Former Counter-Terrorism Czar: "There is Going to be an i-9/11 & i-Patriot Act"

Lawrence Lessig, founder of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society told an audience at this year's Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference in Half Moon Bay, California, that he had learned, during a dinner with former government Counter Terrorism Czar Richard Clarke, that there is already in existence a cyber equivalent of the Patriot Act, an “i-Patriot Act," and that the Justice Department is waiting for a cyber-terrorism event in order to implement its provisions.

During a group panel segment titled “2018: Life on the Net”, Lessig stated:

There’s going to be an i-9/11 event. Which doesn’t necessarily mean an Al Qaeda attack, it means an event where the instability or the insecurity of the internet becomes manifest during a malicious event which then inspires the government into a response. You’ve got to remember that after 9/11 the government drew up the Patriot Act within 20 days and it was passed.The Patriot Act is huge and I remember someone asking a Justice Department official how did they write such a large statute so quickly, and of course the answer was that it has been sitting in the drawers of the Justice Department for the last 20 years waiting for the event where they would pull it out.  

Of course, the Patriot Act is filled with all sorts of insanity about changing the way civil rights are protected, or not protected in this instance. So I was having dinner with Richard Clarke and I asked him if there is an equivalent, is there an i-Patriot Act just sitting waiting for some substantial event as an excuse to radically change the way the internet works. He said 'of course there is.'

Lessig is a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and is best known as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications.

An i-9/11 event could come in the form of a major viral attack, the hacking of a major city’s security or transport systems, or some other vital systems such as the water or power supply.

Posted by Casey Kazan.

Source Link

Comments

[Robguy]

I'm just happy that the internet is so distributed that even if a country tries to destroy it, they can only be so successful. Eventually people will find ways around it.

[martin weiss]

Don't worry, humans are far too ingenious to be controlled by any system, walls, or police states. The essential rigidity of such structures creates fractures that eventually shatter them entirely. Many may suffer and die, but the unalienable freedom we are born with eventually prevails-- if there is a community to befriend us.

[ATILA]

So... looking for an excuse for i-censorship justificated by a bogus operation.

[knoxvilledaniel]

There's NO WAY on this green Earth that the entire Internet can be brought down in one fell swoop.
I also hope that the Bushites, Cheneyites & the bobble - headed yes - men of the Right Wing don't try to monitor & vette the flow of information in the U.S. or any other nation.