@:

Technically, it's being lobbied primarily by Joe Lieberman, who is an independent, although he does lean to the left a bit.

My point with the statement, however, is that this bill's wording more or less says "Don't like it? Blame the president". And I don't mean Obama specifically. If this measure got enacted during the Bush administration, Bush would have caught the backlash. Same with Reagan, Nixon and even Washington, if we were to pretend for the sake of argument that the internet existed in the late 1700's. It's written to keep Congress (the people proposing the bill) out of hot water if it ever has to be implemented. That was my point.

Also, not sure your tone there was entirely necessary, but that's beside the point.

It was Leiberman...*shakes head* He says that they have it in China, so why not in America? Well, I didn't know that he liked China...O.o I don't think it'll get passed if that's his reason. Doesn't make much sense to me. Definitely paranoia.

@SomeGuy:

I can see why those measures are in place, but shutting down parts of the internet...it's just something that wouldn't work or serve any purpose AND would probably be a violation of the 1st ammendment (Freedom of speech, press, and religion). Even if it wasn't, there's plenty of hackers out there who would probably access those sites anyway and post on facebook or something what those sites were saying or why they were blocked.

*lives there* BS There's no way Prez Obama can do that for one, the internet is made up of MANY computers, not one, & 2, no-one's said what kind of "threat" would call for this. Other than that, I agree with Ace.
-Repaa

@Ace:

Either that or they decided to make sure they had a failsafe for Skynet.

@Lady Madelina:

Technically speaking, it's not being "taken away". This isn't a measure to restrict a citizen's access to the internet, it's just a precaution to temporarily shut down the network within the US in case of a very serious threat (about the only thing I can think of that would warrant this shouldn't be able to happen, so it does sound kind of paranoid, but still). If anything, the system would be inaccessible for a couple hours to at most maybe three days. And of course, they'll probably write a bunch of safeguards into the bill that ensure that such a thing will not occur unless it's been deemed absolutely necessary. And that's IF they even manage to sign the bill into law.

As far as I'm concerned, all this is is a piece of paper that tells people that if something impossible happens, someone is authorized to fix it. It's kind of like telling a six year old that you can punch out a T-Rex. You'll never need to, but it reassures the kid.

Also, I find it funny how a lot of these things seem to be written to make it look like anything the citizens might complain about is the President's fault. Guy's entire life is run on checks and balances. He can't so much as sneeze without the Supreme Court's approval.

Paranoia. Definitly.

Aww man! I hope they aren't going to do that!

Just think if there was a way to do that wouldn't THAT be the terrorist target? Shut down an entire nation?

Cyber-terrorism cant honestly happen.
What negative thing can a cyber-terrorist do exactly?
they essentially dumbed themselves down to cyber-bully.

... Yeah, no. I can see the logic behind it, but.. I don't think it would help much. I mean, if someone's hacking into some government thing, i could see them having to shut it down then, but... what other time is there? I think government should try to stay out of our lives, somewhat. We dont need them controlling our internetz.

Just gonna put it out there as a couple other examples of emergency powers that can already be enacted:

-Closing a road/highway for a disaster.
-Emergency Broadcast System, where they commandeer your television to tell you something really important.
-Grounding airplanes/flights in time of emergency.

And then of course:

-Citizen conscription, where the government orders you to join the military.

I reckon that's the line of thinking they're trying to get rolling.

Do they honestly think that the people of America would actually let this fly? *looks around* I thought not. What would it even be used for, anyway? A overgrown virus that there is no way of killing affecting everyone's computers?

I had heard a looong time ago about actually having to pay to get on certain websites and this wasn't including premium features on the sites themselves. To actually access the site you had to pay. Or something like that. I don't know if it was rumor or truth *mumbles* Better be a rumor.

But cutting access whenever they feel the need to? What if it's not an emergency and they want to shut it down.. would they do it anyway? I dunno, but sounds like a pretty dumb idea to me.

@corn:

You may take my internet access, but YOU WILL NEVER TAKE MY MOUNTAIN DEW AND CHEETOS.

Something tells me, just knowing the magic of people on the interwebs, it just wouldn't work.

I really don't know what to think, but there may be a lot of things they could find "potentially threatening", which could mean a lot of different things to the government. They might think it could be a good idea, but I for one don't think it is. Their possible commandeering of the internet is imposing on the freedoms of millions of people, and I for one don't want an internet that's run by the government, that's just crossing the line.

Um, I don't see a practical purpose unless someone was finally stupid enough to network the Nuclear Defense System to the web.

Please tell me no one was stupid enough to do that.