Of course, it's easier to blame the technology.

Congress: P2P networks harm national security:

The politicians present Tuesday generally said they believe that there are benefits to peer-to-peer technology but that it will imperil national security, intrude on personal privacy and violate copyright law, if not properly restricted. Both Waxman and Rep. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.) dubbed P2P networks ongoing national security threats.

One would be led to believe this is the only way imaginable to get at this. Meanwhile, Congress all but ignores the spam issue, the bots that exist on computers around the world that allow it to happen, and the myriad other risks to government computer security. The primary risks? Untrained users on poorly secured networks.

There were some attempts at balance and sanity:

Mary Koelbel Engle, the associate director for advertising practices in the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said her agency has found in its studies of peer-to-peer network use that risks to sensitive information "stem largely from how individuals use the technology rather than being inherent in the technology itself."

But leave it to our elected representatives to be "impenetrable to logic":

Some politicians nonetheless lashed out at the sole representative from a peer-to-peer software company at Tuesday's hearing: Lime Wire's Gorton, who is also CEO of parent company Lime Group.

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.)

Gorton know doubt rubs his hands together coolly each day thinking, "All your tubes are belong to us." Apparently the main things missing from this hearing were some moronic platitudes from Chertoff.

I really only see one solution: shut down this Internet experiment. Just flip the switch on it. It's endangering our national security, leaving no other realistic choice.