The Senate recently blocked cybersecurity legislation, but the White House (Obama) hasn’t ruled out issuing an executive order to “strengthen” defense against cyber threats, which is code language for taking over all private communications in this country.
According to this article from The Hill:
“In the wake of Congressional inaction and Republican stall tactics, unfortunately, we will continue to be hamstrung by outdated and inadequate statutory authorities that the legislation would have fixed,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said in an email.
“Moving forward, the President is determined to do absolutely everything we can to better protect our nation against today’s cyber threats and we will do that,” Carney said.
This is simply doublespeak, as this effort to introduce cybersecurity legislation, and any forthcoming executive order to accomplish the same result, would be done to give the executive branch complete power over the Internet.
Most all the commentary coming from the mainstream is focused on the burden on business if such legislation were to become law, but that is not the real problem with this effort. Obama and the Democrats will claim that this will strengthen our defense, a joke to be sure, and the Republicans will claim that businesses will be hurt. The reality is that the government would gain full control over Internet accessibility. If the Republicans were now in power, they would also want this capability, but since this is Obama’s plan, they will feign concern for the private sector.
All in all, this situation should be watched carefully, because any order that effectively gives control of our cybersystems to the White House, is a direct threat to our privacy, to our communications, to our independent information gathering ability, to our very freedom. It is easy to understand that any liberty threatening legislation wanted by Obama, or any other evil politicians, is just another attempt to restrict on our rights. In this case, it could be very devastating!