S. 773: The Cybersecurity Act of 2009

~Justin Schoville

There is a new threat to the last frontier of freedom- the internet.

Shelly Roche, at Break the Matrix, explains this bill perfectly, but for those of you would like to read a synthesis, here's the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) regarding the bill.

An interesting point Shelly Roche indicated was Section 14 b, indicating the President:

"may declare a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic to and from any compromised Federal Government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network."

Now the two key terms in this are Federal Government system or network and critical infrastructure information system or network. A Federal Government system is understandably under this measure, however, whats a critical infrastructure information system?

Upon further inspection in the "definition" section at the end of the bill, Rockefeller and Co. tell us:

"State, local, and nongovernmental information systems and networks in the United States designated by the President as critical infrastructure information systems and networks."

Oh I see- the President can shut down any traffic on any nongovernmental system as long as he declares it to be "critical". Interesting.

One of the reasons this bill was introduced I imagine is to prevent a loss to our economic sector due to cyber-crime, and to prevent the theft of intellectual property rights. However, what will be the commercial reaction when the President has uniform internet regulations for private business and can shut down their internet at any time due to an "emergency"? The seen effect of this is to limit any damage to the nation by regulation and government intervention. The unseen effect will be the failure of government to protect these private networks to the standard they have had currently without intervention. I predict quality of protection will decrease and the business sector will be hurt more by the passing of this bill than not.

The other important power declared in this bill would be the Secretary of Commerce's new powers- as the EFF explains perfectly:

'"The Secretary of Commerce— shall have access to all relevant data concerning (critical infrastructure) networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access… "

In other words, the bill would give the Commerce Department absolute, non-emergency access to “all relevant data” without any privacy safeguards like standards or judicial review. The broad scope of this provision could eviscerate statutory protections for private information, such as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Privacy Protection Act, or financial privacy regulations'

I'm sure these regulations and spying powers will do wonders to the business community, including other internet users who just want to surf the web. I mean, I always have had a difficult time surfing the web for fear of people hijacking my computer. I was just thinking, "its about time someone stepped in to regulate this mess!" And sure enough, here comes Rockefeller and the Federal Government. I feel safer already!

[The Cybersecurity Act itself can be found here]