A US Senate committee has approved a wide-ranging cybersecurity bill that will give President Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) the authority to shut down parts of the Internet during a cyberattack.

Bill sponsors, including Senator Joe Lieberman,  have denied charges that the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act gives the president an Internet “kill switch.”   They claim that the bill puts limits on the powers the president already has to cause “the closing of any facility or stations for wire communication” in a time of war, as described in the Communications Act of 1934.     This was the act that created the Federal Communications Commission “for the purpose of regulating interstate and foreign commerce in communication by wire and radio”.   A breakdown of the bill  can be found on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee website.

The committee unanimously approved an amended version of the legislation by voice vote last Thursday.   A vote by the full Senate has not yet been scheduled.

The bill would create a White House Office for Cyberspace Policy and a National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications.  This office would work with private US companies to create cybersecurity requirements for the electrical grid, telecommunications networks and other critical infrastructure.

This bill would all Obama to take emergency actions to protect critical parts of the Internet.  He would be able to order owners of critical infrastructure to implement emergency response plans, during a cyber-emergency (including a possible shutdown of their services).    Obama can declare a national cyber-emergency for 120 days by Executive Order.   The president would need congressional approval to extend a national cyber-emergency beyond 120 days under an amendment to the legislation approved by the committee.

Joe Lieberman said that the legislation would give the US Department of Homeland Security (headed by Big Sis) authority that it does not now have to respond to cyber-attacks:

Our responsibility for cyber defence goes well beyond the public sector because so much of cyberspace is owned and operated by the private sector.  The Department of Homeland Security has actually shown that vulnerabilities in key private sector networks like utilities and communications could bring our economy down for a period of time if attacked or commandeered by a foreign power or cyber terrorists.

Other sponsors of the bill are Senators Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, and Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat.  I’m shocked, I tell you.

One critic said Thursday that the bill will hurt the nation’s security, not help it.  Wayne Crews, vice president for policy and director of technology studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, an anti-regulation think tank said that security products operate in a competitive market that works best without heavy government intervention.

 Crews wrote in an e-mail:

Policymakers should reject such proposals to centralize cyber security risk management.  “The Internet that will evolve if government can resort to a ‘kill switch’ will be vastly different from, and inferior to, the safer one that will emerge otherwise.

Cybersecurity technologies and services thrive on competition.  The unmistakable tenor of the cybersecurity discussion today is that of government steering while the market rows.  To be sure, law enforcement has a crucial role in punishing intrusions on private networks and infrastructure. But government must coexist with, rather than crowd out, private sector security technologies.

Last Wednesday, 24 privacy and civil liberties groups sent a letter expressing their concerns about the legislation to the sponsors.  The bill gives the new National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications “significant authority” over critical infrastructure, but doesn’t define what critical infrastructure is covered, the group wrote in their letter.

The letter, signed by the Center for Democracy and Technology, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other groups also said:

Without a definition of critical infrastructure there are concerns that “it includes elements of the Internet that Americans rely on every day to engage in free speech and to access information.

Changes are needed to ensure that cybersecurity measures do not unnecessarily infringe on free speech, privacy, and other civil liberties interests.

In more administration messing with the Internet news:

The White House outlined a massive program to make online transactions more secure on Friday. This move is the most ambitious scheme to emerge from a cybersecurity policy intended to blunt the growing menace of online crime.

Howard Schmidt,Obama’s cybersecurity co-ordinator since early 2010, released the strategy paper after 12 months of discussions led by the National Security Council and involving scores of private sector groups, critical infrastructure owners and privacy advocates.

A set of standards would let multiple vendors offer authentication services, while people whose identities have been verified would be able to move from website to website without resubmitting information.  A cyber version of a National ID card?  Papers.  Let me see your papers, please.

Privacy protections would require companies involved to limit their collection and dissemination of personal data, for example confirming that a consumer is over 21 without passing along the person’s birth date.  Uh huh.

The government would take the lead by establishing the standards and subscribing to authentication services.  Yeah.  I feel safer already.

Internet companies and government agencies have been behind the idea of multipurpose identification systems for a while now, but it never has been implemented in part because of limited incentives for participation. As a result, a bank will have one set of protocols for establishing a client’s identity, while a state agency and hospital have others. 

Obama and his administration will rely on Congressional and private sector support to push forward this new effort.

Aris Schwartz, vice-president of the Center for Democracy and Technology said:

This is a vision and you need that, but they’re going to need to work with Congress and get government agencies to test out different pieces of this.  

Legislation involving internet security issues is hard to draft because it overlaps into so many political areas.  However, in the maddening push by Obama and his adminstration to go full Alinsky with his ideological plans, his minion, Sen Dinghy Harry Reid, is doing all he can to keep the pedal to the metal, along with some seemingly oblivious accomplices.

Does anyone have a used CB radio they want to sell?

Sources:  drudgereport.com, techworld.com, ft.com, criminalgovernment.com