Thing is, the administration has effectively suspended action on both bills pending already solicited public feedback and suggested improvements. Reacting to that with blackouts and protests that "we MUST stop this fascist law threatening the very existence of all ehumanity111" seems like the typical over the top hysteria that breaks out every time the US government considers clamping down on peoples "freedom" to do any irresponsible or larcenous thing they like on the internet that government created. It might be a great way for people to vent their spleens, but will not change anything, because it does not provide any of the superior alternatives the administration has requested.

Meanwhile, the government WILL enact SOME kind of legislation to restrict activity it deems undesirable; there are ample and powerful strategic reasons to do so wholly apart from any commercial ones. That "next generation security protocol that we badly need"? I am QUITE sure Congress, the President and the DoD agree with you on that need; instead of inciting mass epanic over their attempts to implement SOMETHING in that direction, why not include that in a response to their reasonable request that people tell them "not what is wrong, but what would be RIGHT"? Because as long as the definition of "right" is "nothing at all" they will dismiss that ludicrously untenable "suggestion."

The US government will not preserve, not just commercial vulnerabilities to piracy, but national vulnerabilities to military espionage, surveillance and sabotage, simply because the netizens of the world feel threatened by attempts to eliminate those vulnerabilities. Nor should it. There WILL be a new regulatory law; the only question is whether the people most affected by it choose to be involved with its design and thereby produce a largely positive law that accomplishes necessary reform and regulation without unduly censoring anyone or restricting their access to data that should be freely available. If, however, this is just another case of people asserting their "right" to download the location of US missile silos, and their computer access codes, then the government will ignore them, as it should.

Just out of idle curiosity, do we have an estimate of how many of the sites and servers that might be shut down under this law are actually owned and operated by the US government? I know the internets infrastructure has experienced a lot of private growth in the past decade or two, but have we reached the point where the internet could just keep on truckin' if the US government took all its systems offline tomorrow? If the answer is "no" is it all that unreasonable for them to perform at least a LITTLE regulation of that infrastructure, certainly their share of it? Just enough that the hundreds of daily cyberattacks from China do not shut down our radar defenses or download schematics of an Abrams MBT?