nora's blog

But the M$M is not paying any attention. Why would that be?

It's not like Russia is the size of Lichtenstein or something; that Russian landmass is mighty large on this Earth; it's not like the data from Russia can be disregarded!

Can it be because GE will get so much of the climate change funding, perhaps? Is the Corporate Media looking forward to all the Nuclear Power Industry ad contracts that are the REWARD for promoting "Climate Change", perhaps?

Anyway, some stuff:

Exhibit A: The original Russian news statement reported:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100020126/climategate-...

[excerpt]

Climategate goes SERIAL: now the Russians confirm that UK climate scientists manipulated data to exaggerate global warming

By James Delingpole Politics Last updated: December 16th, 2009

Climategate just got much, much bigger. And all thanks to the Russians who, with perfect timing, dropped this bombshell just as the world’s leaders are gathering in Copenhagen to discuss ways of carbon-taxing us all back to the dark ages.

Feast your eyes on this news release from Rionovosta, via the Ria Novosti agency, posted on Icecap. (Hat Tip: Richard North)

[quote] A discussion of the November 2009 Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident, referred to by some sources as “Climategate,” continues against the backdrop of the abortive UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen (COP15) discussing alternative agreements to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that aimed to combat global warming.

The incident involved an e-mail server used by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, East England. Unknown persons stole and anonymously disseminated thousands of e-mails and other documents dealing with the global-warming issue made over the course of 13 years.

Controversy arose after various allegations were made including that climate scientists colluded to withhold scientific evidence and manipulated data to make the case for global warming appear stronger than it is.

Climategate has already affected Russia. On Tuesday, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change based at the headquarters of the British Meteorological Office in Exeter (Devon, England) had probably tampered with Russian-climate data.

The IEA believes that Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory. Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations.

The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.

The HadCRUT database includes specific stations providing incomplete data and highlighting the global-warming process, rather than stations facilitating uninterrupted observations.

On the whole, climatologists use the incomplete findings of meteorological stations far more often than those providing complete observations.

IEA analysts say climatologists use the data of stations located in large populated centers that are influenced by the urban-warming effect more frequently than the correct data of remote stations.

The scale of global warming was exaggerated due to temperature distortions for Russia accounting for 12.5% of the world’s land mass. The IEA said it was necessary to recalculate all global-temperature data in order to assess the scale of such exaggeration.

Global-temperature data will have to be modified if similar climate-date procedures have been used from other national data because the calculations used by COP15 analysts, including financial calculations, are based on HadCRUT research. [unquote]

What the Russians are suggesting here, in other words, is that the entire global temperature record used by the IPCC to inform world government policy is a crock.

[end excerpt]

-----------

Exhibit B: First, the defensive tactic is to claim the Russians are the hackers.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/was-russian-secret-servic...

[excerpt]

Was Russian secret service behind leak of climate-change emails?

FSB accused of paying hackers to discredit scientists after stolen correspondence traced to server in Siberia

By Shaun Walker
Monday, 7 December 2009

The news that a leaked set of emails appeared to show senior climate scientists had manipulated data was shocking enough. Now the story has become more remarkable still.

The computer hack, said a senior member of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, was not an amateur job, but a highly sophisticated, politically motivated operation. And others went further. The guiding hand behind the leaks, the allegation went, was that of the Russian secret services.

[end excerpt]

-----------

Exhibit C: Admissions from some that the IPCC did some manipulation/fudging (see the graphs).

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1235395/SPECIAL-INVESTIGATION-Cl...

[excerpt]

‘Human-caused climate change is real, and I’m a strong advocate for action,’ he said. ‘But I’m also a strong advocate for integrity in science.’
Pielke’s verdict on the scandal is damning.

‘These emails open up the possibility that big scientific questions we’ve regarded as settled may need another look.

