Diebold Folds In DMCA E-Voting Lawsuit

sunbird writes "Diebold has filed a responsive pleading (PDF) in the lawsuit brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation to challenge Diebold's practice of using the DMCA to suppress discussion of the critical flaws with electronic voting. Diebold states that it has "decided to withdraw its existing DMCA notifications and not to issue any further ones . . . ." Other recent developments include: this transcript of the court hearing on EFF's application for a preliminary injunction and Dennis Kucinich's linking to Diebold memos from his webpage at the U.S. House of Representatives. Stay tuned- the judge has scheduled a status conference for this Monday in the case."

Comments

hooray!

[pixitha]

win for the good side!

Re:hooray!

[silentbozo]

It's not a win unless the EFF wins the actual case. Although the main intent behind the suits was to stop Diebold from issuing any more takedown letters citing copyright, a successful injunction against Diebold would have sent a very strong message against any future abuses of copyright in ways contrary to the public good (ie, interference with 1st amendment protections.)

If the judge allows dismissal, the EFF misses a slam dunk chance to nibble away at corporate abuse (ie, the DMCA stands, Diebold gets away with saying "Oops, we really didn't mean to stifle free speech. We promise not to do it again *crossing fingers*" While OGP will probably be relieved that they won't have to go to the time and expense of trial, we're just postponing the inevitable courtroom clash between individual freedom and corporate manipulation of federal law.

Re:hooray!

[silentbozo]

Hmm, after reading the Diebold response, it looks like someone with half a brain and a clue got through to the idiot execs. It is essentially a total surrender, abandoning claims of irrepairable harm, a recognition that the materials are too widespread to control, and a conditional promise not to sue under copyright.

I was wrong - this is a win (sort of)! Too bad we had to file suit to generate this response though...

Re:hooray!

[Snowdrake]

...abandoning claims of irrepairable[sic] harm...

Actually, the way I read that part of the document suggested that this was not an abandonment of any claim on Diebold's part, but rather a disclaimer, in effect stating that the concessions are not an admission of "irreparable harm" to the plaintiffs. (IANAL blah blah)

Re:hooray!

[Adm1n]

Dibold should just stop making things,
Diebold: Our ATM's catch Viri, Our Voting machines don't work, but our 52 week report looks nice, so you can trust us.
I'm half tempted to put to gether a voiting worm and a cash worm, the voting worm would change all votes to the "Communist ballot" and the cash worm would make every single Windows XP based DieBold atm spew money for no apperant reason.

Re:hooray!

[SpaceLifeForm]

Better yet, make the voting machines dispense cash, and the ATMs to let you vote.
That should increase voter turnout.

Re:hooray!

[Zeinfeld]

It's not a win unless the EFF wins the actual case.

Screw the EFF case, the one that really matters is whether we get fair votes or not.

Down in Florida they showed just what the GOP is capable of, forget the recount. Before the poll even took place the Republicans disqualified over 150,000 voters, mostly black on bogus grounds. One man was disqualified because of a conviction in 2007!

The 'scrub' list was compilled by a GOP connected firm, despite the fact that their bid was $2.5 million rather than the $57 thousand one of the other companies bid. The list was compiled by matching the first four letters of the voters name, the date of birth and the race of the voter. This is how the poll was fixed, a white voter would not lose their vote because of a black convict still in jail in Texas.

There were also tricks played with the voting machines, not just the mechanical chad ridden ones. The optical scanners can be configured to reject a ballot if an error is detected or to silently consume it. The error can be voter error or machine error.

Well guess what? In the white areas the GOP configured the machines to give the voter another try if there was a problem. In the black areas the exact same machine was configured to silently eat the ballot. That is why the rates of miscounts were so much higher in the black areas (12%) than the white areas (1%). Easy when you know how.

Click on my sig and read the Pallast article which gives the blow by blow account. And before you squeak "bias" - the inquiry vindicated every one of the NAACP allegations. Only by that time Katherine Harris and the GOP had got away with it.

Re:hooray!

[Kickstart70]

Thanks for the PDF link in your sig. Once again I am dumbfounded that so many Americans had their voting right removed and so many other Americans don't care.

I'm Canadian (married to an American) and I'm still ashamed.

Re:hooray!

[jhylkema]

And on what do you base the scurrilous allegations? To the contrary, a number of news organizations (e.g., CNN) did their own recounts and said that Bush would have won anyway. Would you be as venomous if it had gone the other way? No, it would have been just "right wing ranting" and the electoral college would be a "cherished Constitutional tradition."

Fact is, Terry McAuliffe put all of his 2002 eggs in the basket of defeating Jeb Bush to prove the GOP "stole" the election. What happened? He got his ass handed to him. His guy lost by 13 points.

I'm not a big Bush fan, just trying to bring a little intellectual honesty to /.

Mod me to hell, I don't care, I'm maxed out on karma.

DMCA - how can i abuse thee, let me count the ways

[putaro]

Talk about a poorly crafted piece of legislation. There are so many ways to abuse this ridiculous thing. It really needs to be amended to get rid of all of these legal like mechanisms that do not involve the courts. You should have to get a judge to issue an injunction to take material offline, not just say "You have to do it".

Diebold's defense that the plantiffs "did not suffer irreparable harm" because Diebold didn't actually sue them is outrageous. The threat to sue, especially by a party with deep pockets vs a small party definitely causes a chilling effect on free speech. If Diebold had not intention to sue, why did they ask for the material to be removed?

Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[divide overflow]

Now it's time for the substantive discussion of how best to tally the votes and ensure it is done accurately and impartially. This needs to be done in open public discussions by people who really know how to design and peer review such systems.

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[Snowdrake]

Unfortunately I have my doubts as to whether Diebold or any of the other voting-machine manufacturers would be particularly willing to go forward with such a process. As much as many of us (myself at times included) might like to believe that this is fueled by a massive right-wing conspiracy, the real fact is that it's just not their usual MO.

Prior to entry into the voting-machine market, Diebold's primary presence in computing has been in manufacturing ATMs. A brief consideration (disclaimer: I didn't research this and won't be held responsible if it turns out to be dead wrong) suggests that these are, by design, pretty much turnkey systems in which a large amount of the security is provided by an extremely limited user interface. There aren't a lot of branches in the ATM flowchart, and the necessary local configuration is probably minimal.

