Driving home tonight, I heard a radio DJ mention a bill pending in Congress that would give the president the power to “turn off” the Internet in the event of a “national cyber emergency.”

This bill was originally introduced in the 111th Congress by Senator Joe Lieberman.  It didn’t go very far, but recent events in the middle East and Africa have brought it back to the surface.

After I heard the radio pitch, I immediately wanted to look up some arguments both in favor and against the bill so I could weight my own personal beliefs.

In Favor

On the one hand, people want to feel safe and secure in their dealings online.  Your Facebook profile lists your contact information.  Foursquare tells people when you’re away from home.  Your financial life resides online.  Your safety and security in retirement, times of damaged health, etc.  Just about everything is digital.

So what happens when a coordinated attack targeted at the nation’s information infrastructure occurs?  We run in to a real-world Live Free or Die Hard scenario.  It might sound outrageous and impossible … but 15 years ago we were still able to meet our loved ones at the airport gate …

Against

The most resounding argument I’ve heard against the bill is in terms of cost.  The proposed bill (which will likely be used to frame the new edition in the 112th Congress) creates a new Federal agency – the Office of Cyberspace Policy.  The bill revises the Homeland Security Act, adds new offices, a new director position, and creates a new level of bureaucracy.

It would be costly, and while we’re still overcoming a down economy and struggling to dig our way out of a deep hole of national debt, creating more overhead is not the way to go for the immediate future.

My Concerns

I’m not as concerned with the safety of my information or the cost to the taxpayer.  They are valid issues, but what bothers me is what this kind of law would mean for online publishing.

Open social networks like Twitter have been largely credited with fueling and enabling conversations and protests across Egypt.  Without the freedom and power that the Internet gives to the average man, this kind of massive, rapid communication would likely have never happened.

America was founded on a set of simple freedoms, one of which being the freedom of the press.

My blog is a publication.  It might not be printed on a traditional “press,” but it is a distributed publication nonetheless.  As such, I have the inalienable right to produce content, be it supportive of the government, critical of the government, or arguing a different issue all together.

The idea of giving anyone, let alone the president, a killswitch for the Internet gives me pause.  That someone could one day, for any arbitrary reason, decide to limit my right to communicate with the world at large out of a purported interest for my safety is, to me at least, preposterous.

At the same time, I invite you to disagree and argue the point.  I’d love to hear further discussion on the issue, on both sides of the issue.  Would you or would you not support a presidential killswitch for the Internet?  Under what circumstances would it be permitted?  Why or why not?