'They reveal that some of these scientists saw themselves not as neutral investigators but as warriors engaged in battle with the so-called sceptics.
‘They have lost a lot of credibility and as far as their being leading spokespeople on this issue of huge public importance, there is no going back.’
Climate science is complicated, and often the only way to make sense of raw data is through sophisticated statistical computer programs.
The consequence is that most lay individuals - politicians and members of the public alike - have little choice but to take the assurances of scientists such as Davies on trust.
He and other ‘global warmists’ often insist that when it comes to the IPCC’s main conclusions - that the Earth is in a period of potentially catastrophic warming and that the main culprit is man-made greenhouse gas emission - no serious scientist dissents from the conventional view.

[end excerpt]

-----------
Exhibit D: This one is the Dan-Rather-Exposes-George-Bush-Went-AWOL Formula, where it doesn't matter if the information the Russians related is CORRECT, if the messenger (Russians) can be smeared and that smearing overshadow the CORRECT information....

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/12/since-over-1...
[excerpt]

December 7, 2009 2:48 PM
Climategate: Russian secret service blamed for hack
Shanta Barley, reporter

The Russian secret service has been accused of masterminding the theft of the confidential data from one of the world's leading centres of climate change research. The charge comes as news emerges that hacked climate scientists have received death threats.

Since over 1000 emails were hacked from a server at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, it's been hard not to play climate change Cluedo: who committed the crime?

Rumours on the identity of the perpetrator now appear to be firming up, according to the Independent's Shaun Walker.

According to Walker, a senior member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has voiced suspicions that the hack job was not the handy work of a lone amateur but that of a "highly sophisticated, politically motivated operation."

[end excerpt]

There was a LINCOLN MUSEUM in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It contained the second largest repository of Lincoln-related original photos, pamphlets, clippings, books and documents like the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment. It was one of the key places to research Abraham Lincoln as well as a place for visitors to learn about Lincoln and his times and legacy. The collection and museum had its start about 1928. It was second only to the federal government's collection.

Now it gets peculiar.

The museum expanded, including all nature of computer and interactive innovations.

Then, it seems all of the sudden, there's the sign of the cut-throat: Index finger moving rapidly across the front of the neck.

"The Lincoln Museum closed on June 30, 2008, at the direction of the Lincoln Financial Foundation, the charitable arm of the Lincoln Financial Group." [Page 27, Lincoln's Lessons: Reflection of America's Greatest Leader, edited by Frank J. Williams and William D. Pederson, copyrighted 2009, Southern Illinois University Press]

Lincoln Financial Group is headquarterd in Philadelphia, PA. Saturday, we noticed during the ARMY-NAVY football game, the football field in Philly has sold its naming rights to the Lincoln Financial Group.

God Bless America!

Money for football field advertising, but damn the museum.

So these folks have spent big bucks gobbling up materials on Lincoln and the era of Abolition and Emancipation, the preservation of the Union, and granting equal rights, and now that material is made unavailable for educating Americans? WHY???

Lincoln Financial started out as an insurance company and use Abraham Lincoln's likeness/image as part of their logo.

An article on the museum's closure:

http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/newsitem.asp?ID=28147

P.S. 2009 was the Lincoln Bicentennial. So, uh, is there some symbolism to closing this Lincoln resource so it wouldn't be available for the bicentennial? Just asking.

A "hate crime" is an INTIMIDATING POLITICAL ACT -– an attempt to control others (not limited to one's victims) and force them to one’s will and one's end through FEAR and THREAT. Using the word “hate” is probably the problem here. The word “hate” insinuates that emotion is the drive here, but doesn't that disregard the political or religious ideologies and the specifics of their goals behind these "hate crimes"? As these idealogues are driven by the “INTENT” to commit crimes so that they can realize domination over others and the world, isn't there more to this criminal intent than "hate" alone?

Calling these specific acts of violence and intimidation/threat by the term “hate crimes” makes them seem akin to crimes of passion. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are premeditated and often planned and even predictable; they are even encouraged from a safe distance by those with real power (either of political position, media exposure, or popularity/celebrity of some kind) and they are ingrained in certain antisocial ideological platforms. And the ideological positions leading to so-called'hate' crimes are fomented through active FUNDING of groups that encourage this view. As long as bigotry, racism, sexism, etc. are allowed (wrongly imo) to be as acceptable political positions, I think what is now termed "hate crimes" would be more aptly described as “crimes of political prejudice”.

