Enrique Peña Nieto Calls Arizona's Immigration Law "Discriminatory", Seeks New Debate On Drug War

Mexican President-Elect Tells Fareed Zakaria: Solution To AZ Law Is Fixing Mexican Economy

Mexican President-Elect Enrique Peña Nieto spoke to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria this week for an interview airing tomorrow, and in a preview released today, Peña Nieto reacts to our Supreme Court upholding parts of Arizona’s controversial SB-1070 law.

While calling the law “discriminatory,” he acknowledged that the solution was making immigration “a decision and not a necessity for Mexicans.”

Zakaria asked Peña Nieto to respond to the Arizona law and explain how, as president of Mexico, his administration would address the immigration problem, particularly the criminal side of it.

He called the law “discriminatory” and argued that said laws “do not recognize the contribution and the value of millions of immigrants” to the American economy.

He added, however, that as President of Mexico, “I understand that Mexico must facilitate conditions for greater economic development through structural reforms, treasury reform, labor reform… in order to generate jobs and great opportunities in our culture.”

The bottom line for him was to make “immigration a decision and not a necessity for Mexicans.”





Mexico's Peña Nieto calls for 'new debate' on the drug war

Mexico's Enrique Peña Nieto called for a "new debate" on the drug war and said the United States must play an important role in that discussion.

The presumptive president-elect spoke this week to Fareed Zakaria in an interviewing airing on this week's "Fareed Zakaria GPS."

"Yes, I do believe we should open up a new debate regarding how to wage war on drug trafficking. Personally, I'm not in favor of legalizing drugs. I'm not persuaded by that as an argument.

However, let's open up a new debate, a review, in which the U.S. plays a fundamental role in conducting this review," said Peña Nieto.

More than 47,500 people have died in drug-related violence since Felipe Calderon, Mexico's current president, made combating cartels a top priority when he took office in 2006.

Peña Nieto has pledged to focus more on reducing violence and less on catching cartel leaders and blocking drugs from reaching the United States.

"What we seek now in our new strategy is to adjust what's been done up until now. It's not a radical change.

It's to broaden the coverage and above all, the emphasis I aspire to of reducing the violence in our country," he told Zakaria.

"I'm persuaded that if we achieve the specialization in the work carried out by the various branches of the federal police and the inspector general's office, waging war on impunity will allow us to combat crime," he said.

The presumptive president-elect also weighed in on Arizona's immigration law, which allows police to check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws if "reasonable suspicion" exists that the person is in the United States illegally.

The controversial provision was recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

It struck down other parts of the law.

"Clearly, it seems to me that these are discriminatory laws that don't recognize the contribution and the value of millions of immigrants, particularly from my country, who make enormous contributions to the United States' economic development.

It's clear to me that Mexico must facilitate conditions for greater economic development through structural reforms, energy reforms, treasury reform, labor reform, in order to generate jobs and greater opportunities in my country, so that immigration is a decision and not a necessity for Mexicans," he said.

An official tally of returns Friday confirmed Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, as the winner of Mexico's presidential election.

But until the country's electoral tribunal ratifies the results - and challenges are virtually assured - he remains the presumptive president-elect.

Peña Nieto's closest rival, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has vowed to challenge the results, accusing the PRI of vote-buying, and said that he would take his complaints through the legal system.

The federal electoral tribunal, known as TRIFE, will begin to accept complaints Monday of voting irregularities.

The tribunal will have until September 6 to complete its investigation and ratify - or reverse - the official election results.

The new president will be sworn in December 1.





Police in Arizona arrest 20, dismantle drug trafficking cell of Sinaloa Cartel

Authorities in Tempe, Arizona, dismantled a drug trafficking cell associated with Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, arresting 20 people and seizing three tons of marijuana, 30 pounds of methamphetamine and $2.4 million in cash, police said.

A six-month investigation by Tempe police and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency also concluded with the seizure of an airplane, 10 vehicles and 14 firearms, police said Friday.

The cartel delivered illegal drugs in Tempe and branched out to customers in New York, Alabama, California and other states, police said.

"This operation demonstrated a collaborative effort by state and federal law enforcement agencies," Tempe Chief of Police Tom Ryff said in a statement.

