"P2P networks harm national security"

This has been going around lately, and it just amazes me how ignorant this article is.

Congress: P2P networks harm national security | CNET News.com

Politicians charged on Tuesday that peer-to-peer networks can pose a "national security threat" because they enable federal employees to share sensitive or classified documents accidentally from their computers.

At a hearing on the topic, Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said, without offering details, that he is considering new laws aimed at addressing the problem. He said he was troubled by the possibility that foreign governments, terrorists or organized crime could gain access to documents that reveal national secrets.

Also at the hearing, Mark Gorton, the chairman of Lime Wire, which makes the peer-to-peer software LimeWire, was assailed for allegedly harming national security through offering his product.

...

The most scathing criticism came from Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), who launched into a lengthy monologue in which he deemed Gorton "one of the most naive chairmen and CEOs I've ever run across," and accused his company of making the "skeleton keys" that grant access to material harmful to U.S. national security.

"I'd feel more than a shade of guilt at this point, having made the laptop a dangerous weapon against the security of the United States," Cooper said. "Mr. Gorton, you seem to lack imagination about how your product can be deliberately misused by evildoers against this country." (Cooper also, at one point, claimed that Gorton's own home computer was probably leaking sensitive documents.)

Aparently either one or both congressmen Henry Waxman and Jim Cooper are in the pocket of the Hollywood lobyists.

Come on Henry and Jim, clue in... everyone knows the route to getting p2p networks outlawed is to claim they induce child pornography.

"Save the kids!" Jim & Henry. That's the battle cry to go for. It's a much more righteous way to pass legislation outlawing p2p then hollywood or some percieved threat to national security. Not that you could outlaw p2p without completely shutting down the internet... because of course fundamentally the internet is a peer based network.

Email is a far greater threat to national security then p2p. Perhaps we should ban all government emplyees from using email. We can start with Henry Waxman and Jim Cooper.