Internet 'kill switch' proposed for US

[shes invincible]

Sangre:

Internet is a source of knowledge and a source of fresh information, people communicate with each other through internet - it's not right to take this away from people.

Exactly. And just imagine if they controlled the internet or even worse, shut it down :!: Imagine how it will al turn out if we didn't get to read the internet information and base our own opinions and investigations from it, like for example if it is a fact or just BS like the tabloids!?

Oh hell no

[Sangre]

Sangre:

Internet is a source of knowledge and a source of fresh information, people communicate with each other through internet - it's not right to take this away from people.

Exactly. And just imagine if they controlled the internet or even worse, shut it down :!: Imagine how it will al turn out if we didn't get to read the internet information and base our own opinions and investigations from it, like for example if it is a fact or just BS like the tabloids!?

Oh hell no

Imagine one day there's a terrorist bombing or a catastrophe, internet will be switched out and people have no idea what's happening. Keeping people clueless is the best way to control them and they have no choice other than to obey.

[*Mo*]

Imagine one day there's a terrorist bombing or a catastrophe, internet will be switched out and people have no idea what's happening. Keeping people clueless is the best way to control them and they have no choice other than to obey.

And while the internet is switched off, all people can do is turn on their radios and TVs, and the mainstream media can then again shove their fabricated BS stories down their throats...

[Sangre]

Imagine one day there's a terrorist bombing or a catastrophe, internet will be switched out and people have no idea what's happening. Keeping people clueless is the best way to control them and they have no choice other than to obey.

And while the internet is switched off, all people can do is turn on their radios and TVs, and the mainstream media can then again shove their fabricated BS stories down their throats...

Exactly.  :shock:

[TrueBeLIEver1981]

I believe it's all about fear. Remember the internet and computer, electricity, and everything else was supposed to shut down in 1999. If you fear them then of course you'll do whatever they say because when you're afraid you'll do anything.

As long as they keep trying to present this constant threat of attack or fear, mindless people will do anything in my opinion. But THEY have no control over my life, over my computer system, and I refuse to sit here and be told that I am going to do what they tell me to do just because of their own corruption/financial greed.

If anything Michael would want us to be strong, stand up, and not be afraid.

[katson45]

to me  it is more about COMMUNICATION

communication has always been a threat to CONTROL

bingo....

[Emily Hutjes]

This proposal for an emergency Internet kill switch would not surprise me, if this proposal is at all true.  It would all be about control.
However, there are more satelites in Earth's orbit than the ones owed/ used by the USA.
Ergo: do not panic YET even if it would be true.
The countries in the far East that are economically advancing fast and well and are doing great business with the Western world, are not going to fall to their knees for any control of the USA. Or intimidation for that matter.
Many Western countries depend on the far East countries for the cheap production of many of their goods.
An emergency Internet kill switch for the USA would damage their economy very seriously , if they would ever use it.
They had better think twice.........and they will.
The far East is not scared of the Illuminati groups of the Western world and their control. They have their own!!

[Hazzely]

Guess Who Wants to Kill the Internet?
                
Maidhc Ó Cathail
Opinion Maker
July 4, 2010

Since 9/11, the Independent senator from Connecticut has introduced a raft of legislation in the name of the “global war on terror” which has steadily eroded constitutional rights. If the United States looks increasingly like a police state, Senator Lieberman has to take much of the credit for it.
On October 11, 2001, exactly one month after 9/11, Lieberman introduced S. 1534, a bill to establish a Department of Homeland Security. Since then, he has been the main mover behind such draconian legislation as the Protect America Act of 2007, the Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010, and the proposed Terrorist Expatriation Act, which would revoke the citizenship of Americans suspected of terrorism. And now the senator from Connecticut wants to kill the Internet.
According to the bill he recently proposed in the Senate, the entire global internet is to be claimed as a “national asset” of the United States. If Congress passes the bill, the US President would be given the power to “kill” the internet in the event of a “national cyber-emergency.” Supporters of the legislation say this is necessary to prevent a “cyber 9/11” – yet another myth from the fear mongers who brought us tales of “Iraqi WMD” and “Iranian nukes.”
Lieberman’s concerns about the internet are not new. The United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which Lieberman chairs, released a report in 2008 titled “Violent Islamist Extremism, The Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat.” The report claimed that groups like al-Qaeda use the internet to indoctrinate and recruit members, and to communicate with each other.
 ---> (sure.... make up another excuse please)

