Drudge and Huffington Post Push the "Internet BS Switch"

Suddenly the Internet is full of chatter about Senator Lieberman (and Collins and Carper) proposing an "Internet kill switch." It's the one issue that Huffington Post and Drudge have agreed on in months: there's a kill switch coming and they don't like it. 

Personally, any time the left and the right get together to complain about government, I reach for my wallet. As I describe in Skating on Stilts, that's the same civil liberties coalition that screwed up TSA's passenger screening and then blamed TSA. 

And sure enough, this is the same old antigovernment malarkey. Recycled malarkey, actually. The notion of an Internet kill switch was first circulated about an entirely different bill proposed by a different Senator from a different committee. Now it's become a bumper sticker slogan rolled out whenever anyone proposes doing anything to fix our computer security crisis. 

 The fact is that our entire computerized economy is balanced on a knife edge (or, if you like, it's skating on stilts). It could be attacked by many countries today. And there's evidence that both the risk of attack and the scale of the damage it would cause are growing all the time. 

So there's an Internet kill switch all right, but it ain't in Washington. It's in Beijing and Moscow. And soon in Pyongyang. 

The Lieberman-Collins-Carper bill, which might take the kill switch away from our foreign adversaries, will soon have bipartisan support in the House. It gives the President basic authority to respond to an attack on our power, phone, and financial systems. 

 It's needed, badly, because the President today has less authority over the vulnerable electronic underbelly of our banks and power grid than he has over deepwater oil drilling. Of course the "kill switch" crowd don't see the need for any such authority. 

After all, why would we expect private companies ever to screw up in a way that would hurt the rest of us? 

Come to think about it, BP could have saved itself $20 billion if it had just persuaded Congress last year that trying to regulate deep sea drilling would create a crazy Big Government "Oil Supply Kill Switch." 

Nobody wants an Oil Supply Kill Switch. 

 Until, oops, they really, really do.

Comments

[DensityDuck]

As I sort-of said elsewhere, imagine if the Army didn't exist and the Federal government proposed to create one. It would be kind of funny to watch all the self-styled libertarians have hategasms over the thought of Government! Intrusion! Into! Our! Civil! Liberties! Why, you can't possibly expect the government to manage a military force properly--they can't even enforce their own laws, much less defend the nation from foreign aggressors! Here, let me post an irrelevant anecdote about some screwup involving a government agency, clearly that shows the validity of my assertions!

[Just the facts]

Come to think about it, BP could have saved itself $20 billion if it had just persuaded Congress last year that trying to regulate deep sea drilling would create a crazy Big Government "Oil Supply Kill Switch."

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowout_preventer

[Externality]

My understanding is that this legislation would empower the government to shut down individual websites and servers, as well as deny Internet access to geographical regions within the United States.

Once the government starts shutting down websites as being contrary to the national interest, where will it stop? Throughout the 20th century, the government used its power to regulate the postal system to ban mailing gay rights literature, magazines advocating communism, adult pornography, etc. In each instance, the government argued literature of this type was so far beyond the scope of decent society that it should be banned from the mail for the collective good. The Supreme Court eventually struck these bans down.

More recently, the Clinton Administration supported the Communication Decency Act and Child Online Protection Act, both of which criminalized online speech that the government considered "indecent." The purportedly "indecent" speech ranged from AIDS prevention information to websites on animal husbandry practices to information on sex for those with spinal cord injuries. The courts struck these statutes down, ruling that that the government can not limit online speech and activities by adults to what the government deems it appropriate for children to see.

How long until mere speech is deemed so harmful as to justify shutting down websites? The Obama administration has argued before the Supreme Court, in U.S. v Stevens, that the government should apply a "balancing test," banning speech where the perceived harms outweigh perceived benefits.

"Hate speech," as defined by whichever group is in power, is an obvious target. There have been repeated complaints that the government is trying to prevent the media from covering the oil spill. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/us/10access.html?scp=1&sq=Lysiak&st=cse And so on.

[stewart baker]

Density Duck: I saw your other comment on VC to same effect and appreciated it. Maybe I'll borrow it in some future post, it that's ok.

Externality: Your understanding of the legislation is not correct.

[Jowneu!!]

Sure, go ahead.

[DensityDuck]

Stewart: You're welcome to use the idea in your writings.

[sto credits]

My understanding is that this legislation would empower the government to shut down individual websites and servers, as well as deny Internet access to geographical regions within the United States.