Can Obama Kill The Internet?

This quote is a great introduction to a concept that many try to pretend does not exist."Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."by John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton (1834-1902)

Lord Acton was a visionary. After he made this statement and before you can find examples of how absolute power corrupts even the best men.

In China the government can shut sown parts of its Internet. We recently witnessed this done in Egypt and apparently our own State Senators feel that we need that type of government here as well. The "Bill", which will essentially put a "kill switch" for the internet is the hands of the president is reminiscent of the same type of power they gave the office of president over the ability to fire nuclear missiles.

The question here should be, what is the real motive behind this bill. Is it another attempt by government to have a way to stifle a press it cannot control? That is exactly the way it was used in Egypt. The Pharaoh did not like the news going out to the world so he shut it down. This bill opens the door for so many more governmental controls. This is a time when the American People should be up in arms and fighting this with every fiber of their being.

Can any one man be trusted to not use power for personal gain? President Obama may just be a good man and he may never use this power. The way headlines read you would think that they are giving this power to Barack Obama personally and he would have it for all time. Not one mention of the fact that whoever comes next will also have this power. This power will be ceded to an Office and whoever holds that office will hold the power. If there is one thing that we do know for certain is that once a power is ceded to an office it is hard as heck to get it back.

Senator Joesph Liberman is seeing wolves at every turn and is ranting about the Internet being a real threat to national security, economic, security and even public safety. He further states that the Internet opens this country up to a different breed of criminal. Cyber -terrorist, spies and other assorted cyber criminals. Each new age brought the criminal element forward with it. Bank robbers got better at getaways with the automobile but no one threaten to shut down general motors. There are already laws that cover the type of State of Emergency that the pushers of this bill are concerned about. The Office of President and the Department of Homeland security do not need any more blanket powers.

Look the Internet is being patrolled by government authorities without our knowledge all of the time. Our IP addresses are fair game under the umbrella of "Homeland Security". Hidden cameras are tracking us as we go about our day and there are numerous infractions on personal privacy that we are not even aware of.

This is just one more mile of pavement, as we head down the road to becoming the reality of a world that George Orwell wrote about in "1984". Giving the President or anyone else the power to shut down the Internet and you give the opportunity for free speech a kick in the @#$%.

With the passage of the latest round of bills in the senate is there any doubt in anyone's mind that the threat of a "Big Brother " type of government is very real. We are only as free as the laws that govern us and with the continuous passage of bills like this one we are loosing ground one bill at a time.Should one man be able to shut down the Internet, not on your life? we need to make sure this thing never makes it to Capitol Hill!

If we have learned nothing in from our past (Hitler) we should at least see that this will make us a lot less free. If every leader can shut down and opress any venue that may say things unfavorable to them and their policies, we are no longer a democratic society. This is a situation worth watching.


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Pat is a business consulting specialist who enjoys traveling, kayaking and hiking. He also helps business owners buy easy web hosting that fits their business needs.