President Obama is about to announce the creation of a “cyber czar” who will have broad authority to develop strategy to protect the nation’s government-run and private computer networks. Obama’s legion of czars has raised concerns among lawmakers about their concentration of power.
Obama now has produced more Czars than produced by the Romanovs who ruled Russia from 1613 to 1917. The score by latest count: Romanovs 18, Obamas 19.
At twenty, Obama will need a Czar of Czars. Here is the abbreviated title for such a position, though we will need to replace the country nations with agencies:
Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias, of Moscow, Kiev, Vladimir, Novgorod, Tsar of Kazan, Tsar of Astrakhan, Tsar of Poland, Tsar of Siberia, Tsar of Tauric Chersonesos, Tsar of Georgia, Lord of Pskov, and Grand Duke of Smolensk, Lithuania, Volhynia, Podolia, and Finland, and so forth, and so forth, and so forth.”
In other cases, also defined by th
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Hail, Czar Obama!
Where is the Carz Czar? (to usurp Detroit City).
Obummer must understand he is only 1/3 of the Fed(up)Govmit’.
Comments here are spot on: http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/26/138221
To Czasr id to Tzar, but not to czar of the Czars. No titles of nobility if you please.
Part of my daily routine involves a nightly crossword. I always hate when Tzar is the answer, or Czar, Tsar, Csar, etc.
On the positive side, this will help make playing the 1812 Overture on the 4th of July make sense.
from article: “will have broad authority to develop strategy to protect the nation’s government-run and private computer networks,… The report is intended to outline a “strategic vision” and the range of issues the new adviser must handle, but it will not delve into details,… what role the National Security Agency, the premier electronic surveillance agency, will have in protecting private-sector networks… is pushing for the National Economic Council to have a key role in cybersecurity to ensure that efforts to protect private networks do not unduly threaten economic growth…”
Czar is just another word for enhanced control of and surveillance of the Internet and its users with an eye to protecting the big corporate players interest’s IMO. Making something party to the non-specific war on terror AND allowing it to factor in the commercial concerns of private cyber-industry is all but saying ‘all of your PC’s are ours and DHS will now enforce civil and criminal (copyright among others) law’. With secret warrant’s and letters and you will have no right to due process no doubt.
FormerFederalNothing,
LOL, I should have followed your link and advice to read the comments BEFORE my head ’sploded and I had to post a comment.
Good Lord Obama is nuts.
The Internet is what will help ensure our First Amendment rights now that print media is in rapid decline. It is the greatest media tool modern democracies have avaliable to them to combat tyrannical governmental abuse.
No one man–nor just one branch of government–must ever have control over the Internet.
lottakatz,
That was an excellent analysis. I read the comments and your post was better!
I think we are going a little overboard complainng about the title of this potential officer. Obama told us when he ran that he planned on putting cybersecurity as a high priority and with all of the information, private and governmental, that goes through the “internets” each day, the cybersecurity position is so important that it should belong on the NSC. (sorry about long stringy sentence!)
Thanks Jill, I’m a long time PC advocate and I have deep suspicion about any program or policy that can impact the freedom we have on the Internet. The better half and I got or first computer about 1980; it took almost 60 days to get mail order, was the fastest thing on the market, has a whopping 256K hard drive and cost half as much as a new car. WOW, heady days.
No Windows, all commands were typed, images were non-existent to crude and took forever to download, the only real business’ on the net was porn. Bulletin boards which were no more than local LAN’s flourished. I ran around telling people that this was the wave of the future, the world had changed, and once you found your way onto the WWW you had access to the world in a way heretofore unknown to mankind. I loves me some computers.
The fact IMO that the Internet and the whole movement to computers becoming ubiquitous started as a personal form of entertainment allowed it to fly under the radar and kept it from being a target for government control. Also, it had the ring of elitism and harmless intellectualism that allowed it to be dismissed by people that would otherwise would want control of it.
Congress and big business are still playing catch-up but I worry every time I read about something like the Cyber Czar and rationing bit-rate by price tier as an attempt to stifle one of the last (if not THE last) free means of information gathering and community we have left. If it was not a threat to entrenched interests (which have nothing to do with our interests) governments the world over wouldn’t be censoring and attempting to control it.
The government, ours and others want to control it for the same reasons they want to control some drugs: it can change your mind. And as we have seen, political revolution can begin on the Internet. The real news and discussions about the Bush regime wasn’t taking place in the popular media, it was taking place on the Internet. Much of the popular insurrection that resulted in Obama’s election (and the elections of 2006) were fueled with a concerted effort of raise funds and get out the vote that had its roots in the blogosphere.
I could be wrong but I’m not thinking so…
How much more will it take for people to realize Obama is not creating “czars”, but commisars?