From: "Richard Clark" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Rigged voting machines: Is our democracy being made into a sham
The American vote-count is controlled by three major corporate
players --
Diebold, ES&S, and Sequoia -- with a fourth, Science Applications
International Corporation, coming on strong. TThese companies -- all
of them
hardwired into the Bushist Party power grid -- have been given
billions of
dollars by the Bush Regime to complete a sweeping computerization of
voting
machines nationwide by the 2004 election. These glitch-riddled
systems --
many using "touch-screen" technology that leaves no paper
trail at all --
are almost laughably open to manipulation, according to corporate
whistleblowers and computer scientists at Stanford, Johns Hopkins and
other
universities.
At Diebold -- whose corporate chief, Wally O'Dell, a top Bush
fundraiser,
has publicly committed himself to "delivering" his home
state's votes to
Bush next year -- the election division is run by Bob Urosevich. Bob's
brother, Todd, is a top e
xecutive at "rival" ES&S. The
brothers were
originally staked in the vote-count business by Howard Ahmanson, a
member of
the Council for National Policy, a right-wing "steering
group" stacked with
Bushist faithful.
Ahmanson is also one of the bagmen behind the extremist
"Christian
Reconstructionist" movement, which openly advocates a theocratic
takeover of
American democracy, placing the entire society under the
"dominion" of
"Christ the King." This "dominion" includes the
death penalty for
homosexuals, exclusion of citizenship for non-Christians, stoning of
sinners
and -- we kid you not -- slavery, "one of the most beneficent of
Biblical
laws."
Sequoia also has a colorful history,, most recently in Louisiana,
where it
was the center of a massive corruption case that sent top state
officials to
jail for bribery, most of it funneled through Mob-connected front
firms.
Sequoia executives we
re also indicted, but escaped trial after giving
immunized testimony against state officials. The British-owned
company's
corporate parent is private equity firm Madison Dearborn -- a partner
of the
Carlyle Group, where George Bush I makes millions trolling the world
for war
pork, privatizatiions and sweetheart deals with government insiders.
The unelected Bush Regime now controls the government, the military,
the
judiciary -- and the machinery of democracy itself. Absent some
unlikely
great awakening by the co-opted dullards of the corporate media, next
November the last shreds of a genuine American republic will
disappear -- at
the push of a button.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2003/09/19/120.html
More good articles on the subject:
E-Voting: How it Can Put the Wrong Candidate in Offic
e
Common Dreams, Sept. 3, 2003
The Theft of Your Vote is Just a Chip Away
Thom Hartmann, July 31, 2003
How George W. Bush Won the 2004 Presidential Election
Infernal Press, September 2003
Now Your Vote is the Property of a Private Corporation
Thom Hartmann, March 11, 2003
The Diebold AccuVote TS Should be Decertified
USENEX Security Symposium, Aug. 6, 2003
Who Counts the Votes?
Southern Exposure, Winter 2002/2003
Florida Invests $24 Million in Wireless Voting Machines
Wireless News Factor, Jan. 31, 2002
Diebold Internal Mail Confirms U.S. Vote Vulnerabilities
Scoop, Sept. 12,2002
Voting Machine Controversy as Diebold Chief Backs Bush
Cleveland Plain Dealer, Aug. 28, 2003
The Voting Machine Fiasco: SAIC, VoteHere and Diebold
Online Journal, Aug. 20, 2003
Hacking Democracy?
Salon.com, Feb. 20, 2003
Possible Flaw Triggers Electronic Voting Concerns
Houston Chronicle,
Sept. 11, 2003
Piecing it Together
Black Box Voting, Aug. 25, 2003
Many More Diebold Secrets Revealed - "Do not to offer damaging
opinions of
our systems, even when their failings become obvious...."
"Ideally, a
recount yields exactly the same results as the initial count.
However..." -
read the Diebold Election Systems' Election Support Guide here...
Diebold
Election Systems Election Manual For Staff
MORE:
- Bev Harris: Diebold End-Runs Around Certification
- Diebold Confirms U.S. Vote Count Vulnerabilities
SCOOP'S SCOOP - THE DIEBOLD FTP FILES
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From: "barbara gaines" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
ELECTION THEFT 2000! A NEW BOMBSHELL!
You might want to learn more about these Christian Reconstructionists
who control t he the two voting machine companies to whom we are
entrusting our ballot casting and counting...
# posted by mark @ 10:02 AM on his weblogMark Crispin Miller is a media critic, professor at New York University,
and the author of Boxed In: The Culture of TV and The Bush Dyslexicon
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
Alert: Diebold-Faircloth Connection!