Now compare this to the requirements of a voting system. Because ballots vary greatly from one precinct to the next, each voting machine must store considerably more local configuration. With this comes a much more complex UI and many more opportunities for security to be compromised. If this is a first foray into a system this complex, it may be a simple underestimation of the requirements. When one considers that the operation of the Diebold voting machine as discussed in the Johns Hopkins paper is not unlike that of an ATM, it's easy to see where someone may have seen elections as just another nail to hit with their particular hammer. Little did they know that the demands are so different.

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[Progman3K]

>substantive discussion of how best to
>tally the votes and ensure it is done
>accurately and impartially.

>open public discussions

The process you're talking about sounds like democracy.

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[ajs318]

I'll tell you "how best to tally the votes and ensure it is done accurately and impartially" in just two words:

By hand.

But if you really must use machines, if it really is more important that it be done quickly than it be done right, then every aspect of the machines' operation must be absolutely open to public scrutiny at every stage of the process. Corporations' rights to make profits are subordinate to individuals' rights to democracy.

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[divide overflow]

>The process you're talking about sounds like democracy.

More precisely, it sounds like a *healthy* democracy, as opposed to what we currently have.

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[Anonymous Coward]

Paper ballots, which are fed into a simple optical reader at the polling station. The ballot is then dropped into a locked ballot box. The result can be counted instantly by the machines, but there is a good old-fashioned paper trail which can be hand counted should there be any doubt over the outcome.

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[divide overflow]

> I'll tell you "how best to tally the votes and ensure it is done accurately and impartially" in just two words:
>
>By hand.

My two words would be PAPER TRAIL.

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[Zeinfeld]

Prior to entry into the voting-machine market, Diebold's primary presence in computing has been in manufacturing ATMs. A brief consideration (disclaimer: I didn't research this and won't be held responsible if it turns out to be dead wrong) suggests that these are, by design, pretty much turnkey systems in which a large amount of the security is provided by an extremely limited user interface. There aren't a lot of branches in the ATM flowchart, and the necessary local configuration is probably minimal.

The local configuration may be minimal but it may be enough to rig the vote.

What we need to do is to make sure that the configurations of the machines are identical. The trick used in Florida was to program the machines differently in white and black areas. In the black areas the machines were set to silently disqualify any ballot that had a problem of any kind anywhere. In the white areas the machines were set to give an error when there was a problem and the voter could try again.

That is the reason why the error rate was 12% in the black areas and 1% in the white. It was not as the GOP shills tried to claim that the voters were stupid, the machines had been rigged. These facts were all corroborated in the enquiry.

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[Zeinfeld]

My two words would be PAPER TRAIL.

What use is a paper trail if the GOP can go to court again to prevent it being consulted if there is a dispute?

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[Monkelectric]

Do you have any documentation for this? I've never heard of that before, if its true that sure sounds like a smoking gun to me.

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[StenD]

The county with a 12% error rate was Gadsden County, and it did not have optical scanners at the precincts. Rather, the ballots were counted only at a central location, so there was no opportunity to permit an invalid ballot to be corrected.

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[Zeinfeld]

Do you have any documentation for this? I've never heard of that before, if its true that sure sounds like a smoking gun to me.

The allegation that Jeb Bush and Harris fixed the poll was confirmed by the commission. The guy who was unearthing this was Pallast. The US press would not publish him but the UK guardian, the BBC and the international press did. The US press only reported the story in July 2001 after the commission confirmed the evidence and Bush had been installed.

See the link in my sig for the first chapter of Pallast's book which documents the evidence at length.

You won't see the US media looking into this story or the Diebold story, they were bought off long ago. What is particularly sickening is the fact that these press barons like Maxwell and now Black that wield so much power so frequently turn out to be outright crooks. Black just got caught with his hands in the till, diverting $25 million from Hollinger without the knowledge of the board. He also diverted another $200 million with their approval.

Murodoch does not appear to be much different, he just installed his son to run Sky TV in the UK.

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[Anonymous Coward]

What use is a paper trail if the Democrats can again change the rules for counting the votes?

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[cheezedawg]

I assume you are basing this on Dr Lichtman's claim that "persons living in a county with a substantial African American or people of color population are more likely to have their ballots spoiled or discounted than persons living in the rest of Florida." (cited by the democrat majority in the USCCR report on the 2000 Florida election). This claim is a pretty good example of somebody trying to find evidence to support his preconceived conclusions, and it is thoroughly debunked in the dissenting statement.

Here are the facts:

Election procedures are controlled by the individual County Elections Supervisors. Out of the 25 counties with the highest ballot "spoilage" rates, 24 of the counties were supervised by a democrat, and the 25th was supervised by an independent.

The NAACP, who was called in to represent these minority voters that you claim were disenfranchised, were very clear that they don't allege that anybody "acted in a purposefully discriminatory manner toward any group."

Dr John Lott of Yale University did his own study, and he concluded that coefficient on the percent of voters who were black to the number of spoiled ballots was not statistically significant.

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[mpe]

I'll tell you "how best to tally the votes and ensure it is done accurately and impartially" in just two words:
By hand.
But if you really must use machines, if it really is more important that it be done quickly than it be done right,

Counting ballots by hand is not exactly slow and scales well. Given that many elections in the US do not take effect until months afterwards time is hardly a problem.

then every aspect of the machines' operation must be absolutely open to public scrutiny at every stage of the process.

It also makes sense to use the simplist machines which will do the job. e.g. paper collators which can sort ballots into only box A marked, only box B marked, etc.

Corporations' rights to make profits are subordinate to individuals' rights to democracy.

Is there any country on the planet where "corporate profit" is a consitutional right?

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[workindev]

The allegation that Jeb Bush and Harris fixed the poll was confirmed by the commission

Bull. Did you even read the commission report? From the Executive Summary:

The report does not find that the highest officials of the state conspired to disenfranchise voters. Moreover, even if it was foreseeable that certain actions by officials led to voter disenfranchisement, this alone does not mean that intentional discrimination occurred. Instead, the report concludes that officials ignored the mounting evidence of rising voter registration rates in communities.

The guy who was unearthing this was Pallast. The US press would not publish him but the UK guardian, the BBC and the international press did.

Isn't it interesting that the only "source" for these allegations is a so-called "reporter" who has renounced his US citizenship? It's quiet apparent that he has a vested interest in discrediting the Bush Presidency.

The US press only reported the story in July 2001 after the commission confirmed the evidence and Bush had been installed.

Again, Bull. Read the USCCR report before you look like an ass. The report did not find voter fraud, it found votor "disenfranchisement".

