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CounterPunch
January
2, 2003
Bush's Master
Plan for the Internet
by KURT NIMMO
Bush and his Machiavellian minions will no longer
put up with you roaming free into dangerous territory on the
internet. You need to be corralled, electronically tethered,
kept away from sites promoting conspiracy theories -- in other
words, information the corporate media, the official US Ministry
of Disinformation, does not want you to read or see. It's now
increasingly obvious the Bushites want to lock us up in a hermetically
sealed informational box and throw away the key. All the information
they consider worthwhile will be pumped in through a one-way
hole.
During war, as they say, the first causality
is truth. And war -- all the time and everywhere people resist
-- is what Bush will deliver. It will be easier for him to accomplish
this if you can't read the truth, if you remain ignorant, or
if you are obstructed from organizing and speaking out on the
internet against war and madness. Bush knows this -- or, at least,
those around him know this. The internet, regardless of its trashy
and lame commercial characteristics, is a nearly perfect medium
for organizing. It's a thorn in the side of neo-cons and fascists
everywhere.
Enter Dubya's Critical Infrastructure
Protection Board (CIPB), which the unelected one created with
a flourish of his pen (another executive order, a most popular
way to rule vassals). The men and women around Bush want to require
internet service providers, ISPs, to build a centralized network
capable of monitoring where you go, what you look at and read,
what you write in your email -- and all in real-time. Of course,
they don't say this. What they say is they want to protect you
against viruses and terrorist attacks. They want to shield you
from Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, who are everywhere,
ready to attack, even on the internet (Osama's cave in Tora Bora,
don't you know, bristled with computers and crack virus software
programmers).
CIPB is working on a report, "The
National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace," which it will release
early next year. It is billed as a strategy for the Ministry
of Homeland Security and -- this is the laughable part -- is
subject to congressional review. Yeah, like Congress protected
us from Bush's totalitarian Patriot Act and the Ministry of Homeland
Security bill. What a joke. 99% of these folks are Bush co-conspirators.
When Bush tells them to jump, they ask how high. Your right to
travel through cyberspace without a snoop noting your every move
is one of the next hoops Bush will wave before an obeisant Congress.
The internet is one of the last bastions of resistance. Besides,
some rabble-rouser posted the Anarchist's Cookbook on there.
Of course, converting the internet into
a big Carnivore system is one thing, while denying you access
is quite another. Bush's centralized system will make this a
reality. Get labeled a malcontent, a "security risk,"
or even a "cyber-terrorist" and you can be easily barred
from Bush's "secure, trusted, robust, reliable, and available
infrastructure." Say the wrong thing on a bulletin board
or forum and your ISP -- afraid of the government breathing down
its neck, yanking its business license, or sicking the IRS on
it -- may terminate your service. Hell, if things go as Bush
and Clan envision most small ISPs will go out of business, replaced
by AOL, Comcast, and other rich communications industry friends
and big dollar contributors to Project Bush.
Dubya wants to essentially authorize
a Department of Approved Internet Use within the Ministry of
Homeland Security. This new department will create and demand
implementation of new network protocols, take over the task of
verifying IT vendors (so much for the conservative idea of getting
rid of big government), and issue security assessment and policy
tools (maybe Dubya can roll Microsoft into the Ministry of Homeland
Security, demand everybody use Windows instead of Mac or Linux
because Windows will be "secure" and adapt, at taxpayer
expense, the latest government mandated protocols). Don't worry
about the cost -- this idea comes from the guys who think a $200
billion war is nothing to sweat, even if it wrecks the economy.
Plus, a lot of the cost will be picked up by the ISPs, which
is to say you, the subscriber. Nothing like paying through the
nose to have the government turn your computer into a Carnivore
box.
Just in case you think I'm playing fast
and loose with the word "Carnivore," consider what
an official with a major data services company who has was briefed
on several aspects of the government's plans told John Markoff
of the New York Times the other day, "Part of monitoring
the Internet and doing real-time analysis is to be able to track
incidents while they are occurring... Am I analogizing this to
Carnivore? Absolutely. But in fact, it's 10 times worse. Carnivore
was working on much smaller feeds and could not scale. This is
looking at the whole Internet." OK, I inserted the required
quote from a "respected" source, so I guess we can
all rest easier now. The idea of Bush squashing a (relatively)
free and unhampered internet has now broken free of the besmeared
realm of conspiracy theory. Hallelujah!
So there you have it, in a nutshell.
You can't be trusted and you will never have privacy again --
not on the internet, not with your bank or credit card transactions,
medical records, not when you fly on a plane or cross the border,
and certainly not if you decide Bush and his neo-con fascists
are wrong about forever war and you decide you want to do something
about it. As it looks now, things are moving in a bleak direction
rather quickly. But even Russians under the yoke of Soviet communism
managed to publish samizdats -- typed on manual typewriters with
multiple carbons, since the photocopying machines were locked
up and closely watched by the state -- and news thus disseminated,
people learned the truth.
Somewhere buried in a box in the closet
of my apartment is BBS software on an old, dusty floppy disk.
In the days before the web -- when the internet was mostly confined
to computer students, faculty, government types, and other such
privileged geeks -- a few of us dialed into computers running
BBS software. If Bush and his Critical Infrastructure Protection
Board bureaucrats have their way, we may be forced to return
to those less sophisticated days. Call it a dial-up samizdat
where information remains free. Of course, sooner or later, Bush
will get around to making this illegal, too. But where there's
a will, there's a way. We may even be reduced to sending CD-ROMs
via snail-mail in the future. Or passing them hand-to-hand under
the cover of darkness. Truth refuses to be suppressed. It will
always break out, regardless of the technology.
Kurt Nimmo
is a photographer and multimedia developer in Las Cruces, New
Mexico. Visit his excellent online
gallery. He can be reached at: nimmo@zianet.com
We highly recommend frequent visits to
Nimmo's website, Another
Day in the Empire
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