The recent riots in Egypt have prompted many people in the United States to start up the discussion regarding government’s role with the Internet. One of the first things that Egypt did when the riots started to take place was to completely shut down the Internet. All four of Egypt’s internet service providers went completely offline. This was done at the request of the government because there were so many riots and protests being scheduled over the Internet that it requested the Internet be shut off completely in favor of national security and safety for those that are living in Egypt. This was the first time a country has ever completely fallen off the grid in terms of the world wide web. In fact, programs that monitored Internet usage around the world did not show one item coming into or out of Egypt. The Internet just did not exist there.
Within minutes of this happening in Egypt people started to quickly debate whether or not this type of situation could happen in the United States. The idea of a kill switch when it comes to the Internet is not an unknown concept. In fact, many United States politicians have asked that Congress or the House of Representatives consider developing one in case of a national emergency or crisis.
However, the idea of a kill switch for United States Internet service providers will never happen for a number of reasons. The major reason this will never happen in the United States is because the Internet is made up of thousands of internet service providers which range from tiny, local networks to major nationwide providers. It would be almost virtually impossible to coordinate an automatic kill switch that would shut everything down.
The reason the kill switch worked so well in Egypt was because the majority of those that use the Internet in Egypt use one of four service providers to get their Internet needs. This allowed the government to be able to kill the Internet with just a few quick calls.

