Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak is a dictator – that’s right, Vice President Biden, I said “dictator” – who just exercised his dictatorial control by shutting down the internet in Egypt. From The Wall Street Journal:
In the face of mounting political unrest, Egypt took the unprecedented step of severing all Internet connections and shutting down its cellphone services—with the cooperation of international firms.
Egyptian authorities asked mobile operators to “turn down the network totally,” said Vittorio Colao, chief executive of U.K.-based Vodafone Group PLC, which owns 55% of Egypt’s largest carrier, Vodafone Egypt.
Mr. Colao, speaking Friday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, said the request was legitimate under Egyptian law, but he hoped the government would reverse course soon. […]
Other countries attempting to undermine or contain political uprisings in recent years—from Myanmar in 2007 to Iran and China in 2009—have also clamped down on Internet access and cellphone use.
But Egypt’s crackdown appears unique in both scale and synchronization, particularly for a country with such an advanced infrastructure with so many providers, according to Internet security experts.
“What’s shocking about this is that they didn’t just take down a certain domain name or block a website—they took the whole Internet down,” said Mr. Cowie.
Yes, Hosni Mubarak and the thugs in Myanmar are DICTATORS. And dictators love to control and suppress information.
But don’t forget our dictator, whose name also happens to be Barack. He wants to be a dictator, too:
Senate Bill Would Give President Emergency Control of Internet
Published August 28, 2009
FOXNews.comA Senate bill would offer President Obama emergency control of the Internet and may give him a “kill switch” to shut down online traffic by seizing private networks — a move cybersecurity experts worry will choke off industry and civil liberties.
Details of a revamped version of the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 emerged late Thursday, months after an initial version authored by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V., was blasted in Silicon Valley as dangerous government intrusion.
“In the original bill they empowered the president to essentially turn off the Internet in the case of a ‘cyber-emergency,’ which they didn’t define,” said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, which represents the telecommunications industry.
“We think it’s a very bad idea … to put in legislation,” he told FOXNews.com.
Clinton said the new version of the bill that surfaced this week is improved from its first draft, but troubling language that was removed was replaced by vague language that could still offer the same powers to the president in case of an emergency.
“The current language is so unclear that we can’t be confident that the changes have actually been made,” he said.
The new legislation allows the president to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” relating to “non-governmental” computer networks and make a plan to respond to the danger, according to an excerpt published online — a broad license that rights experts worry would give the president “amorphous powers” over private users.
But, hey, it gets even worse in the new and improved version being taken up by the Democrat-controlled Senate this year: now Obama can shut down the internet any vaguely-worded time Obama thinks its necessary without judges having any say-so in the matter:
According to a report Monday at CNET News, the bill will be back on the Senate agenda in the new year. But a revision introduced into the bill in December would exempt the law from judicial oversight. According to critics, this change would open the law to politically-motivated abuse by any administration, no matter how narrowly the law is interpreted.
“The country we’re seeking to protect is a country that respects the right of any individual to have their day in court,” Steve DelBianco, director of the NetChoice coalition, which represents online companies such as eBay and Yahoo, told CNET. “Yet this bill would deny that day in court to the owner of infrastructure.”
“Judicial review is our main concern,” he added. “A designation of critical information infrastructure brings with it huge obligations for upgrades and compliance.”
Under the proposed law, the Department of Homeland Security would draw up a list of Internet “critical infrastructure” it deems vital to the proper functioning of the web and US economy. The president would then be granted the power to order some part of that critical infrastructure to be shut down, in case of a “national cyberemergency.”
While the bill does lay down what constitutes “critical infrastructure,” critics say it’s not clear what constitutes a “national cyberemergency.” Nor is it clear what other powers the president may exert, aside from shutting down parts of the web.
Many people have the unfortunate tendency to fail to see just how quintessentially fascist this president, his party and the cozy liberal media-industrial news complex which undergird that political party truly are. It wasn’t all that long ago that Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer compared conservative political speech to porn that should be regulated. Democrats have been calling for some version of a “Fairness Doctrine” regulating and controlling (and even subsidizing leftwing journalists) political speech for years and years. And the Tucson, Arizona shooting in which Democrats and the mainstream media immediately combined to demonize conservative speech – notwithstanding that conservatives had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the shooting – simply reinforces the mortal danger that free speech is in from the left these days.
