Joe Lieberman wants to kill your internet

Just when we were convinced that Senator Conroy had a monopoly on Internet Policy Crazy, along comes American politician Joe Lieberman with his proposed “Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010” bill.

In short the bill seeks to grant the US President the power to take control of and potentially shut down large tracts of technological infrastructure within the US. As the US is home to such a large part of the hardware underlying the internet, in an extreme case this could basically render the internet useless elsewhere in the world.

According to Lieberman (who is the Chairman of the US Homeland Security committee), the bill is necessary because the internet runs directly into key American infrastructure.

It’s interesting that the bill (at least in title) seems to assume that the internet is an American asset only. It is also somewhat disconcerting that the bill seems to ignore the possibility that other nations may see any interference with their own trade, banking, social and political activities on the internet as an act of aggression or even outright war. In this regard such powers could cause far more harm than they allegedly prevent.

As governments continue to look for ways to regulate and control the internet, it appears that more often than not, they’re coming up with ways to make life harder or worse for us all. In essence negating much of what makes the internet great in the first place.