Posted on 08/28/2009 8:13:33 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
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 (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."
bttt
Would it possible to create servers which are not accessible by government and off line in case of emergency?
in case of emergency, old Citizen Band (CB) Radio would be helpful, as well as Ham Radio (Longer distances.)
btt
City wide peer to peer Wireless 802.11b/n network with a backbone comprised of special HAM radio internet stations.
Something like this would be hard to combat, well unless they controlled the FCC..... Oh Wait....
He’s busy lately-—tidying up loose ends [i.e., propping up the science-free science czar]
Rockefeller Refers to Obama’s Science Czar [Holdren] as ‘Walking on Water’
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2326789/posts
for more on Holdren’s bizarre science, see post #14 & 15
LOL. Haven’t seen you in what seems like forever! It figures that the first post I’ve seen of yours for awhile would bring laughter. :-)
IT HAS to get REALLY bad to wake up the morons that voted last november. I also want them to pass this.
In theory, yes. However, the main servers the gov is likely to go after are the top-level domain controllers. Those are the servers that provide name resolution for things like the entire .com domain, and .net etc etc. Without those, the internet essentially stops functioning in the US. Include in that the “national firewall”, which is so far as I know a network of firewalls at the ingress points of the US network infrastructure, which can be shut down, and the big routers at the telecom nodes across the country, which could also be deemed important to national security, and traffic won’t go much further than your local branch office if that. Of better value to the average user would be a network of high-powered wireless routers scattered throughout the country, much like Apple “Airport” hubs on steroids, that would function in a meshed configuration, or “ad-hoc”. It could still be jammed by the gov, especially since 802.11b and g (the most popular wireless standards) use 2.4GHz radio, which is also used by ham radio, but then the gov would have less control at least. I can even foresee a guerrilla group that spends its time traveling around and deploying such routers after the lockdown, always staying one step ahead of the gov, like the rebels in “The Matrix”. Servers are easy to take over, since they have to sit in one place. Wireless routers can move around.
“At this point, Obama’s lawlessness and criminal Abuse Of Power is IN YOUR FACE!!”
Very! Been thinking same thing...Hubris with a sneer.
Oh wait.........the storm is petering out..............OK............I gotta ANOTHER thing here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!..
OK..........................
Let me Goooooooo........OKKKKKKKKK
Here it goes...............................
OK!
The FACT that you all DON'T have HEALTH INSURANCE tells ME that I HAVEE TO take over your lives. OK?
“Where are all the civil liberties groups and the ACLU at now? “
They are silent probably because porn sites will still be accessible from libraries during the “emergency”.
They know what the emergency will be- a strong conservative presidential campaign with a big Web presence. Or serious organizing, or anything that will unite us.
Not to hijack the thread, but listening to Limbaugh today...he mentioned Hurricane Danny. With the Kennedy funeral extravaganza in Boston, the alphabets were still sending weatherpeople/newsies telling New Englanders how to prepare to survive...a thunderstorm.
You know, SP...all that dampness (sniffles) can lead to (PaMom looks both ways) a cold WHICH COULD BE MISDIAGNOSED as ‘you know what...’
Off topic, but not by much....
If you missed Glenn Beck this week, this is scary stuff.
If you haven’t seen this,you might want to see it first.(Apollo Alliance)
This Week’s Show
I know... week-end....please watch and share!
Scroll down to Monday,24th (left side) and start watching.
http://www.foxnews.com/glennbeck/index.html
Today: http://interactive.foxnews.com/projects/inorout/
(I’m sure today’s show will post more soon!)
PLEASE share this with everyone
E-mail,blog, what ever!
God Bless America!
Jeff
On a serious note. It is easy to react to such legislation understandably with concern. But such news is very easy to steer up images of zero somehow controlling the whole entity, which is silly. The Internet is a vast conglomerate of huge networks which in turn are controlled by huge local/intra-Internet and other type network entities. One just does not send out some kind of code or stream of data over the whole world’s interlaced networks and take control of them. That is Hollywood stuff.
The worst part is that the liberals managed to get a law passed that forces the citizens of the US to pay for for the ACLU.
This is how ostammer takes command and control away from any revolutionary effort or “community organizing” by those who don’t agree with his draconian Marxist policies.
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