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"Oh it be," as Seinfeld's Elaine said when she noticed her date's cat was out of the bag, so to speak. Diebold, you see, is also one of the largest producers of electronic touch-screen voting systems now being employed to count your votes. But according to Bev Harris, a writer who has spent more than a year investigating the shadowy world of the elections equipment industry, there are critical flaws in Diebold's voting software. What's more, "...she's uncovered internal Diebold memos in which employees seem to suggest that (these flaws) are no big deal. The memos appear to be authentic -- Diebold even sent Harris a notice warning her that by posting the documents on the Web, she was infringing upon the company's intellectual property. Diebold did not return several calls for comment." We learn this in an article in Salon magazine written by Farhad Manjoo.

Think about it. Companies like Diebold who have the technological sophistication and capital backing to win contracts to provide electronic voting systems on a national scale would not be mom and pop operations. They would not be not store-front sole proprietorships or two-guy partnerships. They would be large Corporations. And what party is the party of large corporations? The Democrats? The Green Party? No, the Tories.

Not only is the country's leading touch-screen voting system so badly designed that votes can be easily changed, but its manufacturer is run by a die-hard GOP donor who vowed to deliver his state for Bush next year.

You've heard of voodoo economics? Ha! You ain't heard real voodoo until you hear about voodoo elections. As far back as 1989 those in the know were warning us about the potential for undetectable fraud in electronic voting.

For instance, Jonathan Vankin made this warning in "Metro: Silicon Valley's
Weekly Newspaper," of Sept. 28, 1989:

“A single, Berkeley-based firm manufactures the software used in the machines that compile more than two-thirds of the nation's electronically-counted votes. Analysts describe the software as "spaghetti code," tangled strands of instructions indecipherable to outsiders. The experts say the code could be manipulated without detection. In fact, that may have happened already.”

And what about just plain security? Ever heard the word hacker? Here's a little info about Mr. Hacker and Diebold that'll curl your ballots.

"I think, though, that some serious thought should be put into whether this is really a very smart way of conducting an election. My first reservation is reliability. It would be an awfully expensive lesson to find that sun-spots on the day of election caused us to report late. Second is cost. Wireless modems still seem to live in the $400-$600 range. Buying a piece of equipment like that just so that poll workers don't have to find a phone jack sounds questionable. Finally, is security. It is all fine and well to upload results over the internet, but we don't exactly have a lot of experience in internet security in this company, and government computers are hackers favorite targets." --Barry Herron, regional manager at Diebold's election division - in an email

Then there's the possibility of a conspiracy that makes the JFK incident seem like child's play. To learn more about this go here.

Here's some even more in-depth analysis of Diebold's system by authors Tadayoshi Kohno, Adam Stubblefield, Aviel D. Rubin, and Dan S. Wallach. And these writers Diebold took seriously enough to rebut.

Folks, until we get rid of this radical neoconservative government and replace it with something American we will never be able to rest secure. And even then we can never let our guard down again.

To stay ahead of the curve on this issue check in frequently to Black Box Voting.

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Tuesday - 9/23/03

ROMAN HOLIDAY

The neocon dream seems to be to have America rule with an iron fist, because we must --because we happen to have an iron fist. Rummy envisions us with legions swift, light, and mobile. Cheney dreams of taking billions in war profits. Ashcroft seethes, imagining swift justice sanctioned by his favorite diety (though he stays just short of hanging men on trees). And the boy emperor? The boy emperor, just wants to be able to swagger and strut for the empire's cameras all trussed in military gear (now that he's safe from actually having to fight). It's a regular Roman holiday for chrissakes!

As Chalmers Johnson says, "In the neoconservative world view, America was to be the new Rome. But the neocons learned the wrong lessons from Rome's imperial experience."

And Chalmers explains: "The Roman republic ...failed to adjust to the unintended consequences of its imperialism, leading to a drastic alteration in its form of government. The militarism that inescapably accompanied Rome's imperial projects slowly undermined its constitution as well as the very considerable political and human rights its citizens enjoyed."

Johnson's excellent short Roman history here is meant to illustrate possibilities to be encountered along the road we appear to be striking off upon. He suggests a certain destiny unless wiser heads prevail.