The drug trafficking "stretched across the Mexico border and into Arizona and beyond," said Doug Coleman, special agent in charge of the DEA's Phoenix office.

The Sinaloa Cartel is one of Mexico's most powerful drug-trafficking groups, and cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera is widely known as Mexico's most-wanted fugitive.

Forbes magazine has placed him on its list of the world's most powerful people, reporting his net worth at $1 billion as of March.


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Sources: CNN, Mediaite, Google Maps

Pres. Obama's Control Over Gas Prices & Domestic Oil Production: CNN's Fareed Zakaria (Videos)

Gas prices up for 9th straight day


The national average price for a gallon of gasoline rose for the ninth straight day on Sunday to $3.838. That is now only about 6.7% below the record high of $4.11 from July 2008.

The average price rose by three-tenths of a penny, according to the survey of gas stations conducted for the motorist group AAA. Gas prices are now up more than 17% this year.

The nationwide average was $3.52 a gallon a month ago and $3.76 a gallon on March 9 -- the day that prices started rising again after a few days of slight declines.

Gasoline averages more than $4 a gallon in seven states: Alaska, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, New York and Washington. Gas prices are also above $4 a gallon in the District of Columbia, according to AAA. At nearly $4.48 a gallon, Hawaii ranks as the nation's high.

Prices are less than a dime away from $4 a gallon in Michigan, Nevada, Oregon and Wisconsin.

Check prices in your state

Wyoming has the nation's lowest gas prices, averaging slightly above $3.40 a gallon.

Gas prices have been rising on the back of soaring oil prices, which have shot up more than 5% over the past month amid fears that tensions with Iran will lead to an all-out war that causes a disruption in oil supplies.

Signs of an improving economy have also boosted oil prices, as has the stock market, which hit multi-year highs this week.

The spike in gas prices has led to speculation that the U.S. and Britain may release strategic oil reserves over the next few months in order to boost supplies and lower crude prices. The White House denied a Reuters report about this Thursday.

Pain at the pump has become a hot political issue during the presidential campaign.

According to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, more people disapprove of how President Obama is handling the economy than a month ago. That's despite improvement in the job market this year.

Why gas prices won't influence the election

Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich has pledged to get prices down to $2.50 a gallon.

Meanwhile, Rick Santorum has blamed the president for blocking the expansion of domestic energy production. Santorum has also argued that high gas prices were to blame for the 2008 housing meltdown and ensuing economic slump.

And Republican front-runner Mitt Romney said recently that Obama "should be hanging his head" over his energy policies and also accused the president of slowing domestic production.

Romney has advocated opening federal lands to drilling and easing regulations on fracking, a controversial policy that involves pumping water into rocks to harvest gas.


Sources: CNN, Fox News, GPS, Youtube

F.B.I. Wants To Search Your Trash & Track Your Car!

Under George W. Bush's Administration F.B.I. Agents Were Given More Legal Leeway To Invade The Privacy Of American Citizens.

More Leeway To Search Databases, Your Household Trash, Use Surveillance Teams, etc., Without Court Orders Or Motive.

Pres. Obama Concurred With That Same Policy By Giving F.B.I. Agents Even MORE Legal Leeway To Conduct Such Searches.

Considering The High Level Of Terrorists Threats Both Homegrown & International, Along With Multiple Racist Hate Crime Threats Made Against Pres. Obama's Life, I Agree With Him On This Policy.

As They Say: Keep Your Friends Close & Enemies Even Closer.




F.B.I. Agents Get Leeway to Push Privacy Bounds

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is giving significant new powers to its roughly 14,000 agents, allowing them more leeway to search databases, go through household trash or use surveillance teams to scrutinize the lives of people who have attracted their attention.

The F.B.I. soon plans to issue a new edition of its manual, called the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, according to an official who has worked on the draft document and several others who have been briefed on its contents. The new rules add to several measures taken over the past decade to give agents more latitude as they search for signs of criminal or terrorist activity.

The F.B.I. recently briefed several privacy advocates about the coming changes. Among them, Michael German, a former F.B.I. agent who is now a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that it was unwise to further ease restrictions on agents’ power to use potentially intrusive techniques, especially if they lacked a firm reason to suspect someone of wrongdoing.

