“Once this infrastructure is in place and you have something that can watch what people are doing or block access to some websites the government does not like, then you have a potential civil liberties nightmare,” warned McCullagh.

The government has an incentive to over hype cyber security.

“This is war. There is war on drugs, war on terror, now there is war on cyber, I guess,” McCullagh said.

The government, on behalf of defense contractors, politicians and even some journalists, backs this project.

“In reality there should be no critical infrastructure on the internet. If it is critical, do not connect it to the internet. There should not be nuclear power plants hooked onto the internet. If they are, this is wrong for your homeland security, just take a look at that instead of saying we need to eavesdrop on the internet even if it is a limited eavesdropping for security purposes,” McCullagh said