Daily Archives: 21 June 2010

FCC Moves to Regulate the Internet

The Federal Communications Commission is set to begin a move to regulate the Internet.

According to CNSNews.com, by a “3-2 party-line vote on Thursday at the FCC,” the agency “began the formal process of reclassifying the Internet as a telecommunications service instead of an information service — it’s current classification.”

Currently, as an information service, the FCC can exercise only “ancillary” authority, which does not allow it to regulate the Internet directly. If the Internet is reclassified, the agency would gain greater regulatory control.
(Read more from thenewamerican.com)

Senate Bill Would Give Obama Internet ‘Kill Switch’

The introduction of a new Senate bill, S.3480, dubbed the “Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010,” is sparking concerns about a massive power grab over the Internet under the guise of “national security.”

The bill, proposed by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I – CT) claims the entire Internet, the whole global computer network and everything on it, as a “national asset” of the United States, and seeks to give President Obama the power to seize control over broad swaths of it with no oversight during a “National Cyber Emergency,” which would itself be something the president would be able to declare at any time. (Read more from news.antiwar.com)

Why is it that whenever a bill seems diabolically Orwellian, Joe Lieberman is either sponsor or co-sponsor?