Barack Obama may soon have the power to control the Internet. And if he deems something vague is a cyber-security threat, he will shut that baby down.

Senators John Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) think so. On Wednesday they introduced a bill to establish the Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor—an arm of the executive branch that would have vast power to monitor and control Internet traffic to protect against threats to critical cyber infrastructure. That broad power is rattling some civil libertarians.

The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 gives the president the ability to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” and shut down or limit Internet traffic in any “critical” information network “in the interest of national security.” The bill does not define a critical information network or a cybersecurity emergency. That definition would be left to the president.

So what defines a cyber-security risk? The North Koreans hacking us? The Chinese spying? The Mad Mullahs using the internet to steal banking information? Or, judging by the way the Obama camp has handled criticism in the past, it may just mean there are too many disgruntled bloggers talking smack about him that need to be shut up, for the good of the people.

You will remember that these are the same people who thought President Bush was listening in on their phone calls just for kicks. And that the wire-tapping of the NSA was unconstitutional.

But wait, there’s more! Race* has been invoked, people. Race!

“We must protect our critical infrastructure at all costs—from our water to our electricity, to banking, traffic lights and electronic health records—the list goes on,” Rockefeller said in a statement. Snowe echoed her colleague, saying, “if we fail to take swift action, we, regrettably, risk a cyber-Katrina.“

A cyber-Katrina, where welfare queens begin looting the Internet, and their baby-daddies start shooting at the NSA? I think I’d actually pony up the $50 to watch that on pay-per-view. Who’s with me?

*Because anything, anywhere, anytime, when uttered by a Democrat in relation to Katrina is about race. Always.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 4th, 2009 at 12:49 pm and is filed under Barak Obama. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.