All of the above are as fascist as they think they can get away with. And they keep pushing the envelope toward more fascist big government totalitarianism.
Liberals and progressives want power. And then they want more power. And then they want more. And more.
Frankly, they want to amass enough power so that, as Barack Obama himself put it:
“We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends…“
They want to control people’s lives so that they can be the sole determiners of who wins and who loses. They want to amass enough power so that they are invulnerable to the will of the people.
As Democrat John Dingell put it:
“The harsh fact of the matter is when you’re going to pass legislation that will cover 300 American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.”
Obama wants dictatorial power so that he can become a better dictator. And the only thing that is stopping him is a Constitution that Democrats constantly undermine and a finicky entity called “the people.” Democrats have already reinterpreted the Constitution into meaninglessness, and the will of the people?
It’s not going so well for him now, but we’re only one election away from tyranny.
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Tags: Biden, Chuck Schumer, Constitution, control, dictator, dictatorial power, egypt, Fairness Doctrine, Hosni Mubarak, Internet, mainstream media, Mubarak, severing all internet connections, shut down the internet, the people
Start Thinking Right 
January 29, 2011 at 7:33 am
Scary! I hope the bill for “cybersecurity” doesn’t pass. Soon afterwards they’d start saying the President can shut down web sites he doesn’t like. Goodbye, Mike.
January 29, 2011 at 7:55 am
You are so right in your conclusion, Michael “we are one election away from Tyranny.” I know that in my ‘knower’.
I keep trying to think of what more WE THE PEOPLE can do to convince enough voters TO VOTE THE TYRANT OUT.
What is your take on the uprising in Egypt??? Secondly, did you read the wonderous account of the vote in Southern Sudan over at Pamela Geller’s Atlas Shrugs blog? I wept my way through it. Freedom is so costly and precious and they fought so long and hard for it.
WE MUST PREVAIL AGAINST OBAMA, WE MUST!
January 29, 2011 at 8:16 am
Michael, here is the post I mentioned.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
99% Vote in Southern Sudan: “Free at Last!”
“Thank G-d Almighty!” “We Have a Nation”
“Everyone is drunk with happiness. People in Southern Sudan are in unity. We are one. Everyone is saying ‘Hallelujah! Free at last!'” Simon Deng, moments ago.
A jubilant Simon Deng rang me from Southern Sudan just a few moments ago. The news was nothing short of a miracle. A record 99% of the Southern Sudanese people came out and voted for independence. They are free. The official results of the vote will be announced this weekend.
Simon was ebullient on the phone. If I could have frozen one moment in time, it would have been that.
What a moment! Simon was laughing. It was the sound of the divine. “If you don’t believe in miracles, look to Southern Sudan. Everyone in Southern Sudan is smiling. Everyone. The country is smiling. They will be never be as happy as they are today. We are free from the victimization and islamization of the North.”
“We had to sacrifice four million lives.”
I have been covering the Islamic genocide by the North and the relentless fight for freedom from jihad in Darfur and Sudan since late 2004 (scroll this). Simon Deng and the lost boys have refused to accept the norming of genocide in Sudan, or the silence of the UN and the world. Simon Deng has been updating me regularly on his last visit to DC lawmakers to save Sudan from the jihadist regime in Khartoum, when he walked barefoot in the Senate. What a journey, from Simon’s Freedom Walk back in 2005 after Bush broke with the UN and called Sudan a genocide.
In its 54-year history, Sudan has suffered from civil war between the north and south for 39 years. Some 200,000 south Sudanese were kidnapped into slavery. Two million Sudanese have died in the wars. Four million have become refugees. But the fact is that with the West openly supporting southern Sudanese independence, a new war’s consequences will not be limited to Sudan itself. Therefore it is worth considering why such a war is all but certain and what southern Sudanese independence means for the region and the world.
There were two main reasons that Bashir agreed to sign the peace treaty with the south Sudanese in 2005. First, his forces had lost the civil war. The south was already effectively independent.
