Morning Security Brief: No Internet Kill Switch, ICE's Cyberseizure Mistake, Arming U.S. Agents in Mexico, Flash Mobs, & More

♦ Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) says his cybersecurity legislation does not give the White House an internet kill switch. "We want to clear the air once and for all. As someone said recently, the term 'kill switch" has become the 'death panels' of the cybersecurity debate. There is no so-called 'kill switch' in our legislation because the very notion is antithetical to our goal of providing precise and targeted authorities to the President," Lieberman recently said in a statement, according to the International Business Times.

♦ Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) admits it made a mistake—sort of—when it seized 84,000 Web subdomains in its effort to crack down on child pornography. "Affected sites were down for about three days, during which time visitors would have seen a notice stating that the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security had seized the domain and that advertising, distribution, possession, transportation, and receipt of child pornography is a federal crime," according to InformationWeek. "The government-directed denial of service prevented about 1000 people in their attempts to view child pornography through these non-affiliated sites, according to a source familiar with the investigation."

♦ The House Homeland Security Committee is considering whether to push Mexico to allow federal agents working in-country to arm themselves in the wake of last week's shooting of two ICE agents, which killed one. "The U.S., for more than two decades, has tried unsuccessfully to convince Mexican authorities that the dozens of U.S. agents fighting illegal drug, gun, and human trafficking in the country should be allowed to arm themselves. And Mexico has long refrained from extraditing suspected criminals to countries where the death penalty is a possible sentence," reports The Hill. "But lawmakers are hoping that with this brazen attack on a U.S. federal agent – the first since 1985 in Mexico – the country’s government will reconsider their plea for agents to pack heat and that they will make an exception to extradite the attackers to the U.S. despite the possibility of capital punishment."

♦  The Russia-led Commonwealth of Independent States will prepare to counteract a mischievous prank popular with American teenagers and young adults. "Special services in former Soviet republics will step up efforts to counter cyber terror and prevent the use of flash mobs in terrorism, a senior official said on Monday," reports RIA Novosti. "Flash mobs are events organized via online social networks when people gather in a certain place wearing the same clothes, doing a group activity, or shouting slogans and then quickly leave." 

♦ Many residents of El Paso have no idea how bad their sister city Juarez really is, reports KFOXTV. So far this year, nearly 400 people have been murdered right across the Rio Grande River.