Internet...Eclipsed

I am interrupting this blog for an important editorial comment.

I watched news reports on the country of Egypt and its descent into chaos.  I watched as thousands of protesters took to the streets to chant, yell, and burn portions of their city in opposition to years of poverty and social injustices at the hands of their government.

The Internet played a vital role in their uprising. The Internet allowed the Egyptian people to be connected to others across the planet thus exposing them to how others lived.  The Internet also allowed for the Egyptian people to communicate with others within their own community. Through social networking they were able to coordinate the firsts of the protests.

In response to the unprecedented show of dissatisfaction the Egyptian government shut down all cell phone and Internet service, throwing its enraged citizens into an information blackout.

How horrible that a government has that much control that it can simply deny its citizens information and the ability to communicate. It made me thankful to live in America. That could never happen here.

Or so I thought.

The Cyber Security Act, a bill introduced in the Senate, would create a cyber security office in the White House run by a cyber czar. This office would have the authority to request security data from private entities without having to justify cause. This bill would put into place an infrastructure that could enact drastic controls of Internet content. The language in the bill indicates that judicial review is prohibited, basicallly setting the stage for no dessent. If passed, this bill would give the president the key to essentially turn off the Internet.

The bill designed to allow the president to shut down the Internet only in cases where a cyber emergency or the threat thereof has been declared. I am not so dense in that the president or some high ranking official probably can’t already enact such a drastic measure, however, to see it outlined on paper is unreal, especially against the backdrop of the what happening in Egypt. 

I watched as President Obama urged the Egyptian president Mubarak to allow the protestors the freedom to communicate by turning the power back on for cell phone and Internet usage. As I studied this bill I worried that his words were contradictory. Granting the government such power is the proverbial slippery slope. While our government may have the best of intentions, the urge may one day be too great to simply shut down the Internet in cases of public descent. We are wading into dangerous territory and our freedom of speech and privacy are at the very precipice.  I recalled the words of President Obama in an address to Chinese students in November 2009 where he said, “I should be honest, as president of the United States, there are times where I wish information didn’t flow so freely because then I wouldn’t have to listen to people criticizing me all the time.”

 Get your boots ready. Enter the slippery slope.

In an era of e-commerce, instant information, and blogging shutting down such an entity is unthinkable. While cyber security is a legitimate and serious issue and one that should be of concern not only to the U.S. government but individual companies and entities, the policing of the Internet should not be handed unilaterally over to government control.

 It saddened me to think that we have more in common with those protesters in Egypt or oppressed students in China than one may think.