The Commission found that the problems Florida had during the 2000 presidential election were serious and not isolated. In many cases, they were foreseeable and should have been prevented. The failure to do so resulted in an extraordinarily high and inexcusable level of disenfranchisement, with a significantly disproportionate impact on African American voters

This conclusion led to a harsh Dissent from comissioner Abigail Thernstrom and Russel Redenbaugh, who said in part:

The Commission's report has little basis in fact. Its conclusions are based on a deeply flawed statistical analysis coupled with anecdotal evidence of limited value, unverified by a proper factual investigation. This shaky foundation is used to justify charges of the most serious nature--questioning the legitimacy of the American electoral process and the validity of the most recent presidential election. The report's central finding--that there was "widespread disenfranchisement and denial of voting rights" in Florida's 2000 presidential election--does not withstand even a cursory legal or scholarly scrutiny. Leveling such a serious charge without clear justification is an unwarranted assault upon the public's confidence in American democracy.

The only reason you won't see the US media looking into this story is simply because there is no story at all to report.

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[daveking]

Is there any country on the planet where "corporate profit" is a consitutional right?

Well put. Corporations do have many obligations and responsibilites, few privileges, and no rights.

For the moment at least, the United Nations seems to agree. They have created the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (read it!), but no similar declaration of corporate rights.

It is interesting to note that the UN does not declare that humans have any right to form corporations. Not even unprofitable ones.

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[Zeinfeld]

Again, Bull. Read the USCCR report before you look like an ass. The report did not find voter fraud, it found votor "disenfranchisement".

You call it voter disenfranchisement, I call it electoral fraud.

Harris and Bush willfully disobeyed a rack of court orders that required voters with the right to vote to be allowed to register. They also selected ChoicePoint to scrub the voter lists despite the fact they were the most expensive by 25 times the cost of the cheapest bid.

I am not stupid enough to expect the Bush Administration to allow a report to be printed that concluded that GW was elected by means of a fraud concocted by his brother. However the facts found by the report validate the claim that the ballot was rigged in a massively partisan manner.

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[Zeinfeld]

This claim is a pretty good example of somebody trying to find evidence to support his preconceived conclusions, and it is thoroughly debunked in the dissenting statement.

Ah so a dissenting statement by a group of Republicans proves that there was no electoral fraud!

Diebold say that their machines are completely reliable. So I guess that settles the matter, NO NEED TO WORRY DEARS.

That is it, sleep tight, the GOP tells us that they do not rig the polls, so we should just believe them. If anyone claims anything different THEY MUST BE A GODLESS COMMUNIST so anything they say can be ignored.

BTW the dissent disputes the findings by rejecting all the testimony and facts found as 'anecdotal' they provide no contradictory claims, nor do they dispute the evidence in detail, they dispute the claim that the returning officer and governor had responsibility, which is odd when you look who was responsible for compiling the list at the center of the claims and for distributing the wrong and illegal advice to the returning officers.

The other pillar of the dissent report is a regression analysis by a partisan statistician. As anyone in political science knows you can prove anything with regression analysis. Recently two reports on the subject of gun ownership were exposed as frauds, regression analysis does not show that gun ownership was rare in the US at the time the constitution was written, socre one for the NRA. Regression analysis does not show more guns less crime either score one for their opponents.

Regression analysis is a dangerous tool in political science because the number of factors influencing the data is large and the data available is small. Virtually any desired result can be obtained if you tweak your model.

The dissent is like one of those IHR rants that tries to claim that the Holocaust never happened. If you dismiss all the evidence you collect as anecdotal and play games with statistics you can claim black is white - which is exactly what the GOP did here.

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[workindev]

Harris and Bush willfully disobeyed a rack of court orders that required voters with the right to vote to be allowed to register. They also selected ChoicePoint to scrub the voter lists despite the fact they were the most expensive by 25 times the cost of the cheapest bid.

Again, you are misinformed and are obviosly basing your argument on factless partisan rhetoric. Harris and Bush had nothing to do with the selection of DBT/ChoicePoint. DBT/ChoicePoint was hired in 1997 (before Bush and Harris were even in office) as a result of Florida statute 98.0975 passed by the state legislature (again, before Bush and Harris were in offic), and they were comissioned by the Florida Director of Elections Ethel Baxtor, a democrat.

Bush and Harris also had nothing to do with the "scrubbing" of the voter list. As specified by Florida state law, this was the responsibility of the local county election officials. This means that if anybody was incorrectly removed from the voter registration, they were removed by their county election officials (who shockingly happen to be democrats in heavily democratic counties).

However the facts found by the report validate the claim that the ballot was rigged in a massively partisan manner.

Facts? What facts? The commission heard testimony from 5 people who were inaccurately included on the list, 4 of which were eventually allowed to vote after clearing up the problem. Are these the "facts" that you use to cite a rigged ballot in a "massively partisan manner"??

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[workindev]

Ah so a dissenting statement by a group of Republicans proves that there was no electoral fraud!

And a factless report by a group of partisan Democrats does prove it?

BTW the dissent disputes the findings by rejecting all the testimony and facts found as 'anecdotal' they provide no contradictory claims, nor do they dispute the evidence in detail, they dispute the claim that the returning officer and governor had responsibility, which is odd when you look who was responsible for compiling the list at the center of the claims and for distributing the wrong and illegal advice to the returning officers.

Lets look at the "facts" represented by the USCCR report.

Willie D. Whiting, Jr., a member of the clergy and registered voter in Tallahassee, who went with his family to vote at his assigned polling place, Precinct 42 in Leon County. When Apostle Whiting presented his driver's license for identification purposes, the poll worker said his name was not on the registration list and called the supervisor of elections for Leon County to verify his registration status. Apostle Whiting asked to speak with a supervisor at that office, and he was told that an individual named Willie J. Whiting, born two days after Apostle Whiting, had been convicted of a felony in the state of Florida. Consequently, Apostle Whiting learned he had been wrongfully removed from the registration list. After Apostle Whiting threatened to contact an attorney, he was allowed to vote.[204]

William J. Snow, Jr., a Miami-Dade resident, testified that he received notice that he would be ineligible to vote in the November 2000 election because of a felony conviction. Receiving the notice "caused a great stress" upon Mr. Snow's heart because he had never been convicted of a felony. Mr. Snow testified that the problem has been corrected. Mr. Snow has been a Miami-Dade County resident for more than 33 years and voted in the 1996 election without incident.[205]

Marilyn Nelson, a poll worker with 15 years of experience in Precinct 232 in Miami-Dade County, encountered "quite a few" people whose names did not appear on the rolls at her precinct. When she called the supervisor of elections office, she was told that their rights had been taken away from them due to an alleged felony conviction. She was further instructed by the supervisor's office that she could not inform those voters of the reason for their removal from the rolls, but she was instructed to "tell them to call downtown at a later date."[206]

Professor Darryl Paulson testified that the Hillsborough County supervisor of elections estimated that 15 percent of those purged were purged in error and they were disproportionately African American. According to Professor Paulson, another source estimated that 7,000 voters, mostly African Americans and registered Democrats, were removed from the list.[207]

According to news reports, even those who had received a full pardon for their offenses were listed on DBT's exclusion list.