Touch-screen machines part of a theocratic plot?
Diebold execs gave big-time support to "Christian Reconstructionists"—who believe that ONLY CHRISTIANS ought to have the right to vote!
From a friend in South Carolina:
Mark, Follow up research on Wally O'Dell from Diebold. His attempts
to isolate his personal political views from the corporations don't
fit with the facts. Personal donations to campaigns can be searched
at the FEC or through some other websites like CommonDreams.org. Try
searching the board and senior executives of Diebold and see if you
can find any Democrats. More surprising, there is a concerted pattern
of donations to one candidate outside Ohio. Many of Diebold's
executives gave money to the North Carolina Senatorial candidate
Lauch Faircloth.... on the same day!!!!
An added twist is that Lauch Faircloth has alwasy been openly opposed
to allowing all Americans to vote. He is a leader of CNP, the
Christian reconstructionists who believe only Christians should be
allowed to vote. How can a voting machine company have so many
executives line up behind a candidate who is opposed to counting all
the votes? It certainly gives you some scope for interesting
questions to good old Wally O'Dell!
Brief background, with links, in case you want a quick synopsis:
From: †http://www.barf.org/articles/0015/
†"Whitehead shares with Rushdoony, along with many other far-right
members of the Biblical America †establishment, membership in the
secretive Council for National Policy (CNP). As of 1996, both
†Whitehead and Rushdoony, along with others such as Pat Robertson,
Howard Phillips of the U.S. †Taxpayers Party, Oliver North, Jesse
Helms and Lauch Faircloth, were members of the CNP."
"While Biblical America views the secular world as the harbinger of
the totalitarian state, its faithful minions have begun to act, not
as a conspiracy but as a subculture, subverting democratic
institutions to eventually warp our government into something
resembling a fascist theocratic state. It is their vision †of a
future totalitarian regime, in which only approved Christians would
have full citizenship, the Bible †the b asis of all law, and many of
us live as slaves, that drives them. "
Here are some of the donations from senior execs at Diebold, you can
verify via FEC searches:
Michael J. Hillock President, Diebold International
11/18/97 $500.00 FAIRCLOTH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE 1998
David Bucci Senior Vice President, Customer Solutions Group
11/19/97 $500.00 FAIRCLOTH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE 1998
Warren W. Dettinger Vice President, General Counsel and
Assistant Secretary
11/20/97 $300.00 FAIRCLOTH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE 1998
Donald E. Eagon, Jr. Vice President, Global Communications &
Investor Relations
11/21/97 $300.00 FAIRCLOTH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE 1998
Larry D. Ingram Vice President, Procurement and Services
11/22/97 $300.00 FAIRCLOTH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE 1998 † Dennis M.
Moriarty Vice President, Customer Business Solutions
11/23/97 $300.00 FAIRCLOTH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE 1998 † Anthony J.
Rusciano Vice President, National Accounts
11/24/97 $300.00 FAIRCLOTH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE 1998 --- Tony lists
himself as 'retired' on the FEC form and uses his vacation
home address to try to hide this 'all on the ssame day'
donation pattern. † Charles B. Scheurer Vice President,
Corporate Human Resources
11/25/97 $300.00 FAIRCLOTH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE 1998
Robert J. Warren Vice President and Treasurer
11/26/97 $300.00 FAIRCLOTH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE 1998
Full article with a complete list of their donations is at:
http://www.Bartcop.com/diebold.htm
If you want to really worry yourself, take a look at the other big
player in making our 'no paper trail' voting machines. They are
called ES&S. The president of that company was Senator
(R) Chuck Hagel's campaign manager. They also have senior staff
making lots of donations to the CNP stealth candidates like Mike
Fair from Greenville SC.
Full article with links at: http://www.bartcop.com/111402faun.htm
You might want to learn more about these Christian Reconstructionists
who control the the two voting machine companies to whom we are
entrusting our ballot casting and counting:
http://www.qrd.org/qrd/www/rrr/recon.html
†"Christian Reconstructionism is an extreme form of post-millenial,
Calvinistic Protestantism which †argues that it is the moral
obligation of Chris tians to reclaim every "worldly" institution for
Christ. †Reconstructionism also holds that the entire Law of the
Pentateuch continues as a standard of †righteousness even today for
Christians, and that Christians must exercise dominion through the
†power of God's Law over all the Earth before Christ shall come
again. As part of their theology, †reconstructionists hold that,
under the coming "kingdom of God", which they are actively engaged in
†bringing about, that the Biblical penalty for homosexuality (death)
will be enforced, though they will †always demur that they do not
advocate that the penalty be applied today, but only in some nebulous
†future time when they believe that God will have instituted a
theocratic form of government."
