A raging debate over new legislation, and its impact on the Internet, has tongues wagging and fingers pointing from Silicon Valley to Washington, D.C.
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Just as the Egyptian government recently forced the Internet to go dark, U.S. officials could flip the switch if the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset legislation becomes law, say its critics.
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Proponents of the bill, which is expected to be reintroduced in the current session of Congress, dismiss the detractors as ill-informed — even naive.
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The ominously nicknamed Kill Switch bill is sure to be a flashpoint of discussion at the RSA Conference, the nation’s largest gathering of computer-security experts that takes place here this week. The debate is sure to intensify after the Obama administration announced Tuesday a new policy on Internet freedom, designed to make it harder for repressive governments to suppress dissent on the Internet — particularly on Facebook and Twitter.
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The bill — crafted by Sens. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn.; Susan Collins, R-Maine; and Tom Carper, D-Del. — aims to defend the economic infrastructure from a cyberterrorist attack. But it has free-speech advocates and privacy experts howling over the prospect of a government agency quelling the communications of hundreds of millions of people.
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This is all about control, an attempt to control every aspect of our existence, says Christopher Feudo, a cybersecurity expert who is chairman of SecurityFusion Solutions. I consider it an attack on our personal right of free speech. Look what recently occurred in Egypt.
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Its critics immediately dubbed it Kill Switch, suffusing it with Big Brother-tinged foreboding. Unfortunately, it got this label, which is analogous to death panels (during the health care debates), says Mark Kagan, director of research at Keane Federal Systems, an information-technology contractor for the government.
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The disruption to communications and economic activity could be catastrophic, says Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the…