of making it easier for politicians to lie and to get away with the lies, why with all the power over the networks it would be very easy to declare a state of emergency.
And so what that the bill will limit the amount of time that the President would be able to shut portions of the Internet down? Once this bill passes, it would be easy to amend it or simply to use Presidential order/signature/whatever it takes to continue the portions of the Internet from ever being activated back again.
The cyberwar is like the war on drugs, like the war with terrorism, war on obesity, whatever never-ending war that the government likes to be in. It will never end and you cannot see it and cannot even prove that there is or there isn't a war and if you say anything otherwise you are a terrorist.
Just you wait until they combine the cybersecurity bill with some patriot act/anti-terrorism bill. Ever wondered how do politicians tolerate all of those dissenting opinions, all of those facts to come out through the Internet? Well, they've been thinking and it's a multi-step approach and it's being implemented right now. Soon enough anybody could go to Gitmo on some terrorism charge related to the cybersecurity charge and multiply that by the patriot act and add rendition to it and soon enough you'll be wondering, where is that guy, named Cenk Uygur, where did Rachel Maddow go and what the heck happened to that dude from comedy central, what was his name, Jon Stewart was it?
Maybe it's still a bit far-fetched, but they are moving in this direction.
I guess the actual way to fight it could be learned from those Russian operated bot-nets, once the information is outlawed, only the outlaws will have the information? That's what it's coming to and at the hands of people like Joe Lieberman, don't forget it, but just wait and see who ends up voting for it and how the White House stands on the issue.
You can't handle the truth.
is neccessary it will never happen if this passses fuck this country im leaving first my health care then thi eventually they everyone will hit a breaking poin this is mine internet is the only honest no agenda press it instantnews and is the last thing keeping the government in any kind of check. if they can turn off there enemy it becomes 1984....where they control all outlets and just feed you lies call me paranoid but the reason orwell commentated on it is because its what governments do so ya fail us govt healthcare passes maybe the democrts will do this as they go down in flames.
A new Disney flick leaked - if not stopped immediately that could cause irreparable hard to the entertainment economy.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I don't see how anybody in America will be able to use the internet to get news or communicate with other Americans in a time of emergency if this should ever go into effect.
Maybe we need an RFC for "IP over Ham Radio?"
Or can the government jam Ham Radio bands if they feel like it as well?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
This is the change Obama promised us ? As usual, the American government does what it can do to preserve the status quo at the expense of the population at large. "You suckers get out of line and we'll stop (or spy on) your communications". I hope this works as well as it did in Iran when they tried to shut them down during a near revolution.
The difference between truth and fiction is that fiction has to be plausible.
What I would like to know (and what most articles seem to gloss over) is: what form is this kill-switch meant to take?
Is it pulling the plug on the root DNSs? Or a simple requirement that local ISPs cease operations?
I can see a lot of ramifications here, not least the fact that the rest of the entire world will see the former as an act of war, and respond accordingly. Much of the pre-eminence of the US in world trade is based on the assumption that the US is (in most cases) a "friendly" partner. If the US behaves nastily to its partners, it can expect a frosty reception.
Given that the US is currently in deficit in terms of world trade, it really can't afford to be isolated in this way.
That isn't the use - it would be used at a strategic level.
As the OP and others have said, this is already covered under the communications Act...the president is empowered to shutdown any communications during a time of war/emergency as necessary. This is why ham radio people have stuff likes RACES - if you're part of RACES, if the president declares a communications emergency and shuts down the communication networks (more feasible in the 40's than now, I admit) than only governmental agencies, public safety groups, and affiliated groups (like RACES) can continue operation.
The idea originally was to not permit conspirators from contacting their handlers, etc, 5th column, all that deal...
This is once again the government trying to re-legislate for new technology when an existing law already applies, and it's bogus. And yes, it would be practically very hard to shutdown backbone networks either under this law or the communications act, and I see no real use for it, however I can tell you what the policymakers are probably thinking. I attended a conference about computer security, and there are some really very serious threats, primarily that our shit is already infiltrated. I think the concern here is preventing a total loss of our information networks in the case of an attack, ie: not a virus, but "OH SHIT THEY'RE ACTIVATING THE TROJANS IN THE POWER GRID, WE HAVE 5 MINUTES TO REACT". This may or may not be something you see as worth having a kill switch for, but the government does, and I can tell you, some of those DoD guys are nuts (mostly old cold-war types) and I can only thank heaven they're just trying to pass a law like this, and not something much worse.
Just my $0.02.