Cybersecurity Act of 2009

[ChuckBurrows]

I generally stay away from politics on boards, but as a an unrepentant beleiver in personal responsibility and choice this one is scary.......

By Drew Zahn

© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Sen. John "Jay" Rockefeller, D-W.V.

A pair of bills introduced in the U.S. Senate would grant the White House sweeping new powers to access private online data, regulate the cybersecurity industry and even shut down Internet traffic during a declared "cyber emergency."

Senate bills No. 773 and 778, introduced by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V., are both part of what's being called the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, which would create a new Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor, reportable directly to the president and charged with defending the country from cyber attack.

A working draft of the legislation obtained by an Internet privacy group also spells out plans to grant the Secretary of Commerce access to all privately owned information networks deemed to be critical to the nation's infrastructure "without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule or policy restricting such access."

Who might be watching you without you knowing it? Get "Spychips" and see how major corporations and government are planning to track your every move!

Privacy advocates and Internet experts have been quick to sound the alarm over the act's broadly drawn government powers.

"The cybersecurity threat is real," says Leslie Harris, president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, which obtained the draft of S.773, "but such a drastic federal intervention in private communications technology and networks could harm both security and privacy."

"The whole thing smells bad to me," writes Larry Seltzer in eWeek, an Internet and print news source on technology issues. "I don't like the chances of the government improving this situation by taking it over generally, and I definitely don't like the idea of politicizing this authority by putting it in the direct control of the president."

According to a Senate document explaining the bill, the legislation "addresses our country's unacceptable vulnerability to massive cyber crime, global cyber espionage and cyber attacks that could cripple our critical infrastructure."

In a statement explaining the bill's introduction, Sen. Rockefeller said, "We must protect our critical infrastructure at all costs – from our water to our electricity, to banking, traffic lights and electronic health records – the list goes on."

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, who is co-sponsoring the bill, added, "If we fail to take swift action, we, regrettably, risk a cyber-Katrina."

Critics, however, have pointed to three actions Rockefeller and Snowe propose that may violate both privacy concerns and even constitutional bounds:

First, the White House, through the national cybersecurity advisor, shall have the authority to disconnect "critical infrastructure" networks from the Internet – including private citizens' banks and health records, if Rockefeller's examples are accurate – if they are found to be at risk of cyber attack. The working copy of the bill, however, does not define what constitutes a cybersecurity emergency, and apparently leaves the question to the discretion of the president.

Second, the bill establishes the Department of Commerce as "the clearinghouse of cybersecurity threat and vulnerability information," including the monitoring of private information networks deemed a part of the "critical infrastructure."

Third, the legislation proposes implementation of a professional licensing program for certifying who can serve as a cybersecurity professional.

And while the critics concede the need for increased security, they object to what is perceived as a dangerous and intrusive expansion of government power.

"There are some problems that we face which need the weight of government behind them," writes Seltzer in eWeek. "This is not the same as creating a new federal bureaucracy setting rules over what computer security has to be and who can do it."

"It's an incredibly broad authority," CDT senior counsel Greg Nojeim told the Mother Jones news website, troubled that existing privacy laws "could fall to this authority."

Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Mother Jones the bill is "contrary to what the Constitution promises us."

According to Granick, granting the Department of Commerce oversight of the "critical" networks, such as banking records, would grant the government access to potentially incriminating information obtained without cause or warrant, a violation of the Constitution's prohibition against unlawful search and seizure.

"What are the critical infrastructure networks? The examples provided are 'banking, utilities, air/rail/auto traffic control, telecommunications.' Let's think about this," writes Seltzer. "I'm especially curious as to how you take the telecommunications networks off of the Internet when they are, in large part, what the Internet is comprised of. And if my bank were taken offline, I would think about going into my branch and asking for all of my deposits in cash."

S. 778, which would establish the Office of the National Security Advisor, and S. 773, which provides for developing a cadre of governmental cybersecurity specialists and procedures, have both been read twice and referred to committee in the Senate

Edited April 5, 2009 by ChuckBurrows

[UKRay]

I generally stay away from politics on boards, but as a an unrepentant beleiver in personal responsibility and choice this one is scary.......

I can't help but agree with you, Chuck. I have been watching this one for quite a while - since the days when the British government (and doubtless the US too) wanted to impose 'Key Escrow' on anyone involved in encrypted internet traffic. The idea being that you could encrypt your data but you had to share the key with the government.

PGP put paid to that nonsense with a free to use encryption package that is too difficult to crack (not impossible, but very time consuming and not really worth the effort in most cases).

Now they want to monitor all telephone, internet and wireless traffic. Big Brother is definitely getting more adventurous and ambitious!

