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Obama's Internet Wiretap Move: Just One Small Facet
Of Total Domination Project
Experts warn that Internet is being centralized
under government control
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 The
Obama administration is drafting legislation that will see all
internet providers and other online communication services,
including email clients and social networks, be forced to allow
the intelligence agencies unfettered backdoor access.
"Essentially, officials want Congress to
require all services that enable communications — including
encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking
Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct “peer
to peer” messaging like Skype — to be technically
capable of complying if served with a wiretap order." The
New York Times reports.
Experts have warned that the move represents an
attempt to completely re-structure and centralize the internet
under government control:
"They are really asking for the authority
to redesign services that take advantage of the unique, and
now pervasive, architecture of the Internet," notes James
X. Dempsey, vice president of the Center for Democracy and Technology.
"They basically want to turn back the clock and make Internet
services function the way that the telephone system used to
function."
The move represents another example of the Obama
administration embracing and continuing the policies of their
predecessors when it comes to warrantless wiretapping and secrecy.
In 2006 the Bush administration introduced
new rules making it easier for police and the intelligence
community to wiretap Internet phone calls. This followed the
revelations of the NSA's illegal communications spying program.
In April 2009, the Obama Department of Justice
filed a motion to dismiss one of the Electronic
Frontier Foundation’s landmark lawsuits against the NSA,
firmly establishing that it would continue on the exact same
road.
The DOJ demanded that the entire lawsuit be dismissed
based on both the Bush administration’s claim that a “state
secrets” privilege bars any lawsuits against the executive
branch for illegal spying, as well as a novel “sovereign
immunity” claim that the Patriot Act bars lawsuits of
any kind for illegal government surveillance.
The latest proposed rules are the latest move
in a volley of attacks on the free internet that constitute
the overall stated intention to ensure complete control over
cyberspace.
When the Cybersecurity Act was introduced by Senator
John Rockefeller last year, he asked "Would it have been
better if we’d have never invented the Internet?".
Rockefeller's legislation gives the president the ability to
“declare a cybersecurity emergency” and shut down
or limit Internet traffic in any “critical” information
network “in the interest of national security.”
The bill does not define a critical information network or a
cybersecurity emergency. That definition would be left to the
president, according to a Mother
Jones report.
Provisions in the bill would also allow the federal government,
via the DHS and the NSA, to tap
into any digital aspect of every citizen’s information
without a warrant. Banking, business and medical records would
be wide open to inspection, as well as personal instant message
and e mail communications - all in the name of heading off cyber
attacks on the nation.
Enhancements of such provisions are contained in the more recent
"Protecting
Cyberspace as a National Asset Act", which
is being pushed hard by Senator Joe Lieberman. The bill would
hand absolute power to the federal government to close down
networks, and block incoming Internet traffic from certain countries
under a declared national emergency.
An accompanying cybersecurity
control grid would only create greater risk according
to experts who note that it would essentially "establish
a path for the bad guys to skip down." Other countries,
such as Australia and the UK are following
suit.
The program dovetails with the Pentagon's newly created Cyber
Command, headed by Keith B Alexander, the acting
head of the NSA and the man behind the massive
program of illegal
dragnet surveillance of domestic communications
since at least 2001.
During the Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing,
Alexander said the Pentagon’s Cyber Command would enjoy
“significant synergy” with the NSA. “We have
to show what we’re doing to ensure that we comport, comply
with the laws,” said Alexander, perversely claiming the
agency is respecting and protecting the privacy of the American
people.
The Pentagon considers cyberspace a warfighting
domain equal to land, sea, air and space. In 2003,
the Pentagon classified the internet as an enemy
“weapons system” requiring a “robust
offensive suite of capabilities to include full-range electronic
and computer network attack.” It has spent Billions of
dollars building a super
secret "National Cyber Range" in order
to prepare for "Dominant
Cyber Offensive Engagement", which translates
as control over "any and all" computers. The program
has been dubbed "The Electronic Manhattan Project".
The enemy is never specifically named, it is merely whoever
uses the net, because the enemy IS the net. The enemy is the
freedom the net provides to billions around the globe and the
threat to militaristic dominance of information and the ultimate
power that affords.
These initiatives represent a continuation of the so called
"Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative",
created via
a secret presidential order in 2008 under the Bush
administration. former National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell
announced that the NSA's warrantless wiretaps would "be
a walk in the park compared to this,”.
“This is going to be a goat rope on the Hill" McConnell
said. My prediction is that we’re going to screw around
with this until something horrendous happens.”
As we have previously
reported, large corporations such as Google, AT&T,
Facebook and Yahoo to name but a few are intimately involved
in the overarching program. Those corporations have specific
government arms that are supplying the software, hardware and
tech support to US intelligence agencies in the process of creating
a vast closed source database for global spy networks to share
information.
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Steve Watson is the London based writer
and editor at Alex Jones' Infowars.net, and regular contributor
to Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International
Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham
in England.
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