Attachment
Sen. John Rockefeller, first introduced the idea of a ‘kill switch’ in April 2009. Joe Lieberman, Independent senator, former presidential candidate and chairman of the U.S. Homeland Security committee, is now concerned about a ‘Digital Pearl Harbour’.
The bill, now amended and approved by a Senate committee, would give the United States President wide emergency powers over the Internet, if there was a national emergency. The bill claims the Internet is a National Asset.
President Obama would have the power to order search engines such as Yahoo, Google and YouTube, all located in the United States., to defer access to their websites any time the government believed here was a national crisis, or an emergency. No effort has been made in the bill to explain the exact features of an emergency or crisis.
The ‘kill switch’ would therefore provide the government with control of access to the Internet. Google registers an estimated two billion hits a day from 300 million users.
If the bill succeeds the United States government bureaucracy will be spending tax payers money to work out private networks, discover places where they can control the flow of communication and choke points. Internet companies are going to be required, by law, to supply the federal bureaucrats with whatever network, account, usage and history information they feel is appropriate. All in the name of cyber space safety.
The law could demand that companies, where the executive branch is felt to be “critical”
The Internet is a vital channel of communication and self-organization for the general public, allowing them to respond to any crisis or debate. Any move to limit this is seen as a direct threat to the constitutional rights of assembly and speech, which the government cannot violate.
A Pew research study claims as many as 69% of Americans are now getting news from Internet sites. While another study says that the internet has taken the place of newspapers and is fast challenging television, as the major source of information and news. The internet has shown it can react quicker and in many cases better than traditional media outlets.
Proponents of the fresh law say that in the last three years the number of attacks on Government departments, from Cyber Space, have risen by 400%.
China has long struggled to muzzle and control Cyber Space with only limited success. By its very nature, the Internet is not something to be easily controlled by a government — it is the very personification of free speech and free press.
Much needed alterations need to be made to the proposed bill to ensure that the security measures do not unnecessarily violate freedom of speech, other civil liberties interests and privacy, both around the world and in America.
For more information about Internet Kill Switch For US President, visit website http://www.tropicpost.com/
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