Posted on 06/26/2010 10:03:14 AM PDT by EternalVigilance
A US Senate committee has approved a wide-ranging cybersecurity bill that some critics have suggested would give the US president the authority to shut down parts of the Internet during a cyberattack.
Senator Joe Lieberman and other bill sponsors have refuted the charges that the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act gives the president an Internet "kill switch." Instead, the bill puts limits on the powers the president already has to cause "the closing of any facility or stations for wire communication" in a time of war, as described in the Communications Act of 1934, they said in a breakdown of the bill published on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee website.
The committee unanimously approved an amended version of the legislation by voice vote Thursday, a committee spokeswoman said. The bill next moves to the Senate floor for a vote, which has not yet been scheduled.
Obama security review gets mixed reception
The bill, introduced earlier this month, would establish a White House Office for Cyberspace Policy and a National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications, which would work with private US companies to create cybersecurity requirements for the electrical grid, telecommunications networks and other critical infrastructure.
The bill also would allow the US president to take emergency actions to protect critical parts of the Internet, including ordering owners of critical infrastructure to implement emergency response plans, during a cyber-emergency. The president would need congressional approval to extend a national cyber-emergency beyond 120 days under an amendment to the legislation approved by the committee.
The legislation would give the US Department of Homeland Security authority that it does not now have to respond to cyber-attacks, Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, said earlier this month.
"Our responsibility for cyber defence goes well beyond the public sector because so much of cyberspace is owned and operated by the private sector," he said. "The Department of Homeland Security has actually shown that vulnerabilities in key private sector networks like utilities and communications could bring our economy down for a period of time if attacked or commandeered by a foreign power or cyber terrorists."
Other sponsors of the bill are Senators Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, and Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat.
One critic said Thursday that the bill will hurt the nation's security, not help it. Security products operate in a competitive market that works best without heavy government intervention, said Wayne Crews, vice president for policy and director of technology studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, an anti-regulation think tank.
"Policymakers should reject such proposals to centralize cyber security risk management," Crews said in an e-mail. "The Internet that will evolve if government can resort to a 'kill switch' will be vastly different from, and inferior to, the safer one that will emerge otherwise."
Cybersecurity technologies and services thrive on competition, he added. "The unmistakable tenor of the cybersecurity discussion today is that of government steering while the market rows," he said. "To be sure, law enforcement has a crucial role in punishing intrusions on private networks and infrastructure. But government must coexist with, rather than crowd out, private sector security technologies."
On Wednesday, 24 privacy and civil liberties groups sent a letter raising concerns about the legislation to the sponsors. The bill gives the new National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications "significant authority" over critical infrastructure, but doesn't define what critical infrastructure is covered, the letter said.
Without a definition of critical infrastructure there are concerns that "it includes elements of the Internet that Americans rely on every day to engage in free speech and to access information," said the letter, signed by the Center for Democracy and Technology, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other groups.
"Changes are needed to ensure that cybersecurity measures do not unnecessarily infringe on free speech, privacy, and other civil liberties interests," the letter added.
Obama gets the cyber attack to happen, Then shits down the internet, throwinig 1st amemdment speech rights of his election opponenets into disarray.
Pretty SLick huh?
These fascists are inviting lead.
An independent, descriptive standards body - staffed with real-world professional experts - would do a much better job at strengthening our systems then a guberment operated bureaucracy that mandates prescriptive measures and technologies that is then communicated outward to private organizations. Where's the secrecy or mystery in that approach? If gubermint defines it (who, what, how, when, where), mandates its use (everyone does it the same way with the same technologies), and publishes it in laws or operating procedures that can be reviewed by enemies? How is that better than being descriptive and letting each company choose the best way to accomplish the goals?
Why not let the industries work to define what things need to be secured and how far the organizations must go to secure their systems based on their role in the nation's infrastructure (e.g. Tier 1 ISP Network Admins who manage firewalls must have background checks every year and be certified to a certain security level) - then let each company implement the best solution for them that meets or exceeds the goals? The over arching standards and goals could be reviewed and approved by the proper agency experts within Homeland Security, but the actual detailed implementations would be left to each company.
Thank you EternalVigilance.
“Physical Force” is the only thing that is understood when one is trying to save one’s country. Obama is about to use it while everyone is sitting around and whining.
P.S.
I was one of the few Americans running around against Noriega. The rest were hiding under their beds.
Wow, that was fast.
Thanks!
HMMMMM...
Yeah, THANKS!!! LOL!!
Read Glenn Beck's The Overton Window for a clear explanation of how this works.
Once the Ocommie purges begin, the government doesn’t want details of this reported through that pesky internet. They know they can get newspapers and television to censor such reports but that danged internet is so unregulated.
Why put limits on this presidents power he will just ignore it anyway?
give the US president the authority to shut down parts of the Internet during a cyberattack.” or civil unrest, national emergencies, elections,
“Well yes, my advisers and my cabinet would also be granted the authority.”
There is no way anyone is going into the streets. American Idol, the Bachelor and Dancing with the Stars is what really matters. You were smart to get out and you’re in a great country now... much like what the US used to be like.
How will this affect the Internet in other countries?
That’s probably a question that someone with more technical knowledge than me will have to answer.
But my best layman’s guess is that while large portions of the internet outside the US could survive, the loss of the US network would decimate it badly. That is, until enterprising people went to work on the problem. :-)
I’m betting, though, that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to completely shut it down.
Not that I understand why anyone would want to. Shutting down the internet now would be the equivalent of shutting down the world’s economy.
Wait a minute...I guess that is a reason to shut down the internet...
;-)
It’s an extract from the opening sequence of the Twilight Zone episode at the link I was responding to.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXzQD2SRESs
Good stuff.
Thank you, mohitojoe.
I cannot add to you comment. It is all correct.
Panama is doing great. It is scheduled to be another Singapore in its wealth very soon.
On another level, Panama is telling Obama to go to hell while Obama tries to put his fat nose in Panama’s banking laws. Big ears doesn’t know that Panama’s banking laws and computer laws are top secret and are available to no one and no country unless that country can prove money laundering..
Move here if you can.
Treason...
And don’t forget trips to the beach, depth of tan, what’s going on in Hollyweird, and all the other things that claim many citizens’ time and attention.
I do have to admire the founders, though. They conducted a revolution with only newspapers and word of mouth.
“Then shits down the internet”
Truer words never spoken!
I’m no technical genius, but I know my way around the Internet and I teach college classes online. The idea of “shutting down the Internet” just isn’t feasible, IMO. Hospitals and other vital services need uninterrupted access, I would think. We all know how chaotic it is in a store when their Internet goes down and you can’t conduct a debit transaction. It would be tantamount to cutting all phone lines or stopping all postal service—mass chaos and shutdown.
Freudian typo slip.LOL.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.