A theocratic form of government? I go to church on occasion but don't
believe we should replace our constitution with a group of mad
mullahs making all the laws.
# posted by mar k @ 1:05 PM
Monday, September 22, 2003
NEW LINK ON ELECTION FRAUD 2000
The site whose URL I posted yesterday has been taken down—possibly because of a cease-and-desist order from Diebold. (The company has been especially vigilant against such public revelation.)
Try this one instead:
http://workersrighttovote.org/diebold/msg00069.html
# posted by mark @ 12:49 PM
Sunday, September 21, 2003
ELECTION THEFT 2000! A NEW BOMBSHELL!
Diebold Internal Support Memos
CHECK THIS OUT!
A remarkable exchange concerning Diebold's voting machines in Volusia County, Florida. On January 17, 2001, Lana Hines, a county elections official sends out an inquiry as to how Al Gore ended up with a vote-count of -16,022. That's NEGATIVE 16,0 22—which just happens also to have been the total number of votes cast for various independent and third-party candidates who also ran. (It was the largest number of such votes cast in Volusia County's history.)
Pay close attention to the final entry, from "Tab"—that is, Talbot Iredale, Vice President of Research & Development at Global/Diebold. The most troubling of his statement is in bold below. Iredale writes:
...the error could only occur in one of four ways:
1.Corrupt memory card. This is the most likely explaination for the
problem but since I know nothing about the 'second' memory card I have
no ability to confirm the probability of this.
2.Invalid read from good memory card. This is unlikely since the
candidates['] results for the race are not all read at the same time and
the corruption was limited to a single race.There is a possib[ili]ty that
a section of the memory card was bad but since I do not know anything
more about the 'second' memory card I cannot validate this.
3.Corruption of memory, whether on the host or Accu-Vote. Again this is
unlikely due to the localization of the problem to a single race.
4.Invalid memory card (i.e. one that should not have been
uploaded). There is always the possib[i]lity that the 'second memory card'
or 'second upload' came from an un-authorised source.
And that's only the tip of the iceberg.
When will this all-important story break out in the US mainstream press?
When will the Democrats confront the issue? What is at stake here is their future as a party—and ours as a democracy.
# posted by mark @ 4:23 PM
Continuing Fallout
http://markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com/Sligh t correction
Regarding yesterday's post, my friend in South Carolina writes:
Something in the posting process has changed the donation dates of the Diebold execs so they are sequential rather than all on the same day. They all donated (after a prayer meeting perhaps?) on 11/18/97.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]!!! DIEBOLD SHUTS DOWN BLACK BOX VOTING SITE !!!Here's what you can do to help: Get the word out far and wide that Diebold has done this thing. More info: http://www.blackboxvoting.com 1. Diebold issued a pull-down demand under DMCA for the BlackBoxVoting.org web site, citing a link posted on a forum in the site, claiming that the link allowed web visitors to visit an unrelated page, containing Diebold internal memos, which they say they own the copyright to. 2. Not only was BlackBoxVoting.org pulled down, but ALL of the documents, databases and programming for approximately 500 pages of material, most of which did not relate to Diebold at all, was confiscated. Dozens of web pages were pulled down which had nothing whatever to do with the disputed information. According to AIT Inc, the parent ISP, their North Carolina attorney, James Baker advised them that they should remove the entire web site and disable access to the FTP so that Bev Harris or Black Box Voting could no longer access their files (even for the purpose of removing them.) After a negotiation this morning with Black Box Voting publisher David Allen, AIT Inc. agreed to reinstate access to the files but still declined to reinstate the pages of the web site which were not named in the complaint. 3. The confiscated pages included personal contact information for 200 activists, and the private strategy sessions for voting machine activists. BlackBoxVoting.org has yet to receive any explanation at all as to what authority they were confiscated under. We demand their immediate return. "The .org site had an active discussion going on among people from all over the US and world about election security and flaws found in Diebold's voting system software. The idea that these discussion boards were confiscated is rather chilling. The discussions were password protected and not open for public view. "In addition to the impact this action will have on the election security debate, it also may represent the first time the DMCA has been used to shut down a discussion. Although I don't know much about the DMCA, I do think it wasn't written with this kind of purpose in mind." -- Kim Alexander, California Voter Foundation ------------------------------------- 4. Does Diebold even have a legitimate copyright to the memos which the link led to? Most of the memos in question were written in Canada, and resided on a server in Canada up to and including 2003 after Diebold bought a Canadian company called Global Election Systems. In Canada, company correspondence, even internal memos, is not protected by copyright. To date we have been unable to find evidence, other than a claim in a letter, that Diebold even owns the copyright to these memos. 