"The history of the Roman republic," says Johnson. "from the time of Julius Caesar on suggests that it was imperialism and militarism, poorly understood by all conservative political leaders at the time, that brought it down. Militarism and the professionalization of a large standing army create invincible new sources of power within a polity. The government must mobilize the masses in order to exploit them as cannon fodder and this leads to the rise of populist generals who understand the grievances of their troops and veterans."

Let those with ears hear.

AND ON A ROMANESQUE CULINARY NOTE:

Try George Bush's Caesar Salad.

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Maybe. But remember, the veracity and sound judgment of Cardinals is not always reliable. In the recent past at least one Cardinal in Boston lost his job because for years he orchestrated a church conspiracy that passed pedophile priests around among his congregations allowing these men of the cloth to continue slapping the make on innocents ...for the good of the church.

But the British paper, The Guardian, wonders if the charges of anti-Semitism now falling on Gibson, might better beheaped upon the Bible itself. God knows, there's a case to be made for that too.

For more of this view and concerns about Bible-engendered hate, check out the article here.

But go here for a real taste of self-serving, selective, Christian mysticism. In her review of "The Passion", Elizabeth Farah, conflates belief, truth, history, and dogma into a fundamentalist soup served with bread, wine, and sermonizing.

Why is it that religion sometimes seems to be a horror dreamed up by Satan conspiring with the Lord similar in effect to the woes that duo heaped upon Job? Satan may have roamed to and fro, and up and down upon the earth, but he did so with God's permission. Given the religious news lately, you have to consider that this conspiracy may still be going on.

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Get the primate fairness doctrine lowdown here.

And what about fairness in the military?

"Fair doesn't mean equal," a battalion commander once told me. But the message to reservists is unmistakable: the Army no longer takes into account sacrifices made to maintain two careers and lives. Many reservists will watch the regular soldiers with whom they came to Iraq go home before they do. The Army may not care about the disparity between the way the forces are treated, but those of us in the Reserve do."

Please Mr. Bush, get rid of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft and draft a few chimps, you couldn't do worse.

BAD

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Recently, Ashcroft finally released information on how many times his department has used the library-snoop clause in the Patriot's Act. "Until the other day," says an editorial in todays Washington Post, "the Justice Department insisted it could not reveal the number of times it has sought records from libraries during national security investigations under the USA Patriot Act." It turns out the number appears to be zip. Zero.

Having published that number, Ashcroft launched into a diatribe against those who reasonably thought that someone like himself, who exhibits a mind as dangerously closed as an busted parachute, might misuse his power to look over our shoulders as we excercised our right to read. "The charges of the hysterics are revealed for what they are: castles in the air," he said. "Built on misrepresentation. Supported by unfounded fear. Held aloft by hysteria," he continued."

So why am I not relieved the number was zero? Because Ashcroft's still in the catbird seat. With his own hysterical harangue on the heels of his penchant for secrecy Ashcroft actually makes the case that there is no hysteria involved in not trusting him any further than you can heave him. Distrusting an official like the Attorney General is the apex of sound judgment. I mean, if a guy so contemptuous of citizens who criticize refuses to reveal info when he's got nothing to hide, isn't it likely he'd rival the pathological secrecy of the old Soviet Politburo if he did have something stored under a rock? Ashcroft is like priests of old who believed that in mystery lies power.

As the Post editorial says, "Mr. Ashcroft always had the power to alleviate public concerns by releasing a reasonable amount of information about his department's use of the power." It's just that the old Missourian lacks a balanced appreciation of what is reasonable, or (one rationally speculates), what is just.

So Ashcroft released a tiny byte of data, so what? "The attorney general of the United States has no business jeering at those who, rightly or wrongly, disagree with his policies or disfavor a particular law." says the Post. "And the administration's disregard for civil liberties in other areas -- particularly its assertion of authority to designate U.S. citizens "enemy combatants," lock them up and deny them access to counsel -- naturally inflames suspicion."

If John Ashcroft thinks criticism of his Patriot Act is hysterical, then hysteria must be the natural state of true patriots.

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