We're all doomed! - Internet ‘Kill Switch’ Legislation Back in Play

[Political Lurker]

Internet ‘Kill Switch’ Legislation Back in Play
By David Kravets January 28, 2011 | 6:09 pm | Categories: Cyber Warfare, Cybersecurity
Legislation granting the president internet-killing powers is to be re-introduced soon to a Senate committee, the proposal’s chief sponsor told Wired.com on Friday.

The resurgence of the so-called “kill switch” legislation came the same day Egyptians faced an internet blackout designed to counter massive demonstrations in that country.

The bill, which has bipartisan support, is being floated by Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican ranking member on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The proposed legislation, which Collins said would not give the president the same power Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak is exercising to quell dissent, sailed through the Homeland Security Committee in December but expired with the new Congress weeks later.

The bill is designed to protect against “significant” cyber threats before they cause damage, Collins said.

“My legislation would provide a mechanism for the government to work with the private sector in the event of a true cyber emergency,” Collins said in an e-mail Friday. “It would give our nation the best tools available to swiftly respond to a significant threat.”

The timing of when the legislation would be re-introduced was not immediately clear, as kinks to it are being worked out.

An aide to the Homeland Security committee described the bill as one that does not mandate the shuttering of the entire internet. Instead, it would authorize the president to demand turning off access to so-called “critical infrastructure” where necessary.

An example, the aide said, would require infrastructure connected to “the system that controls the floodgates to the Hoover dam” to cut its connection to the net if the government detected an imminent cyber attack.

What’s unclear, however, is how the government would have any idea when a cyber attack was imminent or why the operator wouldn’t shutter itself if it detected a looming attack.

About two dozen groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Library Association, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Center for Democracy & Technology, were skeptical enough to file an open letter opposing the idea. They are concerned that the measure, if it became law, might be used to censor the internet.

“It is imperative that cyber-security legislation not erode our rights,” (.pdf) the groups wrote last year to Congress.

A congressional white paper (.pdf) on the measure said the proposal prohibits the government from targeting websites for censorship “based solely on activities protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

Oddly, that’s exactly the same language in the Patriot Act used to test whether the government can wiretap or investigate a person based on their political beliefs or statements.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/01/kill-switch-legislation/
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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

[Political Lurker]

Gates: Killing the internet is easy
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Gun power trumps tweet power
By Gavin Clarke in San Francisco

Posted in Networks, 2nd February 2011 05:48 GMT
Free whitepaper – WAN Optimization
When the revolution comes, someone's always ready to tell you how Facebook and Twitter are powering history.

The problem is that while they're still standing, governments can snuff out Facebook and Twitter whenever they like. All they need do is flip the "off" switch on the servers, routers, and wireless equipment used by local service providers.

Just ask Bill Gates.

When US TV anchor Katie Couric asked the Microsoft co-founder and chairman if he was surprised that Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak could take the unprecedented step of killing the entire Egyptian internet, Gates responded with an emphatic: "no".

Sometimes, he knows what he's talking about.

"It's not that hard to shut the Internet down if you have military power where you can tell people that's what's going to happen," Gates said. "Whenever you do something extraordinary like that you're sort of showing people you're afraid of the truth getting out, so it's a very difficult tactic, but certainly it can be shut off."

Web traffic analysis firm Renesys tracking the black out encapsulated the enormity of the situation here:

Every Egyptian provider, every business, bank, Internet cafe, website, school, embassy, and government office that relied on the big four Egyptian ISPs for their Internet connectivity is now cut off from the rest of the world. Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt, Etisalat Misr, and all their customers and partners are, for the moment, off the air.

And yet the Egyptian protests continue - without Twitter and Facebook.

As US chat-show host Conan O'Brien, himself the victim of a botched power struggle, apparently put it: "If you want people to stay at home and do nothing, why don't you turn the internet back on?"
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/02/egypt_internet_shutdown_gates/
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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

[Political Lurker]

New bill strips president’s power to shut off Internet

By Sahil Kapur
Friday, February 18th, 2011 -- 11:04 am

Tags: Act, authority, bill, critical infrastructures, cybersecurity, egyptian president hosni mubarak, kill, kill switch, legislation, national security interests, national security purposes, power, president, president hosni mubarak, senators, tom carper
WASHINGTON – A bipartisan trio of senators has introduced a new cybersecurity bill that eliminates the president's authority to switch off the Internet.

The "kill switch," as it's known, exists in the 1934 Telecommunications Act, which was amended in 1996. It gives the president powers to shut off all regulated telecommunications if he or she deems it vital to national security interests.

But that's not going to fly any more, say Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Tom Carper (D-DE) and Susan Collins (R-ME).

The three senators on Thursday introduced The Cybersecurity Freedom Act of 2011, which would take away the president's power to shut off the Internet.

The measure states that "neither the president, the director of the National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications, nor any other officer or employee of the federal government should have the authority to shut down the Internet."

Lieberman said part of the purpose was to clear up controversy surrounding cybersecurity legislation he introduced last year, which was mistakenly thought to have created a kill switch but merely limited the president's ability to use the feature.

"We want to clear the air once and for all," said Lieberman, the chairman of the Homeland Security committee. "...There is no so-called 'kill switch' in our legislation because the very notion is antithetical to our goal of providing precise and targeted authorities to the president."


"This legislation applies to the most critical infrastructures that Americans rely on in their daily lives -- energy transmission, water supply, financial services, for example - to ensure that those assets are protected in case of a potentially crippling cyber attack."

Collins added that the legislation contains "explicit language prohibiting" a US president from doing what Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak did.

"Our bill contains protections to prevent the president from denying Americans access to the Internet," she said.

NextGov reports that the bill would also "allow judges to review the government's designations of so-called covered critical infrastructure, or systems that could cause catastrophes if disrupted."
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/18/new-bill-strips-presidents-power-to-shut-off-internet/
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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.