Today, after a long and protracted battle between the U.S. and Swiss government, Swiss bank UBS AG agreed to turn over the names of at least 4,450 U.S. holders of accounts in Switzerland who may have violated U.S. tax laws. While the Obama administration may paint this as a victory, this number is less than 10 percent of the 52,000 names it had originally asked for. It is even lower than the estimate of 5,000 to 10,000 names that news reports speculated…

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As Cord mentioned earlier, Henry Waxman has been named incoming Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, of which the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet is a part. In his role, Waxman is likely to play an influential role in future tech policy fights involving issues such as universal broadband access and network neutrality. While Waxman has laudably defended civil liberties on many occasions, his record on telecommunications lawmaking is quite troubling.

Waxman has embraced forced openness for privately-owned…

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