Protecting the Power Grid

I flew commercially a few days ago, so I was entertained (so to speak) by what security expert Bruce Schneier calls “Security Theater:” the TSA’s fumbling and worthless screening of air travelers. All this fuss and not an ounce of it adds anything to our actual safety from terrorists. (For more on [...]

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Interim Victory for Net Neutrality

The lame-duck session of the 109th Congress has finally and mercifully ended, with lots of important stuff left undone but fortunately nothing too idiotic enacted at the last minute. But one thing we can be thankful for is that the telco-industry-giveaway rewrite of the Telecommunications Act (HR 2525) died with the last rap of [...]

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DynCorp and the Dismal Afghan Police

Here’s some dismal news from Afghanistan — you remember Afghanistan, the home of al Qaeda, the place we have basically ignored while we focused our national attention on brewing disaster in Iraq:
Five years after the fall of the Taliban, a joint report by the Pentagon and the State Department has found that the American-trained police [...]

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Litvinenko, Gaidar, and The New Terror

I call to your attention to the puzzling cases of Alexander Litvinendo and Yegor Gaidar: seemingly healthy one day, then devestatingly ill the next. Mr. Litvinenko did not survive his poisoning with polonium, while Mr Gaidar appears to have done so, at least for now. Both have been persistent critics of the Russian [...]

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