US government report recommends blocking popular websites during pandemic flu outbreak

NaturalNews ^

[Scythian]

The US government has issued a new report that recommends blocking access to popular websites during a pandemic outbreak in order to preserve internet bandwidth for investors, day traders and securities clearing house operations. The concern is that a pandemic would cause too many people to stay at home and download YouTube videos and porn, hogging all the internet bandwidth and blocking throughput for investment activities, thereby causing a stock market meltdown.

This isn't an April Fool's joke. It's all based on a public report issued by the Government Accounting Office (GAO), available from their website at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d108.pdf

In this article, I'm going to explain how a pandemic outbreak could theoretically bring down Wall Street. But to get to that, you'll first need to find out what the GAO said in its curious report (see below). Parts of this article are presented as satire, but the underlying facts quoted here are all true and verifiable (links are provided to all sources).

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[Zeddicus]

No surprise here. Obama already set the stage for this clampdown by declaring a national emergency for H1N1 last week.

Is it becoming clear yet to everyone that we don't really live in America anymore? I mean on a real, visceral, this is actually happening level? I don't think so.

In another year or so, millions of people across the country are going to suddenly wake up to the realization that we are living in a cross between the old Soviet Union and a central-American banana republic.

[ClearCase_guy]

"Just a matter of time, I suppose."

[Dubya-M-DeesWent2SyriaStupid!]

This is ludicrous. The radical, corrupt, dictators don’t care about all the people home because they CAN’T FIND JOBS!!!

[ctdonath2]

Yup. Every feared method of oppression will be implemented in a “one-off” fashion: the gov’t won’t do X to you, they’ll swear to opposing X and then coerce someone else to do it to you instead.

[devistate one four]

Gotta get ham radio.

[La Lydia]

Shutting down specific Internet sites would also reduce congestion, although many we spoke with expressed concerns about the feasibility of such an approach. Overall Internet congestion could be reduced if Web sites that accounted for significant amounts of traffic—such as those with video streaming —were shut down during a pandemic. According to one recently issued study, the number of adults who watch videos on video-sharing sites has nearly doubled since 2006, far outpacing the growth of many other Internet activities. However, most providers’ staff told us that blocking users from accessing such sites, while technically possible, would be very difficult and, in their view, would not address the congestion problem and would require a directive from the government.

One provider indicated that such blocking would be difficult because determining which sites should be blocked would be a very subjective process.

Additionally, this provider noted that technologically savvy site operators could change their Internet protocol addresses, allowing users to access the site regardless. Another provider told us that some of these large bandwidth sites stream critical news information.

Furthermore, some state, local, and federal government offices and agencies, including DHS, currently use or have plans to increase their use of social media Web sites and to use video streaming as a means to communicate with the public. Shutting down such sites without affecting pertinent information would be a challenge for providers and could create more Internet congestion as users would repeatedly try to access these sites....Some providers said that the operators of specific Internet sites could shut down their respective sites with less disruption and more effectively than Internet providers, and suggested that a better course of action would be for the government to work directly with the site operators....

[DNME]

Remember ... Zero has already declared a “state of emergency” — over H1N1 -— so he now has the power to pull this off, along with a host of other things you really, really don’t want to see happen.

Do you think the 9/12 march could have been coordinated WITHOUT the Internet or email?

The fuse is already lit, kiddies. Beware.

[meyer]

See also...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2374283/posts

[hoosierham]

Well if the liberals were at"work" they'd be downloading porn!

'My" factory fired over a dozen people for porn at work,another dozen took early retirements ,and one or two skated on medical leave just before the hammer came down.

And the company trashed the 50-year collection of Playboy,etc. the new management team found in unassigned lockers-the magazines filled a dumpster.Probably could have sold all those old Playboys to collectors for thousands.

[frposty]

Better to let users freely pound on the internet. There may be overloads. I can’t recall my particular internet connection ever crapping out because of overload.

Heavy usage probably won’t bring down the internet but rather slow it down. If it happens too frequently and is a significant problem, the ISPs can lower the priority of high volume traffic such as video.

In conclusion, no need for government tinkering. Let’s look at their tinkering with the financial system. They postponed smaller bangs and it built up to our recent big bang that no one yet fully grasps.

[Dubya-M-DeesWent2SyriaStupid!]

ping to ping

[meyer]

History will call it the Great Washing

History will call it the second civil war.

[GeronL]

Okay I could see them temporarily putting the squuze on YouTube and such. No more Sunday Night Football streamed online, with 4 cameras unique to the web...

But that is as far as I think they should take it.

But then again, swine flu hasn’t come close to being the problem that seasonal flu is.

36,000 a year die from regular flu.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

So, have they now consolidated the GAO with the Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Use?

[GeronL]

http://tyrannysentinel.blogspot.com/2009/10/great-washing.html

The Great Washing, my own conspiracy theory

[BP2]

If the internet does not crash when everyone is home during
Christmas holiday, breaking open laptops and new
internet-based games NOW, why would it happen with a “Pandemic.”

Pandemics don't strike ALL of the cities in a country the size of the US ...
... at equal strength ...
... ALL at once ...

[La Lydia]

I don’t even think it’s YouTube stuff. I think it is those sites that allow people to download entire movies and television series. I have trouble with the idea that millions of people sick with the flu will stay home and download movies when they’re not throwing up and coughing and writhing in pain. As the report pointed out, the social networking sites are used by various government agencies to get the word out on all kinds of things, and I believe YouTube falls in that category. They are not going to shut down the sites that they use. I have no opinion about the critical necessity of football games, because I don’t want to get flamed!

[Little Pig]

And what’s to keep the gov from declaring that, for the duration of the emergency, additional radio bandwidth will be needed, and therefore all civilian radio operators are forbidden from transmitting on any and all frequencies?

[taxcontrol]

Fear mongering by people who do not understand the technology.

[GeronL]

I think they might shut down thw whole thing except for certain approved sites like local, state and federal government websites and some “approved” news sites.