Clamping down on cybermedia

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]