http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=9752990&mesg_id=9752990That thread discusses a story from earlier this year, June to be precise. Basically, it's about a law to give the President the power to kill the internet in case of a cyber attack. I can see why the poster would put up something like that now, considering the fact that we just went through a little cyberwar, or maybe a cyber battle.
Here's the juicy part:
That story was about a law being proposed to give the President the authority to kill the internet in case of emergency. BUT it may be a reaction to the fact that Obama's administration unilaterally declared they had the power to kill the internet in an emergency, using a law from the 1940s as their source of power.
From the story itself:
"Under a World War II-era law, the US president appears to have authority to disconnect computer systems and servers from the internet in the event of a national emergency. But the next US Congress is poised to change that.
The law was passed in 1942. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had provoked fear of a foreign invasion of US soil, and Congress responded by giving President Franklin Roosevelt broad power to commandeer or shutter telephone and telegraph networks.
Nearly 70 years later, telegraph networks have disappeared, and the telephone is only one of many means of communication.
But although the 1942 law makes no mention of the internet - merely of "any facility or station for wire communication" - the Obama administration in June told Congress it would cite it in an emergency.
It has not been tested in court, but experts say section 706(d) of the Communications Act could give the president wide-ranging authority to shut down key computer systems.
With typical Washington hyperbole, the law has become known as the presidential "internet kill switch"."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11736545That's the most recent story on this I can find with Google News.
All of this is interesting, would the people around the President or the President himself do something like that? I guess if they claim they can, then maybe they would. I don't know what to make of it.
Here is the testimony referred to in the story:
http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=a9c43092-b090-419c-afb4-c5b44bfeae23I can't find where they claim this yet, but I'm a dork, so forgive me, it's probably there somewhere.
What do you think of this stuff in light of recent events?