Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.
They’re 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.
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.
“I think the redraft, while improved, remains troubling due to its vagueness,” said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, which counts representatives of Verizon, Verisign, Nortel, and Carnegie Mellon University on its board. “It is unclear what authority Sen. Rockefeller thinks is necessary over the private sector. Unless this is clarified, we cannot properly analyze, let alone support the bill.”
Representatives of other large Internet and telecommunications companies expressed concerns about the bill in a teleconference with Rockefeller’s aides this week, but were not immediately available for interviews on Thursday.
A spokesman for Rockefeller also declined to comment on the record Thursday, saying that many people were unavailable because of the summer recess. A Senate source familiar with the bill compared the president’s power to take control of portions of the Internet to what President Bush did when grounding all aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001. The source said that one primary concern was the electrical grid, and what would happen if it were attacked from a broadband connection.
When Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate Commerce committee, and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) introduced the original bill in April, they claimed it was vital to protect national cybersecurity. “We must protect our critical infrastructure at all costs–from our water to our electricity, to banking, traffic lights and electronic health records,” Rockefeller said.
The Rockefeller proposal plays out against a broader concern in Washington, D.C., about the government’s role in cybersecurity. In May, President Obama acknowledged that the government is “not as prepared” as it should be to respond to disruptions and announced that a new cybersecurity coordinator position would be created inside the White House staff. Three months later, that post remains empty, one top cybersecurity aide has quit, and some wags have begun to wonder why a government that receives failing marks on cybersecurity should be trusted to instruct the private sector what to do.
Rockefeller’s revised legislation seeks to reshuffle the way the federal government addresses the topic. It requires a “cybersecurity workforce plan” from every federal agency, a “dashboard” pilot project, measurements of hiring effectiveness, and the implementation of a “comprehensive national cybersecurity strategy” in six months–even though its mandatory legal review will take a year to complete.
The privacy implications of sweeping changes implemented before the legal review is finished worry Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. “As soon as you’re saying that the federal government is going to be exercising this kind of power over private networks, it’s going to be a really big issue,” he says.
Probably the most controversial language begins in Section 201, which permits the president to “direct the national response to the cyber threat” if necessary for “the national defense and security.” The White House is supposed to engage in “periodic mapping” of private networks deemed to be critical, and those companies “shall share” requested information with the federal government. (“Cyber” is defined as anything having to do with the Internet, telecommunications, computers, or computer networks.)
“The language has changed but it doesn’t contain any real additional limits,” EFF’s Tien says. “It simply switches the more direct and obvious language they had originally to the more ambiguous (version)…The designation of what is a critical infrastructure system or network as far as I can tell has no specific process. There’s no provision for any administrative process or review. That’s where the problems seem to start. And then you have the amorphous powers that go along with it.”
Translation: If your company is deemed “critical,” a new set of regulations kick in involving who you can hire, what information you must disclose, and when the government would exercise control over your computers or network.
The Internet Security Alliance’s Clinton adds that his group is “supportive of increased federal involvement to enhance cyber security, but we believe that the wrong approach, as embodied in this bill as introduced, will be counterproductive both from an national economic and national secuity perspective.”
(Source: CNET)
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13 Responses
It would give whomever is president the powers, that for the most part they probably already have under the laws governing telephonic communications. The big loser in this is probably the FCC. Under the well established “war powers” and “commander in chief” laws (used by many presidents, including the recently retired Mr. Bush), the president (be he Barack Obama, or Ron Paul, or Nancy Pelosi, or Donald Duck) can probably seize whatever is necessary in an emergency. However the government already controls the airwaves and communications systems, and that is all that the internet is.
A statute, with a bipartisan sponsorship, seems preferable to relying on implied powers. Of course a lot of civil libertarians (on both side of the “aisle”) will object, but they always whine when the government tramples on civil rights.
Wait a minute… first governmental control, then the car industry, then Healthcare now internet….
what next???
Why doesnt anybody see what is happening? Socialistic State anyone???
akuperma:
EVERYONE should scream (rather then whine), when the government tramples on civil rights…
#3 Civil rights? Remember that the next time the civil right is for a cause, or for a people, not in favor with the frum community.
Yidden on this site generally favor all rights for us, and perhaps civil rights for upstanding white establishment goyim, but generally scream “anti-Torah Liberal” when the rights are for causes for which we have no sympathy.
It is a fundemental principle – a klal gadol if you will – that one measures the legal freedoms of a society by how it treats the unlikable, the mentally ill, the criminal and the scoundrel. It’s no chidush to defend the rights of either ourselves or those with whom we are in agreement.
agree with #2, the goverment want to own our lives
car companies, health care, internet, if theres anything else that you can think of the government (hussein obama)is on its feet ready to take that as well, RABOSAI THIS IS NOT A JOKE
akuperma:
Stop your posturing already. Genuk shoin.
Obama is a dangerous man in regard to:
(a)Our civil liberties including but not limited to healthcare; business etc
(b) our constitution.
