http://www.prisonplanet.com/obama-can-s ... owers.html

President Obama will be handed the power to shut down the Internet for at least four months without Congressional oversight if the Senate votes for the infamous Internet ‘kill switch’ bill, which was approved by a key Senate committee yesterday and now moves to the floor.
The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, which is being pushed hard by Senator Joe Lieberman, would hand absolute power to the federal government to close down networks, and block incoming Internet traffic from certain countries under a declared national emergency.
Despite the Center for Democracy and Technology and 23 other privacy and technology organizations sending letters to Lieberman and other backers of the bill expressing concerns that the legislation could be used to stifle free speech, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee passed in the bill in advance of a vote on the Senate floor.
In response to widespread criticism of the bill, language was added that would force the government to seek congressional approval to extend emergency measures beyond 120 days. Still, this would hand Obama the authority to shut down the Internet on a whim without Congressional oversight or approval for a period of no less than four months.
The Senators pushing the bill rejected the claim that the bill was a ‘kill switch’ for the Internet, not by denying that Obama would be given the authority to shut down the Internet as part of this legislation, but by arguing that he already had the power to do so.
They argued “That the President already had authority under the Communications Act to “cause the closing of any facility or station for wire communication” when there is a “state or threat of war”, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
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Fears that the legislation is aimed at bringing the Internet under the regulatory power of the U.S. government in an offensive against free speech were heightened further on Sunday, when Lieberman revealed that the plan was to mimic China’s policies of policing the web with censorship and coercion.
“Right now China, the government, can disconnect parts of its Internet in case of war and we need to have that here too,” Lieberman told CNN’s Candy Crowley.
While media and public attention is overwhelmingly focused on the BP oil spill, the establishment is quietly preparing the framework that will allow Obama, or indeed any President who follows him, to bring down a technological iron curtain that will give the government a foot in the door on seizing complete control over the Internet.
As we have illustrated, fears surrounding cybersecurity have been hyped to mask the real agenda behind the bill, which is to strangle the runaway growth of alternative and independent media outlets which are exposing government atrocities, cover-ups and cronyism like never before.
Indeed, China uses similar rhetoric about the need to maintain “security” and combating cyber warfare by regulating the web, when in reality their entire program is focused around silencing anyone who criticizes the state.
The real agenda behind government control of the Internet has always been to strangle and suffocate independent media outlets who are now competing with and even displacing establishment press organs, with websites like the Drudge Report now attracting more traffic than many large newspapers combined. As part of this war against independent media, the FTC recently proposing a “Drudge Tax” that would force independent media organizations to pay fees that would be used to fund mainstream newspapers.



Now what do we do?

The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, which is being pushed hard by Senator Joe Lieberman...

That guy has been an opponent of free speech since the first Mortal Kombat came out.

i need a break anyway.

God damn it. Four months max?

There are few people who get more pissed than me when the government limits freedom of speech, but its goal is not to limit free speech. Only shades of gray exist and this is one the areas where I think it may be more beneficial than harmful. Politicians in China have stated that they would totally cripple the nation in any way possible, from destroying civilian targets to crippling every type of infrastructure and emergency service. America is at war. Not in Iraq or Afghanistan. But with every country that has tried to hurt us through the internet. It's hard to point fingers, but China, Russia, and North Korea are usually the ones doing it. There is a war raging right now, yet the media hardly ever mentions it. This war has the potential to kill many if ignored. What it will take for the media to care about it is when a foreign power causes a blackout in a major city, causes other parts of the infrastructure to self-destruct, or destroys the banking system. It's not science fiction. Russia has done stuff like employ cyber warfare against Georgia. On 60 Minutes last month, I heard that Russia was trying to hack into the companies that produce the microchips for America nuclear arms and change schematics so that American weapons and defense systems will never activate. During the Bush years, several TBs of top secret information was stolen, and Bush was too dumb to even admit it or do anything about it. No one knows where this information is. At very least President Obama is very serious about the internet and understands the situation much better than Bush. The Pentagon is attacked countless times each year. People have hacked into the United States Strategic Command. People in foreign countries use the internet to constantly poke and prod at American companies and agencies, and sometimes even leave bugs that can be used to spy or cause damage. The fact is that America has more to lose than any other country, so it must be more prudent than any other country. USCYBERCOM is here to help prevent shitstorms that could hurt us all.

@Skyscraper: You should have posted here.

Thanks for your nice input, nya~

Personally, I think that if we ever need the internet to be shut down, there would be no problem with it. I highly doubt that it will even come to that point. I seriously doubt Obama will shut down the internet, even if he gets the ability to (which he, apparently, already has). Obama is not anti-free speech. I highly doubt the he would ever do that, unless it was absolutely necessary.

I don't understand how one person from one nation could shut down something that is interconnected worldwide. I didn't read the entire article, but I see that it said something about blocking information from outside the US. It will end up getting taken out of context like everything else. I don't really bother myself with stuff like this.

Yeah, the statements made in the article don't match the quotes and facts referenced. And it's from a site that appears to cater to conspiracy theorists.

This act, if it were to pass, would not give Obama power to "shut down the Internet". It would give him the ability to prevent information from certain countries from being sent to the US over the Internet during times of war.

Fun fact: Americans, including American presidents, don't own the world.

Hypothetically, if Obama had the ability to shut down the internet in all countries of the world, the USA would be making laws for other countries. It would be completely nonsensical and would piss off a lot of people. If he'd actually go through with shutting down the entire Internet, that would probably be the dumbest mistake he could ever make. You know how many assassination attempts there'd be on him?

^It has nothing to do with that. The article is simply misleading.

Obama to some extent has the ability to cut off America from the rest of the world if he feels that his country is being attacked via the net by people in foreign countries or by foreign governments, and that the attacks have the potential to cause major fiscal damage and/or cause harm to people. Obviously, he wouldn't do it unless the threat was big enough. This is most likely here to be ready for the worst-case scenario, like if he feels America is in danger of being invaded, he has the ability to radical do things which prevent systems in the country from being compromised. If a foreign power were to try to invade, they would marching towards their annihilation unless they can get their way into military systems and also cause as much havoc as possible by destroying or disabling America's infrastructure. It seems absurd that, say, a single hacker can cause massive power generators or water plants to literally self-destruct, but it has been done by computer hackers hired by the American government in order to understand the threat posed by hackers. We know that foreign hackers are mapping our infrastructure right now and that we have been attacked countless times already. The whole situation is usually downplayed, but we live in an age where there's more than one way to wage war and destroy a country, and thankfully the government is quite aware of this.

@Skyscraper: You should have posted here.

We all know what this is really about, Obama just watched terminator 3 and hes all like "OMG THIS COULD TOTALLY HAPPENZ"

How original, you clever fox, you.

The article is indeed misleading. Skyscraper has some good points. I'm not high.

@Sypress: You should have posted here.

True.

Don't mock us! You'll be sorry when the machines take over. My machines.