“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.]
Will someone please put cyanide in the tea baggers too?
Bravo Rheinhard
cybersecurity is no joke, but…
As a card-carrying liberal let me emphatically state for the record: Lieberman is a complete tool.
Fsck Lieberman, and Fsck Obastard even more.
No, no, no, darkness,
They’re trying to change the constitution so dear leader Maobama can keep running for president like our buddy Chavez. Stay current dummy.
emmyache
Nicely put.
And as usual, Real Rob comes back with what seems to be a meth-induced rant.
how about Iran up rising what did govt do shut down the internet and all phone calls etc could us have that kind of unrest? is this the real rason for bill? something to think about.
@TowerTone
I’ll tell you what’s meth-induced: teabaggers like emmyache and Joe Barton who are:
a) apologizing to and for BP
b) demanding the government stay out of BP’s business
c) ripping the government for not cleaning up BP’s epic, unprecedented catastrophe more quickly
I’m just absolutely flabbergasted by this right wing stupidity. I literally can’t comprehend it.
Do you tea baggers not understand that BP just destroyed the Gulf of Mexico?
What fantasy world do you live in where you teabaggers think it’s right to be apologizing to BP?
Utterly mindblowing.
The desk to the US President is AMAZING!! Not only does it have a Big Red Button to launch thousands of nukes it now has the Internet Kill Switch. The only thing that’s missing is a pedal to activate the trapdoor down to the shark tank.
Do you think they do something similar in Ikea?
“Joe Lieberman, the primary sponsor”
NO * F U C K I N G * WAY!
This has to be the fifth Alzheimer’s & hallucinogens & totalitarianism inspired POS Lieberman has proposed this year alone. It’s time they sent him off to the home for demented poliTards.
I also have to differ with one of the quotes provided by MDN:
“The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves. – William Hazlitt
INCORRECT! The love of POWER is a method of over-compensating for LACK of love of self. Indeed, it is a blatant indication of a person’s sense of INADEQUACY. It is a form of psychopathy.
People who love themselves, via what I call ‘The Reverse Golden Rule’, also love others. IOW: How we treat others reflects how we treat ourselves. If only we all understood this very basic principle of human behavior.
Those willing to give up liberty for security deserve niether and will lose both.
-Benjamin Franklin