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.So the executive office would have an inherent right to snoop your mail, your phone, your internet usage, without a warrant, and shut all this down in the event of a national emergency, to be defined later. This from the folks who thought the Patriot Act was an imposition. It's fun when the jackboot is on the other foot, isn't it?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.
The RWN article notes that even the Manhattan liberals are getting the vapors over this one. Senators John Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) and Olympia Snowe (RINO-Maine), are the masterminds behind this. Time to drop a friendly note to your Senators, and feel free to conspicuously mention such motivational phrases as "tar and feathers", and the like.
3 comments:
I think you are making a gross and unfair assumption.
I read nothing in the concept of a "cybersecurity emergency" that suggests the scope of a national emergency.
I think deciding that the IRS needs more information on a taxpayer, or that drug cartels might be working in your neighborhood, or that someone might be organizing a tea party or fund raiser for the Republican party can well be described as a "cybersecurity emergency".
Using the Internet to criticize the current administration might well seem, to the administration, a cybersecurity emergency. How is that for trumping "freedom of speech"?
This sounds like one really, really scary and nasty piece of corruption-seeking-a-foothold action of censorship and tyranny.
I am shocked, shocked, to think that civil servants might abuse their authority....Oh wait.
How dare you suggest that we in the freest nation on Earth live in tyranny.
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