Can Obama Shut Down the Internet?

Can Obama Shut Down the Internet?

www. thedailybeast.com

A new bill rocketing through Congress would give the president sweeping powers to police the Web for national-security reasons. Could this be a way to block WikiLeaks?

Is cyberspace about to get censored?

Confronting threats ranging from Chinese superhackers to the release of secret documents on WikiLeaks and other whistleblowing websites, the Obama administration may be on the verge of assuming broad new powers to regulate the Internet on national-security grounds.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Myself and many others here on ATS have mentioned repeatedly that the Wikileaks State Department communications may be used to regulate or shut down the internet!

I really have my doubts about Julian Assange. Is he really the protector of democracy??? Or is he merely another tool of TPTB with the mission to shut down the internet??? At this rate it appears our days of free speech may be numbered.

www. thedailybeast.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by Leo Strauss


Why would the government shut down the Internet. Isn't it the perfect way to track people and everything they say?

Here is a link to the actual bill sponsored by our dear friend Joe Lieberman.

The Protecting Cyberspace Act

Originally posted by bluestreak53
reply to post by Leo Strauss

 

Why would the government shut down the Internet. Isn't it the perfect way to track people and everything they say?

More people are aware of the law, and by the law, I mean Supreme Law of the Land and not legislation that has sought to circumvent that law, than have been for at least one hundred years. More people are informed on a number of topics than have been for at least fifty years. The internet has provided quite a bit of information that was not easily accessible to the average person just twenty years ago. Who cares if the government is tracking users?

As long as The Constitution for the United States of America still stands, the government doing any of this supposed tracking is bound by Constitution and has jurisdictional boundaries. Although this information is on the internet for anyone who wants to take advantage of it, not all people do take advantage of it. Even so, more and more people are taking advantage of this information, and that becomes a major threat to government officials who have become quite comfortable in operate outside of their jurisdictional boundaries.

reply to post by bluestreak53


I don't think the idea is to shut down the internet completely but instead to control the information via some sort of trans national law enforcement agency.

I don't believe the Internet would ever be shut down unless through a Natural Disaster of some type.

Too many businesses depend on it, government depend on it.

It's not going to happen. Infowars/Alex Jones keep on spreading the fear, just like they did over a year ago about FEMA camps, and no-ones been shipped off yet.

reply to post by Leo Strauss


Actually, I wasn't really trying to trivialize the point you are making. The Internet is a good tool for sharing information and I hope that people are vigilant in protecting the freedom of access to information.

I took a brief look at the bill. That it even mentions "prohibition of political campaigning" and "homeland security" does make me suspicious.

Nobody can shutdown the internet. Maybe they pull your plug out for a while. Than I will tell you another day, what happened during this time.

Thinking of wikileaks of being part of it: They probably ARE part of it, because they cause all those headaches to US politicians.

If they shut down your internet for some days, this will not make wikileaks disappear. This is a little like hide-and-seek for three year old children. Everything will be there, when they take their hands off their eyes.

There is only one reason, I can think of, to make sense in shutting down the own internet, banks, industries, common users, politicians, military: If I want to do a very bad attack on everybody else, then I want to know, that my people are safe.

Maybe the US government is thinking about something like that. It won't succeed anyway. Those guys, who decide, still don't know how to use a mouse.

Maybe this is the reason, why they have such anti-internet-ideas...

[edit on 18-6-2010 by Siddharta]

I don't see the little O being able to shut down much more than trunks in/out of the USA and root nameservers within the territory. Many countries operate their own nameservers so those shouldn't be affected.
HOWEVER, that doesn't mean that a router or two in the US wouldn't be reconfigured to blackhole IP's / servers making segments of the Internet inaccessible for a period of time. Savvy administrators could pick up on that though and recover rather quickly.

I bet he can, but he'd need to get permission from Al Gore first. I mean, since Al was the inventor of the internet.

LOL @ Shutting down the internet;

If the government was smart, they wouldnt touch the internet at all;

It would just start another un-winnable war; like "The War on Drugs" started by Nixon back in the 70s

It would make innocent people into criminals which would make the citizens hate the government even more

There are over 6.5 billion people on this planet,
The government could probably hire like what? 10,000 or 20,000 people to shut down the internet?
so 20 thousand workers VS 6.5 billion people
I wonder how that will turn out

It is something you will never want to see as long as you live


Earth is considered to be a type 0 civilization planet; very primitive; burning fossil fuels etc

The Internet is actually the first to be technology of a type 1 civilization planet


Here is more information

The Kardashev scale on method of measuring an advanced civilization's level of technological advancement

en.wikipedia.org...


Astrophysicist, Dr. Michio Kaku talks about the 3 types of Civilizations


[edit on 18-6-2010 by SupremeKnowledge]

They cannot shut it down* millions of buisnesses would go under. its legally impossible no matter what the situation is. if they shut it down, people are going to think something is up, and possibly start looting and rioting.
its kinda sounds like though, all yuo have to say online is 'bomb' or duck and cover, or shooting* and you shuold expect a visit form homeland security or something. thats what it kinda sounds like. thier treaitng it like being at an airport and saying bomb, or la bamba for whatever the reason* thier gunna remove you for questioning and possible sentencing.
its wild, over reactive, over engineered thought aka paranoia on the goernments behalf.

Now that i think of it..shouldnt 'they' be looknig for people who speak islamic or arabic? i mean, that seems to be what their looking for, NO racial pun intended* its jsut it is what it is...
so why would they wanna look for americans? you think someone plotting something, conspiring with someone to blow things up is gunna speak in the easiest language on earth? no//thier going to speak in their own language or code, to further delay suspicion and interpretation time*
so why they wanna monitor american citizens, leads me to believe they dont want people communicationg so much with echother, aka like us here on ATS posting what goes on behind closed doors, as truths*
censorship* a potato bag being pulled over heads is all it is.

Originally posted by bluestreak53
reply to post by Leo Strauss

 

Why would the government shut down the Internet. Isn't it the perfect way to track people and everything they say?

They would have a hard time shutting down the net without crippling their own comm systems. Besides, they can track and surveill us with GPSs, cel phones, credit cards, OnStar, public surveillance, phone taps, doctor visits, prescriptions, mail, and a slew of other things. The net is just quicker

lol outtatime yeah, its called 'triangulation'

Obama doesn't want to shut down the internet, its the only place you can view his birth certificate, and youtube him playing basketball.


Obama Playing B Ball in USMC PT top


Powerful source of propaganda too especially with this election season coming up.

He could do something along the lines of what China does domestically with their internet policies, but America doesn't own the internet lol

Originally posted by bluestreak53
reply to post by Leo Strauss

 

I took a brief look at the bill. That it even mentions "prohibition of political campaigning" and "homeland security" does make me suspicious.

I read the bill on the "prohibition of political campaigning", and then looked up Title 5 of the USC to try to figure out what this bill was attempting to do. That whole section of law appears to be dealing with 'employees', not the general public.

If you are worried, do the legal research yourself, and PLEASE POST ANYTHING that you think might effect the general public. Your fellow, ATSers will be happy to double check your work. We are becoming a machine that will keep TPTB in check.

Originally posted by ziggy1706
lol outtatime yeah, its called 'triangulation'

Ain't that the truth. They've been tracking us for years already. They'll do whatever they decide to do when they decide to do it. No sense telling the public. We would probably say no anyways