Heavy Restrictions on Internet Freedoms

[kathaksung]

Rockefeller who gave Americans the worst education system in the world now wants the US Government to shut down your access to the Internet!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCkCWxv3kUE

Quote, Senate Proposal Could Put Heavy Restrictions on Internet Freedoms

A proposed bill that would give the president widespread power to shut down the Internet in the event of a cyberattack could have sweeping implications on civil liberties.

By James Osborne
FOXNews.com
Tuesday, April 21, 2009

The days of an open, largely unregulated Internet may soon come to an end.

 

[OmegaX]

I did a small report on this for a college class and the way I understand it the president only had power to control traffic to government related websites and other certain sites such as banks. It would basically be impossible to shut down the entire internet. Every single ISP in the world would have to be under his control.

 

[Warped]

Everything gets shut down eventually. Paper, Radio, TV, free thought...you name it someone has shut it up

 

[PimpinPenguin]

I did a small report on this for a college class and the way I understand it the president only had power to control traffic to government related websites and other certain sites such as banks. It would basically be impossible to shut down the entire internet. Every single ISP in the world would have to be under his control.

I think they did mean shutting off access to the Internet for Americans only. America couldn't shut off the internet, as they don't have the jurisdiction the force ISP's outside to US to block access.

 

[Azner]

You can shut down the internet?
What?!

 

[Stigmata]

You can shut down the internet?
What?!

Internet traffic has to go somewhere, and has to come from somewhere. And something like 80% of worldwide Internet traffic moves through servers, routers, and cables located in and owned by American people and companies. So if America suddenly decided its servers and routers needed to be turned off to prevent a cyber attack, most of the Internet would be completely unavailable.

 

[Vegeta897]

Internet traffic has to go somewhere, and has to come from somewhere. And something like 80% of worldwide Internet traffic moves through servers, routers, and cables located in and owned by American people and companies. So if America suddenly decided its servers and routers needed to be turned off to prevent a cyber attack, most of the Internet would be completely unavailable.

And so would your mother.

AHAHAHAA

 

[VirusType2]

I think the gov't should reset the router occasionally

 

[jet_porkins]

Interesting. While I am highly against permanent internet closure, I don't think the shut down of the internet would be any serious infringement on the freedom of speech on the basis that we don't have a fundamental right to the internet. The services of the internet are a privilege, not a right. It's a service that is first and foremost for the convenience of others to transmit information at an incredible speed, over an incredible world-wide distance. If the administration declares the internet to be a national security threat with a very sound argument, and both chambers of congress vote with at least a 2/3 majority, then fine.

On a separate note, that Asian guy in the video is my former governor.

 

[Lucid]

**** the internet.
Shit's overrated anyways.

 

[theotherguy]

How about during civil unrest; the president makes up a bogus "cyberattack" (not hard to do) and totally shuts down the internet to protect the government from the slander of its people?

How about, to facilitate this, government regulatory commissions are established to carefully monitor internet users and web servers? How about they just decide to shut down any website they disagree with?

You have to think about the implications of this kind of power.

 

[L3TUC3]

In case of cyberattack lol.

Like what? Pentagon being hacked? Someone reading Obama's email? Odds are it's mostly going to be nuisance like a ddos, and you won't solve that by doing the very thing it's aimed to do (i.e. disrupt internet usage). It would have an effect of zilch unless everybody in the US or abroad was part of a botnet.

I'm pretty sure all incoming wired connections for vital installations are rigged with small yield explosives in case of emergencies already. I sincerely hope communications don't rely solely on the tubes and have contingencies.

 

[Stigmata]

A virus could constitute a cyber-attack. And we all know how successful those are at taking down the entire digital infrastructure and threatening the livelihood of the world at large... wait.

 

[Sulkdodds]

I don't think the shut down of the internet would be any serious infringement on the freedom of speech on the basis that we don't have a fundamental right to the internet. The services of the internet are a privilege, not a right..

