Where we've been, and where we're going, in the long, sordid saga of keeping Americans safe from the administration's spying.

What's Next for FISA?

Charlie Wilson's War is a truly dangerous piece of pro-war propaganda from Hollywood.

Chalmers Johnson attempts a serious critical analysis of a film whose pre-release coverage by the New York Times was entitled, Sex! Drugs! (And Maybe a Little War). In it, Richard Berke wrote:

If “Charlie Wilson’s War,” with a budget of $75 million, is a commercial success (*), its creators will have found a winning formula. You can make a movie that is relevant and intelligent — and palatable to a mass audience — if its political pills are sugar-coated, in this case thanks to Mr. Wilson’s high jinks, his sometime romance with a right-wing socialite played by Ms. Roberts and his escapades with a coarse CIA officer played by Mr. Hoffman. But Hollywood has long found it tricky to find the balance between being taken seriously on geopolitics without falling short on what movies are supposed to do: entertain.

Mike Nichols' latest film is "pro-war" in the way that Eli Roth's last two horror films were "anti-backpacking."

(*) So far, the domestic total is at $53M. It will surely break even after it has opened worldwide, but it's not going to be considered a success.

Charlie Wilson's War: An Imperialist Comedy

IRS made limited progress toward correcting previously reported information security weaknesses. It has corrected or mitigated 29 of the 98 information security weaknesses that GAO reported as unresolved at the time of its last review. For example, IRS implemented controls for user IDs for certain critical servers, improved physical protection for its procurement system, developed a security plan for a key financial system, and upgraded servers that had been using obsolete operating systems. In addition, IRS established enterprise-wide objectives for improving information security, including initiatives for protecting and encrypting data, securing information technology assets, and building security into new applications. However, about 70 percent of the previously identified information security weaknesses remain unresolved. For example, IRS continues to, among other things, use passwords that are not complex, grant excessive access to individuals who do not need it, and install patches in an untimely manner.

In addition to this limited progress, other significant weaknesses in various controls continue to threaten the confidentiality and availability of IRS’s financial processing systems and information, and limit assurance of the integrity and reliability of its financial and taxpayer information. IRS has not consistently implemented effective controls to prevent, limit, or detect unauthorized access to computing resources from within its internal network. For example, IRS did not always (1) enforce strong password management for properly identifying and authenticating users, (2) authorize user access to only permit access needed to perform job functions, (3) encrypt sensitive data, (4) effectively monitor changes on its mainframe, and (5) physically protect its computer resources. In addition, IRS faces risks to its financial and taxpayer information due to weaknesses in implementing its configuration management policies, as well as appropriately segregating incompatible job duties. Accordingly, GAO has reported a material weakness in IRS’s internal controls over its financial and tax processing systems. A key reason for the weaknesses is that the agency has not yet fully implemented its agency-wide information security program to ensure that controls are effectively established and maintained. As a result, IRS is at increased risk of unauthorized disclosure, modification, or destruction of financial and taxpayer information.

This report is addressed to the Acting Commissioner of Internal Revenue, one Ms. Stiff.

IRS Needs to Address Pervasive Information Security Weaknesses, says GAO

Ken Auletta in the latest New Yorker.

Google squares off with its Capitol Hill critics.

It takes a little while to get going, but I found the last half rather interesting. The political angle didn't sell the article for me ... but I enjoyed the part about how Brin, Page, and Schmidt work together to run the company.

On Tuesdays, Brin, Page, and Schmidt hold product-strategy meetings, which are dominated by engineers. I was permitted to attend one, on the condition that the product, and the engineers, not be identified, but the tenor of the meeting was clear enough: Page and Brin had wanted an upgrade of an existing product, and they were unhappy with what they were hearing from the engineers. At first, they were stonily silent, slid down in their chairs, and occasionally leaned over to whisper to each other. Schmidt began with technical questions, but then he switched roles and tried to draw out Page and Brin, saying, “Larry, say what’s really bugging you.”

Page said that the engineers were not ambitious enough. Brin agreed, and said that the proposals were “muddled” and too cautious.

“We wanted something big,” Page added. “Instead, you proposed something small. Why are you so resistant?”

The head of the engineering team said that the founders’ own proposed changes would be too costly in money, time, and engineering talent.

