Lessig: There Is Going To Be An i-9/11 And An i-Patriot Act

August 6th, 2008

Via Infowars:

Amazing revelations have emerged concerning already existing government plans to overhaul the way the internet functions in order to apply much greater restrictions and control over the web.

Lawrence Lessig, a respected Law Professor from Stanford University told an audience at this years Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference in Half Moon Bay, California, that “There’s going to be an i-9/11 event” which will act as a catalyst for a radical reworking of the law pertaining to the internet.

Lessig also revealed that he had learned, during a dinner with former government Counter Terrorism Czar Richard Clarke, that there is already in existence a cyber equivalent of the Patriot Act, an “i-Patriot Act” if you will, and that the Justice Department is waiting for a cyber terrorism event in order to implement its provisions.

During a group panel segment titled “2018: Life on the Net”, Lessig stated:

There’s going to be an i-9/11 event. Which doesn’t necessarily mean an Al Qaeda attack, it means an event where the instability or the insecurity of the internet becomes manifest during a malicious event which then inspires the government into a response. You’ve got to remember that after 9/11 the government drew up the Patriot Act within 20 days and it was passed.

The Patriot Act is huge and I remember someone asking a Justice Department official how did they write such a large statute so quickly, and of course the answer was that it has been sitting in the drawers of the Justice Department for the last 20 years waiting for the event where they would pull it out.

Of course, the Patriot Act is filled with all sorts of insanity about changing the way civil rights are protected, or not protected in this instance. So I was having dinner with Richard Clarke and I asked him if there is an equivalent, is there an i-Patriot Act just sitting waiting for some substantial event as an excuse to radically change the way the internet works. He said “of course there is”.

5 Responses to “Lessig: There Is Going To Be An i-9/11 And An i-Patriot Act”

  1. Loveandlight says:

    I’ll tell you what, the day the piggies are able to stop me from reading cryptogon.com is the day I will see my computer as little more than a souped-up word-processing machine.

  2. tm says:

    What I don’t understand is, how can the U.S. have more lawyers than the rest of the world combined, but none of them seem interested in filing class action lawsuits against the government over these kinds of outrages? I mean, if five people get diahorrea from eating at Chili’s, lawyers will be lining up to file a lawsuit against the restaurant chain. But our government threatens to descend into full-scale tyranny, and the ambulance-chasers are nowhere to be found. Maybe they figure there is no hope of winning. Or maybe the legal profession is happy to go along with fascism, just like they did in Nazi Germany.

  3. Zuma says:

    “Of course there is.”

    …Confirmation. This is confirmation. So many pieces nowadays are just that, rather than ‘news’.

    Shortwave radio, packet radio. This is the future as I envision it, and have for a long time.

    http://zuma.vip.warped.com/packetradio.png

    yes, there’s a story in all this. i’m working my way in on it, inch by inch. working from the details inward, as it were, or will be, or something.

    ***

    god bless kinko’s.

    and the mail art culture, that is still around no matter the web and all. no one really appreciates how alive *that* particular and singular network still is. even me. and i’ve seen entire rooms filled to th hoisters with th stuff.

    now if we could just revive the pony express…

    …i think it may be a good time to view Kevin Costner’s ‘The Postman’ again. hell, all of his movies maybe even. okay, some of them anyway…

  4. Larry Glick says:

    Even though the Internet has been a great medium for propaganda by BushReich, there is still too much free interchange of truth for Bush and his ilk to allow it to continue. I expect there will be some sort of (government created) Internet 9/11 which will lead to an Internet Patriot Act. I expect we will see proposals such a mandatory registration of computer equipment as well as mandatory biometric identification to access the Internet. In the interest of the continuing “War on Terror” any degree of anonymity will be banned and anyone posting opposing views will end up on the Terror Watch List.

  5. Eileen says:

    This is not news to me in the sense that I did not see this coming to pass.
    I am one of the elders who post to this site. Imagine. I went to a school were email was invented so to speak. And email was invented at this school due to the need for defense contractors in the Us to find a way to communicate electronically. You might challenge me on the facts of this post, but I don’t mind if you do. Imagine that email never existed before 1989? I think.
    I do not and will never pay my bills “online,” much as I do not use the electronic check out line at a grocery store. My philosophy or thought behind my actions is that 1) using electronic transactions takes away a job for a human being, and 2) this electronic form of communication which I never had in my life until the 1990’s is doomed to seizure by authorities by dint of its open ended nature.
    Hence, I do not pay my bills on line. I do not and never will. Being an auditor, I insist on a paper trail.
    Yes, I am old fashioned in my ways but I don’t care about that.
    Much like the conversion of televisions in the US to the digital spectrum ( which will deny many poor folk of the ability to watch tv), the internet will be seized similarly.
    Only open to those with the means to pay to go. Sorry to be Ms. Doomer here, but who in this world will be our attorney? Who will file the class action lawsuit?
    Shit. That is what is needed. Who will organize such an effort?
    In any case, if you want my slow mo email address ask Kevin for it. That’s the way it might go unless we bring these shit head commies to heel.

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