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Donald Trump may "turn off the internet" if elected, former staffer says (www.newsweek.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Miles Taylor, Trump's former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, was asked on MSNBC about what potential damage the former president, who is the frontrunner in the GOP primaries, could do in government without breaking the law.

"The possibilities are almost limitless," Taylor said. "The biggest concerns for me are on the national security side. I think Americans still don't understand the full extent of the president's powers and things Donald Trump could do, bubble-wrapped in legalese, that would be damaging to the republic."

"He could invoke powers we've never heard a President of the United States invoke—potentially to shut down companies or turn off the internet or deploy the U.S. military on U.S. soil," he added. "We don't know because the things that are in there, the emergency powers of the president, aren't widely known to the American people.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I doubt the president who lives on the internet & relies on it to connect with his superfans would disable it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Not for the people he likes.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

So no one said that he would or even may turn off the internet, but that he may use legalize and his emergency presidential powers, if elected, to do something crazy. The person talking about it was spitballing and included turning the internet off as a example of something crazy that he might do.

Edit: He indeed talked about geoblocking countries with groups like ISIS operating within them. At least that is what I assume he meant with his word salad. This is from post below mine. Still not turning off internet.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Oh Trump has blubbered about it enough that I would take it seriously.
It wouldn't be a legal mechanism if there was something stopping him from doing it.

(from the article)

"We're losing a lot of people because of the internet," Trump said. "We have to go see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what's happening. We have to talk to them about, maybe in certain areas, closing that Internet up in some way. Somebody will say, 'Oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.' These are foolish people. We have a lot of foolish people."

"ISIS is recruiting through the Internet. ISIS is using the internet better than we are using the nternet and it was our idea," Trump said. "I want to get the brilliant people from Silicon Valley and other places and figure out a way that ISIS can't do what they're doing. I would certainly be open to closing areas where we are at war with somebody. I sure as hell don't want to let people that want to kill us and kill our nation use our Internet."

When challenged, he added: "I'm not talking about closing the internet. I'm talking about closing parts of the internet where ISIS is."

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago

Fair enough. I can be incorrect. Still doesn't say he planning on shutting down the internet, but I wouldn't put it past him if it would serve his best interest. It doesn't seem he even really understands what the internet is and how it works.