Schmidt—the only person at the meeting wearing a tie—tried to summarize their differences. He noted that Brin and Page wanted to start by deciding the outcome, while the product team focussed first on the process, and concluded that the engineering would prove too “disruptive” to achieve the goal.

“I’m just worried that we designed the wrong thing,” Brin said. “And you’re telling me you’re not designing the optimum system. I think that’s a mistake. ... I’m trying to give you permission.”

Annals of Communications: The Search Party

Clive Thompson in the Magazine.

As the primaries start in New Hampshire this week and roll on through the next few months, the erratic behavior of voting technology will once again find itself under a microscope.

Can You Count on Voting Machines?

An old story, but a funny quote.

Participants at the weekend's annual Gridiron dinner, a closed-door affair where jeers and gibes are the most popular course, enjoyed repeated laughs at Gore's expense. Senator John McCain waxed eloquent about his time in a Vietnam prisoner-of-war camp. The one thing that sustained him? "The thought that some day I would come home and invent the Internet."

Have you seen Rescue Dawn?

The Laugh Is on Gore

Supporters of the FairTax plan are particularly drawn to the feature that calls for repealing the 16th Amendment and abolishing the Internal Revenue Service. That fits with the insurgent, populist-tinged nature of Mike Huckabee’s campaign.

Don't forget "folksy" ...

“Am I running for president to shut down the federal government? Not exactly. But I am running to eliminate all federal income and payroll taxes. And I do mean all — personal federal, corporate federal, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, self-employment.”

But even though critics acknowledge that there would be some economic benefits from introducing a broad-based consumption tax, William Gale of the Brookings Institution said that the proposal itself was “fundamentally a ruse.”

“The notion that there is a 23 percent rate that solves all our problems,” he said, “is politically unrealistic and mathematically impossible.”

Whatever the rate, critics say, a steep federal retail tax, piled on top of existing state sales taxes, would encourage widespread illegal tax evasion, black market transactions and other forms of cheating, creating a cycle that would require even higher tax rates.

Huckabee’s Tax Plan Appeals, but Is It Fair?

1. Obama beat Hillary among women voters 35 to 30 percent.
2. Amid record Democratic turnout, as many people under 30 showed up to caucus as those over 65.
3. Sixty percent of the GOP electorate in Iowa were born-again Christians.
4. Rudy Giuliani finished with a mere 4,013 votes, in sixth place, with less than half of the support of Ron Paul.

Maybe he's not so Ready after all.

Iowa By the Numbers

The last several slides are new to this briefing.

David M. Walker, comptroller general of the United States, at the 2008 Economic Forecast Forum:

The federal government is on a “burning platform,” and the status quo way of doing business is unacceptable.

Growth in Spending for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid Expected to Outpace Economic Growth; State and Local Governments Face Increasing Fiscal Challenges.

Current Fiscal Policy Is Unsustainable:
• The “Status Quo” Is Not an Option
• We face large and growing structural deficits largely due to known demographic trends and rising health care costs.
• GAO’s simulations show that balancing the budget in 2040 could require actions as large as

• Cutting total federal spending by 60 percent or
• Raising federal taxes to two times today's level

• Faster Economic Growth Can Help, but It Cannot Solve the Problem
• Closing the current long-term fiscal gap based on reasonable assumptions would require real average annual economic growth in the double-digit range every year for the next 75 years.
• During the 1990s, the economy grew at an average 3.2 percent per year.
• As a result, we cannot simply grow our way out of this problem. Tough choices will be required.

Are the candidates confronting this issue? Mostly they seem to ramble on about "coverage."

US Financial Condition and Fiscal Future Briefing

Since late summer, the US Federal Reserve has been attempting to manage the slow-moving financial crisis triggered by the collapse of the US housing bubble.

At the start, the Fed assumed that it was facing a first-mode crisis -- a mere liquidity crisis -- and that the principal cure would be to ensure the liquidity of fundamentally solvent institutions.

But the Fed has shifted over the past two months toward policies aimed at a second-mode crisis -- more significant monetary loosening, despite the risks of higher inflation, extra moral hazard and unjust redistribution.

As Fed Vice Chair Don Kohn recently put it: "We should not hold the economy hostage to teach a small segment of the population a lesson."

No policymakers are yet considering the possibility that the financial crisis might turn out to be in the third mode.

Three cures for three crises | Brad DeLong, in the Taipei Times