Will Obama get a big red 'kill the Internet' button?

By Davey Winder
Friday, 17 April 2009 03:55

Technology

A draft bill introduced by two US Senators seeks to give President Obama a second big red button: one that could nuke American Internet connectivity during a 'cybersecurity emergency' in the interests of national security.

Every government around the world, it seems, wants a piece of the Internet. The Brits and the Swedes want to monitor it, the Chinese want to censor it, and now the Americans want the power to kill it.

A draft bill has been introduced by Senators John Rockefeller (West Virginia, Democrat) and the unlikely sounding Olympia Snowe (Republican, Maine) which seeks, amongst many other things, to allow the President to "declare a cybersecurity emergency."

The bill goes on to say that once such an emergency has been declared, then Obama should be able to order the "limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic to and from any compromised Federal government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network."

OK, you may be thinking, that kind of make sense when we live in a world where the cyber-terror scenario is looking less like Hollywood fiction and more an almost inevitable future reality.

Trouble is, as Leslie Harris from the Center for Democracy and Technology told Network World "We are confident that the communication networks and the Internet would be so designated (as critical infrastructure), so in the interest of national security the president could order them disconnected."

Of course, this is just a draft bill and there would be plenty of hoops to be jumped through before it could be ratified and passed. During this period of hoop-hopping someone who has a slightly more long-trousered understanding of the Internet will probably come along and explain that a killswitch is not really a viable plan.

Unfortunately, despite the draft bill being date 01/04 this is no April Fool prank and there is nothing to laugh at in Senator Snowe's comments on the matter.

Sen. Snowe says "America’s vulnerability to massive cyber crime, global cyber espionage, and cyber attacks has emerged as one of the most urgent national security problems facing our country today" and warns that "we must unite on all fronts to confront this monumental challenge, if we fail to take swift action, we, regrettably, risk a cyber-Katrina."