Maybe via this approach we can rip out of our political discourse the phony "positions" taken by bigots, racists, sexists, and slavers.

Today is the beginning of a new U.S. Supreme Court session. Randi Rhodes mentioned this, and the way the U.S. Supreme Court begins a session by TURNING DOWN appeals that have made it to their highest court -- and that there were over two thousand such refusals.

My Immodest Proposal for the U.S. Supreme Court is that -- SINCE our nation has changed and GROWN in geographical size and population of citizens -- the U.S. Supreme Court should grow in size as well to reflect that change and growing need, and do that by means of creating ADDITIONAL SEATS on the Supreme Court Bench. In this way, fairness to our population and their needs can be served and their many cases can be ruled more ON VALIDITY rather that just how many cases can be heard in a few months each year in the 'humanly possible' labor terms of a court with just nine justices.

Sure the U.S. Supreme Court Justices must guard against being overworked, because there are just too few of them.

I say increase the number of Justices -- increased by at least ten additional Justices -- so that they can review more cases in stages that permit valid cases to meet review in the high court as the Constitution intended without risk of dismissal for no other reason than lack of legal minds on the SPOTUS bench.

This would result in the simultaneous solution to another problem with the current court: The U.S. Supreme Court does not reflect the make-up of this nation and so fails to come to court with an understanding of the citizenry and their needs and expectations in relation to the Constitution. More specifically, the court's Justices consistently being white males is not reflective of our citizenry and having more Justices added could AT LAST balance that obvious injustice.

So, ADD MORE U.S. Supreme Court Justices of diverse backgrounds and so HEAR more cases, and simultaneously create a court that serves us both in its labor and representative make-up.

Others have suggested that the terms of the Justices be limited rather than granted for life. One suggestion is eighteen years. Before taking a position on that additional change, I would need to do more research. At present I believe wisdom (and I hope wisdom comes close to being objectivity) is something that grows and increases with age, but I need more proof before I would pass up an opportunity to address the length of terms of Supreme Court Justices if other changes were being made too.

I have a VERY warm spot in my heart for the alternative press represented by the ALTERNATIVE NEWSWEEKLIES. They were born during the 1960s and I appreciate that; these publications are a true remnant of that time of intellectual revolution.

We know these newsweeklies best as a source for entertainment reviews and listings, local dining info, and affordable advertising, and many good hours reading at coffee shops or on public transportation. But they are so much more: Local reporting, investigative reporting, tough editorials, pre-election ballot analysis, book reviews, and alternative and political cartoons.

We need them more than ever. And so many can be accessed online and have great websites too.

A good source of finding the websites of ALTERNATIVE NEWSWEEKLIES is the directory of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies (AAN):

http://aan.org/alternative/Aan/NewsweeklyDirectory

And here's the AAN's homepage:

http://aan.org/alternative/Aan/index

In order to belong to the AAN, a publication must meet certain criteria and be independent of those large M$M dailies.

Here is a sampling of some of the great Alternative Newsweekly articles:

Conspiracy's place in popular culture gets the x-ray treatment from movie specialist Peter Keough in the BOSTON PHOENIX; fasten your seatbelt, and read "The Plots Thicken":

http://thephoenix.com/Boston/Movies/89463-plots-thicken/

The CHARLESTON CITY PAPER has an annual Gay Issue. (When was the last time your local daily or your fav TV network did that?)

http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/the-gay-issue-2009/Categor...

At BLACK & WHITE in Birmingham, columnist Chuck Geiss in his regular spot "Naked Birmingham" adds to the PBS Jim Leher coverage of a 52-mile new highway -- AS ONLY THE LOCAL REPORTER CAN DO IT.

http://www.bwcitypaper.com/Articles-i-2009-08-20-230997.113121_Naked_Bir...

Read how to buy locally ('local consumption') and thereby strengthen your greeness and boycott Whole Foods at the same time! Jay Youngdahl reviews the book "Localists Movements in a Global Economy: Sustainability, Justice and Urban Development in the United States" by David Hess. See clearly at last thanks to the EAST BAY EXPRESS!

