Legistlation seeks to allow U.S. ability to turn off global internet

Senator Joe Lieberman has proposed legislation to create a “kill switch” that would somehow give the United States president the ability to switch off the global internet, which Lieberman’s describes as a U.S. “national asset.” Hubris and obvious displays of the empiral reality asside, this should add further evidence to the world of the potential threat the United States poses on occasion as the “sole” super power.

The 197-page bill (PDF), “Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act” is the latest  attempt by the U.S. and other governments to steal the internet away from users, as Prison Planet describes here.

As University of Sydney associate professor Bjorn Landfeldt says, “Unfortunately, too much of the core of the internet resides in the US – let’s put it this way, they cannot shut down machines in Australia, but they can completely isolate us and shut down certain core functions like the DNS … they can render the internet fairly useless for the rest of the world.”

“The legislation says that companies such as broadband providers, search engines or software firms that the US Government selects “shall immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed” by the Department of Homeland Security. Anyone failing to comply would be fined,” reports ZDNet’s Declan McCullagh.

Co-sponsor of the bill Senator Susan Collins said,  “we cannot afford to wait for a cyber-9/11″ without describing what the hell a “cyber-9/11″ in her entirely asinine statement.

The Committee believes that it is dangerous when techno luddites hold too much power and feel it is for them to decide how much access people can have to a medium of open expression. Lieberman, Collins and anyone else who supports even one piece of puncuation included in this bill should be regarded as a threat to global freedom and human rights.

It almost seems like something so obvious shouldn’t need to be said: No one, no individual, group, organisation or government should have the ability to disable a global asset such as the internet for any amount of time ever. Even upon proposition such an idea should be attacked vigorously, and criticism must also be heaped upon those suggesting such a proposal. To many there may be a sense of irony that the power for collective censorship should ultimately be decided by a nation that attempts to position itself as the cradle of freedom in the modern age. We should remember that it is just a position, and that at the end of the day, governments will error on the side of repression unless kept in constant check by the global public.

“The Internet cannot be something open where anything is said and done. Every country has to apply its own rules and norms.” So says Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez.  Read the rest of this entry…

The latest issue on the stands

A piece I wrote for the new Independent World Report, entitled “Blogging beyond borders” was published over the weekend. While looking at the state of internet rights in Cuba and other Latin American countries, I wanted it to take a wider look at the state of internet rights worldwide. In spite of the efforts of Cuba, China, Iran, the UK’s digital economy law and Australia’s threats to heavily censor the web with its own draconian firewall, the InterWebs remain a borderless, wild frontier and focusing in regional situations makes less and less sense. When one government stifles access to it, the impact is felt by people in various parts of the globe who may be trying to get information in or out. Read the rest of this entry…

IPS ipsnews.net. and scant others are paying attention to an interesting and emerging case of censorship in Israel. As IPS points out, “An Israeli journalist remains under house arrest and another lives abroad, after they broke news on Israeli undercover units carrying out assassinations or ‘targeted killings’ of non-combatant Palestinian political opponents. Read the rest of this entry…

EFA is the only independent Australian organisation with a longstanding tradition of promoting online civil liberties. EFA was established in January 1994 and incorporated under the Associations Incorporation Act SA in May 1994. EFA is independent of government and commerce and is solely funded by membership subscriptions and donations from individuals and organisations with an altruistic interest in promoting online civil liberties.

via EFA’s 2010 Fundraising Campaign

Join the Libel Reform Campaign and come to the House of Commons for a mass lobby meeting at 2pm Tuesday 23rd March. We will be joined by high profile supporters of the campaign at what will be our last chance to get commitment for libel law reform from politicians and policy makers before the election is called. Read the rest of this entry…

Graphic on who is being blocked by the Great Firewall of China by David McCandless at Information is Beautiful. Based on data found here.