Thread: New Attempt to Control Internet

New Attempt to Control Internet

Friend of Freedom,

Before I begin, let me make a request of you: Please...if you do nothing else today...send this email to everyone in your email address book and ask them to do the same.

There another dangerous bill working its way through the United States Congress. It's the re-run of last year's failed "Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010." Last year's version was created by Senators Joe Lieberman [I-CT], Susan Collins [R-ME] and Thomas Carper [D-DE] - all liberals. It failed. Their bill, by the way, was the second attempt to control access to the Internet. The first attempt was launched through Sen. Jay Rockefeller's [D-WV]. It was called the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, which led to Barack Obama's Executive Order surrendering control of the Internet to the Federal Communications Commission.

This year's version is called the "Cybersecurity and Internet Freedom Act of 2011." Same authors. Same bill---almost. This year's version has a preamble that last year's version did not have. It failed last year because people were vocally concerned about the loss of Internet "freedom" due largely to the FCC takeover of the Internet. So, this year, the authors made sure the bill's title and its preamble made it clear the bill did not authorize the President of the United States, the Director of the National Center for Cybersecurity, nor any officer or employee of the federal government to shut down the Internet.

While its core objective---regulating the Internet---virtually remains the same, the legislation walks very softly around its core objective. Once you read the ENTIRE bill you discover it still gives Mr. Obama the authority, in a national emergency, or during a cyber-attack, to take dictatorial control over the Internet by regulating who has access to cyberspace and just how much access they have. So, if you control every jot and tittle, why shut it down?

Neither the FCC nor what is being legislatively designated as the Office for Cyberspace Policy has absolutely ANY constitutional authority to control, limit, or regulate your access to the Internet. Contact every Member of the U.S. Congress to URGE them to vote against any bill that gives power to anyone to control the Internet. Fight for YOUR First Amendment rights that ARE guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Our national efforts will continue to expose this latest invasion of your privacy rights on the Internet!

In the new bill, don't look for expanded freedom of cyberspeech. It isn't there. Don't look for freedom from Internet censure. It isn't there, either. But what is there will tear apart your Internet freedom because, like last year's Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, this year's re-run is almost the same; and every American who enjoys freedom must do whatever they can to make sure this bill does not become law.

Because while the preamble assures those reading the new law that no individual can shut down the Internet, on page 70 of the bill we learn that the "rights" citizens will enjoy to access the Internet under Section 242(c) won't be written by the Director of Cyberspace Security until after the "Cybersecurity and Internet Freedom Act of 2011" is enacted - and then, only upon consultation with the U.S. Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence and the Privacy Officer. In other words, our "designated rights" to the Internet are defined in verbiage not included in the bill, to be written by the bureaucracy after the legislation is enacted.

Think about that. Today, you have an unbridled, unregulated right to use the Internet. If this legislation is enacted, our rights to use cyberspace, will be regulated. Our right to cyberspeech, the courts have said, is protected by the 1st Amendment's free speech provisions. If the "Cybersecurity and Internet Freedom Act of 2011" is enacted, those rights, in as yet undefined ways, will be regulated. Your Internet freedom is again at stake. Regardless how you dress up the words in the preamble of this bill, the Obama Administration wants---or rather---needs to CONTROL the Internet by a grant of power to block the onramp to the Information Superhighway in the name of Internet security.

While the preamble of the bill insists there's no case where the government is authorized to "shut down" the Internet; and, in fact, says it's not feasible to do so, in point of fact, Australia enacted a similar bill---and immediately tested its ability to shut shut down the Australian Internet---for one hour on Sept. 2, 2009 from 7:50 to 8:50 a.m. And Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak did the same to stop the Muslim Brotherhood from using the Internet to direct and manage the protests that overthrew his government. It is feasible. It can, and has been done.

Proponents of this disastrous bill, which is expected to be enacted in the current session of Congress, dismiss the bill's detractors as ill-informed, even naïve. However, don't be misled by a bill that suggests it will "insure" cyber-security. Far from it. This is a bill specifically designed to limit, if not erase your Internet freedom, if the Department of Homeland Security or the White House believes we have a cyber-crisis. For that reason, we must make sure that this legislation does NOT become the law of the land.

This bill "sounds good"---however, it is a disaster in disguise. Its stated aim is to defend the economic infrastructure from a cyber-terrorist attack. But, it also opens up the power of the federal government to shut down your access to the Internet, much like Hosni Mubarak did in Egypt, for political reasons.

You have certain rights that are guaranteed by the United States Constitution. As already ruled on in three different federal cases, your right to free speech on the Internet is guaranteed by the 1st Amendment. No federal agency can abridge that right. Sadly, we are increasingly living in a society where we must periodically we must remind Congress!

We've already seen how Egypt's Hosni Mubarak interrupted the Internet for his own political purposes. Regardless of the assurances of status quo politicians, the exact same can happen in the United States. That's why we must oppose this new law. The Obama Administration will control the Internet onramps if the Cybersecurity and Internet Freedom Act of 2011 becomes law.