5. These memos are more properly termed "Evidence," because they contain evidence of a pattern of lawbreaking that dates back at least to 1999. 6. Lexis-Nexis would be a worthwhile exercise now for every one of these search terms pertaining to the origins of Global Election Systems: This firm was a wholly owned subsidiary of North American Professional Technologies, Inc., which was in turn a wholly owned subsidiary of MacroTrends Ventures International, Ltd. Charles Hong Lee is one of the principals with these firms; He has been tied in the press to participation in a scheme to bilk immigrants out of some $47 million; he is also connected with a scandal in which a Mr. Graye was prosecuted, relating to Vinex Wines. Charles Hong Lee was also involved with something called "The Vancouver Maneuver," a stock pump & dump scheme that bilked investors out of millions in connection with an entertainment company and something called Beverly Development. Charles Hong Lee was a principal with Global Election Systems, along with the late Clinton Rickards. Talbot Iredale, currently the V.P. for Research and Development for Diebold Election Systems, began with the company in 1991, right around the time the Vancouver Maneuver was exposed in Barron's magazine. This is the pedigree from whence the Diebold Memos arose. ==================================== Here is a contribution originally from Slashdot, made available for the Black Box Voting book by Donald Way. (Diebold: This is satire and meant for entertainment purposes only. If you would like to spend several more $500 per hour lawyer fees suing us over satire, go right ahead.) CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT Pending: your vote is now the property of Diebold, Inc. Any attempt on your part to ascertain the disposition of your vote is hereby declared to be in violation of federal law, e.g., the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. You have the right not to vote. Any vote you make can be used against you in a court of law. The judge presiding in such a court of law may be appointed by Diebold, Inc., and need not require a jury, but if a jury is summoned, it need not be a jury of your peers. By acting to vote you consent to our determining whether your vote is valid, and in the event it is judged not to be valid, you consent to our voiding your vote and further voiding your right to vote in the future. You furthermore acknowledge that owing to storage and bandwidth limitations that Diebold, Inc., may experience, your vote may be digitally compressed in a way such that your true intent in casting the vote may be lost. If such an eventuality should occur, your vote may be determined using statistical data derived from any source we deem appropriate or convenient. You have the right to protest if your vote is cancelled, altered, or in any way modified as the result of such action on our part, however, you hereby acknowledge that in such an eventuality, Diebold, Inc. may determine that your right to vote is deleterious to democracy as implement by Diebold, Inc., and therefore may be considered to be an overt act against the national security of these United States. You have 10 seconds to comply. God Bless America~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`From: "President, USA Exile Govt." [EMAIL PROTECTED]Helpful Links on US Rigged ElectionsForwarded with Compliments of Government of the USA in Exile (GUSAE): Free Americans Resisting the Fourth Reich on Behalf of All Species. NOTE: Thanks to Soula Culver for these valuable additions. -- kl, pp Subject: "Disappearing" the Republic at the Push of a Button Hi Pondo, here is a list of links related to this story that I just discovered had originally appeared with it on http://www.sptimes.ru/archive/times/904/opinion/o_10419.htm --Soula ------------------ E-Voting: How it Can Put the Wrong Candidate in Office http://www.commondreams.org/ Common Dreams, Sept. 3, 2003 The Theft of Your Vote is Just a Chip Away http://www.SmirkingChimp.com/article.php?sid=12461 Thom Hartmann, July 31, 2003 How George W. Bush Won the 2004 Presidential Election http://www.infernalpress.com/Columns/election.html Infernal Press, September 2003 Now Your Vote is the Property of a Private Corporation http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=10536 Thom Hartmann, March 11, 2003 The Diebold AccuVote TS Should be Decertified http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/voting/dieboldusenix.html USENEX Security Symposium, Aug. 6, 2003 Who Counts the Votes? http://www.southernstudies.org/reports/votingmachines-new.htm Southern Exposure, Winter 2002/2003 Florida Invests $24 Million in Wireless Voting Machines http://www.wirelessnewsfactor.com/perl/story/16104.html Wireless News Factor, Jan. 31, 2002 Diebold Internal Mail Confirms U.S. Vote Vulnerabilities http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0309/S00106.htm Scoop, Sept. 12,2002 Voting Machine Controversy as Diebold Chief Backs Bush http://www.cleveland.