Letter to Congressman Charlie Dent on HR 4061 the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act

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"When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny." - attributed to Thomas Jefferson

Dear Congressman Dent,

A fellow citizen contacted me this morning concerning your recent vote to approve the spending of $503 million in HR 4061, the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2009, last week with a 422-5 vote. This individual was distraught that Congress intends in the future to restrict the freedom of the internet, and after further review I believe her concerns are not unwarranted.

This $503 million-dollar bill enlarges and expands the funding of the existing Cyber Security Research and Development program in a time where overspending is a key concern. Section 105 tags $395 million for 'Computer and Network Security Research Grants' for the building of new buildings and research grants dedicated to subsidizing education and post-doctoral research. Another $108 million is tagged in Section 107 for the 'Federal Cyber Scholarship for Service' program which doles out free tuition in exchange for requiring recipients to work for the federal government.

HR 4061 copies section 11 and 12 of the highly controversial S 773 bill sponsored by Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia. This draconian bill, in section 18, gives broad executive power to the President to “declare a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic to and from any compromised Federal Government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network.” I see HR 4061 as part of a slow, stepwise progression to the possible licensing, regulation, seizure, and censuring of the internet.

Another HR 4061 supporter, Congressman Arcuri stated, “Investing in cybersecurity is the Manhattan Project of our generation, but this time around we are facing far greater threat.” However, this bill has nothing to do with NSA or military encryption; the subsidizing of spread-the-work schemes to place restrictions and cybersecurity on the internet is hardly a comparable threat to, say, a collapse in the dollar currency or the blowback from our ineffective interventionist foreign policy where 5,362 American troops have died in over 8 years in “nation-building” wars of occupation intermingled with the tribal warfare of three countries.
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