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New Bill Provides the Fed Power to Shut Down the Internet

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Connecticut Senator, and chairman of the Homeland Security committee, Joseph Lieberman introduced legislation last week that would grant broad new emergency powers over the Internetto the federal government. The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act (PCNAA) would require broadband providers, search engines, and software companies to comply with emergency orders issued by the Department of Homeland Security under penalty of fine.

In the event of a national emergency, the bill would grant the power to control, and even shut down, large swaths of the Internet to the National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications (NCCC), a new office created within the DHS by the PCNAA. The legislation has garnered support from Senators Jay Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe who proposed similar powers last August, but it’s bound to run into serious opposition from tech lobbyists, privacy groups and those who wish to limit the power of the federal government.

Of course, similar legislation was introduced August of last year and that was shot down so maybe I need to take my tinfoil hat off. Still, the idea of a single point of failure for the entire US Internet infrastructure is frightening. If our cyber security is so poor that we need a kill switch for the Internet then how can we be assured that security around that kill switch would be strong enough to prevent hackers, or an unfriendly government, from accessing and using the kill switch?

FCC releases Internet speed test tool

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The U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Thursday launched a broadband test service to help consumers clock the speed of their Internet.

Located at the site www.broadband.gov, the test is aimed at allowing consumers to compare their actual speeds with the speeds advertised by their providers. The FCC release follows an FCC meeting in September where officials said that actual speeds were estimated to lag by as much as 50 percent during busy hours. “The FCC’s new digital tools will arm users with real-time information about their broadband connection and the agency with useful data about service across the country,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a statement.

The FCC is also collecting information about where broadband is not available. Consumers can email the FCC at [email protected] or call the FCC.

Is Religion Out of Date?

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29% of Americans say religion ‘out of date’

A Gallup poll of Americans’ attitudes towards religion released on Christmas Eve found significant recent increases in those responding either that they have no religious preference, that religion is not very important in their lives, or that they believe religion “is largely old-fashioned or out of date.”

Only 78% of Americans now identify as Christian, while 22% describe their religious preference as either “other” or “none.”

Most of these changes have occurred since 2000 and represent the first significant shift since a sharp decline in religious adherence during the 1970s. Over the last nine years, the number with no religious preference has grown from a level of around 8% to 13%. The number for whom religion is not very important has climbed from just over 10% to 19%. And the number who believe religion is out of date and has no answers for today’s problems has jumped from slightly more than 20% to 29%.

These changes do not appear to have affected the majority of Americans who still consider religion “very important” in their own lives. That figure remains at 56% — roughly the same as for the last 35 years — while 57% still say religion has answers to most of the world’s problems.

The biggest difference is that in the late 1990s, up to 68% of Americans though religion had answers to the world’s problems — even though only about 60% said religion was personally very important to them. It seems as though over the last ten years a significant number may have gone from believing that religion is a positive factor in the world, even if they’re not particularly religious themselves, to seeing religion in a far more skeptical or even negative light.

Of interest is those claiming ‘No Religion’ make up the third largest group in the United States.

Click for full size image.