"When Pigs Fly" by Ira Schwartz

Senator John Rockefeller’s Internet Bill S.773 has been winding its way around Capitol Hill for the last few months. Below is the Governments brief description of the bill.

“A bill to ensure the continued free flow of commerce within the United States and with its global trading partners through secure cyber communications, to provide for the continued development and exploitation of the Internet and intranet communications for such purposes, to provide for the development of a cadre of information technology specialists to improve and maintain effective cyber security defenses against disruption, and for other purposes.

The Bill directs the Secretary of Commerce to develop or coordinate a national licensing, certification, and recertification program for cyber security professionals and makes it unlawful to provide certain cyber security services without being licensed and certified. Requires Advisory Panel approval for renewal or modification of a contract related to the operation of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority. Requires development of a strategy to implement a secure domain name addressing system. Requires the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support specified types of research and to establish a program of grants to higher education institutions to establish cyber security test beds.”

You got all that…good. Now if all that doesn’t upset you this will. S 773 also allows the Secretary of Commerce access to all privately owned information networks deemed to be critical to the nation's infrastructure "without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule or policy restricting such access."

In other words it allows our government free access to all information, private or public, available over the internet, secure or unsecure, whenever “they” deem it necessary regardless of how many laws they are breaking and regardless of the constitution. An internet “Get out of jail for free” card that never expires.

Leslie Harris, president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, said, "The cyber security threat is real. But such a drastic federal intervention in private communications technology and networks could harm both security and privacy."

S 773 basically says the President has the authority, in the event of a cyber attack, to disconnect "critical infrastructure" networks from the Internet – including private citizens' banks and health records. The problem is the bill fails to explain what exactly a “cyber attack” is.

Also the bill give the Department of Commerce the authority to monitor private information networks deemed a part of the "critical infrastructure. The feds get to look through your health and financial records whenever they want to without a warrant. Where’s that Bill of Rights? I know I had it here just a minute ago. I’ll bet the constitutional attorneys are salivating over that one.

Also to be one of the “Cyber Security Professionals” you will have to be licensed by the Government. Sure why not…lets just give all the keys to the chicken coop to the wolves. And while we’re at it lets create “another government agency” and name another “czar” to run it. We’ll just print more money to pay for it…or is it borrow more money from China, Medicare or Social Security.

Larry Seltzer, software developer, who has written articles for such magazines as Fortune Small Business, Windows 2000 Magazine (now Windows and .NET Magazine), ZDNet and Sam Whitmore's Media Survey, said in an interview for eWeek, "The whole thing smells bad to me. I don't like the chances of the government improving this situation by taking it over generally, and I definitely don't like the idea of politicizing this authority by putting it in the direct control of the president. Let's think about this," continues Seltzer. "I'm especially curious as to how you take the telecommunications networks off of the Internet when they are, in large part, what the Internet is comprised of. And if my bank were taken offline, I would think about going into my branch and asking for all of my deposits in cash."

P.S. So would I.

According to the Center for Democracy and Technologies senior counsel, Greg Nojeim, in an interview with” Mother Jones”, “This bill would undermine the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). That law, (ECPA) enacted in the mid '80s, requires law enforcement seek a warrant before tapping in to data transmissions between computers.” OOPPSS…How convenient.

Over the last 30 years the internet has become an integral source of communication and information for the whole world. When China suppresses sections of the internet we are quick to scream about “human rights” violations yet right now in our own backyard our representatives are preparing to do the same thing under the guise of security.

I know I’ve used this quote from Ben Franklin before but we seem to have the need to constantly be reminded of this. “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

A few years ago a legislator, who requested the reporter not use his name, was asked about the possibility of the government placing restrictions on the internet. The legislator chuckled then responded, “Yeah right Son, when pigs fly.”

What’s that flapping sound I hear?

© 2009 by Ira Schwartz. Printed with permission of the author.

Nothing Noble about the Nobel Peace Prize Anymore by Ira Schwartz

Here is an article written by Ira about the Nobel Peace Prize as I promised yesterday. Hopefully, this will be the last we hear of this debacle. I hope you enjoy. Tomorrow, I will have another article by a guest writer, Michael Cochrane dealing with Global Warming. I'm still trying to have an article written myself by Friday. Sorry for the delay. Been really busy.

Nothing Nobel about the Nobel Peace Prize Anymore

Well the decision by the Nobel Foundation to award President Barack Obama the 2009 prize for Peace certainly shocked everyone in the world except the Nobel Foundation. The stunned look on the Presidents face when told he had won the prestigious award pretty much summed up how the rest of us felt.

In its statement, the Committee said President Obama "created a new climate in international politics. ... Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future." It continued, "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."

So they are basically saying that they have given our president the award because he has created a gentler, kinder United States. I can buy that one, for better or worse he has.

He has been in office barely a year and has already made inroads with several of his international overtures, though none have yet born fruit. Israel and the Palestinians are still struggling to find common ground but are trying; North Korea is still launching missiles and has yet to agree to the “six party” talks proposed by the United States and China; Iran has agreed to let inspectors in to their nuclear facilities, though the “when” part is still unclear and have also agreed to talks with the United States, when they will start is also unclear. The President has proposed total global nuclear disarmament which no one has taken seriously and we have finally joined with the rest of the world to find a way we can all live with global warming. We’re still fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the US installed government in Iraq is so corrupt it makes Chicago politicians look like saints. I thought the Nobel Prize was given for positive results in the area of peace not for just trying to get those results. If just trying was the criteria to be nominated then the Nobel Foundation’s list must be longer than Mr. Clauses on Christmas Eve.

The rumor of the day floating around the international community is the Nobel Foundation is really giving the award to the American people for their progressive thinking for not only electing a black man to the Whitehouse but a Muslim too. Well if that is the case then give the award to the American People. We could use that 1.2 million dollars to extend the “cash for clunkers” program for another five minutes.

Whatever their reasons in the end we have to ask ourselves this question, at this time in history do we feel President Barack Obama deserves to be in the illustrious ranks of such notable people as Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Albert Schweitzer, Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt? If not then the reasons given by the Nobel commission must be suspect and any future awards must appear a little less noble.

For those of you wondering who some of the other nominees were this year a partial list follows:

1. Chinese Human Rights Activist Hu Jia - imprisoned for campaigning for human rights in the PRC;

2. Wei Jingsheng, who spent 17 years in Chinese prisons for urging reforms of China's communist system;

3. Greg Mortenson, founder of the Central Asia Institute has built nearly 80 schools, especially for girls, in remote areas of northern Pakistan and Afghanistan over the past 15 years;

4. Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, a philosophy professor in Jordan who risks his life by advocating interfaith dialogue between Jews and Muslims; and,

5. Afghan human rights activist Sima Samar. She currently leads the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and serves as the U.N. special envoy to Darfur.

I guess those listed above just didn’t try hard enough.