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The Feting Of Brad Smith
by Randy Barrett
The libertarian Cato Institute threw a bash for former Federal Election Commissioner Bradley Smith last week, and there was a general lament about the paucity of good libertarian idealists in Washington power circles these days.
Smith reminisced to a small crowd, including former FEC colleagues David Mason and Michael Toner, about his stormy tenure at the commission. The slight, bespectacled law professor quoted "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" as a touchstone in his talk and said he reached the same conclusion so many others have about Washington: It is all upside down and makes no sense, except to people who live here.
"Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe," Smith quoted from Lewis Carroll's poem Jabberwocky. "All mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe."
Smith, a Republican, was a controversial member of the FEC because of his public criticism of the 2002 campaign-finance law known best by the surnames of its authors, Sens. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., and John McCain, R-Ariz. Smith left the FEC last month to return to teaching at Capital University in Ohio.
McCain several times assailed Smith as "corrupt" for disliking the law he administered as an FEC member. But Smith gracefully refrained from taking any parting shots at his critic, whom he said he only met once by accident and suffered a spleeny tongue-lashing as a result.
"That's what happens when you anger your own party instead of growing in the eyes of your enemies," Smith opined.
Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., congratulated Smith for speaking truth to power and upholding the high ideals of libertarianism. "You stood by the principle that Congress may make no law abridging the freedom of speech," he said.
Smith also was the guest of honor Friday evening at a "half-roast, half-toast" organized by the Web log RedState.org and the Center for Individual Freedom. The host committee included bloggers Michael Bassick, former Smith aide Allison Hayward, and Mark Tapscott of the Heritage Foundation. Smith is considered a hero among bloggers for sounding the warning earlier this year about potential FEC regulation of blogs under the McCain-Feingold law.
Here Kitty, Kitty
Everyone knew the spy-versus-spy activity of the Cold War could be dirty, but former CIA Director Robert Gates described some new lows at a recent appearance.
Speaking last week to the Commonwealth of Virginia Information Technology Symposium in Richmond, Va., the former spy master shared the tale of a cat pressed into service to eavesdrop at the East German Embassy. The CIA had been unsuccessful in infiltrating a group of would-be terrorists living at the compound, but it knew the embassy feline enjoyed sleeping in the conference room where the group discussed its plans.
"We kidnapped the cat and put a bug where no one would pet it," Gates said. Agents logged about three months worth of good recordings, he added.
At the same event, former FCC Commissioner Michael Powell regaled the crowd about the hazards of digital parenthood.
"My son, 16, purports to have a girlfriend. I say purports because I haven't actually met her," Powell said. "I know her screen name is clownsgivemenightmares323. I suppose I should be glad their hands are on the keyboard [and not each other] ... since I seem to be a little late on the birds-and-bees talk."
Powell also said his son had downloaded illegal music files and did not show much interest in the legal, 99-cent versions of songs at Apple Computer's iTunes service shown to him by his father.
Cyber Lawyer Heads Back to School
Cyber-rights lawyer Wendy Selzer has left the Electronic Frontier Foundation and is now an assistant professor at the Brooklyn Law School. She will be teaching Internet law and privacy.
Selzer is perhaps best known as the founder of the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, a site that catalogs attacks on free speech and free Internet activity. She continues to be a fellow with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.
New Engineer On Lambda Rail
The high-speed research network known as the National Lambda Rail (NLR) has hired Gwendolyn Huntoon as interim director of operations. She is currently director of networking at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center.
Huntoon has worked on the National Science Foundation's TeraGrid project, and she served as the first executive director of The Quilt, a coalition of advanced networks. "It's a privilege to be able to help put this infrastructure in the hands of researchers who will create the next generation of networking technologies," Huntoon said in a statement.
GTSI Gets New Sales Boss
Scott Friedlander has been promoted to executive vice president for sales of GTSI, a government technology provider. He joined the company in 2001 and ran its enterprise technology division. Terri Allen, former senior vice president of sales, left GTSI in July.
Before joining GTSI, Friedlander spent more than l8 years at Xerox, where he was vice president and general manager of public-sector operations for the North American Solutions Group.
In other corporate news, Montreal-based Excludus Technologies has hired some high-level executives from Sun Microsystems.
Stephen Perrenod is now vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for Excludus. Perrenod was most recently at Sun Microsystems, where he led business development in education and the research sector. And Peter Randall is on board as director of sales for North America.
Wolfgang Gentzsch has joined Excludus' board. He is currently the coordinator of D-Grid, the German government's five-year, $120 million grid initiative to build the e-science infrastructure for the German research community. European information tech scientist Ron Haber also has joined the board.
Kudos For Health Technology Work
Retired Col. Jill Phillips has won a Council for Excellence in Governance award for her work in delivering effective healthcare information at the Walter Reed Medical Center.
The award is given annually to senior council fellows who improve health, education and the value of public service.
The group also bestowed an award on John Chambliss, a chief network operations manager at the Internal Revenue Service, for saving the agency more than $2 million through better infrastructure.
Quote Of The Week
"My wife said to me, 'You're the worst corrupt person in the world. Where are the Rolex watches?'"
-- Bradley Smith, offering his spouse's take on a charge often leveled at him by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. Smith spoke at the Cato Institute last week.
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