“Claiming additional authorities to investigate people only further raises the potential for abuse,” Mr. German said, pointing to complaints about the bureau’s surveillance of domestic political advocacy groups and mosques and to an inspector general’s findings in 2007 that the F.B.I. had frequently misused “national security letters,” which allow agents to obtain information like phone records without a court order.

Valerie E. Caproni, the F.B.I. general counsel, said the bureau had fixed the problems with the national security letters and had taken steps to make sure they would not recur. She also said the bureau, which does not need permission to alter its manual so long as the rules fit within broad guidelines issued by the attorney general, had carefully weighed the risks and the benefits of each change.

“Every one of these has been carefully looked at and considered against the backdrop of why do the employees need to be able to do it, what are the possible risks and what are the controls,” she said, portraying the modifications to the rules as “more like fine-tuning than major changes.”

Some of the most notable changes apply to the lowest category of investigations, called an “assessment.” The category, created in December 2008, allows agents to look into people and organizations “proactively” and without firm evidence for suspecting criminal or terrorist activity.

Under current rules, agents must open such an inquiry before they can search for information about a person in a commercial or law enforcement database. Under the new rules, agents will be allowed to search such databases without making a record about their decision.

Mr. German said the change would make it harder to detect and deter inappropriate use of databases for personal purposes. But Ms. Caproni said it was too cumbersome to require agents to open formal inquiries before running quick checks. She also said agents could not put information uncovered from such searches into F.B.I. files unless they later opened an assessment.

The new rules will also relax a restriction on administering lie-detector tests and searching people’s trash. Under current rules, agents cannot use such techniques until they open a “preliminary investigation,” which — unlike an assessment — requires a factual basis for suspecting someone of wrongdoing. But soon agents will be allowed to use those techniques for one kind of assessment, too: when they are evaluating a target as a potential informant.

Agents have asked for that power in part because they want the ability to use information found in a subject’s trash to put pressure on that person to assist the government in the investigation of others. But Ms. Caproni said information gathered that way could also be useful for other reasons, like determining whether the subject might pose a threat to agents.

The new manual will also remove a limitation on the use of surveillance squads, which are trained to surreptitiously follow targets. Under current rules, the squads can be used only once during an assessment, but the new rules will allow agents to use them repeatedly. Ms. Caproni said restrictions on the duration of physical surveillance would still apply, and argued that because of limited resources, supervisors would use the squads only rarely during such a low-level investigation.

The revisions also clarify what constitutes “undisclosed participation” in an organization by an F.B.I. agent or informant, which is subject to special rules — most of which have not been made public. The new manual says an agent or an informant may surreptitiously attend up to five meetings of a group before those rules would apply — unless the goal is to join the group, in which case the rules apply immediately.

At least one change would tighten, rather than relax, the rules. Currently, a special agent in charge of a field office can delegate the authority to approve sending an informant to a religious service. The new manual will require such officials to handle those decisions personally.

In addition, the manual clarifies a description of what qualifies as a “sensitive investigative matter” — investigations, at any level, that require greater oversight from supervisors because they involve public officials, members of the news media or academic scholars.

The new rules make clear, for example, that if the person with such a role is a victim or a witness rather than a target of an investigation, extra supervision is not necessary. Also excluded from extra supervision will be investigations of low- and midlevel officials for activities unrelated to their position — like drug cases as opposed to corruption, for example.

The manual clarifies the definition of who qualifies for extra protection as a legitimate member of the news media in the Internet era: prominent bloggers would count, but not people who have low-profile blogs. And it will limit academic protections only to scholars who work for institutions based in the United States.

Since the release of the 2008 manual, the assessment category has drawn scrutiny because it sets a low bar to examine a person or a group. The F.B.I. has opened thousands of such low-level investigations each month, and a vast majority has not generated information that justified opening more intensive investigations.

Ms. Caproni said the new manual would adjust the definition of assessments to make clear that they must be based on leads. But she rejected arguments that the F.B.I. should focus only on investigations that begin with a firm reason for suspecting wrongdoing.


Sources: MSNBC, NY Times, Russian Times, Wikipedia, Youtube, Google Maps

North Carolina vs 2010 Census Count...Accuracy Matters

2010 Census poses unique challenges to area NC Counties


Brunswick County is trying to help the U.S. Census Bureau get a more accurate picture of how many people live here.

