“The legislation says that companies such as broadband providers, search engines or software firms that the US Government selects ‘shall immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed’ by the Department of Homeland Security,” McCullagh reports. “Anyone failing to comply would be fined.”
“That emergency authority would allow the Federal Government to “preserve those networks and assets and our country and protect our people,” Joe Lieberman, the primary sponsor of the measure and the chairman of the Homeland Security committee, told reporters on Thursday,” McCullagh reports. “Lieberman is an independent senator from Connecticut who meets with the Democrats.”
McCullagh reports, “Due to there being few limits on the US President’s emergency power, which can be renewed indefinitely, the densely worded 197-page Bill (PDF) is likely to encounter stiff opposition.”
Under Lieberman’s Bill, which is formally titled Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, or PCNAA “the Federal Government’s power to force private companies to comply with emergency decrees would become unusually broad,” McCullagh reports. “Any company on a list created by Homeland Security that also ‘relies on’ the internet, the telephone system or any other component of the US ‘information infrastructure’ would be subject to command by a new National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications (NCCC) that would be created inside Homeland Security.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Numerous politicians have seized absolute power and muzzled the press. Never in history has the press seized absolute power and muzzled the politicians. – David Brinkley
When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace. – Jimi Hendrix
Their insatiable lust for power is only equaled by their incurable impotence in exercising it. – Winston Churchill
It is said that power corrupts, but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. – David Brin
The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves. – William Hazlitt
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
For some reason I think this idea came from Red China.
Can you say Dictator?
US needs to give up it’s controll over the Internet. The controll needs to be placed in an international independent body with representants from all over the world.
I challenge anyone to give one good reason why any President should have this power. I’m pretty sure no terrorist attack can make my iMac blow up in my face, and the joke that any business which “relies on” the internet basically includes everyone. Even ditch diggers are looking up info on the county’s websites these days!
This is nothing more than Washington (both parties) trying to gain control over the internet, because Washington can’t control what people say on the internet. The good, the bad, the ugly, the internet is the ultimate free speech medium.
@PR, been stifling free speech long?
“This is about the mac or Apple uh….how?”
Seems @PR, Apple is a software firm…
“The legislation says that companies such as broadband providers, search engines or software firms that the US Government selects ‘shall immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed’ by the Department of Homeland Security,” McCullagh reports. “Anyone failing to comply would be fined.”
Bush would be hung in effigy over this, while I doubt you will hear about this on tonights news.
What? Is Lieberman taking direction from the Chinese now? Didn’t they tell the search engine Google to “comply”?… emergency or not, when government gets to prepare a list of dos and don’t and then has enforcement power over you, first by a fine, but who wants to bet that ‘imprisonment’ is not too far behind… over something that is guaranteed to be a Constitutional Right!
“This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today.” Sorry to break this to you but with the morons we have today, “this book”, couldn’t be written! They are not smart enough or oppressed enough to know what Liberty and Freedom is!
http://www.prisonplanet.com/publisher-slaps-outdated-warning-on-u-s-constitution-founding-documents.html
Somewhere I smell First Amendment violations… Hello Supreme Court…
ironic, MDN Magic Word: ‘british’
@Greg L
In a nuclear world their are only two options between super powers – annihilation or peace. If, as you propose, China wanted to go to war with America, don’t you think they would launch nukes along with attacking our information infrastructure?
You better hope that the “nitwits” you speak of have more common sense than you do unless you think a nuclear war is winnable?
Threat inflation has always been the fear tactic of the lowest common denominator and folks like you keep it going with short-sighted statements like the one you made. Think. Read. Don’t just parrot what you hear on the radio. Use all these great Apple products to access some information that just may broaden your perspective a bit.
@enmayche
Thank you…I truly respect your attitude and the way you express it (even though I disagree about MDN’s encouragement of political posts on an information site about Macs and Apple)…
Hating the President (Bush, Obama, whoever) or ANY political figure no matter how ridiculous (Jim McDermott or Sarah Palin..you pick) accomplishes nothing. Only reasonable people, weighing the merits of various courses of action and arriving at a functional compromise will get anything done. Hatred in politics only leads to further hardening of already polarized positions and further deadlock.
So..thanks…I respect your point of view.
@His Shadow
“Were all you right wing bozos as fired up when Bush suspended habeus corpus and illegally tapped phones?
Didn’t think so.”
Probably as fired up as you, a left wing bozo, was when Obama KEPT the Bush program of illegally tapped phones!
OR can you show me posts where you were disgusted with Obama for illegally tapped phones and provide a link to your source?
Think so!
http://www.blogrunner.com/snapshot/D/7/4/invoking_state_secrets_obama_moves_to_block_challenge_to_bush_wiretapping_program/
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/13/obama-administration-maintains-bush-legal-argument-terrorist-surveillance/
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/01/obama-sides-wit/
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/07/16-1
@Macromancer:
“So all of you Obama haters on here are still going to be calling for this power to be revoked if a Republican takes office in 2012….
right?”
Not if you Obama lovers would join with us in making sure something like this never sees the light of day!
Then neither side would have any worries. Correct?
So join us now, not 2012!
Where were all the anti-presidential-power people during Bush’s reign, or his daddy’s, or Reagan’s, when those guys, especially George W., arrogated so much of it?
Where were all the anti-deficit hawks during both Bush administrations and Reagan’s who all posted historic deficits? Where was the praise for Clinton’s balanced budget?
All this ugliness is not concerned with issues, it’s partisanship, whether racial or the cock-eyed notion Obama is a Liberal (doesn’t seem so), let alone Socialist/Communist/Fascist/Nazi.
