Cyber Autonomy Under Attack

A little publicized, but highly worrisome bill is making its way through the United States Senate. The Cyber Security Act of 2009 would give the executive branch wide reaching authority to manage and even shut down the Internet infrastructure in the United States. The bill is sponsered by Democrat Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine.
The Cyber Security Act would give the Secretary of Commerce access to critical networks across the country in order to monitor and react to a cyber attack. This would allow the President to "direct the national response to the cyber threat," according to the language in the bill. Senator Snowe has said that this bill is necessary to prevent a "Cyber Katrina."
Senior counsel of the Center for Democracy and Technology, Greg Nojeim, has warned that the new law could undermine the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which requires law enforcement to get a warrant to monitor e-mails, texts, tweets, and even blog post.
No one in American politics understands the value of the Internet like Barack Obama, and that is what makes this bill all the more problematic. The Internet has become the printing press of the new millennium, and millions of citizen journalist around the world are taking part. We have seen what effect a government crackdown on social media can have in places like Iran and China. Americans cannot allow the government to control the spigot of the New Information Age. With more of our personal information on the Internet than ever before, we must take steps to ensure that it is secure, but we mustn't hand over that responsibility to government, for those who would trade liberty for security deserve neither.