Government and the Internet

Yesterday I got a concerned e-mail from my computer-using Grandmother. She was taking part in a Tea Party/Town Hall group north of Seattle, Washington. They were all sitting around having a great conversation when someone made the comment, "What are we going to do when they cut off the Internet?" My wise Grandmother didn't think that was possible but wanted to ask me the question.

Technically it would be next to impossible to turn off the Internet. The United States Department of Defense paid for the research that created the Internet. They wanted a communication system that would continue to function even in the event of a nuclear war. That means that you can take out every major city in the country and the Internet would continue to function. It might not be as fast, but it would still work.

Many years ago the government gave up control of the Internet to private industry. It is now a big business and controlled by the telecommunications companies like AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and others. In addition to being big business, the Internet is a huge source of tax revenue for the federal government.

So suppose that President Obama wanted tighter control over the American people and introduced a bill to kill the Internet. Not a single representative nor senator would vote to pass it. It would be political suicide (which is why the President would never try to introduce such a bill). We as a people have come to rely on the Internet for e-mail, sharing information, doing crossword puzzles, paying bills, and entertainment. There would be riots of biblical proportion.

Let's just assume that we all went to sleep for a year and during that time, someone was able to pass a law that eliminated the Internet. Let's also assume that the year we were asleep also allowed this individual the time necessary to dismantle the thousands of networks used to make up the Internet. What would happen when we all woke up? It would take an amazingly short time for us to recreate the Internet. It would start out as a group of small networks that continued to grow until we had the Internet as we know it today.

About the best the government can do is to start censoring the Internet like China. However we are smart people and for every site that becomes censored, five more just like it will appear out of nowhere. Just look at what is happening on College campuses where they try to block sites like YouTube and MySpace. The students quickly figure out how to circumvent the restrictions and continue online life as usual.

So the next time someone sends you an e-mail talking about how the government is going to "shut off" the Internet, you can rest assured that it probably won't happen in your lifetime unless it is replaced by something better.