CFR member Jay Rockfeller:Internet is “Number One National Hazard”

According to the great-grandson John D. Rockefeller, nephew of banker David Rockefeller, and former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller the internet represents a serious threat to national security. Rockefeller is not alone in this assessment. His belief that the internet is the “number one national hazard” to national security is shared by the former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and Obama’s current director Admiral Dennis C. Blair.

“It really almost makes you ask the question would it have been better if we had never invented the internet,” Rockefeller mused during the confirmation hearing of Gary Locke (see video), Obama’s choice for Commerce Secretary. He then cites a dubious figure of three million cyber “attacks” launched against the Department of Defense every day. “Everybody is attacked, anybody can do it. People say, well it’s China and Russia, but there could be some kid in Latvia doing the same thing.”

Jay Rockefeller’s comments reveal an astounding degree of ignorance – or if not ignorance, outright propaganda. Since the September 11, 2001, attacks the government has cranked up the fear quotient in regard to cyber attacks and so-called cyber terrorism, a virtually non-existent threat except in the minds security experts and politicians. In the years since the attacks, not one real instance of real cyberterrorism has been recorded.

“Cyberattacks on critical components of the national infrastructure are not uncommon, but they have not been conducted by terrorists and have not sought to inflict the kind of damage that would qualify as cyberterrorism,” writes Gabriel Weimann, author of Terror on the Internet. “Nuclear weapons and other sensitive military systems, as well as the computer systems of the CIA and FBI, are ‘air-gapped,’ making them inaccessible to outside hackers. Systems in the private sector tend to be less well protected, but they are far from defenseless, and nightmarish tales of their vulnerability tend to be largely apocryphal.”

Psychological, political, and economic forces have combined to promote the fear of cyberterrorism,” Weimann continues. “From a psychological perspective, two of the greatest fears of modern time are combined in the term ‘cyberterrorism.’ The fear of random, violent victimization blends well with the distrust and outright fear of computer technology.”

“The sky is not falling, and cyber-weapons seem to be of limited value in attacking national power or intimidating citizens,” notes James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Such a threat is overblown, Lewis explains. He notes that “a brief review suggests that while many computer networks remain very vulnerable to attack, few critical infrastructures are equally vulnerable.” In other words, Rockefeller’s example of a kid in Latvia with a laptop posing a serious “hazard” to national security is little more than sensationalistic propaganda.

So-called cyber terrorists are far less of a threat than government. China and Australia have recently imposed draconian censorship on internet freedom. Brazil, Denmark, Canada, Finland, Ireland , Italy, Israel, the United Kingdom, the United States, and many other countries also impose nominal censorship on internet freedom. Urgent calls to restrict the medium in various ways through legislation and government action have increased over the last few years (for more detail, see Internet Censorship: A Comparative Study).

However, the real threat to internet freedom is currently posed by IT and ISP corporations, not the government.
As Alex Jones explained last June, large corporate ISPs are now in the process of imposing bandwidth caps and routing traffic over their networks and blocking certain targeted websites. For instance, in 2005 AOL Time-Warner was caught blocking access to all of Jones’ flagship websites across the entire United States. Other instances of outright censorship include the UK ISP Tiscali blocking subscribers from reaching material on the 7/7 London bombings and Google’s continued and habitual censorship of 9/11 material and Alex Jones’ films on the ever-popular YouTube. There are many other instances as well. (See Censoring the Internet: A Collection of Essential Links on Infowars.)

Jay Rockefeller’s warning about virtually non-existent and largely absurd cyberterrorism reveals increasing government nervousness and apprehension about the medium as a whole, especially as the internet grows by leaps and bounds as an alternative news and activism medium. On numerous occasions over the last few years alternative websites have posted articles exposing government crime, articles the corporate media has largely ignored. During the Bush years, the internet served as a vital resource for information on everything from torture and the destruction of civil liberties to the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, information the corporate media was often unable or unwilling to carry.

For instance, earlier this month Infowars broke a story concerning the Missouri Information Analysis Center and its effort to profile Libertarians and Ron Paul supporters as terrorists. The story was subsequently picked up by the corporate media (although Alex Jones and Infowars did not receive attribution).

As more corporate media outlets fail — as evinced by several high profile newspapers going out of business recently — and more people flock to the internet to get their news and information, the government will increasingly employ fear tactics designed to portray the medium as a refuge for terrorists, pedophiles, and other miscreants.

It appears the Obama administration is attempting to micromanage this effort. Last week CNet “obtained a summary of a proposal from Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) that would create an Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor, part of the Executive Office of the President. That office would receive the power to disconnect, if it believes they’re at risk of a cyberattack, ‘critical’ computer networks from the Internet.” As well, the effort would put the White House National Cybersecurity Advisor in charge of coordinating cyber efforts within the intelligence community and within civilian agencies.

