Should the federal government have the power to monitor and control Internet traffic to make sure that our critical cyber-infrastructure is not harmed?
New legislation seems to think so. The “Cybersecurity Act of 2009” would give the president the power to “declare a cybersecurity emergency,” allowing for the shut down or limitation of Internet traffic “in the interest of national security”— though “critical information network” and “cybersecurity emergency” are not defined and left to the president to determine.
There is no doubt that our cyber critical infrastructure is at risk. Every few weeks or so there’s the mainstream press uncovers new reasons for concern—most recently after attacks presumably originating in North Korea on the Pentagon, White House and Department of Treasury among others.
Moreover, as more and more functions go digital, the potential damage could be catastrophic: electricity interruptions of unknown duration, transportation systems fouled to the point of causing harm, and commerce slowed or stopped, just to name a few.
Certainly the U.S. president is given broad authority in times of war, but always with checks by Congress. And to some, that precedent along with a heavy bias for “security,” leads them to believe that such sweeping authority is acceptable. Yet, the damage done to civil liberties is not trivial.
Maybe worse, once a system is designed so that one person can have access, and ultimately control, over the cyber infrastructure, then a brightly lit pathway is established for those who would wreck havoc in our country. So the question is who will control the controller?
Perhaps in times of a true emergency some authority must be ceded in a limited way for a limited time with strict checks on that power by other branches of government, and always with the people retaining the right to rescind that power.
But undefined blanket authority consolidated in one branch of government at best does great damage to liberty, and at worst weakens our national cyber security.