The SEC and Department of Homeland Security are saying we need a web backup plan in the event the H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic forces people to stay in their homes to use computers even more than usual for work or play.
Homeland Security Department accused the GAO of having unrealistic expectations of how the Internet could be managed if millions began to telework from home at the same time as bored or sick schoolchildren were playing online, sucking up valuable bandwidth….Private Internet providers might need government authorization to block popular websites, it said, or to reduce residential transmission speeds to make way for commerce. http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2620750120091026?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0
Are politician looking craft new ways to get more control on the last free media frontier we have? We believe it is essential that the Internet remain unrestricted with an open platform. 365 days a year, 24/7. President Obama on the other hand has not been quiet about pushing for Internet legislation.
The government wants to make sure everyone has access to the Internet and have set aside $7.2 billion in stimulus dollars for construction.http://www.examiner.com/x-10317-San-Diego-County-Political-Buzz-Examiner~y2009m10d21-Net-Neutrality-enforcement-may-reach-into-your-computer Again with the stimulus dollars. Private investment and the private sector is what has spurned it’s growth. As we have been witness to banks and car companies who accept bailout funds, they also accept government control and regulations.
Last week the FCC begin consideration of the rules that would protect and promote open broadband pipes to the Internet. Over the next several months, an official rule making proceeding will take place, along with public workshops and technical advisory discussions, allowing everyone to provide feedback before the Commission adopts a final set of rules. The proposed rules can be found here as a pdf http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-09-93A1.pdf We found it interesting that on p. 97 the document quotes Thomas Jefferson, “The course of history shows that as the government grows, liberty decreases.”
Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam showed in a joint blog post that stakeholders can work together with mutual respect to find common ground, even as we acknowledge and defend important policy differences. http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2009/10/finding-common-ground-on-open-internet.html
One significant issue, is that the government apparently uses the same Internet protocols and the same operating systems as the private sector, making cyber security a universal problem as opposed to a governmental problem. Hackers may find a greater payload in targeting critical infrastructure such as power grids, financial or communication networks or air traffic control systems than in attacking the CIA or the Pentagon. An attack by an adversary nation, much less a cyber extortionist or terrorist, is not so far-fetched. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-zirin14-2009oct14,0,603775.story
The federally funded Next Generation Internet (NGI) project (http://www.ngi.gov/) exists parallel to and complementary with Internet2, http://www.internet2.edu/ We have trouble believing that America’s nuclear weapons arsenal operate on the standard net. Internet2 is not available to the general public, even though our taxpayer dollars support it. More about that here https://ahrcanum.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/internet-censorship-shocking-treatment-of-taxpayer/ The speed of information-sharing network on Internet2 is now 100 Gbit!
Thomas has the draft of the Rockefeller Cybersecurity Act S 773 here, http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.773. It gives the president powers to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” and shut down or limit Internet traffic in any “critical” information network “in the interest of national security.” More of our previous thoughts here https://ahrcanum.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/obama-internet-controcybersecurity/
The proposed rules claim that Cisco’s built Internet routers have over 28.1 million lines of code- does anyone realistically foresee the government being able to regulated something so large? Are attacks of the Swine Flu more common than cyber security breaches? We we do know that the nation has done a pretty miserable job coordinating it’s response to past emergencies as evidenced by Hurricane Katrina, the financial bailouts, and now the H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic. If big brother takes over the Internet, the last bastion of freedom of speech in what is left of our democracy, could be gone.
photo props to Bikes Over Baghdad http://bkachinsky.transworld.net/,
Open wide, say ahhh and check out these posts on the A/H1N1 Swine Flu from Ahrcanum, where the conspiracy spreads as fast as the virus itself. https://ahrcanum.wordpress.com/swine-flu-report/
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