Since the Congress voted down the Cybersecurity Act of 2012, Leon Panetta, US Secretary of Defense, has referred to the climate on the web as leading to an almost certain “cyber 9/11” , “cyber Pearl-Harbor” , and even “cyber Armageddon”.
Panetta warns that cyber extremists or an aggressive nation could “use these kinds of cyber tools to gain control of critical switches. They could derail passenger trains, or even more dangerous, derail passenger trains loaded with lethal chemicals. They could contaminate the water supply in major cities, or shut down the power grid across large parts of the country.”
In a recent solicitation, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has offered a more comprehensive monitoring service under their Continuous Diagnostic and Mitigation program. DHS is on a mission to “safeguard and secure cyberspace” with the acquisition of “specialized information technology (IT) service and tools to implement DHS’ Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program.”
Congress has allocated $183 million for the 2013 fiscal year for cyber protection programs, critical security controls, and for the federal government and other public-private partnerships.
The leaked version of Obama’s cybersecurity executive order is a compromise by the administration offered to those concerned about Big Brother controls invading US citizen’s privacy on the Web. One concession outlined is the sharing of internet traffic information by the US government and private sector corporations involving critical infrastructure and electrical grid. Social media companies would not be held under the same mandate.
The DHS, specifically Secretary Janet Napolitano, will be given the sole power of oversight, rather than Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency (NSA). Napolitano will be empowered to reference top-secret intelligence reports only known to her to bases identification of cyberthreats and individual targets.
While the Congress, the mainstream propaganda and general public are concerned about cybersecurity legislation that would restrict freedoms on the Web, Obama has been preparing for government-sponsored and controlled internet.
In June of this year, President Obama signed the executive order entitled Accelerating Broadband Infrastructure Deployment which supposed to “facilitate broadband deployment on Federal lands, buildings, and rights of way, federally assisted highways, and tribal and individual Indian trust lands (tribal lands), particularly in underserved communities.” And with the EO came the creation of US Ignite, which is a 6 year plan to create private-public partnerships (PPP) with the areas a “national security”; as defined:
• Education
• Workforce development
• Advanced manufacturing
• Health
• Transportation
• Public safety
• Clean energy
With previous EOs, Obama has laid the foundation for new rules and regulations that would federalize tracking the US public with the extension of extension of broadband under the Federal Infrastructure Projects Dashboard.
US Ignite lists partners ready to assist the US government in creating a government-controlled internet system that connects to all aspects of our lives as we become more and more dependent on technological advancements. Some of their partners include Cisco, Comcast, Hewlett Packard, Mozilla, Verizon, AT&T, City of San Francisco, Juniper, Big Switch, Cienna, Delta Regional Authority, City of Philadelphia, City of Santa Monica, and Lafayette Utilities Systems.
The purpose is to create through use of current “test beds” the next generation of internet where the US government controls the flow of information under all avenues of access. The pairing with the Global Environment for Network Innovation (GENI) integrates social networking sites with the real world application as influencing society and commerce.
This project is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) who will supply the academia and research necessary to improve on US Ignite through GENI and a $40 million investment. The beta-testing in certain cities right now are gathering information for the government-sponsored internet of the future.
The NSF will lead US Ignite for the White House which will eventually integrate all aspects of economy and commerce onto the digital highway to be controlled and manipulated by the US government as the “next-generation network”. Universities, cities, healthcare offices, transportation, and all other aspects of daily life in America will be connected by this “so-called future internet”. Current experiments demonstrate that all these systems can be connected and controlled by one central grid. The NSF is now empowering GENI to create a prototype within experimental parameters that will satisfy the US government’s desire to “transform cybersecurity, network performance, and cloud computing research, and will jumpstart applications, which have the potential for profound societal and economic impacts.”
Different uses of US Ignite are:
• Radars to high-speed networks for weather prediction and disaster mitigation
• All-encompassing monitoring of all computers connected to the network
• Filing of patient information if doctors are connected to the network
• Retention of could-conferencing
The US Ignite network will connect retailer to shipper, distribution center and customer; educator to student, university and academia; web-developers to university researchers, entrepreneurs within all areas of national priority – which include all necessities controlled by the government for the continued functionality of our society.
US Ignite is downplayed in the mainstream because of its promises to be 100 times faster by using a one-gigabit network which is not believed, however, the implications of this venture is missed (or omitted).
The gravity of a network funded by and controlled by the US government through PPPs, city-state agreements and local governments to participate in a new version of the internet that is fully connected is lost in the MSM. Their focus is point out flaws in the Obama administration’s allocation of broadband as “slow and expensive in American cities.”
{Author Bio}
Susanne Posel is the Chief Editor of Occupy Corporatism Our alternative news site is dedicated to reporting the news as it actually happens; not as it is spun by the corporate-funded mainstream media. You can find us on our Facebook page.
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