Chertoff says there will be no Big Brother approach to Internet security

Published 15 October 2008

Earlier this year Director of U.S. National Intelligence Mike McConnell said the government would require broad powers to monitor all Internet traffic in order to secure the U.S. critical information infrastructure; Chertoff outlines a more modest approach

DHS secretary Michael Chertoff last week discussed with a small group of bloggers and journalists his department’s plans to implement the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative. Ars Technica’s Julian Sanchez writes that Chertoff discussed plans to develop rapid-response intrusion countermeasures and the need to change the way we think about identity verification. He did emphasize that DHS would not take a Big Brother approach to securing the Internet.

Chertoff found it necessary to issue this qualification because earlier this year, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell told the New Yorker that the government would require broad powers to monitor all Internet traffic in order to secure the U.S. critical information infrastructure. Sanches writes that Chertoff outlined a more modest agenda, saying that his agency’s primary goal would be to “get control of the dot-gov domain,” and insisting that government involvement in securing private networks would be strictly by invitation. “The architecture of the Internet and the culture of the Internet is one where I’d be very careful before I suggested the government ought to… intrude in a bigger way,” said Chertoff. “We have a history in this country of everybody says let’s do a lot, pass a lot of laws… and then everybody repents at leisure.  The Internet, maybe more than any other place, has a distinctive culture that you don’t want to break in order to protect.  So, my suggestion has been we proceed in a voluntary way and we proceed in a 21st century kind of collaborative way.”