Scary … Should Barack Obama be Allowed to Control the Internet? So Much for the Constitution

What ever happened to government of the people, by the people, for the people?

Abraham Lincoln said during his Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863 the following:

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

It is safe to say by the actions of our present day politicians that we no longer have a government of the people, by the people and for the People. It’s safe to say that today’s politicians could care less about The US Constitution as opposed to being able to quote from it. Hell, I would venture a guess that they may never have read it. The United States has become a government that is directly against the People and is for the amassing of their own authority, power and control.

According to Mother Jones, there is a new bill that would give the President emergency authority to halt web traffic and access to private data during a state of emergency. Interestingly enough, Mother Jones is not a right wing web site, far from it.

Senators John Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) think so. On Wednesday they introduced a bill to establish the Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor—an arm of the executive branch that would have vast power to monitor and control Internet traffic to protect against threats to critical cyber infrastructure. That broad power is rattling some civil libertarians.

Take a good look at what the Cybersecurity Act would do and the unprecedented powers it would provide. Once again the federal government is interjecting itself in private matters that should not be their concern as stated by Leslie Harris, head of the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT):  “but such a drastic federal intervention in private communications technology and networks could harm both security and privacy.”

Hmm … I thought there was no “ global war on terror” according to Obama.

The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 gives the president the ability to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” and shut down or limit Internet traffic in any “critical” information network “in the interest of national security.” The bill does not define a critical information network or a cybersecurity emergency. That definition would be left to the president.

The bill does not only add to the power of the president. It also grants the Secretary of Commerce “access to all relevant data concerning [critical] networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access.” This means he or she can monitor or access any data on private or public networks without regard to privacy laws.

WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE FROM THE LEFT OF THE BIDEN-OBAMA REGIME?

Where is the LEFT and the media raising hell that GWB is taking away your civil liberties by keeping track of your library books? Because it’s Obama, it’s different? Jules Crittenden seems to have the same issues and asks the question, why do we need this? According to Obama, we do not need phrases like “the war on terror” and the world loves us know that he is in office.

It’s a cybersecurity measure, to keep us safe. But the GWOT’s over, and the world likes us better, so it isn’t clear what he needs this for. To save the bankers from all the peasants with the pitchforks?

The Belmont Club offers some pros and cons to such a bill; however, questions how does one pull the plug on the entire internet due to a small localized attack.

Thus any effective communications disruption strategy is normally selective. It disrupts the enemy bandwidth but leaves own bandwidth functioning. Under what circumstances is it justified to “shut down domestic Internet traffic during a state of emergency?” The answer to that question deserves consideration, because a great many things increasingly depend on the functioning of the Internet, and 99.9999% of them are legitimate, in the pursuit of public safety, the essential conduct of commerce and in the coordination of society. So while it makes sense to say, “black out a four square mile cell because a Mumbai style hit team is operating in it”, it makes far less sense to pull the plug on the domestic Internet. Most of the people who will be disrupted with be responders. It’s like firing a cannon at yourself to remove a wart.

Does anyone really want one man, no matter who that man is, to be defining what constitutes critical information network or a cybersecurity emergency? We had a war to rid ourself of a king a long time ago. We hardly need another now.