Will the U.S. President have the authority to shut down the Internet?

Two important bills (773 and 778) have been introduced in the U.S. Senate while the whole nation is preoccupied with health care legislation. The Examiner reports that if passed, they will make it possible for the President to access private Internet data and control cybersecurity in the private sector. Also, the President would have the authority to shutdown the Internet in case of a cyber emergency!

This opens a lot of questions, and naturally people are incensed. Most of them are saying that that kind of unimaginable power shouldn’t be place in the hands of any one man. A great many businesses rely on the Internet – what would happen to them if Obama decided to shut down the Internet?

But the greatest controversy in all of this is the fact that the Internet provides a means for many to express their freedom of speech, one of the most important tenets of democracy. The power to shut down such a vast source of information can be misused in many ways.