“2010 is around the corner,” Brunswick County Manager Marty Lawing said.

The Census Bureau is encouraging all the counties in North Carolina to form committees of trusted and prominent locals who will help answer questions and ease concerns about filling out census forms.

The 2010 census forms will be sent out in March and must be returned by April, Lawing said.

For the 2000 census, Brunswick County had a return rate on census information of 47 percent. The state rate was 64 percent and the national rate 67 percent. New Hanover County’s rate was 61 percent.

Knowing exactly how many people live in Brunswick County is important, county officials say, because its share of most state and federal dollars is based on population.

But that low percentage is misleading because many of the households receiving census forms belong to part-time residents.

The U.S. Census Bureau sends forms to homes in Brunswick County and also goes door to door counting people, said Constance Hyman, local census partnership specialist.

She said the census does not consider whether the residents are seasonal or full-time when sending out the requests for information.

“That’s one of our challenges with the coastal communities is the fact that there are a lot of seasonal residents,” she said.

At a recent meeting, Brunswick commissioners questioned whether there would be a way to look at the county’s tax records to see which are part-time and which are full-time residents.

But there might not be a clear-cut answer to that issue.

“I don’t know of a real good way to improve that accuracy,” Lawing said.

Hyman pointed out that Brunswick’s 47 percent response rate does not mean 53 percent of the county was not counted, just that 53 percent of homes didn’t return forms that were left on doorsteps.

Census workers also fan out in May and June to interview people who have not mailed in their responses. Residents who have multiple homes might fill out the census documents in more than once place, and the workers interview them as well to see where they spend most of their time.

“It’s really up to the person where they decide they would lay their head most of the time,” U.S. Census media relations representative Tony Jones said.

Hyman said one of the goals for the 2010 census is to increase the mail-in response rate by at least 2 percent in North Carolina.

“Our main focus is those residents who are permanent residents,” she said.

Complete Count committees

To help get an accurate count, Brunswick County at its Jan. 4 meeting will appoint around 30 members to a Complete Count Committee. The committee will be responsible for answering citizens’ questions about the census and getting the word out about its importance, Hyman said.

Each commissioner will appoint two members to the committee.

The board will also select at least one representative from each of the county’s 19 municipalities.

The commissioners at their Monday night meeting asked Lawing to also come back to the board with a recommendation on whether the county should offer stipends to the people who serve on the committee.

The U.S. Census Bureau is trying to get all the counties in North Carolina to appoint Complete Count Committees, Hyman said.

The committees will be trained in January by census officials and will be holding events to get the word out about the census.

She said the census will also be opening an office in Wilmington in January.






N.C. is a State in Transition


North Carolina lawmakers voted this year to give up to $12.5 million a year in tax breaks for Apple so the computer giant will build a data center in Western North Carolina.

The vote sparked arguments about corporate handouts, but lawmakers said Apple offers the sort of new-economy jobs that are critical to North Carolina.

Two months later, with less public attention, the legislature passed $10 million in tax incentives for a paper mill in Plymouth in Eastern North Carolina that will be converted to make diaper fluff. The mill is part of the traditional manufacturing economy that has been bleeding jobs in the state for more than a decade.

The contrasting votes were yet another sign that North Carolina is a state in the middle, pulled in multiple directions as it makes the transition from a rural state to an urban and suburban one. The struggle shows in much of what the legislature did this year – in debates on issues ranging from tax reform to environmental protection.

“We are, on many levels, a state in transition,” said Michael Walden, an economist at N.C. State University.

North Carolina is no longer primarily rural, but it is not yet fully urbanized. It's not a manufacturing state any more, and not yet completely high-tech.

When legislators try to push North Carolina to reflect the new possibilities, they often find themselves pulled back by old realities.

“Rural legislators go back to their districts and see people employed in the pulp mill or the textile mill,” Walden said. “They see that a lot of those cutting-edge jobs are not going to go there.”

Senate leaders this year began trying to overhaul the state's tax code, arguing that the early 20th-century tax laws do not fit a blossoming knowledge-based economy. The change would have lowered corporate, income and sales tax rates but expanded the sales tax to include a variety of services, such as auto repair and house painting.