Reverend Willie Dixon, a Tampa resident, received a full pardon for drug offenses in 1985, and has since become a youth leader, a bible preacher, and a "pillar of the Tampa African American community who has voted in every presidential election."[208] But despite his 15 years of voting status, Pam Iorio, the supervisor of elections for Hillsborough County, sent Reverend Dixon a letter informing him that he had been removed from the rolls because of a prior conviction.[209] Eventually, Reverend Dixon was able to verify his status as a registered voter.[210]

Media accounts also captured the impact of list maintenance activities and the frustration they caused for Florida voters.[211]

Wallace McDonald, in 1959, was convicted of a misdemeanor, vagrancy, for falling asleep on a bench in Tampa while he waited for a bus. In 2000, Mr. McDonald received a letter from Ms. Iorio informing him that

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[Zeinfeld]

Eventually some people who complained a lot got their vote counted and their right to vote restored.

But Harris and Bush succeeded in keeping over a hundred thousand voters off the rolls, most of whom were illegally and illegitimately denied their right to vote. The fact that the errors were corrected in a small number of the cases in the report changes nothing. Those two witnesses were called to show the lengtrhs that Harris and Bush went to deny their rights.

I took a look at Workindevs posting history. A lot of posts on electronic voting, all trying to convince us that there is no need to worry dears, those nice republicans are 1000% trustworthy and none of them would ever tell a lie, the WMD will eventually be found, the tax cuts are not almost exclusively for the rich and Nixon was not a crook.

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[workindev]

Eventually some people who complained a lot got their vote counted and their right to vote restored.

75% of the people who testified had their voting rights restored. If there were over 100,000 legitimate voters who couldn't vote, why couldnt the USCCR find a single one of them? The only person they found that could not vote had in fact been convicted of a crime.

But Harris and Bush succeeded in keeping over a hundred thousand voters off the rolls, most of whom were illegally and illegitimately denied their right to vote

Well, it doesn't look like you want to pay attention to the facts. Lets try this again (not that you are going to pay any attention). Bush and Harris had nothing to do with the voter rolls. Per Florida Law it was the responsibility of local county election officials to maintain the voter rolls. Per Florida Law, Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris had no authority to change the voter rolls. How can you keep pounding your agruement with a straight face? You are blaming Bush and Harris for:

A law that was passed before they took office

A voter scrub list that was not commissioned by them, but was commissioned by a Democrat

Changing Voter rolls that they had no authority or method of changing

Voter disenfranchisement where nobody was willing to testify that they were disenfranchised (several people testified that they were inconvienenced, but not disenfranchised)

Why can't you see how ridiculously partisan you sound?

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[Malcontent]

"Why can't you see how ridiculously partisan you sound?"

For the same reason you can't see your own partisan bias. Both he and you are partisan each advancing his own point of view by pointing to facts that support your own party while compeletely ignoring all other facts.

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[ajs318]

Having thought about this, I really think that there is already something that can be used against Diebold and their cronies.

Treason.

Deliberately rigging a voting machine to produce false results and get your preferred candidate elected is an attempt to compromise the democatic process by which a country is ruled ..... if that isn't treason, I don't know what is. Even in the UK, you can still get the death penalty for treason, so in the kill-crazy USA, it's a foregone conclusion. But how do you impose the death penalty on a corporation? Kill everyone who works there? Forcibly wind it up and seize its assets? Check your laws first, but I'd love to see a copper read someone their rights ..... "You are under arrest for high treason and plotting against the king. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you say may be given in evidence." {Yeah, I know that's the British version, but that's what I'm more familiar with}.

It also makes sense to use the simplist machines which will do the job. e.g. paper collators which can sort ballots into only box A marked, only box B marked, etc.

Good point. Makes the public scrutiny part easier.

It is interesting to note that the UN does not declare that humans have any right to form corporations. Not even unprofitable ones.

Another good point, but they probably will weasel out of it by saying they have been doing so for ages.

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's with the fucking Republican moderators? Go fuck yourself, moderators.

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[Anonymous Coward]

American Politics Journal (americanpolitics.com) had a link up a week or two back to an article on how the Australians have handled this, and they had an OPEN-SOURCE system bid, written, tested, published, vetted, and deployed for a couple of hundred grand, using off the shelf hardware. Who needs to pay Diebold? Any state in the country can afford to do this independently, probably using in-house programmers. Or we could just buy the code from the Aussies and fire it up. Why has no American media made mention of this, I wonder?

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[Zeinfeld]

What's with the fucking Republican moderators? Go fuck yourself, moderators.

The GOP sent out an alert asking people to post responses. They have a group of activists who are paid to surf the Web at minimum wage and report any political speech by dissidents.

Someone should tell Rove to be a bit more carefull, not all the people he has working there are Republicans :-)

Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail?

[GMontag]

Well, no the parent to your post is not being partisan at all. The grandparent is blaming this situation on parties who had nothing to do with it purly because the parties are Republican, while they ignore that all of the decision makers in this situation were Democrats.

workindev, by pointing this out is not behaving in a partisan manner at all, they are merely getting the facts straight.

Both may have their biases, as you and I do, but one is being fair and the other is trying to bash the Republicans with a baseless partisan arguement.

Wow!

[Maresi]

I have to admit, I didnt expect THIS!

This is a very, very positive news!

(And some journalists say that only bad news are good news ;-D)

Maresi

Diebold folds?

[mattjb0010]

Anyone else have visions of DMCA notification letters being folded into origami statues of liberty?

Re:Diebold folds?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was more optimistically thinking "Diebold Folds" meant Diebold had gone out of business.

Hey, I can dream, can't I?

Well crap.

[p24t]

I was kinda hoping that they would realize how dumb the DMCA is when they realize it could take away our very freedom of choice in this country.

Next they'll take away the 4th amendment. No, that's already gone too. Dumb FBI.

Same stale joke

[Volmarias]

I for one welcome our new EFF overlords!

