Last week the Government Accountability Office (GAO) releasedan audit on the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Enhanced Secured Network (ESN) project that questions the network security of the very agency that regulates online communications. Things are going so poorly with the project, the GAO couldn’t even release full findings to the public — instead, a separate report with limited distribution was prepared “making 26 recommendations associated with 21 findings to resolve technical information security weaknesses related to access controls and configuration management of the ESN.”

Sean Gallagher at Ars Technica explains the back story:

“In August of 2011, while in the middle of upgrading its network security monitoring, the Federal Communications Commission discovered it had already been hacked. Over the next month, the commission’s IT staff and outside contractors worked to identify the source of the breach, finding an unspecified number of PCs infected with backdoor malware.

After pulling the infected systems from the network, the FCC determined it needed to do something dramatic to fix the significant security holes in its internal networks that allowed the malware in. The organization began pulling together a $10 million “Enhanced Secured Network” project to accomplish that.”

But according to Gallagher, that $10 million plan was largely put together by Octo Consulting, and the GAO findings make it clear almost nothing went well:

“FCC’s efforts to effectively manage the ESN project were hindered by its inconsistent implementation of procedures for estimating costs, developing and maintaining an integrated schedule, managing project risks, and conducting oversight.”

The report concludes that as the result of this mismanagement, the FCC did not implement appropriate security controls in the initial phase of the project, nor has it consistently implemented key security procedures for managing the program to the point that the “FCC’s information remained at unnecessary risk of inadvertent or deliberate misuse, improper disclosure, or destruction” — essentially leaving the system, and thus sensitive internal FCC communications and information about the people and companies doing business with the FCC, vulnerable to the same sort of breach found in 2011 that prompted the Enhanced Secured Network project in the first place.

While the shortage of cybersecurity expertise in government is nothing new, that the very agency responsible for regulating online communications was forced to resort to outside assistance to secure its networks — and just how spectacularly that outside assistance failed — is yet another wake up call to the severity of the shortage and the real impacts it has on our government’s ability to do its job.

Former Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) is taking a set of entrepreneurs to a body of the United Nations to gain control over the rights to RonPaul.com.

The whole affair stems from the fact that Paul owns neither RonPaul.com nor RonPaul.org, with both instead being owned and maintained by supporters of his. Those same supporters also maintain an e-mail list of over a hundred thousand names, by their count, a valuable asset to any politician or movement leader. When Paul stated on a radio show that he regretted not owning the rights to the domain RonPaul.com, the owners offered what they viewed as a fair price to Paul for ownership of the sites as well as the mailing list.

A quick summary provided by the maintainers of RonPaul.com explains the situation that followed:

The value we put on the deal was $250k; we are getting our mailing list appraised right now but we are confident it is easily worth more than $250k all by itself. Claims that we tried to sell Ron Paul “his name” for $250k or even $800k are completely untrue, and there is little doubt that our mailing list would have enabled Ron Paul to raise several million dollars for the liberty movement this year. It would have been a win/win/win situation for everyone involved.

Instead of responding to our offer, making a counter offer, or even accepting our FREE gift of RonPaul.org, Ron Paul went to the United Nations and is trying to use its legal process related to domain name disputes to actively deport us from our domain names without compensation.

The mention of “the United Nations” refers to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), one of many international bodies that falls under the U.N. umbrella of organizations. WIPO is empowered by the International Cooperation for Assigned Names and Numbers — the independent group that manages domains and website registries — to provide arbitration on name ownership disputes. Paul has filed a claim under what’s known as the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), which has the authority to turn over the rights of RonPaul.com to Paul — should he prevail in the case.

While Paul may have a case, the irony, however, of the former Republican congressman turning to the United Nations is palpable for several reasons. First, for constantly espousing free trade, that Paul would refuse to negotiate directly over a market value for a piece of property is stunning. What’s more, though, Paul has been a harsh critic of U.S. membership in the United Nations for years. He’s fallen firmly in the camp of those who believe that the United Nations is set to take the freedoms of Americans through such benign measures as Agenda 21. For someone who once said that “the choice is very clear: we either follow the Constitution or submit to U.N. global governance,” the whole supposed “global governance” thing doesn’t seem too bad to Paul once it becomes useful.

Earlier reports that Republicans were planning on walking out on tomorrow’s confirmation vote on Chuck Hagel to become Secretary of Defense have proven to be a bust, according to information relayed to ThinkProgress.

On Sunday, Politico sourced “GOP aides” in reporting that some Republican members of the Senate Armed Services committee were “considering the possibility of walking out” during the procedure, rather than casting a vote. This morning, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) set the confirmation vote for Hagel at 2:30 PM Tuesday. Soon thereafter, The Hill reported that neither Ranking Member Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) nor Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) had plans to join any walk-out.

Further questioning revealed no stomach for the GOP to walk out after all. Staffers reached in the office of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) hadn’t heard of the bid to walkout and were unable to confirm whether the Senator backed the proposal. However, a staffer in the office of Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) — by no means a supporter of Hagel’s nomination bid — confirmed to ThinkProgress that there are no longer any Republicans who plan on walking out during tomorrow’s meeting.

The swift backtracking by the GOP highlights an unfortunate tendency of the media to eagerly report on whatever shifting reason that Hagel opponents cite as being true. Dave Weigel at Slate on Friday pointed out the widespread use of anonymous GOP staffers as the sourcing for their reports, refusing to even name an office connected with the informant, as a method to promote attacks on Hagel. The result is a sounding board in the media for an ever-widening array of charges against Hagel that Republicans hope to make stick.

Republican Joe Scarborough is tired of his party’s mistreatment of Defense Secretary-nominee Chuck Hagel and its continuing, all-consuming focus on Benghazi.

The focus of Scarborough’s ire this morning on his MSNBC show Morning Joe was Sen. Lindsey Graham’s announcement on Sunday that he will place a hold on not only Hagel, but also CIA Director-nominee John Brennan until he gets further action from the White House on Benghazi.

Scarborough lashed out at Graham and his neoconservative cohorts, unable to believe how misguided their attacks on the Obama administration have been:

SCARBOROUGH: If you’ve got a working class guy who has voted Republican every four years and he turns on the Sunday shows and he’s flipping around the channels and he sees Republicans in February still talking about Benghazi, saying they’re going to hold up the picks for secretary of defense and CIA director for something that happened back in the fall, and they are continuing on this…to hold up this and talk about it on Sunday morning, it’s a colossal mistake.

Watch the takedown here:

Graham has been seeking out “the truth” on the attack in Benghazi, Libya that left four Americans dead for months now, despite an ample amount of facts already having been uncovered. A Cabinet nominee has never been filibustered by the Senate, leaving Graham’s threat in a position to make history.

Also at issue on Morning Joe today was former Vice President Dick Cheney at a speech in Wyoming referring to Obama’s second term national security team as being “second-rate.” Scarborough was unsurprised by Cheny’s statements, given his neoconservative stances. “You’d expect him to not like Chuck Hagel, for the same reasons I want a guy like Chuck Hagel in, because he’s more of a realist, and we’ll pull back a little from this neocon position,” Scarborough said.

Republicans have been lining up their kitchen-sink method of obstruction, full of procedural and “substantive” methods to block Hagel’s nomination from coming to a vote. That vote is currently delayed as Senate Armed Services Committee chair Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) has yet to set a date. That is expected to be short-lived, though, as Levin has said GOP demands regarding Hagel “far exceed” that of past nominees and promised a vote soon.