One wonders which is more vexing, the fact that the reporter parrots the opening of the press release from the sponsors, who claim that the legislation "stops short of mandating new security standards for sectors deemed critical to national security", only to report that the legislation would require "DHS to evaluate cybersecurity risks for critical infrastructure firms and determine the best way to mitigate them."

If one translates that last, beautifully ambiguous statement into prectical government terminology, it means that the DHS can get access to the servers and data of any firm it deems a part of "critical infrastructure", and then order the company owners to take actions the DHS wants them to take, including shutting down.

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/199929-house-members...

One need not run thought experiments in the mental lab to figure out how this will function in practice. Much like the FCC has been used by politicians to shut down political dissent (people from FDR -- when it was the FRC -- to Johnson, to Nixon have done so), this will be used to pressure ISPs and other net-service providers to NOT carry certain "unAmerican" thinkers.

First Amendment, anyone? Not here in The Village.

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