President Obama Isn't Really Trying to Take Over the Internet

Yes indeed, everything is perfectly above board and compleely mis-understood --- yes-siree-bob!

http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/5308-obamas-cyber-control
Senate bill 773, the Rockefeller-Snowe Cybersecurity Act of 2009, is currently being redrafted. An earlier version of the bill introduced in April caused a significant uproar when it appeared to give the executive branch the power to regulate, or even take control of, private networks, including the Internet.

Details about the rewrite of the bill leaked onto the Internet recently, and it appears that the offending language has been made more vague than the original, but that has not stopped cyber-rights groups and others from worrying about it’s impact. In fact, upon close inspection, the expected changes make it even more of a cause for concern than the more precise wording of the earlier version, despite the fact that some are downplaying the new language.

The controversial wording in the original bill would have given President Obama the authority and power to “declare a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic to and from any compromised Federal Government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network.” This would essentially give the President the power to shut down the internet when and to what extent he deemed necessary in the event of a natural disaster, wartime, or anything else that could be deemed a “cybersecurity emergency.”

Under the updated, more open-ended version of the bill, the President may, if he finds it necessary “for the national defense and security, and in coordination with relevant industry sectors, direct the national response to the cyber threat and the timely restoration of the affected critical infrastructure information system or network.” [Emphasis added].

This vague wording appears to give the president total control over any infrastructure related to cyberspace, in the event of an emergency, which the president is also empowered to declare. After all, being empowered to “direct the national response” necessarily implies that those operating “critical infrastructure” will have to follow any White House directives. Where it improves on the original, from the perspective of a Washington insider, bureaucrat, or politician, is that it does so by creating plausible deniability.

Originally, the only place the leaked version was available was as a download from tech journalist Declan McCullagh’s website and not from official sources. (The full text of the new draft is now available here.) Nevertheless, for official word about the rewrite we contacted Senator Snowe’s office in Maine, but staffers there refused to comment when asked about the revision and bluntly told us to “contact your local Senator.” We then contacted Senator Rockefeller’s office but all of his staff were “out for training.” Why the silence on what has been a high profile and controversial bit of legislation? As a last resort, we contacted Senator Russ Feingold's office, following the advice to contact a local Senator (in our case in Wisconsin). An aide from Senator Feingold’s office was kind enough to put in a request for the revised draft of the bill but commented that it was unlikely anything would be done.

http://current.com/items/90844735_will-a-emergency-rob-our-freedoms-of-speech.ht...=42�

I wouldn't put anything past Obama. We already know he's a bold faced liar. I don't trust him for a second.

Dude you seem to be attacking me for saying Obama wants to shut down private internet infrastructure but if you look at my comments, I never said that.

Some people have said that the bill would give the president that authority, but I challenge you to find where I said that. You won't.

I'm saying I don't trust congress and many don't either.

Even the Wired blogger admits Rockefeller had to go back and change some of the language in the original bill because it freaked people out so I really don't know what you're getting at.

After 9/11 the president was given sweeping powers by Congress. With most of those same criminals still acting with contempt for America, just because we have a new puppet on the stage doesn't mean Congress is going to stop writing these laws that give the president over-arching authority.

Sheesh, Obamalove knows no bounds here.

A puppet the congress the congress are puppets
to corporations and so are the Tea baggers.

The bill still gives Obama (who really controls nothing, he's just a puppet) to control it in the event of a cyber attack.

Obama can't do anything unless the Congress, who is openly against free speech and the contitution, grant him the power.