Final Protective Fire

Sunday, December 22, 2002

 

Several bloggers, showing their tendency to shrill hysterics over analysis, have been making silly posts about this story about a Bush administration proposal to monitor the Internet against attacks. I've been pointing out, futilely evidently, that actually reading the story reveals little to support the fears. Fortunately, Orin Kerr does a nice job here of saying what I've been saying - albeit better as usual. Of course, we can see why if we look at Professor Kerr's credentials.

Now, I'm not a huge fan of government involvement and my own experience in government intervention in computer and internet security is hardly going to make me think that this will be any more competently executed. But conservatives acknowledge that there are at least some areas that government is appropriately the sector best suited to solve certain problems. Attacks on our internet infrastructure seem pretty obvious to be such a realm and only the most rabid of libertarians would oppose such initiatives. The core issue is what is being monitored, infrastructure or content.

Robin 10:21 AM