Would anyone like to take any bets on how long it takes until the current administration "discovers" "evidence" that the EFF is channeling funds to "terrorists"?

In all seriousness, I'm glad to see this. If other legal fronts on the voting war go well, who knows, I might end up at the polls next November instead of scrawling in my entries via absentee ballot.

Re:Same stale joke

[Anonymous Coward]

Now you've done it!

'We have sources, which you do not have access to, that are telling us that "EFF is channeling funds to terrorists"' ... :P

GO DAVE WEEKLY!

[Effugas]

I'd like to take this moment to publically thank, congratulate, and otherwise embarass my illustrious former roommate, David Weekly. Alot of people talk about problems, like how alot of people talk about "Gee, how tragic is Zero Tolerance for all these kids, oh look, another one just got expelled for learning the word 'Knife'!"

Most people don't do anything. David Weekly did.

He stepped up, fought back against Diebold, and brought justice -- not just for himself (he's the founder of the California Community Colocation Project, so the ISP takedown notices directly affected him), not just for the four college kids attacked by Diebold, but for all of us here and for everybody with a stake in the perceived integrity of the American vote.

That's some damn fine work, David. Thanks! And thanks to everyone at EFF and OPG who fought this battle with him too!

Yours Truly,

Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com

Re:DMCA - how can i abuse thee, let me count the w

[beacher]

Agreed. Just look at the RIAA uses the DMCA - "The copyright owner may then present a subpoena request to the Clerk of the Court that requires the user's ISP to identify the person who was using the particular IP address when the copyright owner observed the copyright infringement. " - and this is based on a good faith belief that the person has committedd copyright infringement. Then the case goes to civil trial. Completely bypasses the bill of rights.

Good Faith... RIAA/MPAA.. truly a disconnect. Nasty

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:DMCA - how can i abuse thee, let me count the w

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and this is a perfect example of what the EFF is there for!

My Theory

[benna]

I don't think that their systems are faulty really. I think they work exactly as designed.

There was ir-repairable injury

[jfern]

Thanks to Diebold, Florida was called for Bush. Bush pissed away $9 trillion of projected surpluses, got the whole world mad at us, lost 7.5 millions compared to what was needed to sustain current employment rates. I think we should sure Diebold for $10 trillion. That ought to get their attention.

Re:There was ir-repairable injury

[3waygeek]

Diebold had little to do with Florida's 2000 election; if you want to blame a corporation, ChoicePoint would be a much better choice.

I highly reccomend people start acting on this now

[TyrranzzX]

Now they won't be sueing everyone under the sun, that if you can, throw it up on p2p services and help get a bittorent of the file circulating. The documents can be found on kazaa if you type in diebold, as you can with any other app. I suggest shareaza, which is a spywareless free P2P app that handles and allows for hosting and downloading from multiple network protocols (gnutella, bittorent, edonkey to name a few) and can be found at

http://www.shareaza.com

. If you're just interested in reading documents, another good read at

http://www.blackboxvoting.com

for those of you who don't want to sift through hundreds of e-mails in the archive but want the good stuff(downloads are at the right side of the page). Of course, they probably can't get slashdotted to horribly without going under, and therefore, if you can download the files and throw them on a p2p app such as shareaza you'll be doing everyone a big favor or if you can download them off of a p2p app that works well too to make sure their website's bandwidth bill isn't horrendous.

Additionally, if you do nothing else and live in the US, goto the EFF's webpage and fill out their form and fax or e-mail it to your legislature (which is all nicely automated for you).

http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item =2821

This way, if congress gets millions of documents stating we know and we don't like the sharade, they'll have to pull it and may even throw a few congressman on the legal fire to keep us satiated.

Beginning of DMCA downfall?

[Froobly]

I just read this in conjunction with the story on Best Buy and FatWallet, and I can only hope, maybe people are finally seeing the DMCA the way we see it. Here we have two cases against major companies challenging the DMCA for its chilling effects. How long before it works its way up to the Supreme Court?

Re:Beginning of DMCA downfall?

[Guppy06]

It'll never get there. So long as plaintiffs keep on dropping their cases five minutes before the trial starts, they'll be able to use the DMCA to intimidate and frighten as much as they want, just as the law was intended.

Re:Beginning of DMCA downfall?

[sulli]

And so long as defendants kowtow to the plaintiffs, this will continue. The lesson here is that it pays to fight back.

Origami, shmorigami..

[Channard]

Anyone else have visions of DMCA notification letters being folded into origami statues of liberty?

If by 'folded into origami statues of liberty' you mean 'being used as toilet paper by people whose origami skills begin and and end with making paper planes' then, yes.

Too bad they folded.

[flacco]

the best possible outcome would have been for this to go to court, for shoddy proprietary voting systems to appear on the evening news, and for the DMCA to be publicly humiliated for the piece of shit that it is.

from the company's perspective, i'd FIRE the dimwit who championed this strategy.

Fair thanks

[jdifool]

Hi,

sticking to the relevant way of using the 'fair' mechanism, I'd like to thank those two students, and the whole bunch of people who fought Diebold's obnoxious use of the DMCA.

You did a fucking awesome job. And you proved that personal actions really matter in this deincarnated world.

This is no time to loosen the backlash ; Dieblod may ask for some 'mediation', my advice would be not to give them any relief. They *must* pay for what they've done.

Regards,
Jdif

Re:The Problem:

[CrazyDuke]

The Republicans are firmly in the pockets of Computer Hardware and Software manufacturers that want to keep the DMCA to prevent competitors from copying products and making compatable ones.

The Democrats are firmly in the pockets of the RIAA and MPAA that want to keep the DMCA to help them keep their strangleholds in thier markets.

Everyone else has an icecube's chance in hell of getting in regardless of who funds their habits.

It is worth mentioning Mr. Kucinich is trying to get the presidential nomination and has very little financial contamination from the formentioned industries. $36,275 from TV, movies, and music industry and $25,590 from the computer industry out of $3,399,709 total.

Open source democracy

[Savage-Rabbit]

If ever there was a case for open source this is it. Democracy is not democracy without transparency. For Diebold to deny the public the right to know how its votes are counted and how secure the process is by keeping its source closed is inexcusable.....

"the code, which Diebold refuses to allow the public to audit, was discovered unencrypted on a publicly accessible Diebold Internet FTP (file transfer protocol) site.

.... uuuuhhh, oops my bad!, they are open source after all.