“Our economy is changing, and we have to make the necessary adjustments so we can compete. One of those is we need to have a modern, competitive tax structure that ensures a steady flow of income,” said John McNairy, who owns a trucking company and John Deere dealership in Kinston and previously led what is now the N.C. Chamber of Commerce.

The reform stalled. Although McNairy argues it would help old industries as much as new, he said lawmakers worried about unintended consequences.

A similar conflict undergirded some of the environmental debates.

State officials, starting with Gov. Bev Perdue, are increasingly pushing for North Carolina to develop a “green” economy. Legislators passed bills making it easier to install solar collectors, providing loans for energy improvements and expanding credits for investing in renewable energy.

A bill to establish a permitting process for windmills, though, failed amid fears of dotting the tourist-friendly mountains with the gangling wind catchers.

“The mountain economy is based on the view. The tourism industry and second-home industry don't want windmills in that view,” said Bill Holman, a former state secretary of environment and natural resources. He is now director of state policy at Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

North Carolina data show the population shifting from a slight rural majority in 2000 to a slight urban majority last year, but the state calculates the population differently than the U.S. Census. The census showed a 59 percent urban majority in 2000 that continues to outpace rural growth.

“It isn't urban like the Northeast, but we've created these sprawling metro areas,” said Ferrel Guillory, director of UNC Chapel Hill's program on public life. “Yet we remain, in our traditions and our historical legacy where there's a lot of ruralism alive.”

Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy, who leads the N.C. Metropolitan Mayors Coalition, emphasized that urban areas' share of newly created jobs also will continue to grow, even if the workers who hold them live outside the cities.

“Those trends point to a shift in where the state is going,” Foy said. “The legislature is pulled in different directions.”

Rural lawmakers long dominated the legislature and still hold sway, particularly in the House, where Democrats maintain a majority that has to hold together liberals, business-oriented members and the black caucus.

“They need us to get things passed,” said Rep. Jim Crawford, a Granville County Democrat.

He acknowledged, though, that the base of power has shifted.

“The urban folks have certainly gotten control of the votes now,” Crawford said.

The redistricting following the 2010 census is expected to give Charlotte and Raleigh a total of five additional House seats and two additional Senate seats.

That shift was seen when lawmakers banned smoking in bars and restaurants this year, with suburban and urban legislators making the difference. They represent constituents, many of them transplants from other states, unfamiliar with North Carolina's historical ties to tobacco and accustomed to smoke-free, chain restaurants.

At the same time, legislators whittled a proposed $1-per-pack cigarette tax increase to a dime, a nod to the dwindling ranks of tobacco farmers and cigarette plant workers.

Counties won legislation allowing them to boost the sales tax to pay for transit improvements, a win for metro areas. The House, though, approved a bill to make it tougher for cities to annex adjoining communities, a power that metropolitan leaders say they need to manage growth. The Senate did not take up that bill.

Mecklenburg County is the state's largest urban center, but the Charlotte Chamber factors in neighboring rural communities when it constructs economic strategies for the region. It's the same two-directional tug felt in the capital, said Natalie English, a senior vice president with the chamber. It's also not a new conflict for lawmakers, said English, who previously served as the chamber's lobbyist in Raleigh.

“This year might have been more obvious than in other sessions,” English said. But as the population trends point to greater urban growth, “we'll start to see more of this struggle. As long as there are people in rural parts of the state, they will continue to have needs different from the (urban) majority.”

The legislature must tend to both, said Mayor Brian Roth of Plymouth, home of the paper plant that plans to shift to supplying diaper fluff. He supports the cultivation of new industries but wants support for industries that have employed members of his community for generations.

Plymouth is proof that both are possible, he said. State money is not only expected to aid the paper plant but also help expand the local airport, which made it easier to attract medical device manufacturer Micro Invasive Technology Inc.

“It's not this or that,” Roth said, “It has to be all of the above.”



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Sources: US Census Bureau, 2010 Census, Star News Online, McClatchy Newspapers, Charlotte Observer, Youtube, Google Maps

The Internet Crashed! Its Doomsday! How Will You Survive??

Pres. Obama on Cyber Security. Obama stages fight in Cyber War. NBC's Tracie Potts reports.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

What if the Internet breaks?


The 40-year-old system might be vulnerable to technical collapse and cyberattack, which could cause widespread chaos in fields from banking to health care to government.