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news/106207171078040.xml Cleveland Plain Dealer, Aug. 28, 2003 The Voting Machine Fiasco: SAIC, VoteHere and Diebold http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/082003Landes/082003landes.html Online Journal, Aug. 20, 2003 Hacking Democracy? http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/02/20/voting_machines/print.html Salon.com, Feb. 20, 2003 Possible Flaw Triggers Electronic Voting Concerns http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2092678 Houston Chronicle, Sept. 11, 2003 Piecing it Together http://www.blackboxvoting.com/ Black Box Voting, Aug. 25, 2003 Bay of Pigs 2000: The November Surprise http://www.madcowprod.com/welcomechad.htm Madcow Morning News, Dec. 26, 2000 Slavery Under God's Laws http://www.serve.com/thibodep/cr/slavery.htm The Institute for Christian Economics, Stoning: Integral to Commandment Against Murder http://www.serve.com/thibodep/cr/stoning2.htm The Institute for Christian Economics, World Conquest: The Obligation of Christian Politics http://www.serve.com/thibodep/cr/worldcnq.htm The Changing of the Guard, Dominion Press, An Anthology of Reconstructist Thought http://www.serve.com/thibodep/cr/cr.htm Christian Reconstructionism, November 2002 Judicial Warfare: Christian Reconstructionism and its Blueprint for Dominion http://www.crownrights.com/reconstruction/ Crown Rights Press, 2003 British Firm Buys Controlling Interest in Sequoia Voting Systems http://eastbay.bizjournals.com/eastbay/stories/2002/05/27/daily30.html?t=printable Eastbay Business Times, May 29, 2003 A High-Tech Ambush http://www.ecotalk.org/Vote-By-Mail.htm Eco Talk, Oct. 29, 2002 Louisiana Election Commissioner Pleads Guilty in Kickback Scandal http://www.oakridger.com/stories/112800/stt_1128000038.html The Oak Ridger, Nov. 28, 2000 Pipeline Partnership Take Under: Madison Dearborn and Carlyle http://www.mcdep.com/MR30424.PDF Meter Reader Energy Stock Analysis, April 24, 2003 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Forwarded with Compliments of Government of the USA in Exile (GUSAE): Free Americans Resisting the Fourth Reich on Behalf of All Species. NOTE: Thanks to Rick Davis for this. -- kl, pp September 26, 2003 http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd09262003.html Vanishing Act: "Disappearing" the Republic at the Push of a Button By CHRIS FLOYD It's a shell game, with money, companies and corporate brands switching in a blur of buy-outs and bogus fronts. It's a sinkhole, where mobbed-up operators, paid-off public servants, crazed Christian fascists, CIA shadow-jobbers, war-pimping arms dealers--and presidential family members--lie down together in the slime. It's a hacker's dream, with pork-funded, half-finished, secretly-programmed computer systems installed without basic security standards by politically-partisan private firms, and protected by law from public scrutiny. It's how America, the "world's greatest democracy," casts its votes. And it's why George W. Bush will almost certainly be the next president of the United States--no matter what the people of the United States might want. The American vote-count is controlled by three major corporate players--Diebold, ES&S, and Sequoia--with a fourth, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), coming on strong. These companies--all of them hardwired into the Bushist Party power grid--have been given billions of dollars by the Bush Regime to complete a sweeping computerization of voting machines nation-wide by the 2004 election. These glitch-riddled systems--many using "touch-screen" technology that leaves no paper trail at all--are almost laughably open to manipulation, according to corporate whistleblowers and computer scientists at Stanford, John Hopkins and other universities. The technology had a trial run in the 2002 mid-term elections. In Georgia, serviced by new Diebold systems, a popular Democratic governor and senator were both unseated in what the media called "amazing" upsets, with results showing vote swings of up to 16 percent from the last pre-ballot polls. In computerized Minnesota, former vice president Walter Mondale--a replacement for popular incumbent Paul Wellstone, who died in a plane crash days before the vote--was also defeated in a large last-second vote swing. Convenient "glitches" in Florida saw an untold number of votes intended for the Democratic candidate registering instead for Governor Jeb "L'il Brother" Bush. A Florida Democrat who lost a similarly "glitched" local election went to court to have the computers examined--but the case was thrown out by a judge who ruled that the innards of America's voting machines are the "trade secrets" of the private companies who make them. Who's behind these private companies? It's hard to tell: the corporate lines--even the bloodlines--of these "competitors" are so intricately mixed. For example, at Diebold--whose corporate chief, Wally O'Dell, a top Bush fundraiser, has publicly committed himself to "delivering" his home state's votes to Bush next year--the election division is run by Bob Urosevich. Bob's brother, Todd, is a top executive at "rival" ES&S. The brothers were originally staked in the vote-count business by Howard Ahmanson, a member of the Council for National Policy, a right-wing "steering group" stacked with Bushist faithful. Ahmanson