WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Senate is putting together a bill that would give the President of the United States the authority to take control of the Internet in a “cybersecurity emergency.” CNET reported on the proposed bill Friday.

The bill grant President Obama “cybersecurity emergency powers” to disconnect and even seize control of private sector computers on the Internet, the report says.

Senate Bill S773, being drafted by West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s staff, would also create a federal cybersecurity professional certification program. It would require people operating certain private sector computer systems and networks to have the certification.

The bill has alarmed civil liberties groups and others. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a generally conservative, free-markets organization, issued a statement Monday from Wayne Crews, its director of technology studies.

Crews said, “From American telecommunications to the power grid, virtually anything networked to some other computer is potentially fair game to Obama to exercise ‘emergency powers,’” Crews said today. “Policy makers should be suspicious of proposals to collectivize and centralize cybersecurity risk management, especially in frontier industries like information technology.

“When government asserts authority over security technologies, it hinders the evolution of more robust information security practices and creates barriers to non-political solutions—both mundane and catastrophic. The result is that we become less secure, not more secure.”

CNET report: http://bit.ly/a2Z4r

www.CEI.org

Southeast Venture Conference, February 29 – March 1, 2012 at the Ritz Carlton in Tysons Corner, VA – Where Smart Money Meets Smart People.
www.seventure.org

© 2009, TechJournal South. All rights reserved.