When your Internet service goes down, it's at best an inconvenience. If you rely on it for business, it can quickly cost you money.

So imagine: What happens if the Internet breaks?

Picture people wandering the streets lost without GPS or maps on their iPhones, unable to pay for food or other goods with a simple swipe of a card.

Companies would have to resort to faxes and phone calls instead of e-mail; they'd quickly reach capacity and be unable to function. Credit cards wouldn't work; stores and hospitals would run short of supplies. Even electrical power to our homes could be disrupted.

"It would be a mess," said Dave Marcus, the director of security research for McAfee (MFE, news, msgs). "You would be taking businesses that were designed to do all their point-of-sale and financial transactions through the Internet and going back to pen and paper and taking checks in a car to the bank. People would lose their minds."

On the 40th anniversary of the first transmission over the earliest version of the Internet, it's more than an idle question to examine the network's fragility. It's been more than 20 years since the last systemwide overhaul, and Internet infrastructure is still based on 1970s ideas about computer networks.

Headline-making outages of popular Web sites such as YouTube and Twitter merely hint at the damage a full-blown failure could wreak. The Internet protocols that allow computers to communicate in networks have infiltrated every sector of our economy.

"The Internet has moved from being a toy or ornament to something that's central to our economy," said James Lewis, a senior fellow at CSIS, a nonprofit think tank in Washington, D.C. "We've automated all these processes, which makes our economy much more efficient, which means cheap. But it also means we're now dependent."

How could the Internet break?

The obvious question is, could it happen? In fact, parts of the Internet go down quite frequently.

The outages that make headlines usually involve a large segment going down, either cutting service to a geographical area or taking down a given Web site. For instance, Michael Jackson's death sent people flooding to sites such as Google News and Twitter, rendering each temporarily inaccessible. A few years ago, Pakistan's attempt to block access to YouTube in that country resulted in a two-hour outage of YouTube across the world. And early this year, hackers kicked the entire nation of Kyrgyzstan off the Internet.

Those examples highlight the two main risks: an attack or a technical collapse.

A systemwide outage is hard to envision, though. The Internet is a decentralized system of routers and networks owned by a variety of governmental and private organizations. That makes it resilient: If one section breaks, the network calculates a route around the disruption.

The Internet opened for business in 1969, when a government project connected scientists, researchers and military officials by networking giant mainframes. In the early 1990s, the government opened the Internet to commercial development. In 1994, Netscape launched its browser, the first of an ever-increasing cascade of user-friendly software and applications for public consumption.

To bring down the entire Internet, something or someone would probably have to disrupt the core Internet protocols -- the rules that computers follow when trying to communicate with other computers. That would not only break the World Wide Web but also private IP networks that companies maintain for greater security.

One possible avenue would be to attack the domain name system, or DNS, that identifies the address of each computer or device attached to an IP network. Currently, just more than a dozen computers scattered around the world contain the DNS addressing information for the entire Internet, Lewis said.

If someone were able to erase or scramble that information, your computer wouldn't know where to find the information on a given Web page or where to deliver an e-mail. But all that information is duplicated on each of the central servers.

That redundancy is probably the Internet's best defense. The Internet was designed on the premise that computers are smart but the network is fallible, even when the computer operators attached to it were all highly educated academics. These days, of course, those 30,000 experts have been succeeded by 1.5 billion untrained people connecting computers, iPods, BlackBerrys, televisions and other devices.

Simply staying ahead of the demand for DNS addresses and server capacity is a challenge. VeriSign receives 50 billion queries each day from computers looking for DNS data and expects that to rise to 4 trillion by 2020, according to Ken Silva, the company's chief technology officer.

Part of the debate in Washington over so-called net neutrality involves who would pay for billions in upgrades to enable the Internet to handle the demand of uses such as high-definition video. Experts at AT&T and elsewhere have suggested the Net could run out of capacity next year. The point is hotly debated, and it's not clear what would happen if it did.

The Doomsday scenario:

If the Internet did break, the impact would ripple through to:

* Communications. You wouldn't be able to get information from e-mail or the Web. Phone and television services that rely on IP networking would go dark. News organizations would be unable to communicate internally or to use the Web to gather and disseminate news. Governments would have trouble communicating internally and broadcasting emergency information.

