A Free Internet Myth

If ever there were an organization that would want to keep the Internet free, it should be the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  Yet, free to them seems to mean something different than it does to the rest of us.  They really don't like the new cyber legislation and comment often on the "privacy" aspects of the bill.  Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) which is in doubt, largely due to privacy issues raised by like-minded people in the ACLU and the EFF.  It is not about Privacy as much as their perceptions of the use of the Internet by the International community.  Unfortunately, they when they see the privacy nail, they want to use the hammer.

The Russians, Iranians, Saudis, Chinese and a number of others, are not free in the context they discuss.  We can look at this a couple of ways.  We can say, "It doesn't matter what they do;  it only matters what we do."  That used to work well in an age before the Internet.  Other countries use the Internet to influence and control their populations.  If you don't agree, they will persuade you to stop making comments, don't do it again, or you will disappear.  Strange that these two groups would be on the side of angels and still doing little to work around the firewalls and cannons of the net.

I think it does matter what we do to control crime on our Internet.  That cost is sharing of information between those who get hit and those who can do something about it.  While the rest of us debate whether industries can strike back, these guys would have us lay down and accept the Internet as it is - similar to the Wild West- we can certainly agree that it is a government responsbility to hack back.  They can't do that unless they know when someone is attacked.  Terrorists and criminals benefit from their reluctance to support a bill that is trying to help our government.  When privacy is your only concern, neither one will matter.