(c) our morality as a nation
(c) If Obama does not realize that his policies are errant, you will not recognize this country in three years. Hashem Yishmor
My friend, akuperma: It is about time you face reality.
Obama is democrat in the same mold as Teddy Kennedy and not JFK or even Bill Clinton for that matter.
Obama is more a leftist than Jimmy carter. Power in his hand scares me to death.
The left was petrified of our wonderful President George W. Bush because of the Patriot Act, and yet when it comes to one of their idols they are Shah Shtill.
What a bunch of hypocrites.
Where are those civil libertarians (that are democrats) that you speak of?
#4:
I agree with you 1 million percent. I don’t know if you think I’m like those people you described, but I think that anyone who has spent enough time here to know could tell you that I do not hesitate to advocate the unpopular position supporting the rights of people who do things with which we vehemently disagree. I am fairly conservative (possibly more libertarian), and still an ardent supporter of fair and equal treatment for all. The two are not mutually exclusive, nor are they mutually exclusive with Judaism.
It is time we all call our reps in Congress and remind them that we are no longer standing for the Obama Socialist Agenda and all the shenanigans that come along with it. They need to do REAL investigations into all his czars and how they are allowed to have the power given to them. Obama aligned himself with communists and people who DESPISE the country.
This is not a Democrat/Republican/Liberal/Conservative thing. If we are to have any country worth fighting for we need to take it back from the extreme far left and bring it back more center where we all operate better.
Call them and tell them you are no longer standing for this garbage. We cannot be 11 trillion in the hole with the Federal Reserve saying that we are really at 16% unemployment!! How the ObamaMania press claims this is good is amazing considering when under GWB unemployment was hovering around 5% we were told it was horrendous!!
charlie – President Bush never denied any non-terrorist their civil liberties.
Wow! Rabbosai, less time with the talk radio pundits and right-wing TV and more time reading.
1) Emergency powers granted to the gov’t in order to protect critical infrastructure is not socialism (if the gov’t decides that it needs those emergency powers during a loosely defined crisis and does so for years, then it is more fascist than socialist)
2) Cyber-security is not a joke. The implications of a cyber-attack on the US are catastrophic (but, no, hyrdogen bombs won’t be launched: it takes way more than a computer command to launch and those computers aren’t on the internet).
3)Private companies are unlikely to take the necessary steps
4) Gov’t does have a role to play but it needs to be prepared for it. After Katrina hit, I didn’t hear comments like “where was private industry to save me?”
5) Under Obama, the debt has gone up and so has unemployment but to simply compare him to GWB is disingenuous: the economic slide started with GWB and some policies went back to Clinton. Obama doesn’t deserve all of the blame.
Joseph (#11) – You totally run over a critical distinction – that between (a) one who is a terrorist and (b) one merely charged as a terrorist; in doing so you support findings of guilt made without offering a defendant a chance to counter the allegations against against him.
I.e. The Bush administration denied basic, elementry due process to people charged as “enemy comatants” or as terrorists – denying them a fair opportunity to contest the charges against them.
First of all, the kennedy’s were blatant Sonei Yisroel!!!!
Second, Obama is going to use his POWER to oppress all free Americans. He HATES everything that the constitution stands for. What happened during the depression in the 1930’s? id the government have to take over the banks? When your business has a hard year, you don’t give up & BAIL OUT, you reorganize your own business decisions. This whole thing is an unending hunger for POWER!!! It must be stopped before he has all those who disagree with him shut up never to speak again! This doesn’t sound like Socialism, to me it is Marxism!! He will be another Chavez & Housein as his name implies!!
My my mamarachel(# 16) – Either start reading some serious political source materials – or hide under your bed in paranoid fear of the Black man in the White House.
I have just about had it with the ungrateful,uninformed, ignorant and hateful diatribes against Liberalism in this site
First, as to Marxism – you might start by talking to Yidden who actually have lived in Communist countries – to say that Obama is a Marxist merely demonstrates that you know nothing about either Marxist ideology or Communist history.
You seem to know nothing of Liberalism either – Ted Kennedy was a classic New Deal Liberal, as am I . . and you owe him and other Liberals a great deal.
The Liberal ideology, to paraphrase a recent newspaper opinion piece, holds simply that the force of government should be used to improve conditions for the greatest possible number of citizens, with special emphasis on the least powerful in society – the excluded and disadvantaged. A Liberal beleves that this is the paramount role of government.
Thus, to name a few programs – you can thank Liberal legislative initiatives for: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid; unemployment insurance; Section 8; Food Stamps; minimum wage; fair labor standards; anti-discrimination laws (including laws that protect YOUR right to religious expression); due process protections; special education funding for all children . . . and it is Liberals now who believe that reasonable access to health care should be a RIGHT of all citizens – a position held by absolutely every democracy in the world . . excepot this country
Reasonable people may differ on issues – but so much of what I see here is no more valid and no less hateful than the blood libles against Yidden.