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FBI Wants to Tap The Net
Majik was among the stream sof people submitting this story about the FBI wanting to
tap the net. Makes carnivore look like a baby monitor since this tracks all packets, and would be placed at key locations on the net.
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would rather not say
By Charles Laurence in New York
(Filed: 21/10/2001)
THE most detailed analysis yet of the contested Florida
votes from last year's presidential election - with the
potential to question President Bush's legitimacy - is being
withheld by the news organisations that commissioned it.
Results of the inspection of more than 170,000 votes
rejected as unreadable in the "hanging chad" chaos of last
November's vote count were ready at the end of August.
The study was commissioned early this year by a
consortium including the Wall Street Journal, the
Washington Post and the New York Times, the nation's
most powerful newspapers, and the broadcaster CNN.
It was regarded as a means of supplying final answers to
the nagging questions over President Bush's razor-thin
victory margin. The cost was more than £700,000.
Now, however, spokesmen for the consortium say that
they decided to "postpone" the story of the analysis by
the National Opinion Research Centre (NORC) at the
University of Chicago for lack of resources and lack of
interest in the face of the enormous story of the
September 11 attacks and the subsequent "war on
terrorism".
Newspapers were saying last week that the final phase of
the analysis, the actual counting of the 170,000 votes,
had been "postponed" but would become known at an
appropriate time.
America's liberal newspaper establishment originally set
up the commission in the belief that it would discover that
Al Gore was the winner of the Florida count.
Their hope for a Gore victory appears to have been
sacrificed on the altar of patriotism and a perception that
America needs to be led into war by a strong president.
"Our belief is that the priorities of the country have
changed, and our priorities have changed," said Steven
Goldstein, the vice-president of corporate communications
at Dow Jones and Co, the owners of the Wall Street
Journal.
Catherine Mathis, a spokesman for the New York Times,
said: "The consortium agreed that because of the war,
because of our lack of resources, we were postponing the
vote-count investigation. But this is not final. The intention
is to go forward."
However David Podvin, an investigative journalist who
runs an independent web page, Make Them Accountable,
said he had been tipped off that the consortium was
covering up the results.
He refused to disclose his source other than to describe
him as a former media executive whom he knew "as an
accurate conduit of information" and who claimed that the
consortium "is deliberately hiding the results of its recount
because Gore was the indisputable winner".
He also claims that a New York Times journalist who was
involved in the recount project had told "a former
companion" that the Gore victory margin was big enough
to create "major trouble for the Bush presidency if this
ever gets out".
He believes that the inspection, carried out over months
by a team from NORC, proves that Mr Gore won Florida
and, therefore, the election.
That theory, however, is countered by the NORC staff
who say that they designed the inspection programme so
that no one has yet counted the votes and no outcome
could be known.
Dr John Mason, a professor of political science at William
Paterson University, in New Jersey said: "The goosiness,
the sensitivity, that the press which organised this
analysis is showing to publishing the results and the
persistence of questions about the Florida ballots raise
questions. There is a sensitivity over the legitimacy of this
president."
Staff at NORC have been puzzled by the idea that the
media would lack the resources because, according to
them, they have computer programs already designed
and fitted for the final count.
Julie Antelman of NORC said: "They are all ready to go,
and could have the count and the result within a working
week."
She added: "We very carefully kept our distance from the
political implications of whatever the result may be. We
do not know the outcome, and do not want to.
"Our job was to prepare the raw data which goes into the
counting programs: we are simply waiting for the order to
deliver this data to the consortium, which we expected
within the first two weeks of September."
NORC analysts studied each of the 170,000 votes which
were discarded because they were considered spoiled or
simply unreadable. Each ballot paper has now been
analysed and recorded to the ballot box and constituency
where it was cast.
French and Canadian newspapers suggest that the
black-out can only raise suspicions, and the issue is being
increasingly aired on the internet.
Dr Mason said: "It would be responsible to complete this
study and produce the result, whatever it may be."
I'm pretty sure I have one in my pants.