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The 51-page Rockefeller/Snowe bill (s.778) (here is a new link if that one is not working) calls for the creation of a National Cybersecurity Advisor that would report directly to the President. The bill also calls for a comprehensive national cybersecurity strategy in place 12 months after the bill passes.
The sticking point with many critics is the broad sweeping power that this bill might implement. For instance hidden within the context of the bill is the phrase:
“We are confident that the communication networks and the Internet would be so designated [as critical infrastructure], so in the interest of national security the president could order them disconnected.”
Update: The above was mistakenly quoted, it was actually a quote from Leslie Harris, president and CEO at the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT). It was his response to the actual quote "The President— may order the disconnection of any Federal government or United States critical infrastructure information systems or networks in the interest of national security.”
Effectively this could mean, under the guise of national security, that the president would be given a kill switch with the power of turning off the internet in the event of a widespread attack. It could also been interpreted to mean the president would have the power to limit or block certain internet traffic.
To put this into perspective if the National Cybersecurity Advisor bought into the recent Conficker hype he could recommend that the threat is so great that the White House needs to shut down critical servers in order to keep the critical infrastructure alive. Given how that turned out is that really something we need?
This broad ranging power is a scary piece of legislation! WE had better hope that this doesn't pass, or if it does that they work to lighten some of the wording on something this wide open.
7 comments:
Your quote is COMPLETELY fabricated. Stop spreading lies
The quote was improperly attributed to being listed in the text of the bill. I've revised the post, however as mentioned above it does imply that the president would have the power to effectively disconnect the internet if its in the interest of national security.
Even your modification (after being called out on your flat out lie) is still baseless and needlessly inflammatory. The President (or his peeps) probably should have the ability to shut down computers BELONGING TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT in an emergency. If you've got to wait a couple of days before you can check irs.gov for your refund status, so be it, but that's about the biggest inconvenience this is likely to spawn.
Dude read the bill as it was written. From my understanding it has recently been amended but we aren't talking about killing just government sites or a few government computers. We are talking about the ability to force independent companies to shut down service in the event of a perceived threat. This isn't just my point of view but one shared by many people that are in the know.
I'm in agreement after reading SEVERAL new stories about this. I notice, that in defending the pres, you can't even provide an identity there "Anonymous". If you want to attack someone's point of view, so be it...but at least allow those being attacked to know who they are dealing with.
Having an internet "Kill switch" wloud be used in the digital world in the equivalent event of 9/11. I am kinda torn on this one, there are advantages and drawbacks, first, if internet access is killed for a day to a week, just as how flights were canceled on 9/11 this would cause mass chaos, it would cause a lot of e-commerce business downtime and possibly start a civil war, on the other hand it is necessary to protect or digital nation, in the event of a national cyber attack
I am torn too, that is, for and against this.
I believe there are computers and networks that need protecting like this. But I don't believe the whole internet should need to be effected.
It would be simplier to have a kill switch on all the government's network internet connection's and leave the poor home users and businesses alone.
So what if the .gov sites are down we can live with that. But taking down the whole internet more than a few hours, that would be chaos for all internet companies and e-commerce type sites, if it were more than a few hours.
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