Three U.S. senators criticized for past legislation that would allow the president to potentially quarantine or shut down parts of the Internet during a major cyberattack have introduced a new bill that would put limits on that authority.
The Cybersecurity and Internet Freedom Act, introduced late Thursday, would explicitly deny the president or other U.S. officials "authority to shut down the Internet." The legislation, similar in many ways to a controversial 2010 bill, comes after persistent criticism that the bill's sponsors want to give the president a so-called Internet kill switch.

"We want to clear the air once and for all," Senator Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, said in a statement. "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. Furthermore, it is impossible to turn off the Internet in this country."

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