No, not Egypt – the United States! Legislation for an “Internet Kill Switch” was introduced last year by Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) without much attention or success. However, Sen Collins has promised to introduce the bill again in 2011 under the name “Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act.” Obviously, a much more appealing and pro-American democracy sounding title than the “Internet Kill Switch”. Make no mistake, as in the title of the Tarantino’s movie “Kill Bill”, this proposed legislation will do to our unrestricted access to the Internet that the “five point palm-exploding heart technique” did to Bill in the movie.
If enacted, the Department of Homeland Security will be required to maintain a current inventory of systems that constitute critical cyber-infrastructure. The President, without any judicial review or approval of Congress, would be able to control those systems – and shutting them down completely!
Citizens throughout history have had the freedoms and liberties taken away by force, sometimes by their own leaders, other times by foreign powers. In the United States, we simply vote them away.