Government would have “absolute power” to seize control of the world
wide web under Lieberman legislation
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
The federal government would have “absolute power” to shut down the
Internet under the terms of a new US Senate bill being pushed by Joe
Lieberman, legislation which would hand President Obama a figurative
“kill switch” to seize control of the world wide web in response to a
Homeland Security directive.
Lieberman has been pushing for government regulation of the Internet
for years under the guise of cybersecurity, but this new bill goes
even further in handing emergency powers over to the feds which could
be used to silence free speech under the pretext of a national
emergency.
“The legislation says that companies such as broadband providers,
search engines or software firms that the US Government selects “shall
immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed” by
the Department of Homeland Security. Anyone failing to comply would be
fined,” reports
ZDNet’s Declan McCullagh.
The 197-page bill (PDF)
is entitled Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, or PCNAA.
Technology lobbying group TechAmerica warned that the legislation
created “the potential for absolute power,” while the Center for
Democracy and Technology worried that the bill’s emergency powers
“include authority to shut down or limit internet traffic on private
systems.”
The bill has the vehement support of Senator Jay Rockefeller, who last year asked
during a congressional hearing, “Would it had been better if we’d
have never invented the Internet?” while fearmongering about
cyber-terrorists preparing attacks.
The largest Internet-based corporations are seemingly happy with the
bill, primarily because it contains language that will give them
immunity from civil lawsuits and also reimburse them for any costs
incurred if the Internet is shut down for a period of time.
“If there’s an “incident related to a cyber vulnerability” after the
President has declared an emergency and the affected company has
followed federal standards, plaintiffs’ lawyers cannot collect damages
for economic harm. And if the harm is caused by an emergency order from
the Feds, not only does the possibility of damages virtually disappear,
but the US Treasury will even pick up the private company’s tab,”
writes McCullagh.
Tom Gann, McAfee’s vice president for government relations,
described the bill as a “very important piece of legislation”.
As we have repeatedly warned for years, the federal government is
desperate to seize control of the Internet because the establishment is
petrified at the fact that alternative and independent media outlets
are now eclipsing corporate media outlets in terms of audience share,
trust, and influence.
We witnessed another example of this on Monday when establishment Congressman
Bob Etheridge was publicly shamed after he was shown on video
assaulting two college students who asked him a question. Two kids
with a flip cam and a You Tube account could very well have changed the
course of a state election, another startling reminder of the power of
the Internet and independent media, and why the establishment is
desperate to take that power away.
The government has been searching for any avenue possible through
which to regulate free speech on the Internet and strangle alternative
media outlets, with the FTC
recently proposing a “Drudge Tax” that would force independent
media organizations to pay fees that would be used to fund mainstream
newspapers.
Similar legislation aimed at imposing Chinese-style censorship of
the Internet and giving the state the power to shut down networks has
already been passed globally, including
in the UK, New
Zealand and Australia.
We
have extensively covered efforts to scrap the internet as we know it
and move toward a greatly restricted “internet 2″ system. Handing
government the power to control the Internet would only be the first
step towards this system, whereby individual ID’s and government
permission would be required simply to operate a website.
The Lieberman bill needs to be met with fierce opposition at every
level and from across the political spectrum. Regulation of the
Internet would not only represent a massive assault on free speech, it
would also create new roadblocks for e-commerce and as a consequence
further devastate the economy.
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If they want to really see terrorism at it’s best, then … go ahead … And may God have mercy on their lousy souls! I realize that the Internet is a way of life, just as the telephone became many years ago; but I think these “aliens” would be “cutting off their noses to spite their ‘faces’ “!