President Obama signed an executive order titled “Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions” in an effort to increase government control over the Internet during natural disasters and security emergencies.
“The Federal Government must have the ability to communicate at all times and under all circumstances to carry out its most critical and time sensitive missions,” explains the order.
“Survivable, resilient, enduring, and effective communications, both domestic and international, are essential to enable the executive branch to communicate within itself and with: the legislative and judicial branches; state, local, territorial, and tribal governments; private sector entities; and the public, allies, and other nations.”
“Such communications must be possible under all circumstances to ensure national security, effectively manage emergencies, and improve national resilience,” states the order.
Critics of the bill are especially concerned with Section 5.2, which outlines how telecommunications and the Internet are controlled — and can be interpreted as a plan to provide the government with an “on/off” switch for the Internet.
“Presidential powers over the Internet and telecommunications were laid out in a U.S. Senate bill in 2009, which proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet,” reports CNET. “But that legislation was not included in the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 earlier this year.”
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