Lieberman Bill Would Allow President to Kill the Internet

Imagine opening up your laptop, attempting to go online and nothing happens.

You paid the bill.

There is no outage.

It's the government taking over the Internet.

"Cyber war is going on in some sense right now," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.

Lieberman believes the threat of cyber war justifies his cyber security bill that would, among other things, give the president the power to effectively switch off the Internet when necessary.

"We need this capacity in a time of war. We need the capacity for the president to say, Internet service provider, we've got to disconnect the American Internet from all traffic coming in from another foreign country, or we've got to put a patch on this part of it," said Lieberman, while on CNN. "The president will never take over -- the government should never take over the Internet."

Lieberman said it was a matter of national security, but some online users don't buy it.

"His main excuse is to protect against cyber terrorists, cyber terrorism. Good job fear mongering," said YouTube user "Dan K."

Lieberman said the threat is real.

"A cyber attack on America can do as much or more damage today by incapacitating our banks, our communications, our finance, our transportation, as a conventional war attack," Lieberman said.

He went on to post a "myth vs. reality" fact sheet on his website, writing that current law already provides the president with broad authority to take over communications networks during a state or threat of war. His bill will include the Internet.

"The president, in catastrophic cases -- not going to do it every day, not going to take it over. So I say to my friends on the Internet, 'Relax, take a look at the bill,'" Lieberman said.

The bill remains in committee, but could hit the Senate floor by this summer.