Seize the Net: Save the Net

Imagine it's 1953 and a steel strike threatens to shut down defense plants crucial to President Truman's prosecution of the Korean War. Faced with a national emergency, Truman seizes the steel plants, claiming an inherent power to act. The Supreme Court disagrees, limiting the President's power to seize private property absent a constitutional or statutory mandate to do so. Now fast forward to earlier this week when two Senators introduced a bill that "Give 'em Hell Harry" would love; a bill that gives the President the power to seize and shut down the Internet or any other "critical infrastructure " in the "interest of national security."

Read that last sentence again; no imaging here. The bill is real and now pending before the United States Senate.

The bill, dubbed the "Cyber security Bill of 2009," sponsored by Sens. Jay Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe, is the opening salvo in what promises to be a pitched battle about how to best protect the nation's critical infrastructure -- including its privately held communications and information networks -- from increasing threats in a way that does not undermine privacy and civil liberties.

Rockefeller and Snowe do not tread lightly into the fray. Instead, they propose a sweeping federal take over of all cyber security efforts that gives the President plenary power over the Internet and other as yet to be identified "critical infrastructure." In addition to the power to seize and shut down the Internet in the U.S., the President is given the power "in an emergency" to limit Internet traffic to any "critical infrastructure information system," and puts the Commerce Department at the helm of a federal cyber security clearinghouse with the express power to override all laws and regulations, including those designed to protect privacy, to "obtain access to all relevant data" concerning critical infrastructure information systems and networks owned by the private sector. And for those of you with free time and a stiff drink, there is much, much, more.

It's clear our national cyber security efforts can't -- and shouldn't -- be left to idle. The cyber-threat is real and growing. The New York Times recently wrote of the discovery of a whispery international spying operation that had compromised government computers in 103 countries. And no one is exactly sure who is behind this "ghostnet." But it's real, it's dangerous and such efforts will only grow in sophistication and intrigue.

So, we have to protect our house and we must craft a policy able to deal with an "electronic Pearl Harbor," but it also has to be done smart, in the sunlight and with much forethought. For the past eight years we have known almost nothing about what the government is doing with respect to cyber security. There are hopeful signs that is about to change. A 60-day review of the nation's cyber security efforts, ordered by President Obama, is due out sometime next week.

The team preparing the 60-day report solicited the views of all comers, from privacy advocates to industry to academics. We don't know whether we will like the outcome but it has been a thoughtful and inclusive process. And now, just days before the report is due, the Rockefeller-Snowe bill is lobbed on to the White House lawn. There are some sensible provisions in this bill, and some hard questions that have to be resolved, but it's hard to focus on them when the rest of the bill turns the Internet into a big, brass ring and the President is only one riding the Merry-Go-Round.

Comments

[Citizen54]

Let us hope that the brilliant minds who created the original Internet and subsequent improvements, or a similar band of smarties, are developing an alternative net for citizens to use if the time comes.

[mbaty]

I'm not surprised that a Rockefeller's' name is on this. This sounds like an emergency measure to stop people from reading alternate news stories and/or find out hidden information. After all, the internet has connected us and empowered us more than ever before, and Obama wouldn't even be in office without it. As much quackery and tomfoolery that happens on the internet, there is also a lot of priceless information that we now have access to that we simply wouldn't be told by the major television news networks. Imagine a world without Arianna--it's just not right. We the people have determined that we are keeping the internet. I mean, take away the internet and what is there to do but riot in the streets? No, we're keeping it. It's one of the only things that is truly by and for and of "the people."

[mlaiuppa]

This is a republican ploy to prevent free speech. If this had been in place, Bush could have stopped all blogs, polls, any website that was against him. Cheney could have prevented any "leakage" that would have been embarassing to the administration.

This isn't about Obama. They're hoping their people can use this in the future.

I'm sure Palin would like to use it right now.

[Kaelieh]

Everyday we keep inching closer and closer to the day that is too late. I really just can't understand why some people are so cruel and evil.

I really don't think the internet is a national security threat. One, there hasn't been an attack on US soil since 2001. Two, most parts of the Middle East don't even have running water. Really, what the hell are the so-called "terrorists" going to be able to do? Are there high-speed or fiber optic cables running through endless desert into the mountains? Get real.

Are we to believe that the highest security clearance documents are floating around somewhere in hyperspace because the Pentagon, DoD, Department of Homeland Security or the CIA decided to email them? As if.

Is China going to engage in a massive spying campaign on the US? Not likely. One, they need our existence to buy their products. Two, they hold 2 trillion in USD and can't afford to have the US collapse or turn hostile towards them. It would destroy their economy and thus cause massive civil unrest. Three, they're too busy trying to spy and control their own population.

This bill makes me both cry and furious. The greatest thing about the internet is that it's free and public. This isn't even privatizing the internet, it's complete government control. It feels like we're living in Soviet Russia.

[Mugzi]

The internet is the greatest threat to the gop...they cannot stand free speech. They have MSM and want the internet too!

[NWGuy]

Imagine if the power to seize the internet had been available to Bush / Cheney! Or a future POTUS of the same mind set? With newspapers going the way of the dinosaurs and the MSM having surrendered its responsibility to report and investigate the news, the internet is one of the last bastions where truth is available to the American people.

Yes, it is possible that email or other info sent via the internet could be considered a "security threat", but that is part of the price of having a free society.

[suzc]

Seize the Internet? Congress has been wanting to do that for decades! Imagine how terrific that kind of law would have been these past 8 years, when the Constitution was pretty well fatally shredded in the name of security but actually done for personal power agendas. Dems had best recognize that bad laws will give too much power to bad people as well as good ones. What short memories they seem to have.

The Internet's independence may be the only thing keeping the US and the World from complete totalitarianism and poverty (except of course for the top few percent who control all the money -- and that includes Congress as well as Wall Street).

Besides, don't these idiots have anything better to do? Are they SOOOOOOO RICH at our expense that they have FORGOTTEN we are HUNGRY and JOBLESS out here????