websense

Okay, so I tend to go on political rants that sometimes have little to do with the web – maybe more business minded, or what have you, but not really the web per say. This is different. Big time. Have you seen the headlines? This is getting more and more disturbing everyday. This administration, in it’s first 100 days has been so devastating, so far reaching, that the American public has barely had time to react, and no, I don’t think that’s an accident. It’s been an out and out steam rolling of American principles.

New legislation in being introduced in the senate, senate bills S. 773 and S. 778. These two new bills are both part of the “Cybersecurity Act of 2009″. These Acts would create, the “Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor”, and would be responsible for “defending the country from cyber attack”… and would report directly to Barack Obama. This new bureaucracy would also grant the Secretary of Commerce access to all privately owned information networks deemed to be “critical”to the nation’s infrastructure, “without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule or policy restricting such access.”

Are you getting this!? The Secretary of Commerce, reporting directly to Obama, would be able to read, look and dig through ANYTHING connected to the web that a President decides is “critical”to look at. The law does not apply to this new bureaucracy. It would have the power to snoop through anything the president deemed a threat. ANYTHING. He would then have the ability to basically “turn off” the Internet for any type of threat, or what he decided was a threat. Sound much like the state controlled media in China and North Korea to anyone else? You control the media, you then control the country.

This is not just about media control (and I don’t mean that the way it sounds). This directly affects my ability to make and sell a product, create jobs, support my family. This affects everyone with any kind of web presence. How much would a temporary shut down of your site cost you? How much would a long term shut down cost you? What if the perceived threat were great enough for Obama to attempt a semi-permanent shut down? That means the end of all web business. Think about this one, folks. It’s enormous. The Act itself is so very vague and far reaching, not to mention what it does to the 4th Amendment – basically just puts it through the shredder.

I know I keep encouraging folks to speak up, but hey, this one matters, to all of us. It comes down to 1st Amendment and 4th Amendment rights. Write your congresspeople. Contact your senators. Just do it.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 at 9:26 am and is filed under General, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.