Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
March 2, 2010
On March 1, Ryan Singel, writing for Wired, accused the government of plotting to destroy the open and freedom-loving internet. Readers of Infowars and Prison Planet have known this for some time, but it is nice to know a quasi-establishment publication is now telling the truth and warning its readers about the threat to liberty posed by the government.
Cyber ShockWave, a “war game” designed to hype the supposed threat to U.S. infrastructure.
“The biggest threat to the open internet is not Chinese government hackers or greedy anti-net-neutrality ISPs, it’s Michael McConnell, the former director of national intelligence,” writes Singel. “McConnell’s not dangerous because he knows anything about SQL injection hacks, but because he knows about social engineering. He’s the nice-seeming guy who’s willing and able to use fear-mongering to manipulate the federal bureaucracy for his own ends, while coming off like a straight shooter to those who are not in the know.”
The former intel boss, now vice president of the spooky Booz Allen Hamilton corporation (notorious for connections to 9/11 and a key DARPA client), has been trotted out to sell “Cybaremaggedon” (as Singel appropriately characterizes it) to the American people. McConnell insists the internet needs to be re-engineered:
We need to develop an early-warning system to monitor cyberspace, identify intrusions and locate the source of attacks with a trail of evidence that can support diplomatic, military and legal options — and we must be able to do this in milliseconds. More specifically, we need to re-engineer the Internet to make attribution, geo-location, intelligence analysis and impact assessment — who did it, from where, why and what was the result — more manageable. The technologies are already available from public and private sources and can be further developed if we have the will to build them into our systems and to work with our allies and trading partners so they will do the same.
“He’s talking about changing the internet to make everything anyone does on the net traceable and geo-located so the National Security Administration can pinpoint users and their computers for retaliation if the U.S. government doesn’t like what’s written in an e-mail, what search terms were used, what movies were downloaded,” writes Singel. “Or the tech could be useful if a computer got hijacked without your knowledge and used as part of a botnet.”
McConnell says the government needs to create a new Cold War, “one complete with the online equivalent of ICBMs and Eisenhower-era, secret-codenamed projects.”
Not directed against Muslims in remote backwater caves, mind you, but the real enemy — the American people who are increasingly aroused, thanks in large part to the internet.
Alex Jones talks about cybersecurity legislation on Russia TV.
The Bush era intel boss hyped the overblown Chinese hacker threat in “breathless” stories published in The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. The world’s largest security companies McAfee and Symantec have downplayed the story. Singel points out that such fear-mongering is almost completely void of facts.
The anti-open internet echo chamber includes a speech delivered by Lawrence E. Strickling, Assistant Commerce Secretary:
In fact, “leaving the Internet alone” has been the nation’s internet policy since the internet was first commercialized in the mid-1990s. The primary government imperative then was just to get out of the way to encourage its growth. And the policy set forth in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was: “to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet and other interactive computer services, unfettered by Federal or State regulation.”
This was the right policy for the United States in the early stages of the Internet, and the right message to send to the rest of the world. But that was then and this is now.
Now? The Pentagon wants to take out enemies with the online equivalent of ICBMs in order to prevent cyberattacks, privacy intrusions and copyright violations (and, of course, take out the real threat — the alternative media overshadowing the staid establishment corporate media).
“As anyone slightly versed in the internet knows, the net has flourished because no government has control over it,” writes Singel. “But there are creeping signs of danger.”
The primary creeping sign is the cybersecurity bill now in the Senate under the direction of the renown internet hater, senator Jay Rockefeller. If passed, Obama would have the ability to initiate “network contingency plans to ensure key federal or private services did not go offline during a counterattack of unprecedented scope,” according to Tony Romm of The Hill.
“Too much is at stake for us to pretend that today’s outdated cybersecurity policies are up to the task of protecting our nation and economic infrastructure,” Rockefeller said. “We have to do better and that means it will take a level of coordination and sophistication to outmatch our adversaries and minimize this enormous threat.”
Rockefeller and the government have but one serious adversary — the American people who are circumventing establishment propaganda via the internet.
The recently passed House cybersecurity bill and the Senate’s version now under considered are peddled as urgent action against Russian and Chinese hackers hellbent on taking down the power grid and the smart phone network.
In fact, all the fear-mongering is a smoke screen for the real purpose of this legislation — to close down the free and open internet and viciously attack those who dare tell the truth and organize opposition to a predatory and dictatorial government.