The second reason Bashir agreed to a deal that would give eventual independence to the oil-rich south is because he feared the US.
In 2004, led by then president George W. Bush, the US cast a giant shadow throughout the world. The US military’s lightning overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime frightened US foes and encouraged US allies. The democratic wave revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Lebanon were all fuelled by the world’s belief in US’s willingness to use its power to defeat its foes.
Bashir’s regime is closely linked to al-Qaida, which he hosted from 1989 until 1995.
When the US demanded that he accept the south’s victory, he probably didn’t believe he could refuse. (Glick here.)
The Southern Sudanese never lost hope. Watch Simon here in a quick video, 2005 (full remarks here). And listen to my interview with Manute Bol, the basketball great who dedicated his life and his sports earnings to freedom for southern Sudan before he died.
“Everyone is drunk with happiness. People in Southern Sudan are in unity. We are one. Everyone is saying ‘hallelujah, Free at last!'”
“We thank every person in the world who has been there emotionally, who consoled us, who stood with us, who has supported Southern Sudan, who have stood with and those who stood in sympathy with the people of Sudan, we thank you. We thank everybody. We the people of Southern Sudan have no way to thank people of good will, who opened their doors to refugees, who opened their wallet to us, we thank you.
“Everyone is anxious to receive the new baby.”
“And the last thing we are asking people and free nations of the world — recognize the child that is going to be born. Be there for that child. Support that child. When the child falls down, help that child stand up. Help the child grow. Eventually we will be strong and run like a gazelle.”
When I asked Simon if he thought there would be trouble, He said “Never, G-d is with us. They sacrificed, but didnt lose hope. 4 million lives perished, but they believed in tomorrow. Tomorrow is now. We have a nation.”
“Nobody could believe how everybody voted. 99% turnout.”
“The Northern Sudanese have already recognized the results of the vote.” The turnout was overwhelming.
“The unity was solid, like a rock.”
“And for anybody in the world who doesn’t believe in hope, please hear it from us, keep hope alive.”
The cry for freedom and results of this vote will reverberate around the world.
UPDATE: Zilla is covering it here. Lovely.
Photo: A Southern Sudanese woman waits in a line holding her voting card
Posted by Pamela Geller on Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 12:44 PM in Sudan, Niger, Darfur, Mauratania-Genocide Child rape, Slavery | Permalink ShareThis
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January 29, 2011 at 10:27 pm
HL,
I love the parts of the article that pointed out:
I think of the difference between the courage of Bush and Sudan and the cowardice of Obama and Iran when I read something like this.
The Europeanized (epitomized in Neville Chamberlain’s “peace in our time” appeasing weakness) political left has always put freedom in jeopardy. And then strong conservative leadership dragged freedom from the fanged maw of tyranny. And then liberals mocked and degraded and undermined that effort until they got power so they could poison the tree of liberty all over again.
And, of course, after a liberal, after a Chamberlain, the cost of winning freedom gets all the more steep. Because liberals start us out in a deep hole that requires all the more sacrifice in order to climb out of.
The thing about Egypt is that it’s NOT a Democratic revolt; it is a popular uprising. The two are profoundly different. A Democratic revolt is based on principles of freedom and liberty; a popular uprising is just mobs taking to the streets. We get Hamas and the Islamic Brotherhood when Muslims take to the streets.
Democracy requires good people who are capable of self-governance and self-restraint. The Muslim world doesn’t create such people; the problem is, neither does American liberalism and it’s emphasis on the right of depraved people to practice their depravity.
The Muslim world has bad people. It’s not just the fault of their vile religion of Islam; it is that Islam is fundamentally anti-democratic and encourages tyranny. And then those tyrants brutalize and lie and repress the people. The result is bad people who are incapable of self-governance even if they throw out the tyrants.
I hope that Sudan can break free and govern itself wisely and morally.
January 29, 2011 at 10:33 pm
J.W.
Liberals always have an underhanded agenda, and that is precisely what their agenda is in this.
It IS scary. Democrats have been trying to gain this power for YEARS now. And if one attempt fails, they simply restructure and repackage their attempt to seize free speech rights from conservatives in another facade, and try, try again.