Olympia Snowe and Jay Rockefeller have teamed up (along with their ghostwriter) to put together a plug in the Wall Street Journal for Obama’s Cyber Security Act of 2010. The central theme of this legalized totalitarianism is protect, protect, protect, protect, protect … by the means of a “partnership” between the public and private sector.
President Barack Obama is right to call cyberspace a “strategic national asset.” The challenge is that 85% of these assets are owned by private companies and individuals. The government cannot protect cyberspace alone—and neither can the private sector. Therefore, we need proactive collaboration.
The reason this is needed has been established: crisis. We have a crisis, so we need another war. We are vulnerable to cyberwar. We are vulnerable to another underwear bombing. Our cyber adversaries “have the potential to disrupt or disable vital information networks, which could cause catastrophic economic loss and social havoc.” Yet no mention of how the private sector has managed to protect its strategic assets thus far, and all without government having the key to the back door. Here are just a couple of points about the bill from Olympia and Jay:
• Launch a new public awareness campaign to make basic cybersecurity principles and civil liberty protections as familiar as Smokey the Bear’s advice for preventing forest fires.
• Support significant new cybersecurity research and development and triple the federal Scholarship-For-Service program to 1,000 students. This program recruits individuals to study cybersecurity at American universities and then enter public service.
Yes, you read that right: Smokey the Bear. They come right out and say they will dumb everyone down with yet another cutesy, cartoon-ish propaganda piece that will appeal to American adults with a cartoon view of the world, thanks to public schools and television. They will ramp up a massive effort to sweep young minds into the indoctrination process — a free education/career/job in exchange for your independent thinking and your free soul. These young minds will become prisoners of the state, if they haven’t done so already after being marched through the public school system.
It is said that this fascist pipe dream of a government-led “private” cybersector is the only solution to our crisis. It is said that the guild of federalistas, led by Benito Obamalini, would “protect our civil liberties,” not infringe upon them. Yet the purpose of this bill is to give the leaders in the private sector enough tasty morsels to purchase their loyalty and their buy-in on the tyrannical design of the oncoming Security State. The people with the political power — both in the private sector and the government — have the ability to merge their interests, strike a mutually beneficial deal, walk off with newfound powers and/or rich contracts, and leave powerless individuals high and dry.
