Obama signed Executive Order empowering Kill Switch over the Internet

June 9, 2013 — bunkerville

On July 12, 2012 I posted the following story below. The Executive Order appeared in the Federal Register and there were 30 days for comment. There was little if any concern, and we bloggers were simply tin foil hat folks. I suggest one of the most dangerous moves Obama made. Now with the recent revelations, I thought this would be a good Sunday redo. So here we go:

Not much excitement about this apparently. So what he cannot do by Congressional action, he does by fiat. The interesting part is that his Executive Order was posted in the Federal Register.

Presidential powers over the Internet and telecommunications were laid out in a U.S. Senate bill in 2009, which proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet. But that legislation was not included in the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 earlier this year. I would ask, why must Janet Napolitano cut off private networks? I caught some discussion of this, and the rationale was that  “misinformation” may need to be curtailed. Where did I hear that before? Anyone still wondering where we are headed with this?

President Obama signed an executive order this week (July 12, 2012) that could give him control over the web in times of emergency.

According to The Verge, critics of the order are concerned with Section 5.2, which is a lengthy part outlining how telecommunications and the Internet are controlled. It states that the Secretary of Homeland Security will “oversee the development, testing, implementation, and sustainment” of national security and emergency preparedness measures on all systems, including private “non-military communications networks.” According to The Verge, critics say this gives Obama the on/off switch to the Web.

The order, known as the, “Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions,” exists to hand over full control of communications and the internet to certain government authorities in times of natural disaster and security emergencies.

The wording for the executive order is of course lengthy and uses politician language, but the part worth pointing out is in section 5.2.It is in this section that the order states that Homeland Security will be able to monitor and control all non-military forms of communications in times of extreme measures, which is essentially giving the White House the on/off switch to the internet, according to some critics.

You can read more about the executive order, which still has 30 days before it becomes a law, over at CNET and The Verge. If you want to check out the order in its entirety, go to the White House press page. From the Examiner

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Government also collecting credit-card transactions

June 7, 2013 — bunkerville

Hot Air: Here’s another question.  Exactly how many terrorists use credit cards to buy the kinds of products that would create those patterns?

Here is the whistle blower who tells us how this whole thing is planned out. Nothing accidental about this:

The filmmaker Laura Poitras profiles William Binney, a 32-year veteran of the National Security Agency who helped design a top-secret program he says is broadly collecting Americans’ personal data. Two posts today.

As if the surveillance state didn’t have enough to do, what with tracking every call in America and scanning every Internet transaction. The Wall Street Journal reported late last night that the NSA has been cataloguing credit card transactions as well, rendering utterly void any concept of transactional privacy:

The National Security Agency’s monitoring of Americans includes customer records from the three major phone networks as well as emails and Web searches, and the agency also has cataloged credit-card transactions, said people familiar with the agency’s activities.

The disclosure this week of an order by a secret U.S. court for Verizon Communications Inc.’s phone records set off the latest public discussion of the program. But people familiar with the NSA’s operations said the initiative also encompasses phone-call data from AT&T Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp., records from Internet-service providers and purchase information from credit-card providers.  …

NSA also obtains access to data from Internet service providers on Internet use such as data about email or website visits, several former officials said. NSA has established similar relationships with credit-card companies, three former officials said.

It couldn’t be determined if any of the Internet or credit-card arrangements are ongoing, as are the phone company efforts, or one-shot collection efforts. The credit-card firms, phone companies and NSA declined to comment for this article. More at Hot Air

On March 12 Ron Wyden who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee asked DNI James Clapper if the NSA collects data on millions of Americans. Clapper answer that no the NSA does not at least not wittingly collect info on American. In light of the report about the NSA collecting phone records from Verizon

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