I see another thread that has a similar title.....

it's around here somewhere.....(fishing under my chair)......

OK...found it!!!

DimensionalDetective started it about 4 hours prior...sorry, dude!!!

[edit on 3/23/0909 by weedwhacker]

reply to post by weedwhacker


Yup I saw it earlier on the HOT section. Here is the link

www.abovetopsecret.com...

sorry if the link doesnt come up right I am not sure if I am doing it right

I looked for it and never seen it anywhere in the hot links.

Originally posted by thewind
...That office would receive the power to disconnect...‘critical’ computer networks from the Internet.” ...

"Critical" computer networks are NEVER connected to the internet.

reply to post by sir_chancealot
I know that, that was Jay Rockefeller saying that. Jay wants to close out internet 1 and bring in internet 2 so the gov't can fully monitor and control what we look up and see. That was my point in posting the article. I've known about Jay Rockfeller for years and even met him once when I was in high school back in west virginia. He and I discussed some issues back then and he was surprised at how much I knew about and he replied that knowledge is a good thing, but it's the acquiring of the truth that's always hard!

reply to post by thewind


"That office would receive the power to disconnect".................

WTF!!!

What are we going to do? seriously, what in the world are we going to do, yall?

And what s that little picture of an eye that sits at the bottom of the monitor with a red circle with the line through it? When you scroll your mouse over it, it says 'privacy report'



[edit on 23-3-2009 by Butter Cookie]

[edit on 23-3-2009 by Butter Cookie]

reply to post by Butter Cookie
Yes they will have the power to disconnect anything they deem a threat of foreign or deomestic terrorism. You can say thankyou to both Patriot Acts !&2 for that. Also, remember when old dubya wanted those illegal wire-taps? Well, computers fall right in that catagory due to their hooking up to the internet via dial-up and dsl and broadband . Internet 2 is nothing new, the feds have had it around for about 7 or 8 years now, they're just waiting for the right moment and right emergency to take place that'll give them the chance without too much public outcry and resistance to force it on us. Also, that little red circle with the line through it at the bottom of your puter screen is a monitor that depending on the setting you have placed onto your computers' security's settings screens the upcoming webpage and checeks it for phishing scams, viruses, and if your computer allows it to be displayed. That info is stored on your hard drive to by the way, so simply deleting temp files and cookies won't get rid of any info you might not want anybody else to know you have seen. Ya gotta go into your hard drive and delete it manually.

(to the wind)

so basicallly a slick way of following our "paper trails"?

Whoa

How will we get our source of info when they screw the internet up? you know going to the library won't do cuz that's a gov't building and they OK everything before it can go in there

reply to post by Butter Cookie
What you need to do right now is this, and it's the same thing I have already begun to do myself. Get all the literature ya can from well-known nwo researchers such as Kurt Nimmo, David J Smith(he's got an execllent paper), Jim Tucker, Alex Jones, Anthony J Hilder, Antony C Sutton, David Icke, Dr John Coleman, Eustace Mullins, Al Cuppet, and Jim Marrs for starters. Also, get all the dvd's ya can from the same above sources. Then hit the internet and copy all the info you can from websites that you know are credible and burn copies of them from your puter and store them in a safe place. When internet 2 comes out, it's actually gonna be against the law to own anything that pertains to the nwo, or did ya know that already? This falls under the patriot acts 1&2. People like us will automatically be declared domestic terrorists, and I already have it from a pretty reliable source that I am on a list even as we speak here now. All your nwo info, store it in another safe haven away from your house. Just before he died, Dr Antony C Sutton was being followed around by the nwo thugs who were trying to find his stash because he had some very damaging evidence against some very high polutin politicians. As far as I know they never found his bunker of info. Buttercookie, this stuff seems fun to be doing right now, but let me tell you, it's very very dangerous, and is getting more dangerous on a daily basis. I myself have already had my life threatened several times in the last 4 or 5 years. Another way to get some good info to is ask some of your local officials if they will do an interview with you. You'd be surprised at what some of them know but are afraid to let anybody else know about it for fear of severe repercussions. All I can say is be careful, choose your battles selectively and wisely, and whenever you're around people who are asking questions that just seem out of character, just play DUMB! Never show your hand and always act like that you're just wanting to learn something.

This just seems like a blatant way to control the only resource of information most of us have to unlocking the truth. And seeing as Nick Rockefeller appeared to admit to knowledge of 9/11 before it was orchestrated It's no surprise he wants a lock down or filter on the flow of knowledge the internet can allow.
The longer the internet is around the more enlightened people become. It's like light bulbs gradually flicking on throughout the world, the internet seems to slowly energize that. One by one.
Long live the internet and the true pursuit of knowledge; where ever that takes us.

P.S It's no surprise he considers the internet the "number one national hazard". It's certainly not 'terrorism'.

[edit on 13-10-2009 by IrnBruFiend]