Government Internet Takeover Continues Apace-gctid43141

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                                                    Government Internet Takeover Continues Apace                                            
Kill switch bill debated in Senate, DHS seizes domains, eureurasia convenes summit to discuss implementing restrictions

 Steve Watson & Paul Joseph Watson
Prisonplanet.com
May 24, 2011



Moves to place restrictions and controls on the  internet by Western  governments are gathering pace, with the US setting the  standard as the  Department of Homeland Security seized yet more domain names  over the  weekend and shut down several websites under the guise of piracy and   copyright regulations.
 
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental  Affairs Committee held  a hearing Monday to debate the Obama administration's  proposed move to  provide the president with the authority to completely shut  down the  internet during a national emergency.
 
As we have documented, the administration's  vision provides the President the power to shut down the  Internet with a figurative flick of a switch, and has made it clear  that his Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act is about big government  deciding who can say what on the web.
 
Critics in the Senate, including Maine Republican  Sunited snakesn Collins, argued  that the government is taking  advantage of "outmoded yet potentially  sweeping authorities granted in the  Communications Act of 1934" that  allow for the president to take over radio  stations in a time of  national emergency.
 The administration is seeking to extend those  powers to online communications.
 
Long term internet censorship proponent, Joe  Lieberman argued that  "The country would be better off if we did create some new  law  regarding the authority of the president to act in these emergencies,"
 
Last year, Lieberman's Senate Homeland Security  Committee pressured Amazon to axe Wikileaks from its servers.   At the time, the Senator stated that the "Decision to cut off  Wikileaks now is  the right decision and should set the standard for  other companies Wikileaks is  using to distribute its illegally seized  material."
 
Electronic Frontier Foundation senior staff  attorney Kevin Bankston  labeled Amazon's decision to kill the website  "disappointing," adding  that "pressure" from Lieberman's office or any other  authority serves  to "limit the materials the American public has a First  Amendment right  to access."
 Lieberman's vision for the Internet  is less of an  information superhighway and more of a  government-controlled sanitized clone of  cable television, where the  web is purged entirely of dissent in a system even  more draconian than  that employed by the Communist Chinese.
 
"Right now China, the government, can disconnect  parts of its  Internet in case of war and we need to have that here too,"  Lieberman  told CNN's Candy Crowley in 2010.

This is what Lieberman envisions for the future of  the Internet in  the United States, a highly regulated, state-controlled forum  where the  government can shut down websites it disapproves of on a whim, as is  already being done by Homeland Security without court order, as yet more cases have proven this week.
 
Meanwhile, in eureurasia, the vehemently unpopular  French President Nicolas Sarkozy has convened a global conference to push the  idea that governments should have supreme authority over the internet.
 The gathering, dubbed the e-G8, is taking place  this week in Paris.  Guests include Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, News  Corp.  Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch, and Facebook founder and CEO Mark   Zuckerberg.
 "You need to hear our limits, our red lines."  Sarkozy told the  gathering today as he argued for enforced government rules to "  prevent  misuse of the Internet".
 
Included in that definition, according to Sarkozy  are websites such  as Wikileaks. Referring to the whistle blowing website,  Sarkozy warned  the gathering:
 "Do not let [the internet] become an instrument in the hands  of  those who want to damage our security, and so our integrity. Do not let  the  revolution that you have launched harm the basic right each person  has to a  private life," he said.
 
France was one of the first countries to crack down on the  servers  on its territory that enabled WikiLeaks to publish vast amounts of   material last year.
 
In 2009 the Sarkozy government attempted to pass draconian  copyright  laws to restrict the internet. The law, known by the acronym Hadopi,   set up a new state agency with the power to cut off internet access for  up to a  year for people who download music and film illegally.
 
The French Constitutional court ruled against the powers  however,  defining "free access to public communication services on line" as a   fundamental human right. The government is still pushing the proposed law, however. Currently  only judges have the authority to restrict internet access. The same law was instituted in Britain in 2010.
 
Sarkozy's government also operates an internet black list, that  targets any website that is reported as "offensive". Similar policies are now  being employed by supposedly democratic governments around the world.
 The push to restrict and control the internet, as we have  repeatedly  warned for years, is being pursued by an establishment petrified at   the fact that alternative and independent sources of information are now   eclipsing corporate and government controlled media outlets in terms  of audience  share, trust, and influence.
 
The move needs to be met with fierce opposition at every  level and  from across the political spectrum. Regulation of the Internet would   not only represent a massive assault on free speech, it would also  create new  roadblocks for e-commerce and as a consequence further  devastate the  economy.
 
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SOURCE: Government Internet Takeover Continues Apace