Obama could get power to shut down Internet

The U.S. president has plenty of power when it comes to natural disasters and the use of the military in hostile attacks. Now there is legislation pending in Congress sponsored by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) to enhance the president's power, giving him extraordinary authority to declare a cybersecurity emergency and then shut down both public and private online networks, reports NetworkWorld.

If this sounds a little bit like a Sci-Fi movie, it certainly has some of those elements. For the first time, the president would have power to control the Internet to protect the country from a cyberattack "in the interest of national security." Is this really necessary? Many people certainly think it is. Others raise red flags about it.

"We are confident that the communication networks and the Internet would be so designated [as critical infrastructure], so in the interest of national security the president could order them disconnected," said Leslie Harris, president and CEO at the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), a group which promotes democratic values and constitutional liberties for the digital age.

"This is pretty sweeping legislation," Harris told NetworkWorld. "It seems the President could turn off the Internet completely or tell someone like Verizon to limit or block certain traffic," she said. "There is a lot to worry about in this bill."

The real question for government-run networks is whether the president would have enough advance knowledge to do this in a timely fashion and whether cyberattackers could sneak into a system before they are identified. Whatever the answer, this issue should be studied and carefully crafted before the president is given any sweeping new powers.

For more on presidential power and cyberattacks:
- check out this NetworkWorld.com article

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