is also one of the bagmen behind the "Christian Reconstructionist" movement, an extremist faction that openly advocates a theocratic takeover of American democracy, with the imposition of strict Christian dominion, placing "the state, the school, the arts and sciences, law, economics, and every other sphere under Christ the King." This "dominion" includes the death penalty for homosexuals, exclusion of citizenship for non-Christians, stoning of sinners and--we kid you not--slavery, "one of the most beneficent of Biblical laws." As the movement's leader--and Ahmanson's fellow CNP member--R.J. Rushdoony puts it: "The Christian should therefore not fear laws in support of Christian social goals just because they interfere with personal freedom." Ahmanson also holds a major stake in ES&S, where he's joined by Republican Senator Chuck Hagel. Before his ascension to high office, Hagel was CEO of an earlier ES&S incarnation. Thus, when he ran for the Senate, his own company counted the votes. Needless to say, his initial victory was reported as "an amazing upset." Hagel still has a million-dollar stake in the parent company of ES&S. In Florida, Jeb Bush's first choice for a running mate in his 1998 gubernatorial race was ES&S lobbyist Sandra Mortham, who made a mint installing the machines that counted Jeb's votes. Sequoia also has a colorful history, most recently in Louisiana, where it was the center of a massive corruption case that sent top state officials to jail for bribery, most of it funneled through Mob-connected front firms. Sequoia executives were also indicted, but escaped trial after giving immunized testimony against state officials. The company's corporate parent is the UK communications and printing firm De La Rue, which even as we speak is churning out the colonial currency notes for the new Iraq, courtesy of a hefty Coalition contract. De La Rue, in turn, is owned by the private equity firm Madison Dearborn--a partner of the Carlyle Group, where George Bush I makes millions trolling the world for war pork, privatizations and sweetheart deals with government insiders. Investigations by Bev Harris, Thom Hartmann and many others have forced some of these concerns about computer voting into the edge of the mainstream. Maryland, for example, was so worried about its fat new contract with Diebold that it hired another company to vet the software: SAIC. On the surface, this seems a bit like asking Pepsi to certify the taste of Coke, as top SAIC executives have now spun off into the vote-counting game. These include former CEO Admiral Bill Owens--former military aide to Dick Cheney and Carlyle honcho Frank Carlucci--and ex-CIA director Robert Gates, of Iran-Contra fame. Another SAIC executive, David Kay, has been hired by the Bushists to "find" Iraq's elusive weapons of mass destruction. SAIC's long history of fraud charges and security lapses in its electronic systems hasn't prevented it from becoming one of the largest contractors for the Pentagon and the CIA--and it will doubtless pose little obstacle to its entrance into election engineering. The mad rush to install unverifiable computer voting is driven by the Help America Vote Act, signed by Bush last year. The chief lobbying group pushing for HAVA was a consortium of arms dealers--those disinterested corporate citizens--including Northop-Grumman and Lockheed-Martin. The bill also mandates that all states adopt the computerized "voter purge" system used by Florida's Jeb Bush to eliminate 91,000 eligible black voters from the rolls in November 2000. This was done by a private firm, the Republican-run ChoicePoint Inc., which delivered a list of supposedly "ineligible" voters--identified by race--to Florida officials. ChoicePoint was supposed to help local officials correct any mistakes, but despite taking several million dollars for this task, they somehow neglected to do it. Now Bush's HAVA requires that all states conduct similar operations--and no points for guessing which Republican-run private firm is gobbling up the lion's share of those contracts. (This gives a whole new meaning to the term "whitewash"). The unelected Bush Regime now controls the government, the military, the judiciary--and the machinery of democracy itself. Absent some unlikely great awakening by the co-opted dullards of the corporate media, next November the last shreds of a genuine American republic will disappear--at the push of a button. ======================================================= Chris Floyd is a columnist for the Moscow Times and a regular contributor to CounterPunch. His CounterPunch piece on Rumsfeld's plan to provoke terrorist attacks came in at Number 4 on Project Censored's final tally of the Most Censored stories of 2002. He can be reached at: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~From: Mike Hawkins [EMAIL PROTECTED]Voting Machine Fiasco: SAIC, VoteHere and Diebold... Scam to Vet Software?
Voting Machine Fiasco: SAIC,, VoteHere and Diebold
... Scam to Vet Software?by Lynn Landes (8/18/03)
The voting machine wars are heating up and the implications of vote fraud in America are even more ominous.
Computer scientist Avi Rubin, whose Johns Hopkins University team found serious flaws in Diebold Election Systems software abruptly resigned from VoteHere, another election software company.
