Sen. Joseph Lieberman on Sunday dismissed the idea that a recently introduced bill would give the president access to an Internet kill switch as "misinformation." He then said, however, that the government needs to be able to "disconnect parts of its Internet in a case of war."

"The president will never take over -- the government should never take over the Internet," Lieberman said during CNN's "State of the Union," according to a transcript.

Earlier this month, it was reported that Lieberman and Sen. Susan Collins were prepping a bill that would allow the government to "take over" civilian network in an emergency. The news prompted many to dub this option an "Internet kill switch."

On Sunday, Lieberman denied that this was the case, but said the government needed the option to shut down certain parts of the Web should they come under attack.

The country's "electric grid, the telecommunications grid, transportation, all the rest is constantly being probed by nation states, by some terrorist groups, by organized criminal gangs," he said.

As a result, "we need the capacity for the president to say, Internet service provider, we've got to disconnect the American Internet from all traffic coming in from another foreign country, or we've got to put a patch on this part of it," he said.

Lieberman insisted that he and Collins have consulted with civil liberties and privacy experts on that bill, and that their effort is "a matter of national security."

"A cyber attack on America can do as much or more damage today by incapacitating our banks, our communications, our finance, our transportation, as a conventional war attack," he said.

"Right now, China, the government, can disconnect parts of its Internet in a case of war. We need to have that here, too," Lieberman concluded.

Originally posted to AppScout.