US Senate cyber security bill sparks debate, "internet takeover" fears
Well, this little viral number didn't take long to become the stuff of screaming Drudge sirens. So, over at CNET, Declan McCullagh wrote about an update to a cybersecurity bill that first circulated this spring. In his interpretation of the bill (which I haven't read in entirety, full disclosure), Declan says the bill gives the White House new power to unplug private-sector computers from the Internet in the case of national emergency. Snip:
[Critics of the earlier bill are] not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.Bill would give president emergency control of Internet (CNET).The new version would allow the president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" relating to "non-governmental" computer networks and do what's necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for "cybersecurity professionals," and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.
Commenting on this article, ZDNET's Sam Diaz argues that the White House is not equipped to hold the keys (where are these magical keys, btw?). "The argument that the government is ill-equipped and shouldn't be trusted with the such far-reaching power is no joke."
At the Atlantic, Mark Armbinder counters that Skepticism [is] Warranted -- But Nuance Needed.
A few things to keep in mind. One: the president already has the authority to shut down parts of the Internet in emergencies.
Maybe the White House should have this power in extreme emergencies, but it had better be clear about what those emergencies entail, and it had better accept accountability if it oversteps its authority. There is, aside from the obvious definitional issues, an inherent trade-off in codifying this power, and it's going to be tough to find a balance that satisfies everyone. So far most of what I'm seeing in the way of online discussion around this *draft* bill (it's not yet law, guys) involves meta debates around authoritarianism and "is Obama Hitler," plus a lot of rehashing of boilerplate Libertarian and Republican talking points. I'm less interested in those thread-wars, and more interested in better understanding the murky technical details under discussion. I'll be reading what I can find over the weekend, but welcome your thoughts in the comments. No sirens plz.
the latest
latest episodes
Declan McCullagh hasn't been right about anything in the ten years I've been subjected to his omnipresent screeds. Why should we take this any more seriously than those ridiculous cut-and-pasted articles from Reason magazine that Mark reposts here, which are invariably debunked within ten minutes. I realize this is an ad hominem argument, but some people really do cry wolf rather too often.
If it's important to shut down the Internet to protect us, maybe they should be able to shut down all phone service... and all radio... and all television. I'd be for our own safety.
I guess I'll have to practice my smoke signals.
Okay - I'm all for keeping watch on the government, but anyone who thinks the President didn't have some capability to do this at any time is fooling themselves.
And if you want to complain about power, how about the fact that the President has the power to kill everyone on Earth at any time via nuclear weapons? Try taking that power away and watch Drudge go crazy. I mean, where's the news here?
People who think that President Obama can somehow "take over the internet" or "shut down the internet" don't know how the internet works.
@4
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the backbone of the Internet in the hands of a few large telcos? A couple of phone calls from the White House and I'd think the Internet (in the U.S. at least) would get quiet pretty quick.
I'd rather there be daylight on this procedure, as opposed to the way certain *other* presidents I can think of have used the internet.
When the Internet becomes all self-aware like Skynet did in that Terminator movie, we'll all be hoping that the president will be able to pull the plug on it before it decides to eradicate us as the vermin we are.
Oh well, he's got a (D) after his name. I'm sure he's incapable of doing anything untoward...
Well, this is the next logical step, after Obama started the spying operation on all email senders who were critical of his health plan.
Of the (alleged) content of the bill, the parts that worry me most is a federal certification program for cybersecurity professionals.
The US government has been so bad at understanding what a cybersecurity professional is that they've never been able to keep a cybersecurity chief for more than a few months at a time.
Also, there's the whole problem of the CAN SPAM law which makes it illegal for states to outlaw SPAM.
There's real cybersecurity (such as CERT) and there's a bunch of idiotic nonsense that the government calls security.
Cheney started this.
This sounds really familiar, especially the bit about cybersecurity certification--I'm sure I saw a draft circulating publicly (if not introduced--check thomas.loc.gov)last year or a couple of years ago. I remember thinking the certification was more troubling than the seizure bits myself at the time, but I guess it's really in the details
I'm sure Obama will send in the Kenyan black helicopters when he dispatchs the Death Panels from ACORN to shut down the internet and force abortion and circumcision on all. Don't forget Declan McCullagh is the one who started thye ball rolling on the the untrue "Al Gore claims he invented the internet" smear in 1999: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-boehlert/wired-owes-al-gore-an-apo_b_19980.html
Ambinder also says that the current law is less conscious of civil liberties than the proposed law, so it may be an improvement. I'm skeptical, but there it is.
