Obama Can't Turn Off the Internet

The sweeping cybersecurity bill from Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Tom Carper, D-Del., has come under unfounded fire for giving government the authority to shut down Internet services during emergencies. For the life of me, I can't find where it says this in the bill.

In section 249, under "National Cyber Emergencies" there is nothing linking a presidential declaration of a national cyber emergency to a "kill switch" for turning off the Internet. It simply does not exist. In fact, the president already has the authority to shut down communications networks, but that authority has nothing to do with this bill. Rather, it's part of the 1934 Communications Act.

The criticism is just another poor attempt to divert attention away from the pieces of the legislation that really matter. For example, the shift from compliance by paper to continuous monitoring will save the federal government hundreds of millions of dollars annually. But you rarely see it reported by the media or the blogosphere.

Instead, both mediums continue to propagate lies that have been repeated hundreds of time and so are assumed true. The only authority S.3480 gives the president is to direct the ISPs to filter specific attack traffic or traffic from specific bad places.

The complaints you are hearing are just like the ones the automobile industry used when they didn't want to put seat belts in cars. The industry claimed that passengers would not be able to get the belts off quickly enough and would be burned to death in accidents.

Dirty politics won't be enough to sink what is a very good bill. This won't be a Harry and Louise situation. Once the bill makes it to the floor, it should have the support it needs to become law.