But all fun aside, at least it can now be said to have been officially confirmed that one of the numerous things DMCA will not protect you against is your own stupidity and incopetence.

Re:Open source democracy

[kapok_tree]

If I understand this correctly, since this did not actually go to trial no precedent was set. This si good and bad. Good, in hat we don't have a lengthy lawsuit draining the funds of EFF. Bad, however, in that they didn't accomplish the more significant goal of chipping away at the DMCA. As more cases like this are filed, we'll likely see more instanced of DMCA-abusers opting to settle instead of duking it out. From their perspective if it actually goes to trial they've essentially lost anyway and they're just cutting their losses - both monetarily and by retaining the legal tool that might allow them to intimidate organizatins that are more likely to settle instead of fighting.

Re:Open source democracy

[timeOday]

I suppose diebold is to blame, but what about our government? Why are our tax dollars going towards a product that is all wrong for the application?

The govt. should contract to have the voting software written, so it is govt. owned and open source. I don't want my tax dollars wasted pumping up Diebold from now until the rest of eternity, and more importantly I want vote integrity - not just actual integrity, but also public confidence. They should form an oversight committe for this voting software contract. Reputable scientists from academia and industry would come out of the woodwork to join the committee and help insure votes are counted right.

What's wrong, deluded over Rush?

[Anonymous Coward]

Poor little ditto head, your hero is no better than the liberals he trashes daily.

Re:Kucinich

[SiliBelgian]

For God's sake, try to make some common sense...

Denying the memos

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not all good news. If diebold really went on claiming copyright over the memos, then it would in effect be suggesting that the memos were real. Now it can still claim that they are doctored, etc.

Giving the EFF this concession is quite sneaky, as it helps them deal with the memos.

Re:Who votes anymore?

[benna]

Kucinich. Apearently the real question is who reads the slashdot article anymore since if you had read the post you would know who to vote for. :P

this is not a win...

[zeruch]

...it means either Diebold has some other nefarious move up their sleeves, or (more likely) instead of doing what many other companies do -make a big spectacle of themselves- they are hoping to disappear into the woodwork during the upcoming election season so as to "help their benefactors" my 2 paranoid cents

Can WE abuse the DMCA too?

[carcosa30]

There should be some sort of credo that when a system can't be fixed, it should be used/abused equally by everybody.

Surely there are enough correct-thinking corporations that we could begin to use the DMCA to begin to put pressure on certain groups. Then perhaps the government will begin to realize how asinine it is (the DMCA, not the... never mind.)

This is kinda like the putative holes in Diebold machines. If nothing can be done about them, surely they can be abused by everyone :)

Re:DMCA - how can i abuse thee, let me count the w

[kapok_tree]

Would you mind explaining how it bypasses the Bill of Rights? I don't ask to troll, I'd simply like a better explanation of precisely what rights are being circumvented. It doesn't sound all that different from a Bill of Discovery, excepting that the subpoena is enforcable. Are you referring to it being unwarranted search and seizure?

Re:DMCA - how can i abuse thee, let me count the w

[beacher]

Take a look at The Register's article as mentioned a few days ago here in regards to the MP/RIAA seeking anti-trust exemption...

"Hatch said the big studios and major record labels need the exemption because of "market realities...The bill authorizes appropriations to ensure that all Department of Justice units that investigate intellectual property crimes have the support of at least one agent specifically trained in the investigation of such crimes," he said last week."

Why isn't the DOJ doing this? I'm sure that the DOJ and the FBI have models in place for persuing internet fraud and cracking cases (yes I know this is not the best comparison theft vis a vis copyright infringement), so until the DOJ gets Copyright agents, the RIAA/MPAA is acting as an affiliate of the government and conducting searches without due process.

Anyway, this is my take on it
-B

Re:DMCA - how can i abuse thee, let me count the w

[putaro]

I don't know about bypassing the Bill of Rights, however from what I know about a Bill of Discovery, you have to get a judge to issue it for you. Take-down requests under the DMCA are issued by the court clerk and the court clerk doesn't apply any discretion to it.

Re:Who votes anymore?

[Anonymous Coward]

I demand that the Kucinich link be removed from the slashdot article out of respect for good taste. There are plenty of other honorable and reputable non-self-serving professional bloggers out there -- even politicians -- who have linked to these memos that could be referenced instead.

I'm from Ohio, trust me, you don't want this guy anywhere NEAR the presidency. He's an even wonkier political whore than Mike DeWine. (shudder)

it's a win, a very big win

[js7a]

It's not a win unless the EFF wins the actual case.

I think maybe you are confusing this with IBM's countersuit against SCO. In this case, there was no precident that could be set either way. (AFAIK, IANAL)

What happened at the hearing was that the judge made it clear that he was going to provide declarative relief in favor of the plaintiff, although not an injunction on the question of the fair use of all 13,000 emails. It isn't always as crystal clear from the hearing what the judge will do, but check out this comment from the Judge:

[page 4-5:] THE COURT: What if [plaintiffs] ... can show that they are suffering some type of collateral damage while the DMCA [process is] taking place? In other words, what OPG alleges here is that simply taking advantage of the safe harbor [provisions] isn't an adequate remedy ... for a number of reasons that they identify.... and I think I agree with them....

You can see how he's not going to go for an injunction if you read the whole hearing transcript.

One very importaint thing, it became clear that because of precidents set in the Scientology case, if Diebold had sued, the court was going to have to go through all the emails and decide on a case-by-case basis which of them are subject to fair-use protections and which aren't because they contain no public-interest material or contain an overwhelming abundance of "how-to/how-not-to" information with commercial value. From a technical perspective, of course, we have already seen how some of the source code with respect to weak encryption has some of the most importaint public-interest information. There is no way any judge would be savvy enough to catch that on the first go-round, and so this would have been a real money-loser for the good guys.

So, I am very glad this didn't go to trial.

Re:it's a win, a very big win

[Anonymous Coward]

AFAIK, IANAL either.

Kucinich Blog on Election Activism

[Henri Poole]

This is from the Kucinich Blog from June 20, 2003. Americans have become very sensitized to manipulation of the vote since the debacles in the 2000 presidential elections. All over america, people are expressing to me their concerns about honest elections, about election technologies, about the ownership of voting machine suppliers, about the potential for fraud...all of which can undermine our democracy. We need solutions. Here's what we can do: we can organize in every community across this country into citizen groups of individuals with technical expertise in computer programming, systems design, and working knowledge of elections. These precinct activists can begin immediately to create a template for securing the 2004 vote. The elements of such a program might include: taking action to gain access to inspect the technology, to learn what safeguards have been put in place to make sure that no coflicts of interests are involved, and to make sure there are no problems with the chain of custody. What I'm advocating is monitoring the vote. Maybe we should call it MTV2004...Monitor the vote 2004. Perhaps we could begin to post our ideas to the wiki www.civicactions.org. We will need to organize state by state or county by county. If anyone has any ideas, please go to the wiki and let's act collectively to ensure a fair election in 2004. (lifted from his Blog under his CC license).

