2 posts tagged “internet”
Cyberspace, the Wild New Yonder
The US Air Force will soon be protecting the cyberworld in an attempt to prevent potentially damaging "invaders" to the vital information center for the US military.
This does make sense because all it would take is a very knowledgeable hacker to get into the system and find a good amount of useful security information. As the article points out, this would be relatively cheap step for enemies to take in crossing enemy lines.
One political concern to take in when considering this new division in the Air Force are the resources needed to have such a program. First, there must be a four star general at the helm of this operation and therefore there must be significant congressional interest to fund this endeavor. Like all things that have to pass through Congress and ultimately the President, there could be problems with a "politicizing" the importance of the Internet. This argument could be very interesting since younger Congressman who have had the Internet around them their whole lives will eventually comprise all the seats of the federal legislative system. Will this play a role in this project garnering more (I'd say deserved as far as what we know now) funding than say, space security? For now, I'd say so but I guess time will really tell.
EU 'threat' to internet freedom
Currently, the European Union is considering new legislation that could put new restrictions on the content of popular broadcasting outlets including YouTube. However, as of yet, it seems that any proposal of such legislation will not pass since many believe that it will stifle "would-be entrepeneurs" and the ever evolving technology would be extremely hard to regulate through specific statutes.
The article also points out that many aspects of the Internet have already begun self regulation. For example, the Internet Content Rating Association and even google searches can be filtered to only show more "appropriate" results.
There are also proposals to restrict e-commerce but many are critical since it would simply push business abroad -- something that no government would like I'm sure.
Either way, it seems that the opposing view has a lot more convincing arguments on this matter. But the article did get me thinking about the 1st amendment and its role in the Internet. The Internet is a place for free expression and with that comes some material that is indecent to some and perfectly fine to others. If the FCC gets involved with online activities here in the States, I think it would be a very detrimental development. If parents are concerned about what their children view online, they should take matters into their own hands and install parental controls and more importantly, restrict online time to an appropriate amount. How about making the kid play a sport so he doesn't become a part of the obesity statistic? In any case, there are obvious cases when the 1st amendment is taken too far as in the case of child pornography, but otherwise the Internet should remain a sanctuary for unfiltered thought in my opinion.
