newsfeed.time.com— A proposed bill could effectively give the president an Internet "kill switch. Senator Joseph Lieberman has proposed the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act (PCNAA)
Jun 18, 2010View in Crawl 4
What about the freedom of speech? The internet is a tool of speech against the tyranny of big government and a primary means to rally public sediment against the injustices that they may bring about. It is a means to control their excesses. They can "declare" a state of emergency for any reason and if this goes through they just shut any dissent at just a whim and do what ever they please.
Hey I'm all for free communication before, during, and after a crisis. The problem is that too much other stuff is connected and controlled through the internet. As far as the government cutting off the internet to stop some kind of internal communication, not going to happen. This isn't Iran, like I said too much infrastructure is connected. The economic cost for that would be too high to do that without something major happening.Don't get me wrong our government probably already filters certain websites, servers, and other things out of the internet. That's not what were talking about though, what is on the table is severe disruption and/or death of a percentage of our population. I guess a lot of people don't believe that something bad like that could happen. Here is a simple scenario that could happen.China needs more oil, so they start drilling wells around Cuba, which they already own the mineral right to. Say one, two, or three wells start leaking, just like BP's. Well them being owned by China with their pollution standards that they are, coupled with the wells being on the other side of the world from them. They just abandon them and it kills the gulf. Stops 1/4 of all the fishing in the US, none of the other oil rigs in the gulf can operate even the ones owned by us. Gas prices sky rocket, severely hurting our economy. We retaliate against China for the catastrophe by placing sanctions on them. This pisses them off to the point that they decide to roll the dice and see if they can become a superpower. China launches a full scale cyber attack to cripple the US. With our infrastructure in shambles we can't support out military at the back end and with the delay it takes for us to get back on our feet, bingo China becomes a superpower. No world war, no nukes, and no going to the UN. But hey we might still have Twitter.
bshockJun 19, 2010
The internet doesn't need a kill switch, but maybe Lieberman should have one for his political career.
necromorph23Jun 19, 2010
You sir are an idiot.
Closed AccountJun 19, 2010
This is what happens when Democrats are in office. Great thinking moron.
gamemonkeyJun 20, 2010
the man said "/thread"
wjappeJun 20, 2010
What about the freedom of speech? The internet is a tool of speech against the tyranny of big government and a primary means to rally public sediment against the injustices that they may bring about. It is a means to control their excesses. They can "declare" a state of emergency for any reason and if this goes through they just shut any dissent at just a whim and do what ever they please.
stechatoJun 21, 2010
The government has been testing the "Kill Switch" on Twitter. The tests were successful.
stillavantisJun 21, 2010
Hey I'm all for free communication before, during, and after a crisis. The problem is that too much other stuff is connected and controlled through the internet. As far as the government cutting off the internet to stop some kind of internal communication, not going to happen. This isn't Iran, like I said too much infrastructure is connected. The economic cost for that would be too high to do that without something major happening.Don't get me wrong our government probably already filters certain websites, servers, and other things out of the internet. That's not what were talking about though, what is on the table is severe disruption and/or death of a percentage of our population. I guess a lot of people don't believe that something bad like that could happen. Here is a simple scenario that could happen.China needs more oil, so they start drilling wells around Cuba, which they already own the mineral right to. Say one, two, or three wells start leaking, just like BP's. Well them being owned by China with their pollution standards that they are, coupled with the wells being on the other side of the world from them. They just abandon them and it kills the gulf. Stops 1/4 of all the fishing in the US, none of the other oil rigs in the gulf can operate even the ones owned by us. Gas prices sky rocket, severely hurting our economy. We retaliate against China for the catastrophe by placing sanctions on them. This pisses them off to the point that they decide to roll the dice and see if they can become a superpower. China launches a full scale cyber attack to cripple the US. With our infrastructure in shambles we can't support out military at the back end and with the delay it takes for us to get back on our feet, bingo China becomes a superpower. No world war, no nukes, and no going to the UN. But hey we might still have Twitter.