Immediately after the report was published, Lieberman asked Google, the parent company of You Tube, to “immediately remove content produced by Islamist terrorist organizations.” That might sound like a reasonable request. However, as far as Lieberman is concerned, Hamas, Hezbollah and even the Iranian Revolutionary Guard are terrorist organizations.
It’s hardly surprising that Lieberman’s views on what constitute terrorism parallel those of Tel Aviv. As Mark Vogel, chairman of the largest pro-Israel Political Action Committee (PAC) in the United States, once said: “Joe Lieberman, without exception, no conditions … is the No. 1 pro-Israel advocate and leader in Congress. There is nobody who does more on behalf of Israel than Joe Lieberman.”
Lieberman has been well-rewarded for his patriotism – to another country. In the past six years, he has been the Senate’s top recipient of political contributions from pro-Israel PACs with a staggering $1,226,956.
But what is it that bothers Lieberman so much about the internet? Could it be that it allows ordinary Americans access to facts which reveal exactly what kind of “friend” Israel has been to its overgenerous benefactor? Facts which they have been denied by the pro-Israel mainstream media.

How much faith would American voters have in the likes of Lieberman, who claims that the Jewish state is their greatest ally, if they knew that Israeli agents planted firebombs in American installations in Egypt in 1954 in an attempt to undermine relations between Nasser and the United States; that Israel murdered 34 American servicemen in a deliberate attack on the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967; that Israeli espionage, most notably Jonathan Pollard’s spying, has done tremendous damage to American interests; that five Mossad agents were filming and celebrating as the Twin Towers collapsed on September 11, 2001; that Tel Aviv and its accomplices in Washington were the source of the false pre-war intelligence on Iraq; and about countless other examples of treachery?
In his latest attempt to censor the internet, does Lieberman really want to protect the American people from imaginary cyber-terrorists? Or is he just trying to protect his treasonous cronies from the American people?

[traceys_home]

Hurry up Michael - please, hurry up. This is scary stuff.

This is said with the utmost respect to you but,

We Better Get Off Our A$$es Today and STOP Waiting on Michael and Do Something About this OURSELVES! Keep your ears and eyes open people.

 :!:

[B-LIEves]

I don't want to entertain the thought of a "kill switch" being tested TODAY here in the states, but it looks like it may have been possible. The city in which I live in BARELY had internet access today. One of my co-workers called the internet provider and they said it was the whole city, not to mention family members with different providers experienced the same thing today. ***Please advise.

[rabbit]

To be honest with you guys, Michael is not going to expose the iluminati, and i don't care what anybody says. If he expose them he'd be dead, he can expose them by hidden messages and through his music, but cannot expose them out of his mouth. Look what happen to 2pac, exposing them and  look where  he end up. Micheal can change the world through his music but not through his mouth.

We can't do anything about this oil spill whether its a conpirsacy or not, we cant do nothing. Hate to say this but Illuminati will always win they'd always be in control.

[rabbit]

Hurry up Michael - please, hurry up. This is scary stuff.

This is said with the utmost respect to you but,

We Better Get Off Our A$$es Today and STOP Waiting on Michael and Do Something About this OURSELVES! Keep your ears and eyes open people.

 :!:

i agree

[snowhite159]

I don't want to entertain the thought of a "kill switch" being tested TODAY here in the states, but it looks like it may have been possible. The city in which I live in BARELY had internet access today. One of my co-workers called the internet provider and they said it was the whole city, not to mention family members with different providers experienced the same thing today. ***Please advise.

U know now that I think of that I actually didnt have internet either! hmmm how weird!
(on the same day)

[TheRunningGirl]

It is interesting to read that whilst not yet proposing a security switch, the UK government is now seeing "Cyber crime" as a top threat for the UK... I read we want to take control over the internet!

See an extract from an article published on the BBC website recently:

Full article ---> You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Terrorism and cyber attacks among top threats to UK
Terrorism and attacks on computer networks are among the biggest threats to the UK, Home Secretary Theresa May has said ahead of the publication of a new National Security Strategy

The strategy will form the background for Tuesday's Strategic Defence Review, setting out the shape of UK forces after expected budget cuts of 8%.