Just last week, he blasted the FBI for stripping away the constitution. All from a man who 25 years ago, on Dec 25, 1978, refused to sell Clevelands municipal electric company under threat of political death. He stood by his principles and sacrificed his career. After a few years and hundreds of millions in savings, the people brought him back. If there is ever a candidate for president who supports rights of netizens, and "we the people", this is him. Consider a Thanksgiving day gift .

Re:Kucinich Blog on Election Activism

[Guppy06]

"Here's what we can do: we can organize in every community across this country into citizen groups of individuals with technical expertise in computer programming, systems design, and working knowledge of elections. These precinct activists can begin immediately to create a template for securing the 2004 vote. The elements of such a program might include: taking action to gain access to inspect the technology, to learn what safeguards have been put in place to make sure that no coflicts of interests are involved, and to make sure there are no problems with the chain of custody. What I'm advocating is monitoring the vote."

Yeah! I know, we could get party members in each municipality to observe and inspect the voting machines while they're being set up. And then on election day, we could have representative of the parties present at each polling station to keep track of who came in. We could even have party representatives present when the machines are queried for their official vote talleys!

In case you have difficulty seeing my sarcasm, this is exactly what has happened since at least the beginning of the Twentieth Century, and he as a politician should know this already since before the election each municipality mails him a letter spelling out where and when the machines will be established and inspected so that he can send his representatives to observe the process. The only new idea he has here is giving it a snazzy new catch-phrase name. And judging from your glowing response, the tactic is obviously working.

"Just last week, he blasted the FBI for stripping away the constitution."

You mean just like every other Democrat candidate so far? Not that that is anything new, since you get elected by showing the incumbent's administration in a negative light. Candidates for the presidency running against incumbents have been complaining about how their opponent's administration of the FBI has robbed us of our Blessed Constitutional Rights (/me genuflects) for as long as we've had an FBI.

"If there is ever a candidate for president who supports rights of netizens, and "we the people", this is him."

(A) dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.

--"Publius"
Federalist number 1

Re:Kucinich Blog on Election Activism

[Zeinfeld]

Kucinich is a good guy on some positions, particularly on eliminating corporate welfare. The problem is that he is 100% unelectable as President. The US people are not going to replace the ultra-right Bush administration with Kucinich.

The fact is that despite Ralph Nader's claim that there was no difference between the major party candidates in fact it turns out that there is. The small matter of a multi-trillion dollar surplus being turned into a multi-trillion dollar debt and starting a war in Iraq before Bin Laden was eliminated.

At this point the clear priority is to replace Cheney/Bush or to use their corporate titles Haliburton/Harken. One thing is clear, the war in Iraq is not going to end any time soon when Haliburton is war-profiteering, lining its pockets (and therefore Cheney who still has a major interest).

It is not just the program, it is the way the program is communicated. Someone who is technically very good at communicating (and Edwards for example) could get away with most of Kucinich's program. Kucinich cannot.

I see the race as divided between the no-hoper candidates (Kucinich, Edwards, Sharpton, Braun) the Bob Dole candidate who can be relied on not to loose too baddly (Gephart) and the serious ones.

Of the serious candidates we have the DLC sponsored Lieberman and Kerry and the outsiders Clark and Dean. At this point the party workers are so disgusted with the DLC and the policy of trying to fudge the Iraq war issue I don't think Lieberman or Kerry has much of a chance.

My guess is that the race will quickly settle to being between Dean and Clark, the rest will drop out either after NH or the big 7 primaries. The most likely outcome is a Dean/Clark ticket.

So if you want to influence the campaign with ideas on open source or copyright policy I would lobby the Dean people. At this point their attitude is 'yeah sounds like a good plan, problem is nobody understands technology or votes on it'.

Re:Kucinich Blog on Election Activism

[Soong]

Read Nader's book on the 2000 election, "Crashing the Party". He didn't claim there is no difference. He did claim there are too many similarities and too much non-debate on some issues we should seriously be debating.

Also, if you're going to try and influence a likely winner, don't jump behind them too early. Your leverage over Dean is in that you might endorse someone else, like Kucinich. There's still at least 2 months till a primary. If you haven't committed your mind already, really look at the candidates and find out which one most represents the issues you care about or is the kind of person you like to support. Remember, not a single vote has been cast yet. Democracy is still about voting. Fight pre-election lock in. Ignore the polls. Ignore the hype. Go find the truth.

Re:Kucinich Blog on Election Activism

[greenrd]

I think you missed these key words: we can organize in every community across this country into citizen groups of individuals with technical expertise in computer programming, systems design, and working knowledge of elections.

As opposed to "Let's send someone who with no clue about electronic, who will nod cluelessly when the Diebold representative lies about the safety of the process".

He's right. His idea should be implemented. I'm not an American so I can't really get involved, but I hope some people will reading this will decide to do their bit.

Re:Kucinich Blog on Election Activism

[Lord Omlette]

Wait wait wait, you're trying to tell me that a man with a proven record for standing up for the people is somehow going to be a bigger threat to our rights than another 4 years of Bush?

WTF?

Re:Kucinich Blog on Election Activism

[dvdeug]

(A) dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. [...]

In this century, both the Nazis and the Bolshiviks came to power openly despising the rights of the people. Mussulini is famous for making the trains run on time, not giving rights to the people. Furthermore, the authors of your quote didn't approve of the popular election of the president or senators; as they set it up, appointed electors chose everything. Their distrust of popular democracy have proven largely baseless.

Re:Kucinich Blog on Election Activism

[Guppy06]

This still isn't a new idea. Don't you think that, when mechanical voting machines and punchcards were first implemented, the politicians made sure that their selected watchers were mechanically inclined?

Or are you implying that these watchers can and would do something other than nodding to the Diebold technicians? Anything more than simply watching and observing the set-up and vote-counting processes will run afowl of vote tampering laws pretty damned quickly.

Re:Kucinich Blog on Election Activism

[Guppy06]

The way you're putting words in my mouth, automatically assuming that, by warning that voters should keep in mind the need to look below the "vote for me" exterior I am automatically a supporter of the "other" party... I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry.

