Senate bill would give President Obama authority over all networks. Sens. Jay Rockefeller. D-WV, and Olympia Snowe, R-MN introduced the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (SB773), which would permit the White House to declare a "cybersecurity emergency" and shut down or limit Internet traffic in any network the president declares "critical." A companion bill (SB778), creates the new "cybersecurity czar" to take his place among the troubling number of similarly named posts in this administration.If the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 passes, the president will have authority to shut down Internet traffic for "national security." The bill's language also allows the commerce secretary to "access all relevant data" on those "critical" networks "without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access." The bill as currently written provides zero structural oversight over the proposed broad new executive branch powers. Thus, President Obama would also have access to digital data from industries including banking, communications and even the energy grid. Under the bill there would be a cybersecurity czar inside the White House. So far this isn't being reported much outside of business circles. If George W. Bush had sought this kind of authority the ACLU would have rightly gone nuts; where are they now? [Full Story - by James G. Lakely, San Francisco Chronicle " Don't put feds in charge of the Internet"]
Tags: Barack Obama, cybersecurity, Cybersecurity Act 2009, Czar, internet, networks To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
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