Internet Kill Switch: Worthy Discussion?

This might seem like a trivial issue, but I was wondering what the consensus would be here. A proposal that would give the Dept of Homeland Security significant control over the internet in times of crisis is before the Senate (Protecting the Internet as a National Asset Bill). This would effectively enable the Executive to turn off portions of the internet, all of it, to various regions/sectors/etc. It could also force priority usage of bandwidth giving government and key infrastructure facilities (whether private or public) communication capabilities in case of an emergency.

As you can probably tell from the website, which seemed the most viscerally concerned about it, it seems some conservatives are opposed to this bill. However, if you follow through with this link, I think you should get a pretty good grasp on how vital/vulnerable the internet is to the country. This bill seems to be a reaction from Defense concerns about how open the US could be to attack, especially with the devastating war that would be fought if foreign actors took control of unprotected domestic machines and used them to launch attacks against gov't and/or key private facilities. Being able to partition key facilities from the rest of the net and controlling access to bandwidth is vital to surviving a cyber attack.

So why are people that fear this dumb?

The logic used by the Texas GOP is the most ridiculous I came across. How the hell is a billion zillion internet users going to "privately" defend themselves from a coherent and unified foreign attack? If this logic were true, all police and military forces should be private. Dumb. Just as the President could theoretically use this to silence dissent, so could he utilize his monopoly of violence with the military. If he's willing to silence your internet usage, I'm sure he'll have a grunt beating you with a baton when you take to the streets to bitch about it. If you think this is a giant monitoring scheme then you're even further behind the times and should research how big the NSA's current workload dealing with billions of terror related traffic. The gov't doesn't have the capability nor the desire to read our personal griefs to Washington. Plus, it pretty much has the right to do that by the Patriot Act. Where was the Texas GOP protesting when that was passed? Ohh yeah, we were still wondering how to defend ourselves from terrorist attacks. Maybe it's good that we're trying to pass this BEFORE an attack, and not after.

The Republican Party needs to pick its battles more appropriately or at least, figure out some way to explain it's willingness to trespass dangerously close to civil liberties with the Patriot Act, but is bellicose with this measure.

Stop being retarded.