funsec mailing list archives

Re: Presidential Internet Kill Switch


From: chris () blask org
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 19:17:48 -0700 (PDT)

--- On Tue, 9/22/09, Rob, grandpa of Ryan, Trevor, Devon & Hannah <rMslade () shaw ca> wrote:


Presidential Internet Kill Switch May Still Be Alive 

I'm glad that the conversation is being had.  That's the best thing about the Act: it is going to force a set of 
conversations that we all need to have. I just hope it doesn't end up wrapped around axles forever.

"The new language dropped all references to the president's ability to shut down the Internet. Instead, Rockefeller and 
Snowe granted the president the authority to declare a cyber-security emergency and to direct the "national response to 
the cyber-threat."

Well, yeah.

In the event of a national emergency, the President has all sorts of extraordinary powers.  We need to work out how 
these play out for communications systems.

Further, the slapshod set of regulatory regimes that exist today need to evolve into something more consistent, and imo 
this is an area where government should get involved.  Just like in trade - where there is a role for government to 
validate that when I buy a pound of sugar that it weighs a pound and is in fact sugar - the government has a valid role 
in setting baseline requirements for the management of something as fundamentally necessary as the national 
communications system.

Our roles, as some of the folks who know a thing or two about the topic, is to engage in the conversation so it has 
some chance of not being completely ridiculous (or maybe ensuring that it is).

-chris "Jack the sound barrier.  Bring the noise." blask


      
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