Trump Wants to Close The Internet

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In another baffling outburst, Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump has announced he wants to close “the Internet up in some way,” in order to fight ISIS in cyberspace.

Responding to objections that his plan might violate the freedom of speech, Trump replied “these are foolish people, we have a lot of foolish people.”

Trump said of the problem of extremism online that “We’re losing a lot of people because of the Internet.” And has suggested that “we have to go see Bill Gates,” to gain a better understanding of the internet, and then “close it up.”

Both leading candidates in the two parties’ primaries have announced plans to tighten the reins on online freedom, with Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton saying tech companies should “deny online space” to terrorists.

The Obama administration has also decided to “urge high-tech and law enforcement leaders to make it harder to use technology to escape from justice.”

While the need for better surveillance and understanding of the way terrorists operate online is necessary, experts have raised concerns that weakening encryption or mandating the introduction of backdoors into commercial, widely-used software could pose significant risks to users worldwide. Such backdoors, while designed to be used by law enforcement agencies only, could be exploited by nefarious actors.

The needs of security must be balanced from all sides. Weakening online safety in the name of fighting terrorism could have disastrous consequences, when those same terrorists adapt to exploit loopholes introduced to stop them.