Whatever you do, do not press the red button

With the recent events overseas and our discussion in class last week I have been thinking a lot about the possilbity of an Internet "Kill Switch" here in the United States. As with all good arguments there are two sides that both make sense to me. As we discussed in class that shutting down the internet in a time of crisis can easily be seen as a violation of our first admentment rights. The more I thought of it the more I went back and forth. Can't the government already take over the radio and television broadcasts when there is an emergency? Is the internet really that different. I know that the internet is more of an outlet tool and an open forum for expression for people. It is much more of a personal voice then TV or the radio, but is also much more then that, a marketplace, a newstation, a workplace to name a few.

Jesse Walstad has a good post this week about the nuts and bolts of what the kill switch is, that can be found here: Freelectrospeech: 1st Amendment in the Digital Age

My big question with this debate comes with the line between our safety and our rights and freedoms (Heather Harris is still looking for the line, should be found by class on Thursday). In my opinion we elect people to make the tough choices for us and to make the decisions that keep us best protected. I personally do not have a problem with there being a "big red button" that cuts off the internet if it means protecting our country from an internet based attack. If the choice lies between having the internet cut off for a matter of days or leaving us open to an online attack that could set us back months or years I think I would feel safer knowing that someone could protect us from that.

I understand that this could open up a "slippery slope" argument and that if internet access can be controlled then whats next. I am interested to hear more about why people would be strongly opposed to the "kill switch" idea. On a side note I know that it would much more difficult to have a "kill switch" in the US then it was in Egypt because of the complexity of the system but the idea I think will be more of reality in the future.