Will The American People See This As Over-Reaching?

This is wrong. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, has drafted a proposed bill that will give the government the authority to disconnect private sector computers (that’s your computer and mine) from the internet without having to give just cause. Cnet News a great article about the bill, but you can read part of the bill for yourself and make up your own mind:

(B) may, if the President finds it necessary for the national defense and security, and in co-ordination with relevant industry sectors, direct the national response to the cyber threat and the timely restoration of the affected critical in- frastructure information system or network;
(3) shall, in coordination with various critical infrastructure industry sectors, develop detailed cyber emergency response and restoration plans for each critical infrastructure industry sector;
(4) shall, through the appropriate department or agency, review critical functions that would be needed after a cybersecurity attack and develop a strategy for the acquisition, storage, and periodic re- placement of equipment to support those functions;
(5) shall direct the periodic mapping of Federal Government and United States critical infrastruc-ture information systems or networks, and shall de-velop metrics to measure the effectiveness of the mapping process;
(B) may, if the President finds it necessaryfor the national defense and security, and in co-ordination with relevant industry sectors, direct the national response to the cyber threat and the timely restoration of the affected critical in-frastructure information system or network;
(3) shall, in coordination with various critical infrastructure industry sectors, develop detailed cyber emergency response and restoration plans for each critical infrastructure industry sector;
(4) shall, through the appropriate department or agency, review critical functions that would be needed after a cybersecurity attack and develop a strategy for the acquisition, storage, and periodic replacement of equipment to support those functions;
(5) shall direct the periodic mapping of Federal Government and United States critical infrastructure information systems or networks, and shall develop metrics to measure the effectiveness of the mapping process;

Admitidly this is pretty vauge which almost makes me more nervous about the bill. Aside from this being too much power for any government to have the can easily subvert this bill to mean anything they want it to.

Have you ever known the government to give up a power once it acquires it? No. They only grow and expand on that power. They can never get enough. If this beast of a bill is passed I promise you it will only be the beginning. With the increased nature of our use of “cyber-space” in daily living, I am seeing this as a gateway for the US government to grab for more power. (Which subsequently means less privacy for her citizens.)

There is a lot more garbage attached to this bill that I don’t have the time to write about now, but just this premise alone should be enough to make even the most-left of the liberals stand up and say no. Can anybody out there honestly tell me they think this is a good idea?