Hint: If you're going to suggest legislation that gives the government an option to take control over certain online information systems, don't announce it at the same time a corrupt foreign regime shuts down the Internet.
Apparently nobody so advised Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who on Friday told Wired about a plan to reintroduce a bill that gives the president this authority — the day after Egypt blocked the Internet in response to increasingly violent protests against the presidency of Hosni Mubarak. The resulting article set off an uproar against what many have (perhaps unfairly) termed the "Kill Switch Bill."
Officially, the bill goes by "Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010." And a white paper from the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs insists that it would not create a "kill switch," but rather "order emergency measures for our nation's most critical infrastructure."
Essentially, the bill directs the president to create a list of critical cyber systems (for instance, those necessary to the electric grid or the financial system) that he would be able to take emergency control of if threatened. What systems would be on this list, the specific conditions that might threaten them, and what "emergency measures" entail are largely unspecified, and this vagueness worries some privacy and civil rights groups.
Twenty-four of these groups, despite noting the bill doesn't authorize unreasonable electronic surveillance, were still wary enough to write an open letter [PDF] opposing the bill when it was first proposed to the Homeland Security Committee in June.
"The Internet is vital to free speech and free inquiry, and Americans rely on it every day to access and to convey information," the letter says. "...the bill should also be amended to require an independent assessment of the effect on free speech, privacy and other civil liberties of the measures undertaken to respond to each emergency the President declares. It is imperative that cybersecurity legislation not erode our rights."