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/news/what_does_buying_local_really_mean_/C...

The latest news on the blog at The TUCSON WEEKLY: Planned Parenthood Arizona sues state of Arizona over state abortion restrictions--

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2009/09/14/planned-parenth...

The future of California in a globalist world? P. Joseph Potocki looks at the way globalists think about tidy economic packages called "megaregion city states" and what that could mean for a spot like the San Francisco area where SO many wealthy individuals dominate the economy. The question (perhaps already answered in globalist circles) is "Should California split in two?" is addressed in the NORTHBAY BOHEMIAN:

http://www.bohemian.com/bohemian/09.09.09/feature-0936.html

--------------------------------------------

Dear Reader, please support your local Alternative Newsweekly AND visit the websites of other Alternative Newsweeklies around the country, too.

Hey, I just read in the dictionary that 'cosmos' means order, harmony, organization; a complete and orderly system. It's the opposite of 'chaos'.

I'm really passed being bullied by the CHAOS of the Corporatists, both Dem and Rep -- their profiteering at any cost, their dealing death and destruction at home and abroad to people, animals, habitat the Planet itself; non-stop aggression and destruction disguised as 'war', followed by further exploitation and imperialism disguised as 'peace'. Test tube creations given more value than the natural miraculousness of Life itself. Lies passed off as facts, propaganda marketed as truth, and fearmongering used as a strength.

I say it's time to leap out of the chaotic pack of blathering, foaming-at-the-mouth profiteers and their technological-industrial-monetary nightmare. Leap over them and start the COSMOS PARTY. No need to run with them in their howling pack.

Leap out of the their mess, and surround them with our greater numbers. Take the entropy of their activities and behavior and replace that with syntropy!

Shall we smother them with compassion, love, caring, harmoniousness, expanding awareness, conscious evolution and critical problem-solving? It's a possibility.

But mostly -- in a world that's forgetting true Beauty and real Peace because for too long it has been dominated by deliberately chaotic ways -- a COSMIC approach will CREATE BALANCE.

Actually, isn't there a side of U.S. public schools as envisioned in the 1800s and early 1900s that is ripe for questioning and even rejection or repair? The social Darwinists or reform Darwinists, or whatever these social engineers are called, were trying to figure out a way to rapidly change a population, even applying the manufacturing assemblyline method to human beings in order to create a homogeneous consumer market for propaganda of all kinds.

The idea AT ITS WORST really did smack of a grand plan to separate children from the circle of family and family influence and family participation and family continuity (few if any hours left in the day for a child to help with, learn from the family's business/work/farm, etc.). The result is a child molded to have more connection to the institutions of the state and business world than to the family institution. Afterall, the school substitute for family is only a temporary 'community' for the child.

Actually, isn't there a side of U.S. public schools as envisioned in the 1800s and early 1900s that is ripe for questioning and even rejection or repair? The social Darwinists or reform Darwinists, or whatever these social engineers are called, were trying to figure out a way to rapidly change a population, even applying the manufacturing assemblyline method to human beings in order to create a homogeneous consumer market for propaganda of all kinds.

The idea AT ITS WORST really did smack of a grand plan to separate children from the circle of family and family influence and family participation and family continuity (few if any hours left in the day for a child to help with, learn from the family's business/work/farm, etc.). The result is a child molded to have more connection to the institutions of the state and business world than to the family institution. Afterall, the school substitute for family is only a temporary 'community' for the child.

When I first read about this stuff, I was surprised, as I was smack dab in the school institution and enjoyed all the learning it makes possible. But the school is not necessarily a 'community' that one participates in building and remains a part of (even if one does go into education as a profession). Schools are indeed an institutional SURROGATE for what one is expected to enter when school ends: The corporate-created institutions of higher learning, business and commerce, and the state institutions of bureaucracy and military.

Like I said, when I first read about this, it was not understandable. But it became clearer when suddenly school was "over". That's when one realizes it all is not about learning itself, but what the powerful institutions outside school want you to learn.