In a related story, on August 6th Maryland Governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) gave a contract to Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to review the Diebold Election System's software in preparation for elections in Maryland. The report is due in four weeks.
Avi Rubin announced today his resignation from VoteHere, an elections systems company. His statement reads: "Effective immediately, I am resigning from the Technical Advisory Board of VoteHere, and I am returning all stock options, which have never been exe rcised, and which are not entirely vested." Unexercised stock options may be the least of Rubin's problems.
Rubin's relationship with VoteHere was a surprise to many.He does not list the affiliation on his website that features an extensive and detailed listing of his work. In fact, Rubin's announcement appears to be in response to an interview with this reporter regarding questions about his affiliation with VoteHere.
In his statement today, Rubin says, "...I had not had any contact with VoteHere since I signed on to their board over 2 years ago, and I simply did not remember nor think about it. In hindsight, that is very unfortunate."
And that, as they say, is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.VoteHere is being sued by its former engineer, Dan Spillane, for wrongfully firing him in retaliation to his repeated warnings of potential defects in voting software applicati ons and in the certification process.
SAIC is a behemoth military defense contractor with a shadowy, if not tarnished, reputation, while former SAIC executives also have ties to VoteHere. Why is that important? VoteHere is a growing company, which aspires to provide cryptography and computer software security for the electronic election industry.
Former President, Chief Operating Officer, and Vice Chairman of SAIC is Admiral Bill Owens, who is now Chairman of the Board for VoteHere. Owens also served as Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was a senior military assistant to Secretaries of Defense Frank Carlucci and Dick Cheney. Carlucci's company is Carlyle Group, while Vice President Dick Cheney's former employer is Halliburton.
Another former SAIC board member, also on the board of VoteHere, is ex-CIA director Robert Gates, a veteran of the Iran/Contra scandal.
VoteHere is already benefiting from the Diebold debacle, as it will be partnering with Sequoia Voting Systems, "to provide a new level of electronic ballot verification to customers of the AVC Edge touch screen voting system," according to the VoteHere website.
SAIC, which is supposed to vet Diebold's elections software, is itself in the elections business.
On a webpage of Diversified Dynamics (recently purchased by Northrop Grumman), a 1998 legal notice states, "Diversified Dynamics has brought the election process to the technological level of the new millennium by designing the world's most advanced electronic vote recording and election management system. We were supported in this effort by the engineering and software capabilities of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a world leader in systems development and integration."
All of the above companies are military defense contractors as well as information technology (IT) firms, whose clients include state governments a nd federal agencies.
Is it a conflict of interest when an industry insider reviews the software of a competitor?
Yes. However, these conflicts of interest may not necessarily discredit the Johns Hopkins report. The basic tenet of the report is true, say many computer experts who have reviewed Diebold's software. It is riddled with back doors that can be easily opened, an "open door" so to speak to vote fraud. It does, however, bring into question some of the conclusions of the report.
For example, computer voting expert Dr. Rebecca Mercuri has made it clear that although a machine may be used to produce a paper ballot, the ballot itself must be voter-verified and "hand counted" in order to ensure integrity to the voting process. In an interview with this reporter, Rubin said that he's "against" electronic voting. However, in the Hopkins report, the authors use language that indicates that they believe that paper ballots should be used for audits or recou nts only.
It should be also noted that the handicapped are being used by the election services industry to push for mandated electronic voting, and the Hopkins report strongly supports this strategy, "A voting system must be comprehensible to and usable by the entire voting population, regardless of age, infirmity, or disability."
That's code for "electronic voting is the only way to go." Tell that to the Canadians and other countries around the world that hold elections, which include the handicapped, without a Pandora's Box of electronic wizardry.
Meanwhile SAIC is a piece of work all by itself.
"The federal government, its main customer, often doesn't want the public to know what the company [SAIC] is doing and, as one of the nation's largest employee-owned corporations, it escapes investor scrutiny," writes AP correspondent Elliot Spagat, in a July 26, 2003 article.
J. Robert Beyster founded SAIC on February 3, 1969, "with a couple of c onsulting contracts, one from Los Alamos and one from Brookhaven National Labs," according to the SAIC website. Today, SAIC has racked up more than $5.9 billion in annual revenues.
In a 1995 article in the Web Review, editor Stephen Pizzo paints a disturbing picture of SAIC. "In 1990 SAIC was indicted by the Justice Department on 10 felony counts for fraud in its management of a Superfund toxic cleanup site. (SAIC pleaded guilty.)
In 1993 the Justice Department sued SAIC, accusing it of civil fraud on an F15 fighter contract.
