ctwalrus

Bill would give president emergency control of Internet


link: Bill would give president emergency control of Internet | Politics and Law - CNET News

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 of S.773 (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."


ahh!

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troublemaker_42

Imagine that Why is it that each President seems to honestly believe that he needs or deserves more powers than his predecessor, when its ALREADY terrifying how much power anyone in that position holds? How far away are we from simply saying" The President can do anything, becasue he/she is the President?" That may seem far fetched, but 8 years ago, I'd have thought that giving the President emergency control of the internet was unheard of and unfathomable as well. When we start eroding the Constitution, and the rights it outlines and protects, we should expect the document to crumble at some point. You can only castrate it and or mutilate it so much before it becomes somehting we no longer recognize and that no longer holds meaning as it once did

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If total government control equals safety, why are prisons so dangerous?

SmokeyMcPott

Indeed, the last strongholds of anonymity and freedom are slowly slipping into the Big Brother madness. Fuck this bill.

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StonedCoder

This bill worries me. In many ways, this is as Big Brother-ish as the Patriot Act. I don't think this'll be the end of internet freedom but it'll get the ball rolling.

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Vicki

Obama's 'emergency' powers over Internet: Cybersecurity Bill S. 773 - Computerworld Blogs

I just got this in an email from Computer World Networking today.

It's proposed that the White House should have emergency powers to control the Internet. A bill would give Barack Obama 'cybersecurity' authority to disconnect users and professionally certify IT people. In IT Blogwatch, bloggers get really spun up about it.

By Richi Jennings. August 29, 2009.

Your humble blogwatcher has selected these bloggy morsels for your enjoyment. Not to mention boycotting Scotland...

Declan McCullagh takes liberties:


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. ... CBSNews.com has obtained a copy.
...
The new version allows 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.


Paul Boutin adds:


Senator John Davidson “Jay” Rockefeller IV — the Democratic great-grandson of oil mogul John D. Rockefeller — has been said to be working for months on ... S. 773, a bill whose stated goal is “to ensure the continued free flow of commerce within the United States and with its global trading partners through secure cyber communications, to provide for the continued development and exploitation of the Internet and intranet communications for such purposes, to provide for the development of a cadre of information technology specialists to improve and maintain effective cybersecurity defenses against disruption.”

Translation: It means the White House can order companies to disclose information, and possibly take control of their networks and computers, if the President declares them “critical” to an emergency involving the Internet.


Michael Masnick scratches his head:


The bigger issue is why the government should be taking control over private networks. This is the same gov't that doesn't let people in the State Department use Firefox and which thinks that RealPlayer is the state of the art in online video streaming. Even if there were a "cybersecurity emergency," I would think the last people I'd want to take charge would be the federal government.


David Risley ponders trust:


Some would argue that this is about protecting infrastructure. But, do you trust the government with authority over private networks? Remember, this is the same government who consistently gets failing grades on cybersecurity. Not only that, who defines what this “emergency” is? And what constitutes a “critical network”?
...
All it would take is some event that the administration declares an “emergency”, they could then stir up public fears, and begin quickly taking new authorities in the name of the public security.


But Xeni Jardin mocks the alert:


Well, this little viral number didn't take long to become the stuff of screaming Drudge sirens. The analogy the bill's authors use is that of the president's power to order all aircraft to land in the event of a systemwide emergency. That power is -- powerful! -- but we're generally OK with it. The Internet, of course, is different, in kind and expanse.
...
Maybe the White House should have this power in extreme emergencies, but it had better be clear about what those emergencies entail, and it had better accept accountability if it oversteps its authority. There is, aside from the obvious definitional issues, an inherent trade-off in codifying this power, and it's going to be tough to find a balance that satisfies everyone.


And Nicholas Deleon offers some balance:


If we can trust the president to declare federal states of emergency—think hurricanes and the like—why can’t we trust him with the ability to declare a “cyber” state of emergency? ... And then the government will make you eat fruits and vegetables! Tyranny!
...
Remember: it’s just a bill, and one that has already been revised in the past few months. Don’t be surprised if nothing at all comes from all of this. ... The point is, freaking out at the drop of a hat cannot be healthy.

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Hashishi

In eight years the number of people with access to the net has tripled and technology and e-commerce have come on leaps and bounds. Hackers managed to bring down the network of an entire country (I forget which one) last year in a sustained DDoS attack. A move like this is par for the course.

It's a shame, but the pioneering days are long behind us. Governments and businesses are waking up to the behemoth the internet's become and are falling over themselves to regulate it.

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Frid

Lets just make him king?

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