House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday that the
White House wants to create a cybersecurity "monster" to run
roughshod over the Internet.
Asked at a press conference to respond to the White House
veto threat of the Republican (and cable operator) backed Cyber Intelligence
Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), Boehner said: "The White House believes the
government ought to control the Internet."
He said the White House believed "that the government
ought to take care of everything that is needed for cybersecurity," but
that it was "in a camp all by themselves." Actually some
congressional Dems, including those backing Senate cybersecurity legislation,
are in the same camp.
Boehner said that private industry and "other parts of
the government" understand that the government can't be in charge of the
Internet.
He called the cybersecurity bill package teed up for House
votes Thursday "common sense" steps to allow people to work together to prevent
cyberterrorism, He said there were more steps that would be needed, but he said
that was a fundamentally different approach the White House wanted to create
"this monster here in Washington that can control what we can see or not
see on the Internet."
