The fundamental problem with American intelligence operations is that the CIA, the FBI and their fellow intelligence agencies haven't consistently produced hard information about terror plots. A new department isn't going to solve that problem.

Today's New York Times editorial.

The Intelligence Puzzle

"It's not punitive, it's just purely prevention to stop him from attacking us. He's going to stay in the can until we're through with al-Qaida."

Padilla to Be Held Indefinitely

Lucent CEO: "Service providers continue to constrain their capital spending to conserve cash, which is clearly affecting our top line."

If the telecom market fails to recover within the next year (a distinct possibility), and Lucent's revenues decline at the same rate, they will be operating at 52% of current revenues by June 2003. It would then seem necessary to reduce staff levels much more sharply than is currently planned, making it difficult to keep a coherently functioning organization in place.

Lucent Warns on Sales; Its Shares Fall Further

Here is Joseph Lieberman's view of the way that counterterrorism should work. In many ways, this proposal is at odds with President Bush's plan for a new department of homeland security.

According to CNET (what do they know?), "Bush's proposal falls short of addressing the advanced technological issues required to secure the nation against new and more sophisticated threats."

Lieberman's plan would set up a "division of Prevention" within the new organization.

National Homeland Security and Combating Terrorism Act of 2002 [PDF]

Since early Friday, KPNQwest's networks have been losing an average of 4 percent to 5 percent of all data.

KPNQwest's network dropping data

Published on May 21, this is a 15 page report from the legal staff at the Congressional Research Service on the subject of fair use as it relates to the Internet.

It's a few weeks old at this point, but I haven't seen it mentioned widely elsewhere.

From the Summary:

The originating objective of copyright was to promote the progress of science and the useful arts. ... The fair use defense is integral to obtaining ... balance.

The advent and spread of Internet technologies pose new challenges to Congress and the courts in maintaining a balance ...

A bright line approach to fair use is difficult, if not impossible to formulate, as courts examine fair use on a case by case basis.

This report reviews the development of fair use on the Internet, and will be updated as circumstances warrant.

Fair Use on the Internet [PDF]

Bowie: "I don't even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years, because I don't think it's going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way. The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it's not going to happen. I'm fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years, and authorship and intellectual property is in for such a bashing."

David Bowie looks forward to the next music revolution.

David Bowie, 21st-Century Entrepreneur

The dot I visited was at Mayak, east of the Ural Mountains in Asian Russia. There, a huge concrete sarcophagus rises from the landscape. Its purpose is to entomb some 20,000 nuclear bombs' worth of plutonium and highly enriched uranium.

Ashton Carter on protecting former Soviet nukes.

Throw the Net Worldwide

Quick quiz: Which Muslim Middle East country held spontaneous candlelight vigils in sympathy with Americans after Sept. 11? Kuwait? No. Saudi Arabia? No. Iran? Yes. You got it! You win a free trip to Iran. And if you come you'll discover not only a Muslim country where many people were sincerely sympathetic to America after Sept. 11, but a country where so many people on the street are now talking about -- and hoping for -- a re-opening of relations with America that the ruling hard-liners had to take the unprecedented step two weeks ago of making it illegal for anyone to speak about it in public.

The Best of Enemies?

This is a ten page paper presented by Richard Szafranski of Toffler Associates at "The Glocal Strategy" Conference in Italy in May 2002. The author is a retired Air Force colonel; Toffler Associates is the strategic planning and advisory firm run by Alvin and Heidi Toffler.

If terrorism intends to influence an audience, then the targets of terrorism, no matter how terrorism reifies as physical acts of violence, are human minds hosted by human bodies. Others in this session will explore specific tools that our bodies and brains apply to combating terrorism: information operations, network analyses, seizing finances, and so forth. My aim in these remarks is to illuminate more basic ways to use the tool of our brain to deflate terror and defeat terrorism.

The most basic way to rob terrorism of its potency is to be unafraid of it, even while jointly and methodically employing all the tools at our disposal to eradicate it and to remedy the causes from which terrorism springs. Many things are necessary and must be done. We must, of course, harden our networks, add physical security and access control to our buildings and networks, have accurate inventories and inventory controls for dangerous materials -- tracking and controlling the ingredients of weapons of mass destruction -- and become more sophisticated in recognizing the precursor patterns of behavior and the kinds of interactions that may auger attacks. We also must work to eliminate the wide gaps between the rich and the poor. All of these are necessary, and we will cover them in this conference, but they are not sufficient. At the risk of appearing glib, let me assert that terrorism works because we fear it and that we simply must cease fearing it. How?

Asymmetries and Consequences [PDF]