Comments on: Twitter Outage In China http://www.spydertrap.com/blog/2009/06/twitter-outage-in-china/ Minneapois online marketing blog covering search engine optimization (SEO), social media, online public relations, online marketing strategy, website development, sponsored search, web analytics and more Fri, 18 Jun 2010 14:52:57 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Leslie Berg http://www.spydertrap.com/blog/2009/06/twitter-outage-in-china/comment-page-1/#comment-3112 Leslie Berg Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:44:18 +0000 http://www.spydertrap.com/blog/?p=616#comment-3112 Last month an anticommunist uprising in Moldova was organized via Twitter, which gives China some clout in how they're handling the situation there. On April 1 legislation was proposed that would grant Obama the authority to shut down public and private networks, including the restriction of internet traffic - all as part of a "cybersecurity emergency plan." “This legislation is the beginning of the process - the objective of this cybersecurity bill is to start the debate and chairman Rockefeller welcomes comments from all parties, he is sitting down with stakeholders already and he welcomes input from all those supportive of the legislation and those with concerns,” said Jena Longo, deputy communications director for the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation. Check out the bill here (PDF), hosted by NetworkWorld. If you read the bill, the second provision gives the President the authority to disconnect federal networks from the Internet in the case of cyberattack. That doesn’t seem like an outrageous provision to me; it sounds like a sensible option to protect vital government systems. In fact, I’d be surprised if that power doesn’t already exist within the various federal agencies. This would allow the President to make a blanket order to take networks off line. That doesn’t make it completely benign, either. That power could get abused to keep people from accessing public information. However, the provision on its own does not equate to “shutting down the Internet”, at least not how I read it. Section 14 may be a bigger problem. It essentially revokes all privacy safeguards on Internet use for all networks. The Fourth Amendment would go straight out the window with the explicit inclusion of “private sector owned critical infrastructure information systems and networks.” While Section 18 limits jurisdiction to federal networks, Section 14 allows the government to go after private networks without search warrants. The section also doesn’t limit the jurisdiction to acute attacks, either. That jurisdiction exists at all times. The big problem isn’t that Obama might shut down the Internet. It’s that the bill essentially puts limitations on the Fourth Amendment. Last month an anticommunist uprising in Moldova was organized via Twitter, which gives China some clout in how they’re handling the situation there.

On April 1 legislation was proposed that would grant Obama the authority to shut down public and private networks, including the restriction of internet traffic – all as part of a “cybersecurity emergency plan.”

“This legislation is the beginning of the process – the objective of this cybersecurity bill is to start the debate and chairman Rockefeller welcomes comments from all parties, he is sitting down with stakeholders already and he welcomes input from all those supportive of the legislation and those with concerns,” said Jena Longo, deputy communications director for the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation.

Check out the bill here (PDF), hosted by NetworkWorld.

If you read the bill, the second provision gives the President the authority to disconnect federal networks from the Internet in the case of cyberattack. That doesn’t seem like an outrageous provision to me; it sounds like a sensible option to protect vital government systems. In fact, I’d be surprised if that power doesn’t already exist within the various federal agencies. This would allow the President to make a blanket order to take networks off line.

That doesn’t make it completely benign, either. That power could get abused to keep people from accessing public information. However, the provision on its own does not equate to “shutting down the Internet”, at least not how I read it.

Section 14 may be a bigger problem. It essentially revokes all privacy safeguards on Internet use for all networks. The Fourth Amendment would go straight out the window with the explicit inclusion of “private sector owned critical infrastructure information systems and networks.” While Section 18 limits jurisdiction to federal networks, Section 14 allows the government to go after private networks without search warrants. The section also doesn’t limit the jurisdiction to acute attacks, either. That jurisdiction exists at all times.

The big problem isn’t that Obama might shut down the Internet. It’s that the bill essentially puts limitations on the Fourth Amendment.

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