In May 1995, the same month SAIC purchased NSI (Network Solutions Inc.), the company settled a suit that charged it had lied about security system tests it conducted for a Treasury Department currency plant in Fort Worth, TX."
According to a January 1994 article in the highly regarded Crypt Newsletter, edited by George Smith, "In 1992 one of Scientific Applications (SAIC) government projects blew up in the firm's face when it was charged with fabricating environmental testing from toxic waste dumps. SAIC eventually conceded to false claims and paid $1.3 million in penalties, a small sum compared to the estimated $1.5 billion the firm is expected to earn in 1994.
The Los Angeles Times cites government officials declaring Science Applications (SAIC) guilty of the "largest environmental fraud . . . we've had here" and an example of "corporate greed."
On November 15, 2000, a joint venture between SAIC and Bechtel (Bechtel SAIC Company, LLC) was awarded the contract from the Department of Energy (DOE) to manage and operate the Yucca Mountain program and support extensive DOE studies of Yucca Mountain's geology, hydrology, and climate.
In a Nov 24, 2002 Associated Press reported, "Some workers at the Yucca Mountain Project said there were flaws in the process scientists used to determine whether the site was suitable for disposing the nation's nuclear waste. At least two workers c laim they were either fired or transferred after raising concerns about the project's safety, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported in its Sunday editions. Susana Navarro said an audit by a prominent law firm found "among other things, that Mr. Mattimoe's conduct as a program manager for SAIC was inconsistent with a safety conscious work environment."
SAIC is perhaps most notorious among Internet aficionados for buying the company, Network Solutions Inc (NSI), which received the no-bid no-compete monopoly contract to privatize the government agency which registered domain names.
John Dillon reports in MediaFilter.org, "Initially, the service was subsidized by the government. But, in May 1993, the National Science Foundation privatized the name registry (InterNIC - Internet Network Information Center) and paid NSI $5.9 million to administer it. In September 1995, NSI instituted the fee system. A few months earlier, it had been bought out by Science Applications International Corp (SAIC)."
SAIC's control over internet domain names set off alarm bells.
"The shadow ruling-class within the Pentagon," describes SAIC to a tee, according to the Crypt. SAIC has strong business ties to the military and intelligence communities.
Dillon quotes James Warren, an Internet civil liberties activist, "I don't want a spook corporation, particularly a private spook corporation, to be anywhere near a control point on the global cooperative Internet."
It should be remembered that the CIA has a decades-long track record of assisting in the brutal overthrow of democratically elected governments around the world.
Recently, SAIC got the contract to assist other corporations, including Northrop Grumman, in training of the Iraqi Army.
The specter of corporations, littered with ex-CIA types, that both control the voting systems and train the armies of countries around the world, is an emerging and frightening reality.
"Currently on SAIC's board is ex-CIA director Bobby Ray Inman, director of the National Security Agency, deputy director of the CIA, and vice director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. According to the OC (*Orange County) Weekly, "Inman worked at the highest levels of American intelligence during an era (President Ronald Reagan) when it displayed a stunning lack of it. Inman's achievements include: failing to predict the peaceful collapse of the Soviet Union; prolonging violent, useless civil wars in Central America; and giving arms to terrorists in exchange for hostages (Iran Contra)."
"During the Bush administration, Inman, Perry and Deutch - while directors of Science Applications (SAIC), were also members of the National Foreign Intelligence Board (NFIB), an advisory group reporting to the President and the director of Central Intelligence, which deals with production, review and coordination of foreign intelligence," reports the Crypt. Both Inman and De utch were former Directors of the CIA. William J. Perry was also a former Secretary of Defense during the Clinton Administration.
SAIC proudly lists DARPA in its annual report as one of its prime clients. DARPA is the controversial Department of Defense (DOD) subsidiary, which until recently employed Admiral John Poindexter of Iran-Contra fame. Poindexter was forced to resign when it was revealed that DARPA was prepared to trade "futures" in terrorist attacks. DARPA has also developed a program to spy on American citizens, which has civil libertarians in an uproar.
So, what should Maryland's Governor Ehrlich do? Cancel the contracts with Diebold and SAIC, throw out all of the voting machines, and order a new batch of paper ballots. And most importantly, let the people count the votes.(Avi Rubin's statement / Rubin's webpage - http://AviRubin.com / Johns Hopkins report - http://avirubin.com/vote.pdf)
Lynn Landes is the publisher of EcoTalk.org and a news reporter for DUTV in Philadelphia, PA. Formerly Lynn was a radio show host for WDVR in New Jersey and a regular commentator for a BBC radio program. She can be reached at (215) 629-3553 / [EMAIL PROTECTED].
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