A couple weeks ago we pointed you to the executive order titled "Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions" and signed by President Obama on July 6.
Coverage of the executive order by Network World generated some interesting if predictable right-wing/left-wing posturing among commenters.
The portion of the order being scrutinized by networking professionals is Section 5.2(e), which says the director of the Department of Homeland Security must "satisfy priority communications requirements through the use of commercial, [g]overnment, and privately owned communications resources, when appropriate." Two thoughts about that phrase. 1) The reason the word "government" is written with the "g" in brackets - [g]overnment - is because in the document, the word is capitalized: Government. Just how self-important can an entity be? It capitalizes references to itself, while leaving the words "commercial" and "privately owned" in lower case. Perhaps that tells us all we really need to know about this order and anything/everything else that emanates from our legislative and executive branches. (I'll let the judicial branch off the hook for now but they better not get me started ...)
Sorry, I digress.
Thought number 2) about the phrasing in the executive order: The way I interpret it, if the government decides it needs to take over your network - or indeed, any commercial or privately owned network - in order to ensure it (the government) can continue to communicate during a time of crisis, it will do so. Furthermore, the Department of Homeland Security is on notice to identify such commercial and private networks for that purpose.
That's interesting.
Exactly one week after the executive order was put in place, President Obama served up to Republican SuperPACs a doozy of a quote when he spoke in Roanoke, VA.
My humble plea, Mr. President, is that should the need ever arise for the government to take over private communications networks, you will remember your own words: "You didn't build that. Someone else made that happen."
3 comments:
I'm not too worried about Obama's administration abusing this executive order. I interpret it as only being needed during a homeland war or after a severe national disaster and all of the US government's other communications channels have been damaged or compromised, but private copper/fiber/satellites are still viable.
I don't see anywhere that the government will claim eminent domain over commuication networks and sieze them, but only to use them in a crisis situation, which has been required by FCC rules and regulations since the Commissions inception.
In the event of an extreme emergency most would consider it an honor and civic duty to render whatever aid they can to save lives. Ham operators and the Civil Air Patrol have been doing it for years. And we're glad they did. The "you didn't build that" reference sounds a little too familiar from the current political engagements relative to upcoming elections. Let's stick to telecom, shall we?
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