Joe Libertine: Give the president the power to shut off the entire Internets

[Steely Glint]

US President Barack Obama would be granted powers to seize control of and even shut down the internet under a new bill that describes the global internet as a US "national asset".

Local lobby groups and academics have rounded on the plan, saying that, rather than combat terrorists, it would actually do them "the biggest favour ever" by terrorising the rest of the world, which is now heavily reliant on cyberspace.

The proposed legislation, introduced into the US Senate by independent senator Joe Lieberman, who is chairman of the US Homeland Security committee, seeks to grant the President broad emergency powers over the internet in times of national emergency.

Titled "Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act", the bill stipulates any internet firms and providers must "immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed" by a new section of the US Department of Homeland Security, dubbed the "National Centre for Cybersecurity and Communications".

Lobby group TechAmerica told ZDNet it worried that the bill would give the US "absolute power" over the internet and create "unintended consequences".

One of Australia's top communications experts, University of Sydney associate professor Bjorn Landfeldt, railed against the idea, saying shutting down the internet would "inflict an enormous damage on the entire world".

He said it would be like giving a single country "the right to poison the atmosphere, or poison the ocean".

"All our financial systems, all our security systems ... we're so reliant on the internet that if you shut it down there's a question of whether society will continue to operate normally anywhere in the Western world," Landfeldt said in a phone interview.

"By doing this they would do the terrorists the biggest favour ever because they would terrorise the rest of the world".

Landfeldt said the US would be the only country in the world with the ability to shut down the internet. He said such a move would be extremely difficult for the US to justify to other nations.

"Unfortunately, too much of the core of the internet resides in the US - let's put it this way, they cannot shut down machines in Australia, but they can completely isolate us and shut down certain core functions like the DNS ... they can render the internet fairly useless for the rest of the world," he said.

Senator Susan Collins, co-sponsor of the bill, has said: "We cannot afford to wait for a cyber-9/11."

Lieberman argued the bill was necessary to "preserve those networks and assets and our country and protect our people".

He said that, for all its allure, the internet could also be a "dangerous place with electronic pipelines that run directly into everything from our personal bank accounts to key infrastructure to government and industrial secrets".

US economic security, national security and public safety were now all at risk from new kinds of enemies, including "cyber warriors, cyber spies, cyber terrorists and cyber criminals".

Geordie Guy, spokesman for the online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia, said governments around the world seemed terrified of some unidentified risk that they believe the internet poses.

"The proposal is from Joe Lieberman, a repeat offender on rights versus regulation, in a bill called Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010," he said.

"One wonders which nation Senator Lieberman considers the internet an asset of, and how proposing its destruction by presidential or homeland security order protects it.

"The internet is not a national asset of the United States, nor is it a media regulation problem of Australia. It is an international network used by millions upon millions of citizens and it needs to remain free and available."

Google, one of the world's biggest internet companies, declined to comment as it was not yet official US government policy.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/tec...0618-yln6.html

Brilliant plan. Like, once it was clear that there was a terrorist attack in progress in New York, they should have nuked the city to stop the second plane hitting the towers. Except this one has the added bonus of making everyone hate and fear the US for giving itself the ability to completely destroy the global economy at the touch of the button.

wtf is a 'cyber 9/11' anyway?

[Ominous Gamer]

I've always considered a cyber 9/11 as an attack on the chokepoints of the internet. Which could bring down the net. We get a steady stream of reports saying about how its possible, but no one has really taken advantage of the flaws yet. Who would profit from such an act?

How shutting down the internet is the solution to stopping the internet from collapsing at the chokepoints...I don't get that.

[Steely Glint]

Thinking about it, not even Joe Liberman can be so stupid as to think shutting down the entire Internet is a good response to a terrorist cyber attack. That must be dodgy reporting on the part of the article. It must be shutting off bits of it in an attempt to protect... something? in the event of an attack.