I'm not altogether sure they have the ability to completely shut down or hijack the internet but I'd appreciate an advised opinion from someone like Bree as it would play heck with my eBay leather orders! LOL

[TexasJack]

"...cyber-Katrina..."?!?

They really do set the bar low for election to Congress, don't they. We have a Congresswoman who asked the folks at NASA if they were going to bring back the flag Neil Armstrong planted on Mars. Yes, she said Mars. They tried to gently correct her and she told them she knew what she was talking about. Jay Rockefeller isn't even from WV. He moved there because he could afford to out finance opponents.

Hitler did a lot of things in the name of national security.

The really funny part is that they don't even understand how much traffic they'd have to monitor. They already scan for keywords, but it's really easy to switch those around. I have this picture of gov't cyberweenies in a dark underground room scanning email. "Go wake the President. Burrows has made another holster."

[china]

you are not alone our prime minister is pushing for the same thing.

[JohnBarton]

"Those who would trade a little liberty for a little security deserve neither". Ben Franklin.

The internet was created to prevent large scale attacks on the system through the packet and routing system. It works unless the governments of the world allow all internet traffic to be bottlenecked and controlled by the few.

The private sector has shown that it is incredibly adept at warding off attacks by hackers and virus writers. Example is the latest Conficker worm that the world community has attacked and virtually neutralized despite not knowing who wrote it or what it is supposed to do.

I would bet that half the elected officials in Congress barely know how to use email much less have any clue about what the internet is about and how it really works. As if there would some massive attack on the "internet" that would cripple it........good luck - not gonna happen because the Internet runs on Linux :-)

Hopefully this bill will die. Don't we have more pressing things going on that need attention?

[Hilly]

According to Google, senate bill 778

Current Bill Summary

HCS/SS/SCS/SB 778 - This act provides that female students enrolling in sixth grade in a public school may receive, at the option of a parent or guardian, an immunization for the human papillomavirus (HPV).

According to Google, senate bill 773 BILL INFO-2009 Regular Session-SB 773

Synopsis:

Requiring the Public Service Commission to establish a surcharge on wind-powered electric generating facilities; requiring the Comptroller to collect the revenue from the surcharge and deposit it into the Maryland Wind-Powered Electric Generating Facility Decommissioning and Restoration Fund; authorizing a wind-powered electric generating facility to post a bond or other security acceptable to the Commission in lieu of the surcharge; etc.

[HorsehairBraider]

I'm with Hilly on this.

Here's a site listing all bills introduced by Sen. Rockefeller: Rockefeller Bills Not only are the two bills mentioned not on the list, there is a bill near the bottom (SR. 191) that would help establish broadband service more widely - which will actually help more people get on the internet!

It's always a good idea to check stuff out for yourself. The guy that wrote the cited article may have made a completely honest mistake, although of course I'd have hoped he would have checked his facts out a little more thoroughly. Still, *anyone* can make a mistake.

[whinewine]

I'm with Hilly on this.

Here's a site listing all bills introduced by Sen. Rockefeller: Rockefeller Bills Not only are the two bills mentioned not on the list, there is a bill near the bottom (SR. 191) that would help establish broadband service more widely - which will actually help more people get on the internet!

It's always a good idea to check stuff out for yourself. The guy that wrote the cited article may have made a completely honest mistake, although of course I'd have hoped he would have checked his facts out a little more thoroughly. Still, *anyone* can make a mistake.

A lot of stuff circulating out there is totally false, or urban legend. I always run stuff like this through http://www.snopes.com for verification. So far I have been unable to find anything associating Sen Rockefeller with the Cybersecurity Act of 2009. I have also found nothing at snopes for cybersecurity, cybersecurity act or cybersecurity act of 2009. I had submitted a request for verification to Snopes yesterday about this.

So this looks like another nutwing conspiracy bit of garbage put out by the fringe wackos..

Before you jump on the bandwagon, check out the facts. If it can't be verified, IT'S NOT TRUE!!! (Except in the minds of those who believe in conspiracies, fairies & the flat earth).

russ

[MHolzer]

Wow, only three posts in and Godwin's law has been invoked.

[HorsehairBraider]

Wow, only three posts in and Godwin's law has been invoked.

Just shows how careful you have to be!

[whinewine]

I just put into snopes 'worldnetdaily' & came up with some interesting tidbits of information: they spout controversial topics often "reported" by fringe bloggers without independent substantiation and/or verification for truth or accuracy...

some of it is true,

some of it is partially true & partially false,

& some of it is totally false.

I also Googled WorldNetDaily: among other sources, Wikipedia also notes that they are considered unreliable in the reporting field because they tend NOT TO VERIFY their info:

[hello, VERY BAD JOURNALISM, when it comes to truth vs conspiracies, fairies & flat earth...]