Internet Censorship

Emergency Internet Control Bill Gets a Rewrite

March 17, 2010

CNET News - Sen. Jay Rockefeller alarmed technology and telecommunications firms last year when he announced a plan for the president to seize "emergency" control of the Internet. Now the West Virginia Democrat is trying again with a new version that aides hope will be seen as less extreme.

During a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill on Wednesday attended by about a dozen industry representatives, CNET has learned, Rockefeller's staff pitched a revised version of his controversial cybersecurity legislation.

It says that after the president chooses to "declare a cybersecurity emergency," he can activate a "response and restoration plan" involving networks owned and operated by the private sector. In an attempt to limit criticism, instead of spelling out the plan's details, the latest draft simply says that it must be developed by the White House in advance.

There is no requirement that the emergency response plan be made public, meaning it could still include a forcible disconnection of critical Web sites from the Internet--which is what the March 2009 version of the legislation had proposed.

Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, whose members include Verisign, Verizon, and Raytheon, says no disconnection language is explicitly in the bill:

"We are pleased that the 'kill switch' allowing for the government to shut down private sector access to the Internet has been eliminated."

But, Clinton said:

"We think the bill still has a long way to go."

If the private sector is expected to help out with national security, he said, there ought to be liability protections, insurance breaks, and tax credits for small businesses.

A spokesman for Rockefeller did not respond to repeated requests for comment on Wednesday. Sen. Olympia Snowe, a Maine Republican, is a co-sponsor of the legislation.

The Senate Commerce Committee is scheduled to vote for March 24 on the Rockefeller bill, which will replace an existing measure known as S.773. Because Rockefeller is chairman of the committee, the bill is expected to be approved with little dissent.

Other portions of the 62-page draft bill would create certification requirements for "critical infrastructure information system personnel working in cybersecurity" and punish certain companies that "fail to demonstrate" that they comply with federal specifications. A third section would order the National Science Foundation to fund anti-anonymity research that aims to "to determine the origin of a message transmitted over the Internet."

Liesyl Franz, vice president for information security at TechAmerica, one of the industry's largest trade associations, said her group does not support the new version at this time and is still reviewing the language.

"We have to see whether that makes sense," Franz said, referring to the licensing and certification sections. "We've often talked about how companies and industries are very different."

Franz added: "Frankly, we'd rather not see a prescriptive plan. Seeing a process for developing a plan to get to a goal is a little bit more palatable for the industry."

The revised Rockefeller bill, called the Cybersecurity Act of 2010, does stress that the White House should develop its cyber-emergency plan "in collaboration" with the private sector. It also says "this section does not authorize...an expansion of existing presidential authorities."

Frightening Taste of Internet Censorship as Major Free Speech Websites Blocked

February 8, 2010

Prison Planet.com - With influential proponents recently calling for a newly regulated world wide web, we got a preview of how that might look this past weekend after both Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com were completely blocked to many Internet users in New Zealand.

The block was only removed early this morning following a raft of complaints after both websites were unavailable on many ISP’s since Friday.

As the New Zealand based InfoNews website reported yesterday, both of Alex Jones’ flagship websites were blocked by ISPs using Asia Netcom for their international internet traffic.

It is important to stress that we receive emails on a weekly basis informing us that our websites have been blocked as “hate speech” or “offensive material” at Internet cafes, libraries, transport hubs, workplaces, and numerous other buildings not only in the United States but across the world. The censorship is being done at the ISP level, so whereas some people in a particular country will still have access, others will be blocked.

As we reported in 2008, London’s St. Pancras International, which millions of people traveling across mainland Europe pass through every year, completely blocks Prison Planet, Infowars and even more mainstream political websites as a matter of course.

In 2007, MySpace admitted their policy to censor and filter out posts containing links to the Prison Planet.com website, adding that the MySpace server automatically blocks such information. The social networking giant, as well as others such as Facebook, periodically block links to Alex Jones material and only revoke such filters when people complain.

In 2005, Time Warner subscribers from New York to California reported that their access to Infowars and Prison Planet had been blocked due to “hate speech,” before their access was restored.

UK ISP Tiscali also blocked the websites following the 7/7 London bombings in 2005.

Infowars’ social network was also blocked by libraries in the U.S. in 2008 using Safesquid and Google filtering software.

We receive numerous reports every single week of Alex Jones’ websites being blocked by ISPs and by filtering software in public buildings ...