Last week, the U.S. senator sent a letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt decrying YouTube as a clearinghouse for terrorist propaganda videos and calling upon Google to remove them. “… Islamist terrorist organizations use YouTube to disseminate their propaganda, enlist followers and provide weapons training–activities that are all essential to terrorist activity,” Lieberman, Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, wrote. “According to testimony received by our committee, the online content produced by al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist organizations can play a significant role in the process of radicalization, the end point of which is the planning and execution of a terrorist attack. YouTube also, unwittingly, permits Islamist terrorist groups to maintain an active, pervasive and amplified voice, despite military setbacks or successful operations by the law enforcement and intelligence communities.”

Lieberman would like Google (GOOG) to smoke these YouTube terrorists out of their holes. To that end, he provided Schmidt with a list of offensive videos. Some featured gratuitous violence or hate speech and were removed. But many more featured legal non-violent, non-hate speech. These YouTube refused to remove because they don’t violate its Community Guidelines.

“While we respect and understand [Lieberman's] views, YouTube encourages free speech and defends everyone’s right to express unpopular points of view,” YouTube said in a post to its company blog. “We believe that YouTube is a richer and more relevant platform for users precisely because it hosts a diverse range of views, and rather than stifle debate we allow our users to view all acceptable content and make up their own minds. Of course, users are always free to express their disagreement with a particular video on the site, by leaving comments or their own response video. That debate is healthy.”

Citing an Institute for Policy Innovation study that estimates that copyright-industry piracy costs the U.S. economy $58 billion per year (Holy cow! That’s like Mitch Bainwol’s and Dan Glickman’s salaries combined!), Zucker called upon Congress to create dedicated intellectual-property enforcement bureaus in the Justice and Homeland Security Departments and to offer federal grants for state and local governments to escalate their own policing efforts. “The unfortunate truth is that today we are losing the battle,” Zucker said. “We need, across the board, to move IP enforcement up the agenda of the federal government. … [This issue is] absolutely critical to our economic prosperity.”

Lawmakers, especially those with musical aspirations, were predictably roused by Zucker’s spiel, though it conveniently obscured the fact that the entertainment industry’s business models are clearly in need of serious work. Said Sen. Orrin “I Write the Songs” Hatch (R., Utah, pictured with Barry Manilow, right), “Our challenge is to come up with viable economic solutions that will not only protect existing intellectual-property rights, but encourage the free flow of information and ideas necessary for creativity and innovation to thrive.”

How is it that the federal government loses so many computers? Seriously, in the past few years it has lost enough laptops to start its own “One Laptop Per Child” program. From 2002 to 2005, the FBI lost 160 laptop computers, including 10 that contain highly sensitive classified information, according to an inspector general’s report, which notes that between three and four FBI laptops are lost or stolen each month.

Now comes word that the Transportation Security Administration has misplaced a hard drive containing Social Security numbers and bank account information for 100,000 TSA employees. Worse, the drive went missing from a so-called controlled area at TSA headquarters in Washington, D.C. No wonder the Department of Homeland Security (of which the TSA is a unit) scored a D on its latest Federal Computer Security Report Card.

“TSA has no evidence that an unauthorized individual is using your personal information, but we bring this incident to your attention so that you can be alert to signs of any possible misuse of your identity,” TSA Administrator Kip Hawley wrote in a letter to employees. “We apologize that your information may be subject to unauthorized access, and I deeply regret this incident.” To make amends, the TSA offered affected employees a year of credit-monitoring protection (as well as months of untold embarrassment and low morale).

But it’s going to have a much harder time making amends with the American public. “This is getting ridiculous,” the Washington Post said in an editorial today. “When it comes to safeguarding private information from the growing identity-theft industry, Uncle Sam’s track record is horrendous.”