Unfortunately, if the Left is unwilling to acknowledge the history of our schools, the Right is not so squeamish. (This could be the source of the gap in the current polarization.)

This issue is kept alive today in the awful aspects of what has happened to public schools via the removal of 1/ civics and 2/ art and 3/ vocational classes from the curriculum, and also (and most disgustingly) the domination of textbook content by a few (like that faction in Texas), and as a moneystream for Bush Crime Family schemes via their "testing" scam called "No Child Left Behind". Oh, and add to that the attempt to remove biology via the assault on reproduction/sex education and 'evolution'. Now the school envisioned as a "factory" is not only standarizing its assemblyline 'product', but the 'product' is showing numerous additional defects.

Asking why the society's institutions outside school want a student/graduate (product) devoid of artistic aesthetics and training, vocational skills and governmental/community understanding can only lead to musings about a greater sinister game taking place. Because these three areas have so much to do with a one's sense of self expression and independence; without them one becomes a mere 'consumer' in a Consumer Culture. However, with these one is equipped to be a citizen in one's community (from civics), make one's own art (from art classes), and barter one's way to make a living in a pinch (vocational training). And to remove an understanding of biology/nature too?! Here one is heading into some kind of creepy sci-fi culture where a Corporate Theocracy of Technology overwhelms everything else! Indeed, if huge numbers of Americans are expected to 'languish' unemployable, why make them 'products' of any viable education whatsoever? Contemplating the answer to this is additionally disturbing, and takes one into substandard schools in poverty-ridden areas and inner city ghettos -- and the possibility that there is an approach that says, "Why bother? Why invest? We don't need an unemployable class that's educated." Contemplating this makes one grapple with the possible lack of values here that learning and education are not respected and valued for their role in bringing richness and meaning to the lives of individual humans, that education only has worth if it results in eventual profits for those who rule.

Our President Obama is really good at instilling "hope" and I think our kids could use some too, because we know they are viscerally picking up a lot of adult stress right now in this Bushcession, and these kids need all the inspirational direction they can get. I would feel more hopeful if, in conjunction with a peptalk to the kids, Obama were simultaneously going to present to us adults a plan to REPAIR (and, Heaven help us -- rename) "No Child Left Behind", to RESTORE civics, art and vocational classes, and to RENEW an understanding of biology on the human level (organic farming, green living low-tech, human health like wholesome food and responsible personal hygiene of all kinds (human reproductive understanding would be just one of many ways of choosing to be responsible and hygienic), applied appreciation of the natural world, skills in reforestation and habitat restoration, and so on).

The point is, our school system is a means of cultural indoctrination. It was conceived that way and if we deny that source, how can we ever use it applying ethics or change it to become something better?

Obama needs to take this challenge presented by the Rightwing Culture War Crowd and, rather than REACTING to it defensively, to take it as a springboard for transforming our schools. Dang it, if Bush could use the Federal funding system to paralyze and regress our public school system, Obama should be able to step in to reverse that damage and more! That's what presidential leadership is about.

The West has turned to sources outside itself for ideas and inspiration and especially for 'borrowing' ideas as a result of direct consumption of the commodities of both trade as well as pure Western imperialist dominator absorption.
One example of this is Orientalism -- in all its forms. One form was "Turquerie":

http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Turquerie

[excerpt]

Turquerie is the Orientalist fashion for imitating aspects of Turkish art and culture in Western Europe between roughly the 16th to 18th centuries. The movement was experienced by many different Western European countries as it revealed the exotic and relatively unknown culture of Turkey, which was part of the Ottoman Empire, and at the beginning of the period the only power to pose a serious military threat to Europe. There was a growing interest in the West in Turkish-made products and art, including music, visual arts, architecture, and sculptures. This fashionable phenomenon became more popular through trading routes and increased diplomatic relationships between the Ottomans and the European nations, exemplified by the Persian embassy to Louis XIV in 1715. Ambassadors and traders would often return home and tell tales of exotic places they had experienced, bringing with them souvenirs of their adventures.