I'd like to know what power the Congress is awarding, to whom they are awarding it, what circumstances would justify it's exercise, and what consequences would follow if it were abused.
Not that I expect any of that to matter. Given that the United States has decided that torture doesn't merit punishment, I doubt it would care to pursue any abuse of this law, either.
I really don't understand why this kind of argument keeps coming up. Why do people argue about what might be in a bill when they can easily read what really is in a bill? Go to
http://thomas.loc.gov
plug in the bill number (S773 in this case, but careful that you switch the search mode from keyword to bill number) and read the thing for yourself.
If you don't want to read the bill, read the CRS summary. If you don't trust the CRS summary, read the transcript of testimony to the committee. It's all at the same address.
And all, by the way, thanks to Newt Gingrich back when he was speaker.
He'll be too busy pulling the plugs on grandma to pull the plug on the internet.
It gives him the ability to shut 'er down if we're under threat of coordinated cyber attack and provides for "timely restoration" of same. I prefer to think this would never be used lightly by any President, D or R, unless and until threat of invasion or missle launch. It's _that_ level of security. Not just because someone dissed him on his facebook wall. If he needs the bandwidth for the hardened stuff and I have to miss seeing LOLCATS for a while, it's the least I can do for my country.
-Laz
>"Not just because someone dissed him on his facebook wall."
We also had a president that said
"The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. ..."
And 40 years later we had a Wacko president do it.
I don't worry about the current president I worry about the future wacko presidents.
Gobo (#4)
And this surprises you?
just as long as they dont start wiretapping americans then ill get angry and start screaming.
Yeah, what JWB said @1. Declan McCullagh is the guy who started the whole "Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet" meme by taking something Gore said out of context and exaggerating it. I'm not about to trust him on anything.
I would be okay with him just disemvoweling the internet.
Brk bm wld nvr d nythng t hrm bngbng, bt h mght pll th plg on Mtt Drdg.
I'm for giving Obama emergency control of Fox News.
That'd be OK with everyone, right?
How are these different from the 3 GW Bush executive orders, found via a FOIA last month, which would give the white house and/or the NSA direct control of all traffic going through any university or public agency hub/backbone hardware?
And those were actually ISSUED ... this is a bill that hasn't even gone anywhere yet.
@5
You can't "turn off" the internet by killing backbones, you'll just make it really annoying to use. Worst case scenario would involve long distance phone calls and monkeying around with your dns settings.
You'd lose streaming video etc, and the domain system might fracture (not everyone thinks this would be a bad thing btw), but we're long past the point where it's possible to kill email for the technically savvy.
If movies have taught me anything it's that the President can authorize tactical nuclear strikes on American cities in extreme circumstances (i.e. superviruses, zombies, or alien invasions). So what's a few hours without facebook?
But will the zombies have the internet?
@#23
O e i o o a e !
(Or get disconsonanted!)
Much harder to decipher, for low bandwidth... you know, basically pretty much like the service most of us already have now.
-Laz
What JWB and Avram said.
Declan McCullough is a journalistic scumbag. Not only did he start the "Al Gore said he invented the internet" crap, he proudly took ownership of it.
Besides, anything Drudge announces with a siren should be immediately dismissed as bullshit.
@DWITTSF
Oh, and you're as full of shit as Drudge.
Never give to Obama a power you wouldn't be comfortable giving to Cheney, Biden, or ... Palin.
nukes = accepted idea
control over internet = slow down there pardner
?
Regardless of the originating report, READ THE BILL- http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.773:
Ok? Done? Good, repeat after me- this bill really does suck.
It will bog down critical activities for running the internet in totally unnecessary bureaucratic quagmire, it will require Tier 1 providers and others to form close partnerships with the government, and, yes, it does give the government the keys to the internet. And it codifies it in law, which is much more difficult to challenge than a presidential order.
Just because it showed up on Drudge (ick) with an inflammatory headline -before it showed up somewhere else- doesn't make concern over this steaming pile of road apples any less valid.
We are writing about Drudge here. Even IF his article is true ( and this is including innuendo and gossip ), the fact that he is 'screaming' about this now means what, exactly?
I do not seem to recall the red-flashing lights from Drudge for similar circumstances under the prior administration. (No links, sorry. My Google-fu is not strong enough for the /. archives.)
Sorry, the data points correlating to the red-flashing lights on the Drudge's site is that some-where, some-how some liberal is doing something he does not agree with.
To be fair, nukes are only an "accepted idea" because they've been around for 60+ years.
/signed, #32. /signed.
how long before political protest becomes a security threat an in Iran?
maybe 4chan will publish some data on the authors?
how much of this would stand?
http://wikileaks.org/
"Libertarian and Republican talking points" -- and Democrat talking points about a year ago. There's no need to make this partisan.
