You're projecting.

Confirmed.

Thanks for the human-readable link to the interesting article.

When I taught civics, one of the things I tried to get students to pay attention to was the names of bills. Adding "Internet Freedom" to the title is a classic bit of congressional spin control. Another good civics tip is to raise your level of concern when 'opposing' interest groups agree about a bill having problems. This one is riling up the ACLU, the EFF, and the Cato Institute; hardly bosom buddies, those crews...

So to re-answer the question in the thread title, I still think very poorly of those new 'emergency powers' being suggested. The bulk of the bill seems to make sense--we do need to invest more in infrastructure protection, including hiring more people to do the ongoing work of identifying and eliminating new hacking problems. What we don't need is yet another layer of executive branch authority that's largely insulated from judicial review.

Whenever you see Congress trying to grant new powers to the presidency, you need to think about the institution more than the current office holder--always consider how you'd think about those powers if the White House was held by someone you believe is likely to abuse them. I voted for Mr. Obama, but his kow-towing to the national security crowd has undermined my regard for him substantially. If I don't want him to have those 'targeted off switch' powers, I certainly don't want them in the hands of a true fan of the imperial presidency.

What's going to happen is a fragmented internet.  Nations and partners will have their own and chose when and how long to shut off access to others.  China and some European countries have already considered this and I am sure the Middle East bigwigs are looking at the option now.

No nation will let their internet access ability be terminated by another nation...when that happens it will crack.

But there is a flip side to this as related to the US the event of a massive cyber attack targeting industrial and military infrastructure, there might be a good practical reason to have an off switch.  I can see why it's being considered.

When your power grid, government networks, mass transit and satellite communications are targeted for destruction or sabotage through a malicious software attack, shutting it down with a kill switch is a practical choice.

I can certainly agree with that, especially if we had another Cheney around. However, the need for defense of the net (hard structures and software) is clearly needed.

What would you propose?

Well, from my comfy spot in the peanut gallery, I'd say that a gram of prevention is worth a kilo of cure.

Invest in hardening defenses and putting more qualified cops on the net beat. Choose a federal department to lead coordination efforts within the executive branch, among the states, with primary infrastructure orgs like utilities and hospitals, and with crucial private sector entities like the backbone providers.

I'm not handy with sports metaphors, but it seems almost like an analog to a 'best defense is a strong offense' situation. Or maybe I'm just struggling to avoid an over-used buzzword and what I'm really thinking of is a 'proactive defense' strategy. If a situation gets bad enough for executive fiat to shut down large sections of the net, it's already a failure?

Exactly. The expected government response could be exactly what an "eTerrorist" desires; shutdown of the Internet and associated fallout.

I think economically we are in really deep *bleep* if the gov't has to pass a bill THIS EXTREME.  That's the kind of legislation that gets used in oppressive nations.  They must really be scared about the coming years.

You can always tell how badthings really are by the laws that get passed.  Just like how in the military you can tell how valued you are by how much money they spend on you.

-Words of Wisdom

I can agree with all that as well. Now, what do you propose should be done should these defenses be circumvented or broken?

Clean up after the mess and do our best to learn from the mistakes.

In the end, the kill/off switch parts of this bill are about that old Franklin line, "Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power."

I for one actually support an "off switch", but one that is designed to isolate specific government agencies and critical industries from the internet in the event of an attack on those entities. Actually cutting off regular people in the event of a cyberattack on the government will just sew panic and blind the entire infrastructure.

See, that's what I said too . I'm still not sure where Doc is getting this conspiracy stuff from...heh.

Seriously though I agree that's what should be done. I don't really see why a cyber terrorist would attack average desktop PC's unless they felt like spreading a virus to the entire country, but I don't see how that would help them if the government systems are offline and safe.

There's no excuse to have to take our internet in any kind of an emergency. That's just how I feel though.

Another old Franklin line goes, "Fences make good neighbors." and another goes, "A penny of protection is worth a pound of cure.

Doc isn't going anywhere with it since he can't get folks to read what he does say...

http://drjbhl.joeuser.com/article/405247/Thats_Impossible

Actually, can't blame anyone... my stuff is boring.

Ahh, I see what you did there..heh. You know though Doc, I don't normally read the Joeuser forums.

They cross post to WC Forums, RavenX. No problemo... you could have missed it and still live.

Another Cheney?  Seems we have worse.  A president that does not obey the laws, nor enforce them.  He is no Cheney, he is an Obama.  When did Cheney refuse to enforce or obey the laws openly?

Ok...what doc warns about has come to pass. "The Onion" has reported the following. *I knew it would happen. I just knew it but was helpless to save us...[caution-there is a 'pixelated' part of the vid for adults]:

Al Qaeda Attacks Internet With Photo Of Adorable Piglet

Hahaha.  The Pentagon's picture was spreading seven times faster.    Too funny.

Sounds like the usual Pentagon response to me....

I can't wait for the followup, in which the airforce bombs the camp with the aim of "neutralizing cute furry things".

Admitted. OK... was it as he said, "A justified means to an end. (The security of the USA)" ?

How about the FBI? What do they say?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/05/13/politics/main5011381.shtml 

I would just ignore the birther.

But I agree that putting this kind of power in the hands of the President (any President) while the American political system continues to elect the people it does would be a bad idea. The only thing worse would be ceding the off switch directly to the Pentagon.

That's another reason I support individual agency isolation switches- to really "shut down" the internet, a LOT of people have to collude, but in the event of an attack on just one agency or corporation, they can protect themselves without waiting for some distant authority to push the button.

The 'agencies' aren't under attack (altho that has happened in Canada and they were penetrated). The method attacks the entire net itself.

There has to be a way to protect it. Maybe a 'shadow' net is the only way, but I'd hope there would be a way short of that (HUGE bucks).

(I know that the military is nominally part of the executive branch. Don't bother me about that.)

Agreed - Ignore them?  Mock them? Belittle them?  Sure!  Many are too stupid to believe in any event.  But if stupidity was a capital crime, there would not be many people left on the planet.

Sorry, still a no go for me.  The object is to not give power to politicians.  It will always be abused.