President's veto power over Internet removed in amended bill

When the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 was originally proposed, this sweeping overhaul of the nation's cybersecurity apparatus contained a provision that would give the president the power to shut down the Internet in the event of a major cyberattack. Needless to say, the idea of giving an Internet kill switch to President Obama was wildly unpopular with everyone from civil libertarians to the Fox News crowd, and the bill didn't make it very far.

The bill's sponsors, Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), amended the bill last week and dropped the controversial kill switch provision. In the modified version of the bill, which is now the Cybersecurity Act of 2010, S. 773, the president will work with government agencies and the private sector to define a set of objective criteria for what constitutes a national cybersecurity emergency. The president will also work with those same parties to develop a coordinated plan of action that will kick in when such an emergency is formally declared. The combination of agreed-upon objective criteria and a preexisting plan that's collaboratively developed with the owners of critical network infrastructure is by itself a significant improvement over the former version's unilateral presidential shutdown power, but the amendment goes even further by explicitly declaring that, "This section does not authorize, and shall not be construed to authorize, an expansion of existing Presidential authorities."