Yes, Folks, He Will Be Able to Shut Down the Internet

Could President Obama shut down the internet? Normally, that would be paranoid crazy-talk, but our government these days does seem to excel at making the thoroughly nutty seem more than a little bit plausible.

Ed Morrissey took a look at S. 773, the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, and found that perhaps the crazy-talk isn’t quite so crazy. There are a couple sections that really should raise our hackles. The first says:

SEC. 14. PUBLIC–PRIVATE CLEARINGHOUSE.

(a) DESIGNATION.—The Department of Commerce shall serve as the clearinghouse of cybersecurity threat and vulnerability information to Federal government and private sector owned critical infrastructure information systems and networks.

(b) FUNCTIONS.—The Secretary of Commerce—

(1) shall have access to all relevant data concerning such networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access; …

In short, the Commerce Department and the Secretary of Commerce in particular, will have unlimited access to pretty much all the data in even private sector networks so long as the government designates them as a “critical infrastructure information system or network”. Later on in the post, I’ll show you what guidelines the bill uses to decide what is critical. You won’t be amused.

The really bad news is that there are no firm criteria for deciding what will and won’t be considered critical. I read the whole draft bill and couldn’t find anything even close. I would be willing to bet that the critical list will be compiled much the same way the list of critical infrastructure locations was compiled after 9/11: a bunch of government employees will get together and toss out names until they have something that looks comprehensive. I can guarantee you, based on my own experience, that there will be sites omitted from the list that should be there and others that are there that shouldn’t be.

Without firm criteria, quite literally any computer network could end up on that list and there will be nothing to prevent the Secretary of Commerece from having untrammeled access to all of them short of repealing the bill. That doesn’t fill me with the warm cozies.

The bill doesn’t get better from there. The next problematic section involves Presidential power.

SEC. 18. CYBERSECURITY RESPONSIBILITIES AND AUTHORITY.

The President— …

(2) may declare a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic to and from any compromised Federal government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network; …

Now, Morrissey doesn’t see that as such a big deal because it involves only government systems, but William Jacobson notes another section that extend that power to, well, pretty much the whole Internet.

SEC. 23. DEFINITIONS.

(3) FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND UNITED STATES CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND NETWORKS.

— The term ‘‘Federal government and United States critical infrastructure information systems and networks’’ includes —

(A) Federal Government information systems and networks; and
(B) State, local, and nongovernmental information systems and networks in the United States designated by the President as critical
infrastructure information systems and networks.

Private or not, Federal or not, according to Section 18, if the President says something is critical, he can shut it down. Furthermore, Section 18 (6) gives him the power to “order the disconnection” of any designated network “in the interest of national security”.

Which means that the President doesn’t even have to declare an emergency. He only has to wave the magic wand of “national security” and he can shut down any system that’s on the critical list.

As I said earlier, there are no criteria in this bill to say what systems or networks could be declared critical. The closest thing I could find is this supporting quote from something called the February 2003 National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace. Remember those guidelines I promised you earlier? Well, here you go:

“…our nation’s critical infrastructures are composed of public and private institutions in the sectors of agriculture, food, water, public health, emergency services, government, defense industrial base, information and telecommunications, energy, transportation, banking finance, chemicals and hazardous materials, and postal and shipping.”

That doesn’t leave much, if anything, untouched does it? How many aspects of your life touches on the sectors named in that list? A dozen? Two dozen? All of those parts of your life will be subject to government intrusion. And remember, once this bill passes, the only thing that can prevent the information in all those systems from becoming part of the government’s “clearinghouse” is a repeal of the law.

So, yes, this bill most certainly gives the President the unopposed ability to shut down all or part of the internet. And he won’t need any more reason than that of “national security” to do so.

No matter what side of the ideological battle you’re on, this ought to be a concern; more so if you’re one of those folks who spent the past few years shrieking about the power-grabbing ways of the Bush administration.

Giving unchecked power over all our nations computer systems is an amazingly bad idea. We do need a prudent and effective cybersecurity plan, but we do not need to hand the keys to cyberspace over the the President with no check on his power at all. Therein lies totalitarianism. Again.

Temple of Syrinx indeed.

UPDATE: Oh, and you computer geeks will love reading Section 6, which compels the government to develop a standard security software configuration for all critical sites plus “a standard testing and accreditation protocol” for all software running on those systems that have any security component at all. Additionally, if you’re in the cybersecurity business, you’ll have to be certified under a new government program and, if you aren’t, you won’t be able to do business within three years of the bill becoming law.

Because we all know just how great the government is at computer security and writing good software, right?

UPDATE: Linked by Conservative Grapevine. Thank you, John.

Other Posts of Interest:

• All The Dems are Missing is a Gun and a Dark Alley
• Pelosi Says The GOP is Superfluous. She’ll Pass the Budget As-Is.
• The Brazen Martin O’Malley

Tags: Big Government, Cybersecurity

Category: The Rise of the Nanny State