* Financial transactions. Banks process payments electronically over IP networks, whether by the swipe of a credit card or the check you send from your bank's Web site. They do have backup systems, relying on physical checks and phone networks, but those require human staffing and would struggle to keep up with demand.

* Transportation. Airplanes, trains and even some roads rely on IP networks to ensure smooth transportation. Much travel would grind to a near standstill, disrupting the movement of people and goods around the country.

* Retail supply chain. Even those trucks and shipping avenues that work would be taken back to the dark ages, since retail stores wouldn't be able to use automated inventory systems. At Wal-Mart, for instance, when an item is swiped for sale, the cashier's machine sends a signal to a central computer database that a new product is needed in that location. A Wal-Mart Stores (WMT, news, msgs) spokeswoman declined to comment.

* Health care. Many of our medical records are stored on computer databases. With networks down, a health care provider would have to be standing in front of the relevant computer in order to access a record. Pharmacies, hospitals and clinics would have trouble accessing records and keeping supplies in stock.

* Electricity grid. You wouldn't lose power automatically if the Internet broke, but energy companies would be unable to send control signals around the grid. "That network becomes a potential point of failure," VeriSign's Silva said.

"If the Internet stopped working, every major corporation and government agency would not be able to function," said Tom Kellermann, a vice president at Core Security Technologies.

Efforts to protect the Internet

Don't run off to stock the fallout shelter, though. Many measures are in place to prevent a catastrophic failure.

"There are so many redundancies built into the Internet protocol and the architecture," McAfee's Marcus said. "The actual root servers of the DNS are not approachable by most computers."

At VeriSign, which oversees Web sites ending in ".com," 75 duplicate servers contain the same answers for computers that query the database for DNS data. VeriSign uses multiple operating systems, computers from different manufacturers and redundant routers to ensure that a bad chip or operating system vulnerability doesn't become a single point of failure. The master database also checks data before sending it out on the network to make sure any corruption isn't propagated.

"We attempt to make sure we are over-provisioned enough to not only deal with the demand in load but the demand in threats," Silva said. "If companies don't invest in infrastructure, they will pay a price for it eventually."

The government requires financial companies to maintain backup systems to ensure the smooth functioning of the system, said Scott Talbott, a senior vice president at The Financial Services Roundtable, which represents banks, insurance companies, mutual funds and securities firms.

"Financial institutions, like all major users of the Net, maintain and test contingency plans for a wide range of scenarios, including Net capacity issues, outages, routing complications and browser problems," Talbott said. "These plans are designed to keep all critical functions up and running, and to keep service levels as high as possible.

"If computer systems shut down, banks would have backup systems, and those legacy systems would cut in. Depending on the length of delay, there may be an inconvenience to the customer and a slowing of the transactions."

But while the lack of a central Internet authority deprives bad actors of a single target to bring down the Net, it also means there's no single organization that can order new security or protocols.

"The people who are managing the system work really hard to keep it stable. Our problem is that these Internet protocols are from the '70s," said Lewis, of the CSIS think tank. "You can polish it and keep it tuned up, but it's still a 1970s car. We know there are people in the world who are trying to figure out, 'How can I bring this thing down?'"

Even criminals need the Net

Perhaps the most reassuring argument against the threat of attack is that even the people who have the skill and motivation to carry one out -- rogue governments, terrorists or criminals -- are dependent on it.

"The bad guys really have no interest," said Marcus Sachs, the director of the SANS Internet Storm Center, an all-volunteer Internet early-warning organization. "It's not to their benefit to monkey around with the wires and the switches because they too are reliant on the Internet for communication and to steal things. It's kind of like a bank robber who would blow up the bridge next to the bank."

The major crime syndicates of the world derive 60% of their revenue from cybercrime, and each has a business unit solely devoted to hacking. "They don't want to burn down the castle; they want to take it over. They want to pillage it slowly," Core Security Technologies' Kellermann said. "It's not about breaking the Internet; it's about controlling the Internet. It's about maintaining a consistent, clandestine presence."

Likewise, terrorists use the Internet to recruit new members, disseminate propaganda, move money and communicate. Moreover, McAfee's Marcus noted: "How can you see the terror you're supposed to be inspiring in others if you can't access the Internet?"




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Sources: MSNBC, Money Central, Google Maps