While "very serious", terrorism was just one of many threats, Mrs May said.

Cyber crime was a "new and growing" danger, she told the BBC.
The National Security Council, set up by David Cameron in May, is publishing an updated approach to national security which identifies 16 threats to the UK.

The most serious - which they are calling "Tier 1" - comprises acts of international terrorism, hostile computer attacks on UK cyberspace, a major accident or natural hazard such as a flu pandemic, or an international military crisis between states that draws in the UK and its allies.

Intelligence priority

Speaking ahead of the strategy's launch in the Commons on Monday afternoon, Mrs May said she was not prepared to rank these in order of gravity but acknowledged they were of a "different nature" to other potential threats.

On terrorism, she said the threat level to the UK had been at severe - which means an attack is likely - for "some time".
"We are facing a very serious threat from international terrorism... we must all be vigiliant," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Rather than focusing on different areas in isolation, she said the security strategy had looked at the overall picture "in the round".

"We have to look at the whole picture. That is what we have been doing and that is not what has been done in the past."

As part of the exercise, she said officials had identified attacks on government and business IT systems as as a "new and growing threat".

Last week, Iain Lobban, the head of the UK's communications intelligence agency GCHQ, spoke of hundreds of malicious e-mails already being aimed at government computer networks each month.

He also highlighted the use of cyber techniques by countries to target each other and steal their secrets.

The BBC's Secuirty Correspondent Gordon Corera says that with a quarter of a trillion e-mails being sent each day, cyberspace is becoming the new battleground.
Ahead of Wedesday's Spending Review, Mrs May said the Home Office had to "play its part" in cutting spending to deal with the deficit.

Intelligence, counter-terrorism and cyber security are all expected to escape major cuts and in some cases may even be given fresh investment, increasing speculation that police forces could face the brunt of any cuts.

While declining to be drawn on the details, Mrs May said she had always made it clear there was scope for the police to make savings without hitting beat operations by cutting bureaucracy and increased collaboration between forces.

While welcoming efforts to tackle cyber attacks, Labour - which developed the first national security strategy in 2008 - said the plan offered little new.

"The government seem to be producing a reheated security strategy to provide cover for a rushed defence review rather that producing a renewed and careful consideration of the UK's defence and security priorities," said shadow foreign secretary Yvette Cooper.

With L.O.V.E

[Grace]

Bumping the thread, asking for your thoughts - will twitter be the next social brain washing weapon? It is an excellent marketing tool as showbiz keeps demonstrating. Would it be on for propaganda, too?

From bloggers of Myanmar's 2007 Saffron Revolution to tweeters of the protests that followed Iran's 2009 election, the Internet has proven itself to be a tool in promoting change and democracy in the world.

But Evgeny Morozov, author of The Net Delusion, argues that it doesn't always work out that way.

Read An Excerpt

"The change is not always positive," Morozov tells NPR's Neal Conan. "Yes, [social media] are affecting the world. But it also looks like the other side — the authoritarian governments — are getting empowered as well."

Sure, election protesters in Iran were able to tweet, blog and record the violence they saw, which prompted some to claim the victory of a social media revolution. But think about the flip side, Morozov cautions.

Authoritarian governments can harness the Internet's power to serve their purposes as well. Some use it for surveillance, Morozov says, "tracking down what's happening on social networks, trying to identify who are all of those people tweeting."

Others use the Web to distribute propaganda.

"We are seeing a lot of these regimes going online and ... creating blog posts and tweets, and even hiring bloggers to push their messages," he explains.

Taken together with more traditional censorship efforts, Morozov says, the Internet "actually empowers the other side much more than it does the social movements and the dissidents and the human rights activists."

Morozov used to think the reverse was true, but during the April 2009 protests against the government in Moldova, he changed his mind.

"As it happened, there were still a lot of networks that were analog ... human networks — protesters talking to each other on the phone, or just talking to each other in real life, and actually encouraging each other to appear in the square," Morozov says.

But because the digital messages on Twitter and Facebook were visible to everyone, much of what happened in Moldova in 2009 was attributed to the Internet.

