Red button labeled File
Obama could "unplug" internet
By Fernando Mexia - headline , society , technology - 04/04/2009
Fernando Mexia, the pen.
Internet, go to the internet. We're in cyberspace to the crown, a universe in which we're choking, even us try to be updated. The amazing web tool comes without instruction book and its regulation almost absent. The network is the "far west" of the XXI century where a legion of users we launched into the "conquest" of this unique American mostly West (American, I mean). A world with many opportunities and few "sheriffs" that makes Washington nervous, correct, very nervous.
On Wednesday April 1st two senators, Democrat John Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe Republican, presented The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 , a bill that affects the large internet threat to U.S. national security Among the measures suggested highlights the presidential posttest to shut down or limit traffic on the web in an emergency or access to private information confidential at the discretion of the Secretary of State for Commerce.
This initiative would be like putting in the Oval Office a red button to connect or disconnect the web according to 
U.S. interests without even going through the U.S. Congress, or expose our secret miseries and protected more indecipherable keys to the curiosity of a politician based shift strategies to combat cyberterrorism. All without asking permission from anyone.
The President, within one year after the passage of this law, shall develop a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy may include a long-term future of the national cybersecurity plan that covers all aspects of national security , including the private sector, key managers and operators; may declare a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic to or from any infrastructure Federal government information system or network or American; may designate an agency to to be responsible for coordinating the response and restoration of any critical infrastructure hit by a cybersecurity emergency declaration [...]; may order disconnection of any U.S. information infrastructure or the Federal government in defense of national security.
This is an excerpt from the bill (section 18, authority and responsibility for cybersecurity, p. 43). Which also backs the creation of a presidential adviser on cybersecurity. While it is understandable that any country, especially the most powerful in the world, want to take action against possible cyber threats is questionable whether these measures, which affect the entire network because most of the online movements or pass through U.S. born ., are received by anyone with half a brain.
If anything the internet has become a revolution is because it allows anyone to navigate, deliver content and to exchange information with a very low cost and a very high degree of freedom. Internet is what is giving them the possibility to users to build the network, create applications, etc.. A temporary closure of the network, or the possibility of that happening, would also have a destabilizing effect on the economy that increasingly lives more in the virtual world.
The bill, which was straight out of fear promoted by the Bush administration was justified by Rockefeller and Snowe ineviatable as a way to deal with criminals on the web.
"We must protect our fundamental inraestructuras at any price from our water to our electricity, banking, signage and virtual health records-the list goes on," said the Democrat. "If we fail to act quickly, us, unfortunately, we risk a cyber-Katrina," said Snowe.
Obviously there are also voices that warn against excessive control that would give the White House this law, if passed, would run directly counter to the fundamental rights which presuppose a democratic country forged in the defense of civil liberties.
Translator
By N2H