Monday, November 12, 2012

Is Obama’s Cybersecurity Executive Order Imminent?

Flush with electoral capital, President Barack Obama is spending it like mad in pursuit of his radical power consolidating agenda. Over the past few days we have chronicled the fast-tracking of a UN gun control treaty, the prosecution of another alleged espionage case, another deadly drone attack, approval of a planned UN invasion of Mali, etc.

The latest stop of the Barack Obama Worldwide Tour of Tyranny may be the issuing of a long-awaited and regularly leaked executive order exerting control over the Internet in the name of cybersecurity.
Of course, there remains the chance that Congress will pass some version of a cybersecurity bill before the president can issue his edict. Congress will be back in town on November 13 and Republican leaders have already telegraphed their intent to “reach across the aisle” and accede to the president’s mandate, including the touting of ObamaCare as "the law of the land."

Then again, the president famously declared that “we can’t wait” for Congress to act, and given the fact that there are a few other pretty weighty items on the legislative schedule, a cybersecurity executive order isn’t out of the question. The decree would take that topic off Congress’s plate and allow the president greater control over the scope and severity of the regulations governing the “protection” of the nation’s cyberspace infrastructure.

Promises of the White House’s imminent issuing of the edict have been coming for months. The Associated Press (AP) obtained a leaked draft version of the order, but indicated that the source of the document didn’t disclose when the president would sign the order.

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