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Swarthmore Students Keep Diebold Memos Online
An anonymous reader submits "Two student groups based out of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania announced today that they are rejecting Diebold Elections Systems' cease-and-desist orders and are initiating an electronic civil disobedience campaign that will ensure permanent public access to the controversial leaked memos. You can read the memos, search the memos, or download the memos."
Or host them in another country, and you'll always have access to them.
As far as I can tell, it's only sleezy Diebold who is telling people not to post the memos. Unless these kids are standing up against a court order to take down the information, they are hardly participating in civil disobedience just because they are pointing out serious flaws in Diebold's buggy system and not listening to Diebold when they say to stop, flaws that Diebold would apparently like to hide.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Just another example of how America's colleges promote liberalism
Okay. That's a good thing.
and anti-americanism
How is it anti-American to expose flaws in voting machines which could threaten the very heart of our society; the fair democratic election of our leaders?
and promote the acceptance of lawbreaking
We should accept lawbreaking when the laws being broken. Did you ever learn about the Boston Tea Party? Ever hear of Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on a bus? Civil disobedience has a long, proud history in America.
If you like conservatism and patriotism, and you dislike civil disobedience, then move to Communist China. They are very conservative, very patriotic, and don't tolerate civil disobedience. Your kind of people...
The aptly-named "liberal arts college" should be banned if you ask me.
No one did, but you'd have really appreciated Mao's Cultural Revolution where intellectuals were rounded up and sent to brutal labor camps.
From the link...
War? believes that what we are doing is legal; though we see it as an issue of electronic civil disobedience we believe it is Diebold which is abusing copyright law in an attempt to shut down free speech and the democratic process.
Okay, now it's either legal OR it's civil disobedience (i.e., intentionally breaking a law, and accepting an unjust punishment, to draw attention to an issue). As someone who supports this effort -- someone who's done a little political action and gets steaming mad at scatterbrained hippies who drag down liberal progressive movements -- I'd prefer that they straighten out the claims of their action.
I think it would be preferable to claim that Diebold's cease-and-desist order is illegal and unenforceable. Then, keeping the memos online is even better than civil disobedience (noble in its own right), it's actually civil obedience for a just cause.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
It's not like this is going to favor Republicans just because the guy running Diebold is a Republican - with security this bad it's open season for everyone. I think the more worrying thing would be if these machines weren't hackable but were iron-clad, then the only backdoors would belong to the guys who wrote the code; instead, the backdoors are wide open to any idiot who wishes to wander in.
If these machines really are hackable then they'll be hacked, and going by the intelligence of your average script kiddie they'll be hacked to such a ridiculous degree that the results will clearly be fake and the judiciary will declare all of these elections invalid. I mean, really, when Kevin Mitnick is mysteriously elected governor of Minnesota in a write-in vote and NORML supporters sweep the legislative elections in nine states, somebody's going to start asking questions...
Dear God. What these people consider a 'release" version should count as criminal negligence on an ordinary project. This is about an election, nothing - with the possible exception of the judicial system that may have to step in over this - is more important in our system of government.
I mean... My God ! They don't know what they're sending to the client ! "Is this a "testing" release or not? (Ashamed to ask). I think the hallucinations ought to be resurfacing with Steve already. Ken"
Where are the US Marshall's ? Ashamed to ask ? How's he gonna feel under interrogation ? Or on the witness stand. Draft 'em and send 'em to Leavenworth.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951