If so, this could also be said of any medium of communication that is not actually 'speech', such as print media.

Please specify at what point communication ceases to be included under the umbrella of 'speech' and becomes a "privilege" above and beyond it.

EDIT: Worth noting that the UN declaration of human rights, to which the USA is a subscriber, demands the right "to mpart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers".

 

[No Limit]

This shows how little these idiots know about technology. The internet is designed so no single entity could shut it down. A router goes down in the US another one in Canda takes over; that's why the internet is such a great means of communication.

Not to mention that if you shut down the internet you would be shutting down most forms of communication, including a lot of communication the DoD and other military institutions rely on.

 

[VirusType2]

A proposed bill that would give the president widespread power to shut down the Internet in the event of a cyberattack could have sweeping implications on civil liberties.

I don't understand how they can claim they were hacked or claim they could be hacked through the internet.

They have a closed system that isn't connected to 'our internet'. My brother has top secret clearance and I remember him mentioning he couldn't email me from his job, it's not connected to the internet we know. They have their own. Also, he said they have computers in a separate area they can use that are connected to 'our internet', but not their internet. In fact, they aren't even allowed to connect external drives to their work laptops or anything.


This seems like [another] lie so they can take more power (information & communication) from the citizens. For now it's just a threat, threaten us, so it won't be a huge shock when it really happens. The US is becoming a closing society, and I fear it gets worse before it gets better.

It's really really hard to get our powers (freedoms) back once they are gone, almost impossible. We must be vigilant.

Think about it. They are the government. If you work in the government are you going to want to give up your power to the people? The more power we have, the less they have, and vice versa.

 

[No Limit]

I don't understand how they can claim they were hacked or claim they could be hacked through the internet.

They have a closed system that isn't connected to 'our internet'. My brother has top secret clearance and I remember him mentioning he couldn't email me from his job, it's not connected to the internet we know. They have their own. Also, he said they have computers in a separate area they can use that are connected to 'our internet', but not their internet. In fact, they aren't even allowed to connect external drives to their work laptops or anything.

That's called an intranet, think your local home network but on a much bigger scale. The government, nor anyone else can have any control over it as it is something that is owned privately and as you said is not connected to the internet backbone. It is standard practice in national labs and other government buildings containing top secret information not to allow anyone to bring in any kind of technology in to the building. When I have to go up to los alamos they do a search and you can't have any sort of electronics on you (cell phones, thumb drives, etc). Then they search you on your way out to make sure you aren't taking anything out. Yet even with this there was a story last year where thumb drives owned by this lab with nuclear secrets on it being found in some meth addicts house; so that shows you how effective their security really is.

 

[jet_porkins]

If so, this could also be said of any medium of communication that is not actually 'speech', such as print media.

Please specify at what point communication ceases to be included under the umbrella of 'speech' and becomes a "privilege" above and beyond it.

EDIT: Worth noting that the UN declaration of human rights, to which the USA is a subscriber, demands the right "to mpart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers".

As far as print media is concerned, our bill of rights gives us freedom to the press.

But I see your point.

 

[V-Man339]

C'mon guys, how many times need it be said: It's a series of tubes!

 

[Sulkdodds]

As far as print media is concerned, our bill of rights gives us freedom to the press.

But I see your point.

Since "freedom of the press" appears to extend to television and radio broadcasting you would also need to specify at what point the internet stops being 'press'. I think you could also make a case for free association/assembly. And anyway: if 'speech' means only speech, and the freedom of print media is guaranteed on top of this by 'freedom of the press', then freedom of speech cannot be said to extend to any other written media that isn't actually journalism, like, for example, a letter to your wife.

 

[Tyguy]

All hail the all powerful router

 

[Saturos]

I read in an issue of Popsci not long ago that the US central router to outside communications is located in Miami, FL.

Way to tell them terrurishts where Aquinas/Helios is located Popsci. :dozey:

I thought the internets was a distributed/non-centralized network though?