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March 19, 2002
Vol. 5 No. 12
In this issue:
1. Visa: Everywhere you want to be
2. Target Redmond
3. Universal Universal Service Fees
4. Quick Hits
5. Engineering Humans - and other highlights from Reason Online
6. Reason's print edition
7. Reason News
Reason Express is made possible by a grant from The DBT Group, manufacturers of affordable, high-performance mainframe systems and productivity software.
1. Visa: Everywhere you want to be
Perhaps it shouldn't be a shock that it took the Immigration and Naturalization Service until six months after Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi rammed planes into the World Trade Center to tell their flight school that their student visas had been approved. We are, after all, talking about government paperwork.
The embarrassing episode highlighted the primitive state of the visa system. Except for the final issuance of the document or rejection letter, the granting and processing of student visas ought to be entirely paperless. The INS should be moving bits and electrons around, not pages and folders.
In the private sector millions of transactions representing millions of items on order, in transit, in stock, or on their way out the door are handled every hour of every day. There is no technical reason why relatively simple government transactions with a finite number of variables cannot be handled in a similar manner, on a similar scale, and in a similar amount of time.
Of course, there are very good nontechnical reasons why this will never happen. Foremost, there is no incentive for anyone in government to press for such a quantum leap in performance. No one's money is at stake. No jobs are on the line.
In fact, it seems that the more spectacularly you screw up your government job, the more insulated you are from repercussions. No one, with the possible exception of a security flunky at Boston's Logan Airport, was fired as a result of September 11. No one has felt sufficient shame to resign, which suggests that no one feels he could have done a better job.
So it is with the INS. No firings. No resignations. Just vague promises of restructuring and an internal investigation. Let's see what the paperwork says in six months.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23784-2002Mar13.html
A report that U.S. intelligence officials think Islamic terrorists plan to attack Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, underscores just what a target-rich environment America can be. If the goal is to strike American entities that have a global presence, then Microsoft certainly fits the bill.
As a high-tech company Microsoft also represents modernity, progress, and change -- all anathema to fanatics with a zero-sum, medieval mind-set. And with annual revenue of $25 billion, Redmond is the seat of the kind of wealth that prompts envy and even hatred from a wide spectrum of people. In fact, an attack on Microsoft that resulted only in property damage might well be applauded in many "anti-globalist" circles.
Dotted across the U.S. are dozens more corporate targets that might appeal to those looking to strike at a well-known American brand. Nike, Coke, AOL Time Warner, McDonald's -- any of them might serve as a backdrop to make some broad, violent statement against American capitalism.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020315-16818189.htm
3. Universal Universal Service Fees
Signaling that the Internet is ready to become just another part of the patchwork telecom system, high-speed service provider Megapath has announced it will begin charging "universal service fees" to digital subscriber line (DSL) customers.
The fees, long a feature of the old circuit-switched phone network, are supposed to underwrite dial tone service for "insular" or "high-cost" areas, a Robin Hood policy that has been a favorite of policy makers for decades. In recent years the kitty was expanded to underwrite Internet access for rural schools and hospitals, the kind of scheme that public choice theory tells us is all but unstoppable.
But with online service subsidized by the fund, it became more or less inevitable that Internet users one day would have to pay into it. Now that the day has arrived, it may not be long before affluent DSL subscribers are taxed to underwrite the Internet "needs" of the less fortunate.
In the meantime, the fees will gum things up nicely. Given the Federal Communications Commission's ruling that cable Internet service providers sell "information" rather than "telecommunication," cable companies appear to have a permanent exemption from universal service fees. That's bound to irk their DSL competitors, prompting yet more lobbying over a network that remains so much less than the sum of its parts.
http://www.megapath.net/support/USFsurchargeinfo.asp
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29295-2002Mar14.html
Quote of the Week
"Little things have to be adjusted." --Chris Zimmerman, chairman of the board that oversees Washington, D.C.'s Metro mass transit system, on the decision to park 15 new natural-gas-powered buses because of fears that the rear wheels might fly off. Metro spent $53.3 million on 164 of the buses but has been able to run only a fraction of the fleet because it has yet to finish building a natural gas depot.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30002-2002Mar14.html
Eyes on the Prize
The Department of Justice monitors drug reform Web sites as a way to identify individuals or groups "chiefly interested in expanding the size of the community to both legitimize their activity and increase pressure on lawmakers to change or abolish drug control laws." That'll teach 'em.
http://www.alchemind.org/News/ndic_report1.htm
http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs/682/index.htm#Contents
Eyes on the Prize II
OfficeMax tells customers of its copy services that "during this time of heightened security awareness, we will report suspicious or questionable requests for printing or document reproduction to law enforcement authorities." And the company has.
http://www.progressive.org/webex/wxmc031302.html
Repeat After Me: "No, You Don't"
A powerful lawmaker in Maryland directs $600 million back home for questionable development rather than say "We don't have a future" to residents.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42288-2002Mar17.html
Coming in the May issue of Reason's print edition:
Hollywood vs. the Internet
Why entertainment companies want to hack your computer. By Mike Godwin
Hungry for the Next Fix
Behind the relentless, misguided search for a medical cure for addiction. By Stanton Peele
Green with Ideology
The hidden agenda behind the "scientific" attacks on Bjorn Lomborg's controversial book, "The Skeptical Environmentalist." By Ronald Bailey
Speaking Lies to Power
Ralph Nader fudges the truth just like a real politician. By Matt Welch
Teenage Wasteland
Prohibition was repealed 70 years ago, but the mind-set behind it lingers on. By Nick Gillespie
and much more!
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