Excerpt: 'The Net Delusion' by Evgeny Morozov
In June 2009 thousands of young Iranians — smartphones in their hands — poured into the stuffy streets of Tehran to protest what they believed to be a fraudulent election. Tensions ran high, and some protesters, in an unthinkable offense, called for the resignation of Ayatollah Khamenei. But many Iranians found the elections to be fair; they were willing to defend the incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad if needed. Iranian society, buffeted by the conflicting forces of populism, conservatism, and modernity, was facing its most serious political crisis since the 1979 revolution that ended the much-disliked reign of the pro- American Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

But this was not the story that most Western media chose to prioritize; instead, they preferred to muse on how the Internet was ushering in democracy into the country. "The Revolution Will Be Twittered" was the first in a series of blog posts published by the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan a few hours after the news of the protests broke. In it, Sullivan zeroed in on the resilience of the popular microblogging site Twitter, arguing that "as the regime shut down other forms of communication, Twitter survived. With some remarkable results." In a later post, even though the "remarkable results" were still nowhere to be seen, Sullivan proclaimed Twitter to be "the critical tool for organizing the resistance in Iran" but didn't bother to quote any evidence to support his claim. Only a few hours after the protests began, his blog emerged as a major information hub that provided almost instantaneous links to Iran-related developments. Thousands of readers who didn't have the stamina to browse hundreds of news sites saw events unfolding in Iran primarily through Sullivan's eyes. (And, as it turned out, his were a rather optimistic pair.)

It didn't take long for Sullivan's version of events to gain hold elsewhere in the blogosphere — and soon enough, in the traditional media as well. Michelle Malkin, the right-wing blogging diva, suggested that "in the hands of freedom-loving dissidents, the micro-blogging social network is a revolutionary samizdat — undermining the mullah-cracy's information blockades one Tweet at a time." Marc Ambinder, Sullivan's colleague at the Atlantic, jumped on the bandwagon, too; for him, Twitter was so important that he had to invent a new word, "protagonal," to describe it. "When histories of the Iranian election are written, Twitter will doubtless be cast a protagonal technology that enabled the powerless to survive a brutal crackdown," wrote Ambinder on his blog. The Wall Street Journal's Yochi Dreazen proclaimed that "this [revolution] would not happen without Twitter," while National Public Radio's Daniel Schorr announced that "in Iran, tyranny has run afoul of technology in the form of the Internet, turning a protest into a movement."

Soon technology pundits, excited that their favorite tool was all over the media, were on the case as well. "This is it. The big one. This is the first revolution that has been catapulted onto a global stage and transformed by social media," proclaimed New York University's Clay Shirky in an interview with TED.com.  Twitter seemed omnipotent — certainly more so than the Iranian police, the United Nations, the U.S. government, and the European Union. Not only would it help to rid Iran of its despicable leader but also convince ordinary Iranians, most of whom vehemently support the government's aggressive pursuit of nuclear enrichment, that they should stop their perpetual fretting about Israel and simply go back to being their usual peaceful selves.

Iran's seemed like a revolution that the whole world was not just watching but also blogging, tweeting, Googling, and YouTubing. It only took a few clicks to get bombarded by links that seemed to shed more light on events in Iran — quantitatively, if not qualitatively — than anything carried by what technologists like to condescendingly call "legacy media." While the latter, at least in their rare punditry-free moments of serenity, were still trying to provide some minimal context to the Iranian protests, many Internet users preferred to simply get the raw deal on Twitter, gorging on as many videos, photos, and tweets as they could stomach. Such virtual proximity to events in Tehran, abetted by access to the highly emotional photos and videos shot by protesters themselves, led to unprecedented levels of global empathy with the cause of the Green Movement. But in doing so, such networked intimacy may have also greatly inflated popular expectations of what it could actually achieve.

As the Green Movement lost much of its momentum in the months following the election, it became clear that the Twitter Revolution so many in the West were quick to inaugurate was nothing more than a wild fantasy.

Excerpted from The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom by arrangement with PublicAffairs, a member of The Perseus Books Group. Copyright 2011.

The Net Delusion: The Dark Side Of Internet Freedom
By Evgeny Morozov
Hardcover, 432 pages
PublicAffairs
List price: $27.95

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