The movement was often reflected in the art of the period. Music, paintings, architecture, and artifacts were frequently inspired by the Turkish and Ottoman styles and methods. Paintings in particular portrayed the Ottomans with bright colours and sharp contrasts, suggesting their interesting peculiarity and exotic nature.

[end excerpt]

After consuming "Turkish" ballets and operas and fashions and adapting the finery of Middle Eastern expression for centuries, the Western powers decided they wanted the Ottoman Empire itself and made this their imperialist purpose for World War I.
But Western Imperialism (and most especially its current Corporate product line of consumer goods and imaginary attendant lifestyle) is like a Doomsday Machine that devours and feeds off the very victims it depends on as the source of purpose and interest in life.

As Western Imperialist Powers continue to destabilize and take control of nations, what blinds them from seeing that Western Corporate MonoCulture is killing the very font of unique diverse creativity that the West has guzzled from and relied on for centuries?

What will the transnational corporations and the imperialists of the West do when they've finally dominated all the Earth's peoples and subjected them all to the Western Corporate MonoCulture and forced all peoples to adopt its mind-numbing, creativity-stifling consumerism?

Western Culture has a sickness. It is a sickness of the unacknowledged inadequacy of its insatiable HUNGER overlayed with compensatory SUPERIORITY and OVER-CONSUMPTION that has been going on too long.

(The West keeps expanding, spreading, crowding over one continent after another, and yet, it is Western Culture that decries the "over population" of the so-called 'Third World'! That's the pot calling the kettle black.)

And when creative expression does pop-up spontaneously in the West, what is the response? Is it embraced, celebrated, encouraged?

Under the circumstances of corporate domination, it is no surprise, then, that the most ORIGINAL (and non-corporate!) creative expression in Western Culture (since Jazz/Blues?--also non-corporate!) has met with nothing but derision for half a century. The Back-to-the-Earth/Love/ExpandingConsciousness art-of-living of the Hippies and those they inspired -- was deemed (and continues to be deemed) freakish and degenerate here in the U.S.A. The U.S.A., which is the locale of Western Corporate MonoCulture's greatest foothold, certainly is not the place the Corporations will tolerate anti-consumerism taken to an ART FORM! Throw those hippies in jail forever and refer to them using dismissive and demeaning terms: Let anyone who strays from the Corporate MonoCulture know that they too will be called a pothead/filthy hippie. Dare to live outside the MonoCulture and you too can open yourself to total ostracization.

It took half a century, but the Corporate Giants have worked hard to make it harder for plain folks to hold on to a house, let alone attain the land to get-back-to.

FYI - A bill that furthers an authoritarian grip on information flow -- this time under the guise of possible future emergencies

What if this sort pf thing had been instituted against Ben Franklin's state of the art printing presses and publishing?

What if this kind of authoritarian control had been instituted by law against publishing from the start, instead of protecting the freedom of the press in the Constitution?!

If we are going to preserve 'freedom of the press', and The Public's right to access the public airwaves and the ability to create/produce content must be preserved. This ability to access media --both as consumer and generator -- already has been frozen by the corporate media, and chilled by the introduction of paid cable (The Public owns the airwaves, but you cannot see the broadcasts unless you pay). We must make sure that news, information, opinion, publishing, and education be placed in a category that provides and protects them from being shutdown and/or censored even in times of emergency, perhaps especially in times of emergency.

We finally are forming some cyber alternatives to the shenanigans of Corporatized Mainstream Media, and the M$M's bizarre forms of censorship, toeing the corporate line, and the resulting propagandistic forms of limiting information to The Public.

Over two hundred years ago the use of the Alien and Sedition Acts were used to shut down publishers and limit dissenting views, but cooler, saner heads prevailed. Today, also in the name of "emergencies", it appears that the new cybermedia will also come against such authoritararianism and desire to take away our voice in the comminity. It was unacceptable THEN and it is unacceptable NOW.

Best regards, nora

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10320096-38.html

[excerpt]

Bill would give president emergency control of Internet
by Declan McCullagh Font size Print E-mail Share 325 comments 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.

...

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."

[end excerpt]