This is a very bad bill, written by Senators Joseph Lieberman, Susan Collins and Tom Carper. While it laudably aims to defend the economic infrastructure from a cyber-terrorist attack, it has free-speech advocates and privacy experts howling over the prospect of a government agency stifling the 1st Amendment rights of millions of people.

Christopher Feudo, a cybersecurity expert, and chairman of SecurityFusion Solutions, said: "This is all about CONTROL, an attempt to control every aspect of our existence. I consider it an attack on our personal right of free speech. Look what recently occurred in Egypt."

Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, proclaims: "The disruption to communications and economic activity could be catastrophic!"

The Cybersecurity and Internet Freedom Act of 2011 gives the White House the authority to declare vaguely-defined situations as "cyber-crises" that empower the bureaucrats in the newly established cabinet level Department of Infrastructure Protection to issue directives to Internet companies to which they must "immediately comply."

All this would be done in the name of a threat to national security. "We know that cyber intruders have probed our electrical grid and that in other country's cyber attacks have plunged entire cities into darkness," Mr. Obama said in May 2009 remarks on cybersecurity.

If you will recall just before Christmas last year, the FCC ruled 3-2 in favor of new rules and regulations on the Internet. The United States Congress had 60 days to discuss and rescind that vote. They did nothing.

The federal courts have already ruled that this is an unconstitutional "power grab" that puts your 1st Amendment rights at risk! At that moment, although no attempt as yet has been levied to regulate it, your Internet is tacitly controlled by the FCC (whose name is conspicuously missing from the text of this new legislation).

There is absolutely NO Congressional Oversight on this issue.

It appears at the moment that the Republican leadership in the 112th U.S. Congress is "asleep at the switch." We need a pledge from the GOP leadership that the House version of this bill will never see the light of day. Perhaps we need Congress to explain the logic of why we need a law to protect, through regulation, a 1st Amendment right we now safely enjoy without regulation? Particularly since the 1st Amendment itself warns Congress that it "...shall make no laws (which abridge)...the freedom of speech or the press..."

In spite of the fact that 4 out of every 5 Americans were opposed to the arbitrary assertion of authority to regulate the Internet by the FCC, only a handful of conservative members of Congress actively campaigned for Internet freedom. Even some liberals openly opposed these new Obama regulatory rules. Wow---something that both sides agreed on---yet the new rules remained in effect. Now the left wants to cast those rules in stone with a new law which the left could not enact while they had a super majority---a remake of Joe Lieberman's "Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010." The only way they could introduce the bill was to include, in its preamble, a statement that no individual could shut down the Internet.

Although the Australian government's test was successful in September, 2009, it had a major pitfall. Among the millions of citizens who lost their access to cyberspace was every business in the land "down under." Not only did the kill switch wipe out access to every high speed user in Australia, had the test taken place during business hours, it would have wiped out every Internet-linked business in Aussieland. That's why, in the preamble of the new law, it says that shutting down the Internet is "not feasible." But, controlling access to the onramps is feasible---and necessary to control free speech over the Internet.

Let's be very real about the intention of this legislation. It is not just about INTERNET control to protect us from spammers, hackers and phishers. It is about POLITICAL control to protect government...from us! They are afraid of us. And that's good. That's how it's supposed to be according to our 3rd President, Thomas Jefferson, who said: "When the government fears the people, there is liberty." Conversely, when the people fear the government, it is tyranny.

Make no mistake, as much as the title of this new legislation benignly declares it will protect your "Internet freedoms," this is the Obama Administration's third attempt to legislatively take over, and regulate, your use of, the Internet. Because of the preamble statement in this bill, they very well may succeed this time, unless the American people are alerted to the fact that the preamble of this bill is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Once again, Barack Obama's intent is not to shut down the Internet, since that could collapse the economy. His intent is to assume control of it, and regulate HOW, AND WHEN, YOU GET TO USE THE INTERNET FROM NOW ON.

Individual cyberspace freedom must remain strong; so our grassroots political campaigns to get rid of a Tax and Spend Congress can be victorious in 2012. Will you help us PROTECT YOU today?

This is not just about the taking over of the Internet. This new legislation is a very subtle attempt to remove the Internet from its ties to the 1st Amendment, and allow an agency of the federal government to redefine free speech rights on the Internet by taking, first, those freedoms away---and then, returning, which of those "rights" government is willing to conditionally allow you to possess. Our free speech freedoms are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, not the whims of government.

This is so important, that I know I will hear from you today. And please, after you fax Congress, email this to everyone on your personal email list.

Sincerely,

Alan Gottlieb
Chairman, AmeriPAC

received by e-mail from AmeriPAC info@ameripac.org on Fri, Mar 25, 2011 5:41 am

American Political Action Committee (AmeriPAC)
PO Box 1682
Dept Code 5883
Bellevue, WA 98009-1682

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