[Aimless]

Man, the internet needs to become as de-Americanised as it can be as soon as possible. Porn is the only thing keeping the terrorists from our throats right now and we need to ensure its uninterrupted supply

[Ominous Gamer]

If you've got some sort of Swordfish movie type of worm that can rampage unchecked through the Tiers while still causing havoc, I can see this as a possible response. Luckily the real world doesn't work like that.

If this was on the books, I could see them trying selective blackouts to halt the spread of something like the Melissa virus, but I've never seen our government act that quickly. On the other hand this would give the president the power to blackout the net when something happens that could be damaging to country moral, such as 9/11 or a more severe version of something like Collateral Murder.


oh, and at Australia thinking anyone gives a damn about their opinion of how to manage the internet anymore.

[']['ear]

1) So much for Obama being a soft liberal. This point argues that he can be just as much of a dumbass hard on as the generals lampooned b Stanley Kubrick.
2) 'He said it would be like giving a single country "the right to poison the atmosphere, or poison the ocean".' Wait, don't we already have that right?

[Lewkowski]

So the intent of the bill is not to shut off the internet but to give government control over it in the event of an attack, where one of the options would be to shut it down. At least as far as I can read into it. I tried to look at the bill itself but got lazy after a couple of minutes.

Its still nonsense. Its unlikely in the extreme that the a "cyber 9/11" would be very damaging. Almost every critical piece of data is also duplicated and housed on computers off-line. Might it disrupt some day to day stuff? Sure but I'm more worried about a bomb going off or our water supply being poisoned.

[oldmunchkin]

Is this anything like the idiot vice-president we had who stated, publicly, that he invented the internet?

I really can't quite figure out what a "cyber 9/11" is either! I mean, yeah, I pay all my bills online, and The Friend does all his banking online, but there are paper copy back-ups for both! And I am reasonably sure that banks, etc, have a back-up system. How is letting the president have the power to kill the internet going to save us from this? If they unleash a worm or virus or whatever, by the time anyone in the White House quits texting and tweeting about the attack, it will waaaaay too late for shutting it down to help. Or am I completely off base here? You go gotta remember who you are talking to here. Hell, GGT and I once broke the Atari forums!

[Loki]

The misspelling in the title keeps on bothering me. It's Lieberman.

[Steely Glint]

Fixed

[Loki]

At least make it "Librarian".

[Steely Glint]

Ok

[Spawnie]

Even assuming this wasnt retarded and probably put forward by american hegemonists who dont really understand computers but know, beyond all else, and america must dominate them, wouldnt it just encourage all other countries to start moving their essential systems and services out of the US, thereby reducing americas control anyway?

Though it would prevent a "cyber 9/11", i grant you

[Steely Glint]

In theory, the Internet is too decentralized for any one country to shut down. In practice, a lot of the root DNS infrastructure is in the US and if they shut it down tomorrow it would render the Internet more or less unusable. So, yes, this could be gotten around if it was actually made into law.

[Nessus]

In theory, the Internet is too decentralized for any one country to shut down. In practice, a lot of the root DNS infrastructure is in the US and if they shut it down tomorrow it would render the Internet more or less unusable. So, yes, this could be gotten around if it was actually made into law.

Is it possible for other nations to start similar infrastructure outside the US, to ensure Internet usability for themselves when Sarah 2012 decides to pre-empt cyber9/11? I have no idea how the series of tubes works

[Spawnie]

With credentials like that the Yanks might well put you in charge of overseeing them!

[LittleFuzzy]

american hegemonists who dont really understand computers but know, beyond all else, and america must dominate them,

It's not quite that sinister. Lieberman's people identified computers and IT as spheres with a high noise ratio where he could propose impressive-sounding legislation that, even if passed, won't really have any effect. He proposes something every few years, from this to regulating violence in games, for a quick publicity boost.

[Steely Glint]

Is it possible for other nations to start similar infrastructure outside the US, to ensure Internet usability for themselves when Sarah 2012 decides to pre-empt cyber9/11? I have no idea how the series of tubes works

Yes, quite easily. Which is probably exactly what would happen if this was made into law.