Rockefeller bill allows President to shut down Internet

[Joanne98]

by Eternal Hope

Rockefeller bill allows President to shut down Internet Fri May 29, 2009 at 09:26:50 AM PDT

Apparently, Senator Jay Rockefeller is still stuck in the past and thinking that George Bush is in power and that 9/11 changed everything. Listen to this YouTube video of Rockefeller pimping for SB 773 and 778. Listen to the tone of fear in his voice, which was very much like George Bush's voice when he talked about those Scary Brown People we were all supposed to be afraid of.

Apparently, Rockefeller has not learned his lesson. He is no different than the Bush administration crying wolf. If you will recall, the Bush administration issued all these phony terror alerts, breaking into network programming and issuing all these dire warnings about imminent terrorist attacks that never happened. And incidentally, the networks can spare us their phony outrage over Obama's speeches cutting into their advertising time when they jumped like whipped puppies whenever George Bush wanted to issue one of his many phony terror alerts.

The bill in question is SB 773, which would radically expand the Unitary Executive powers far beyond anything George Bush dreamed of doing. First of all, it would allow the Secretary of Commerce, without a warrant, to pry into anybody's server when he deems that there is a national cyberattack. Read Section 14 of this bill:

(a) DESIGNATION- The Department of Commerce shall serve as the clearinghouse of cybersecurity threat and vulnerability information to Federal Government and private sector owned critical infrastructure information systems and networks.

(b) FUNCTIONS- The Secretary of Commerce--
(1) shall have access to all relevant data concerning such networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access.

(2) shall manage the sharing of Federal Government and other critical infrastructure threat and vulnerability information between the Federal Government and the persons primarily responsible for the operation and maintenance of the networks concerned;

(3) shall report regularly to the Congress on threat information held by the Federal Government that is not shared with the persons primarily responsible for the operation and maintenance of the networks concerned.

OK -- so if the Secretary of Commerce deems that Daily Kos is a "critical infrastructure information system" for the purpose of this bill, what is there to stop the Secretary of Commerce from using this section to target political enemies of the President? What is there to prevent him from sharing this information with the FBI or CIA?

But wait -- it gets worse; see Section 18:

The President--

(1) within 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, shall develop and implement a comprehensive national cybersecurity strategy, which shall include--

(A) a long-term vision of the Nation’s cybersecurity future;

(B) a plan that encompasses all aspects of national security, including the participation of the private sector, including critical infrastructure operators and managers;

(2) may declare a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic to and from any compromised Federal Government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network;

In other words, Rockefeller is relying on the radical reinterpretation of the Constitution known as the Unitary Executive, which states that there is only one real branch of government and the other two are just rubber stamps. Does this sound familiar?

We all agree on the need for better cybersecurity. In fact, there are a lot of provisions that are good -- such as coordination between agencies, the awarding of money to communities which develop effective cyberdefense strategies, and the careful studying and evaluations that the bill makes provisions for. We would not object to this bill at all if it were not for the radical reinterpretation of the 4th Amendment as well as the radical reinterpretation of the separation of powers that is contained in the Constitution.

It is not the role of the President to usurp the role of the judiciary in determining what is appropriate to search. We already have specialized FISA courts that can be used for the purpose of obtaining wiretaps in an emergency. If we are going to monitor for cyberthreats, do it legally -- we could expand the authority of the FISA courts to give them jurisdiction and the authority to approve warrants for monitoring cyberthreats and accomplish the same objectives without the systematic trampling of the Constitution that Jay Rockefeller engages in.

Continued>>>
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/5/29/736617/-Rockefeller-bill-allows-President-to-shut-down-Internet

[rcrush]

1. Why anyone would vote for someone named Rockefeller is beyond me.

But people did elect a Bush into office 3 times.

[brendan120678]

4. More than that, if you count Poppy's

terms as VP and Congressman; and Jeb's Governorship as well.

[Baby Snooks]

19. But Jay Rockefeller is a Democrat!

He has that little (D) beside his name on the ballot...

[tom_paine]

22. But a Rockefeller and a Bilderberger FIRST!

:puke:

[lonestarlib]

25. Actually, "elected" only twice.

[onehandle]

2. Good. I could use the time off. nt

[babylonsister]

3. The sky is falling! nt

[PM Martin]

5. Rockefeller? What idiot would vote one of them into

public office of all places? Just hand the keys over to a Rothschild. :eyes:

[rcrush]

11. Dont blame me! I voted for Bilderburg!

err I mean Kodos!

[bertman]

6. The aristocracy is openly trying to consolidate its power. Rockefeller is a fascist.

[dipsydoodle]

7. So the worst that happen

is that we go back to actually talking to our friends on the 'phone and ebay goes out of business - big fucking deal.

[FiveGoodMen]

10. No, the worst is that a totally dishonest, controlled news media becomes the only source

of information.

[dipsydoodle]

26. We have don't that problem

in the UK - yet. Our news souces were fine before use of the internet increased and there's no particular why in its absense that should change.

[FiveGoodMen]

27. Well I guess you're safe, then.

You're probably under more surveilance than we are and your previous leader went along with everything Bush wanted.

Blair also said later that he didn't care if the Iraq War was based on lies, he still thought it was the right thing to do.

But, your papers mention that almost every day, don't they?

[dipsydoodle]

28. Not necessarily safe

but not paranoid either.

[rcrush]

12. There is more to the internet than DU and Ebay.

[progressoid]

16. And we'll have to pay for PORN!!

[Taverner]

8. Of course, the last thing they want in an emergency is an informed polpulace

They want us all scared, and cowering under our beds

[Lorax7844]

9. K and R

[lazyriver]

13. Exactly. n/t

[katty]

21. of course, i'm surprised the FBI even has email-most of them

testified after 9-11 that their computers hardly worked, could hardly find pens and paper to use at their offices.

[katty]

14. let's shutdown Rocky and anyone else who is pushing this

interpretation

[glowing]

15. Which is the reason FBI was bugged and Obama created a Czar..

to keep the internet free..

[no limit]

17. They think they can shut down the internet? These guys have absolutely no clue

you can't just suddenly shut down the internet in the event of an emergency; the internet is designed so you can't take a few nodes out and have everything collapse. When a node is shut down another one takes over.

[bvar22]

24. They CAN order the big telecoms and ISPs to pull the plug.

That covers about 90% of the civilian access.

[yodermon]

18. 1) the government can't shut down the internet

2) if they're coming for your servers just encrypt everything. Triple-DES or Blowfish shld work fine.
3) fuck 'em.

[Baby Snooks]

20. Actually the government can...

They can shut it down the way they can shut down the phone networks and even the electricity grids and you're a fool if you think otherwise. Flip a switch and that's that.

[Recursion]

23. Sure they can

DoC and DoD between them could stop about 90% of DNS resolution in a day or two (depending on TTLs). And while they couldn't stop all routing they could stop a whole lot of very important routing.