@now now
Prison planet? Please…I know that site and have listened to Alex Jone’s ad nauseum blather on about the Bilderberger Group and how the world is being controlled by a secret cabal of power brokers out to reduce the human population, create a one world government, enslave the masses, put people in compounds transported there by prison railroad cars. He’s clearly just nuts.
I have NO problem with free speech and I happily listen to Rachel Maddow AND Sean Hannity…agreeing with some, disagreeing with some…and filtering out the hate along the way.
I just believe that there is a place for these discussions but MDN is totally guilty of being a “hit whore” and has deeply conservative values (which is fine) using this site (anonymously I might add) to stir up political hatred to build pageviews. It’s patently dishonest to engage in this kind of behavior since it’s the pageview count is sold to advertisers…People responding to political challenges are I contend, LESS likely to ever click through on an ad for a technology product than those purely here to learn the latest information about their favored platform.
Obama = Dicktator. One world, one color for all
Wow! The lack of intellectual reasoning by some on this forum (in this country, in the world) is astounding!
I won’t even address or comment on the ignorance of those who think this is “another form of government take-over by the Obama administration” beyond the point this statement should already make.
More and more of the world is being controlled through the internet: the electric grid, local water supplies, air-traffic control, stock markets, banking transactions, just to name a few.
For those Neanderthals who think that the attack that will cripple the USA (or any other country, for that matter) will come from some idiot driving a car bomb or a plane into a building, I’ll just say a prayer that you be cured of your ignorance.
In today’s world this is a necessary power to have. Hopefully it never has to be used but it is necessary nonetheless.
I sometimes wonder how some people on this forum were EVER smart enough to hook their computing lives to Apple’s wagon! Sheesh!
Is a first amendment kill switch legal?
just my $0.02
Whew! I thought that said
“Economic Kill Switch”….
-wait
Will someone please put cyanide in the tea bags?
Number one: it’s no surprise that this bill would be sponsored by Joe Lieberman (who, we’re told “is an independent who caucuses with Democrats”, but who addressed the Republican National Convention endorsing McCain/Palin for president!). Lieberman has been in favor of censorship in general for decades. He’s in favor of censoring rap and other music he doesn’t like. He’s in favor of censoring video games. Now he wants to have the ability to shut off the Internet. I guess those Connecticut “far left zealots” and MoveOn.org etc. weren’t too far off the mark when they primaried him out in 2006, eh?
This is obviously a kind of silly idea, and even this “far-left zealot” (from Bill O’Reilly’s perspective anyway) would happily join with the teabaggers in opposing it. I’d oppose Bush having this power, or Obama.
@ The Party of No…vember
Alternatively…
YOU are the one hoodwinked by the right-wing propaganda machine which is funded by big corporations.
While I share concern over the issues in this bill, I would like to ask:
Would you allow a foreign company to take over the streets and highways of this country with impunity?
—
BTW – the headline is another example of hype-journalism. The bill does not grant Obama anything, the powers are granted to the president via the Office of Homeland Security. I imagine that if Bush had proffered the same bill, anyone opposing it would be a “soft on security leftie.”
As long as the reason for cutting it off is for good, and not for evil, I’m for it. You never know what the future internet threats are. The internet is still basically in it’s early stages and we don’t know how safe it is from enemies.
And with most of the world running PC’s who knows what national catastrophe could be configured en-mass, all linked up.
Wow.
What a scary fscked up place the US has become.
Burn that bill. Just burn it and dump its proponents on a desert island. This just radically insane and no one should ever have this kind of power. Ever, anywhere.
“The Party of No” speaks truth. Don’t you dare ask to censor him..
folks… take a breather from the Red vs. Blue bullshit for a moment, and ponder the notion that we live in an age where WMDs are digital.
@ emmyache
Wow. You’re blaming the spill on TOO MUCH regulation? You’ve taken teabaggery to a whole new level. You’re like the nutjobs who blame the financial meltdown on too much regulation. I’m dumbfounded by your stupidiy.
The government has not lived up to its responsibility; BP has committed to far more than they are legally responsible for (i.e., they are trying to live up to their moral responsibility).
Wow. Mindblowing wingnuttery. So you’re saying it’s fine that BP can make as large of a mess as it wants, and then can sit back and make Obama clean it all up? What a sick joke.
But that very fact argues that more regulation would have done little or nothing to prevent this spill, given that those who would ignore existing regulations would likely ignore new ones.
1) If the regulation is performed in a competent manner, then it should not be possible to “ignore” regulations. Federal regulators should have full authority over the construction and maintenence of the wells and should have the power to shut down wells that are not in compliance.
2) Even if you believe (wrongly) that proper regulation can never work, then it follows that the only way to really prevent catastrophic oil spills like this is to stop drilling completely. Which means moving away from oil. QED.
Yes, I’d give Obama the power to delete political posts here. Maybe I’ll send him a “heads up.” Irresponsible, MDN. This is not your field of expertise, and there’s enough problems in the Mac world to pontificate on.
Your crusade against AT & T, too may backfire. What’s going to happen the more they’re trashed is that people will just go Android, thinking they’re getting a better deal. Why not think things through before venting your personal pet peeves? No way is Apple going Verizon in the near future. If Android starts getting momentum, it’ll be too little, too late if Apple chucks AT & T.
And if Sarah Palin were running the country now, we’d all be praying for Stalin or Lenin to save us. I, myself, would prefer FDR, Jefferson, or Bill Clinton- the far right is simply unacceptable. But enough about politics.
PLEASE!
When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace. – Jimi Hendrix
This story is flying all over the net with equally sensationalized headlines. Reminds me of the Patriot Act days. I’m curious what the bill REALLY says, rather than the rhetoric.