Hypocrisy. Thats all this is. That and an unprecedented intrusion into your personal privacy by the federal government. RIP 4th Amendment. It was fun while you lasted.

What am I talking about? I am talking about the proposed Cybersecurity Act of 2009. This bill was proposed by 2 Democrats–Jay Rockefeller and Bill Nelson–and 1 Republican–Olympia Snowe and grants the administration sweeping powers over the internet. It establishes the Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor and grants that office, the President, and the Commerce Secretary unprecedented powers.

Under this bill, the President will be allowed to declare a cybersecurity emergency and shut down or limit traffic in in any “critical information network” when the President declares it to be in the “interest of national security.” Of course, the bill defines neither a critical information network nor a cybersecurity emergency and leaves this power up to the President.

However, to me, the scary part is found in the new powers of the Commerce Secretary: the Secretary will be given “access to all relevant data concerning networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access.”

Ummmm… what? Thats a scary sentence. I think the worst part is… well… the whole thing is just awful.

You can find the complete text of the bill here.

From liberal blog Mother Jones: “This means he or she can monitor or access any data on private or public networks without regard to privacy laws.”

This proposed law doesnt just disregard privacy laws, it also disregards the 4th Amendment to our Constitution.

The 4th Amendment reads as follows: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Allowing the government the right to search internet records, without defining the scope of the governments search powers is a blatant violation of the 4th Amendment.

The hypocrisy argument comes in here: the same people that opposed President Bush for signing the Patriot Act, implementing a warrantless wiretapping program, and keeping records of all phone calls made are the people supporting this measure. If it is wrong under President Bush, it is wrong under President Obama.

I actually thing that this is a much bigger intrusion into privacy than was President Bush’s program. While President Bush looked at records of phone calls and made the occasional (so we are told) warrantless wire tap, this plan could give the government unlimited access to an amazing amount of private information.

This is just too much power for the government (and especially one person in the government) to have.

Can anyone imagine how vocal the public opposition to this would have been if this had been supported by the Bush administration? Can you imagine how loud the media would have been screaming about this if it was supported by President Bush? Instead, Im willing to bet that unless you are a political junkie, you probably havent heard about this.

I opposed warrantless wiretapping and domestic spying under President Bush. I oppose it under President Obama. There is no need for this type of bill and I hope it fails. However, I am hopeful that if this bill passes, it will be significantly pared down and hopefully vetoed by President Obama.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

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