Supporters of cyber terrorism bill want you to be scared, very scared

President Dwight Eisenhower famously warned citizens about the growth of a military-industrial complex before he left office.

Zach White

More than 50 years later, with multiple trillions of dollars pumped unquestioningly into bloated war efforts over the past few years, much of it going to defense contractors, who "coincidentally" have contributed billions in lobbying funds in that same time frame, it's hard to imagine what that crazy old coot was talking about.

It's not like anyone questions the patriotism of an individual just because they suggest we could cut our deficit by buying fewer weapons and mercenaries.

Well there's a new threatening name that people are throwing around these days that you probably shouldn't worry about — the cyber-industrial complex.

Critics of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act say the bill would create a legal framework where the government and corporations you trust to keep personal information private would be able to share whatever they want without telling you.

The truth is CISPA is now a part of a Senate bill called the Cyber Security Act of 2012, since passing through the House last month 248 to 168.

The CSA is co-sponsored by bipartisan Sens. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, who have been long supporters of the government making sure that people use the Internet in approved ways.

Back in 2010 they co-sponsored the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act. At that time Lieberman was criticized for allegedly attacking freedom out of fear. But he explained to Candy Crowley at CNN on June 20, 2010, how vital such measures are for security, like in China.

"Right now, China, the government, can disconnect parts of its Internet in a case of war. We need to have that here, too," Lieberman said.

In fact policies such as CSA and CISPA are the norm in very secure countries like China and Iran. North Korea would probably have one, if it had any computers.

We need to be like them. We need to be scared. Very scared.

While eating at Taco Time last week, I saw a news story on Fox News about a recorded phone call of al -Qaida people saying they were going to start doing cyber-terrorism.

They then went on to show just how scared everyone should be, by listing several incidents from the past two years where angry teenagers had changed the pictures on websites people don't usually visit like the Recording Industry Association of America's front page, which is pretty much exactly like thousands of people dying in the collapsing World Trade Center.

We need to be scared. We need to do the same thing to the Internet that we did to regular life.

Instead of stupidly treating passengers on flights and in airports like paying customers who just want to go somewhere, we luckily got smart. Now everyone is a terrorist until proven otherwise, and everyone is safe and happy, especially after all those hundreds of real terrorists that the TSA managed to uncover and arrest.

And that's all Lieberman, Collins and the 248 representatives who voted for CISPA want is for everyone to be safe.

The Senate will vote on CSA sometime in the next few days.

While it's too late now for Rep. Denny Rehberg, who voted no on CISPA, proving he values naive ideals like privacy more than protecting your children from scary concepts like cyber-terrorism, it's not too late to call Sens. Jon Tester and Max Baucus to tell them how terrified you are of unjustified claims of danger you've heard about.

Both Tester and Baucus have spoken against CISPA in the past, but maybe if they get enough calls (not emails, which might get cyber-bombed by the cyber-terrorists) about all the cyber-crap in your pants, maybe they'll change their minds, vote against their principles, and insure the government has the power to hold onto your private emails and other online information in their strong reassuring grip.