It's an encroachment on the rights of speech, press, and assembly which is only allowed under extraordinary circumstances under the Constitution -- and rarely holds up after the fact.
@9 DWittSF - do you really believe that? Where is your evidence? Y'r prbbly brthr, t... I love how for once your president is trying to FIX the US's disastrous (and internationally criticised) health care system and what does he encounter? Massive resistance from the very people who put the US and, to an extent, the world's economy in the red to begin with. Please take your Obama hate elsewhere, unless you have something constructive to add.
I'm not saying Obama is 100% without faults (we need to keep our politicians honest), but if you are going to criticise then you had better bring something worthwhile to the table instead of making outlandish claims with no proof. This is all that the republican trash in the US have been doing since Obama was elected and all the persistence of these baseless attack is achieving is further sidelining their point of view to the point of insignificance.
'm s trd f my tm rdng mssg brds bng tkn p by fls lk y nd yr nflmmtry nd sbstnc-lckng BS. pls tk t t wlvrpclcns.cm r wshcldbngthbshsstrs.cm
ls, @#32, sm stry.... brng smthng t th tbl y mrn. t lst DWttSF hs th blls t lg n.
teapot,
Don't abuse other commenters because they disagree with you. Or at least do it wittily.
What are you all complaining about? The Australian Government is planning to implement ISP level content filtering, blacklisting their own undisclosed selection of websites for the entire country.
For real! They're winding up testing right now!
Please help!
should we send guns?
Anti: although your assertion that the word "birther" is abusive, warms my heart - I have to just say that I am not attacking them merely because they have a different viewpoint to my own. I am willing to accept that people can have a different opinion to mine, but I am not willing to accept them voicing their opinion if it is unfounded or completely irrelevant to the original post topic.
Disagreement is the first step to developing better alternatives and hence I would never argue for the sake of disagreement (as in my view this can only stifle growth & development) - I am simply pointing out that he (DWittSF), like so many others, can't just post their dumb opinion online without any supporting evidence.
Well.. they can, but they have to know that people like me will publicly humiliate them and illustrate their shallow understanding of the world if they choose to regurgitate their verbal diarrhea online without thinking first.
Not having any evidence is completely unacceptable if you are going to level baseless criticism at someone - especially in this day and age and especially if you are on the internet, where one has no excuse for not doing sufficient research and not posting a link of any kind. It is just not acceptable.
BTW I dont need to employ wit to point out someone's failings. Is the whole world a stand-up night?
Is the whole world a stand-up night?
BB isn't the whole world, and here you need to sing for your supper.
that tea sure is iron-y tonight.
@Takuan
NO. WE'RE FINE. THERE'S NOTHING TO SEE HERE. I WAS MISTAKEN.
*rapid nervous winking*
The power to take over national communication networks is nothing new. Most of you are probably too young to remember CONELRAD. It dates back the early 1950's. The government could shut down radio broadcasting to prevent the enemy from using it against us in time of war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conelrad
Now he's going to unplug grandma's internet? What kind of monster is this president of your, and what's his problem with plugs?
Control = shut down, right? I mean: what else could 'control' mean, in this context?
And No.50 anon: true: but the internet is not a "national" but rather an international system of communications: has the USA ever suspended all international postal service? All international telephone service?
I thought not. The net, itself, is beyond their control, eh? But the part within US borders, well...maybe, huh?
Problem with mandated certifications is that the focus becomes the certifications and the topics it takes to pass the test. When everyone focuses on learning what it takes to pass the test, we begin to loose diversity and innovation. This actually makes security weaker since over the long term everyone in the field becomes severly limited to the certifications subject matter. Lets make a simpler example of what I mean. Lets say the certification is for some forms of math like algebra and trigonometry. Everyone wanting the job studies these forms of math. Over the years everyone in the industry has a background with these forms of math. Then one day there is an emergency and someone is needed to do calculus immediately on the spot. OH CRAP!. Certifications are only one small measuring device for a skillset and should never be THE only measuring device. Heck it should only be used at the entry level and not at the professional level. The professional level is what hands on real world experience is for. Some might say that a professional will pass the tests anyways. This is not always true because peoples talents are diverse. Some are good at trivia and some are good at hands on problem solving. Almost all certification tests today are based on trivia. There is a major difference between being able to memorize answers to questions and actaully sitting down behind a server and running forensic tools. There are articles you can search yourself that studied why expert professionals fail these trivial tests and it usually lies in the fact that their experience is so vast and real world that these trivial questions have no bearing.