Re:Kucinich Blog on Election Activism

[Guppy06]

"In this century, both the Nazis and the Bolshiviks came to power openly despising the rights of the people."

The Nazis were a political party that came to prominence in the polls by appealing to nationalism and anti-communist sentiment. And if you think the Bolsheviks became popular by "despising the rights of the people," you obviously aren't familiar with Karl Marx's writings.

"the authors of your quote didn't approve of the popular election of the president or senators; as they set it up, appointed electors chose everything."

Those "appointed electors" you're talking about were called "state legislators." And they were "appointed" by the people by popular vote. And this indirect voting method was put into the mix because direct popular vote isn't always the best way to do things. Notice the way we still keep direct popular elections as far away from the courtroom as possible.

"Their distrust of popular democracy have proven largely baseless."

Are you sure?

The political parties short-circuited the Electoral College system in the Eighteenth Century. Since then, presidential races have been rife with party politics, cementing political parties into a permanent position of power with the Democrats being able to trace their direct lineage in presidential elections to 1800. Our presidential campaigns rarely focus on internatinal policy (even though that's half of the job description), limit our choices only to those the political parties see fit to give us, usually degrade to name calling more suitible to an episode of Jerry Springer than to the decision to our country's chief magistrate, and often result in presidents that can barely claim to have the consent of half of the people that even bother to vote. This is consent of the governed?

As for the changes brought about by the Seventeenth Amendment, do you think it mere conicidence the way political power has consolidated into the so-called "federal" government with the amendment's ratification moreso than even in 1787? Or did you think that giving the Senate exactly the same job description and point-of-view as the House of Representatives an improvement when the Senate too ovewhelmingly voted in favor of the USA PATRIOT Act? And lets not forget the greater role given to political parties in Senate politics now that the people "choose" their senators directly. "We've got both kinds of music here! Country AND Western!"

And for a group of people who despised direct popular vote, the framers sure took pains to ensure that the House of Representatives were chosen in just such a manner, over the objections of many notable men of the time.

"Their distrust of popular democracy have proven largely baseless."

Then you seem to be forgetting how both Hitler and Mussolini came to power to begin with: By direct popular vote.

Their distrust of direct popular election was well founded by their own personal experiences with the way the newly-founded state governments melted down with their over-reliance on direct popular vote. They took pains to devise a system that gave different points of view (improving the government's internal debugging algorithm) from direct popular vote but could still claim the consent of the governed. They chose the indirect election method for senators and the presidency because of the success of the system used by Maryland's senate. And they included a senate-like body because of the way some past republics had one and lived long lives and the way others lacked one (relying solely on direct popular vote) soon descended into despotry.

Re:Kucinich Blog on Election Activism

[dvdeug]

And if you think the Bolsheviks became popular by "despising the rights of the people," you obviously aren't familiar with Karl Marx's writings.

Karl Marx never promotes what we think of as the rights of the people; he promotes what the rights of the People, of the masses taken as a whole.

limit our choices only to those the political parties see fit to give us,

In a system using a straight majority vote, not runoffs or Concordate systems, you're going to get two real canidates. There'd be no more reason for your senator to vote for a canidate that can't win then there is for you to. I doubt there's many presidential canidates who can't get through primaries in a political party, but could get voted for by electors.

do you think it mere conicidence the way political power has consolidated into the so-called "federal" government with the amendment's ratification moreso than even in 1787?

The federal government was invented in 1787, because the framers of the articles of confederation didn't realize how small a world was and how small each state was, in a geopolitical sense. Since that time, with mass communications and high-speed transit, the effective size of the world has shrunk, and with it the importance of one government instead of fifty.

The 14th Amendment was a powerful blow for fedralism, in taking many powers away from the states, sometimes vesting them in the court system (like defining due process.) I don't want to live in a US where if you're black or not Christian, or both, you really shouldn't go south of the Mason-Dixon line. Federalism has given us a country where you don't have to worry about that.

Then you seem to be forgetting how both Hitler and Mussolini came to power to begin with: By direct popular vote.

Not quite. Hitler got appointed chancellor long before he got elected to anything.

Re:Kucinich Blog on Election Activism

[Guppy06]

"In a system using a straight majority vote, not runoffs or Concordate systems, you're going to get two real canidates. There'd be no more reason for your senator to vote for a canidate that can't win then there is for you to."

"because the framers of the articles of confederation didn't realize how small a world was and how small each state was, in a geopolitical sense. Since that time, with mass communications and high-speed transit, the effective size of the world has shrunk, and with it the importance of one government instead of fifty."

Except that modern geopolitical thought revolves around the concept of the right to self-determination of a people, which flies in the face of "one size fits all" national governments by stressing local control over local events. And even in modern times pure republics have been both unable and unwilling to grant minority interests any degree of autonomy. France, whose area and population are far smaller than those of the United States, is balely willing to let Corsicans teach their children their own language.

On the other hand our federal system, by recognizing the imortance of government of, by and for a specific people, has given us Maine, Vermont and (to an extent) West Virginia, none of whom felt they were treated fairly by the republican governments of Boston, Albany and Richmond respectively

"in taking many powers away from the states, sometimes vesting them in the court system (like defining due process.)"

Most of the victories of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s were won in the Supreme Court of the United States, where none of the justices are popularly elected or have any term limits beyond "good behavior." By your logic of the importance of direct popular elections and the ability of it to protect the rights of the minority and the ability of direct popular election to ensure the rights of the people, their best friend should have been Congress, not SCOTUS.

Also, you seem to be forgetting that with our entire legislature now elected by direct popular vote, our national government (as opposed to "federal") is able to propose constitutional amendments that would deny the states the right to marry gay couples without batting an eyelash. Before the Seventeenth Amendment, states jealous of their own power wouldn't let such a bill get anywhere near the United States Senate, but now things aren't so sure.

Re:Kucinich Blog on Election Activism

[dvdeug]

And even in modern times pure republics have been both unable and unwilling to grant minority interests any degree of autonomy.

Governments (in general) have been so unable and unwilling.

On the other hand our federal system, by recognizing the imortance of government of, by and for a specific people, has given us Maine, Vermont and (to an extent) West Virginia, none of whom felt they were treated fairly by the republican governments of Boston, Albany and Richmond respectively

But they haven't given us Northern California, they refused to give Indian Territory any form of statehood (before filling it with whites), and they refused to give the Cherokee even the basic rights to live on their land, much less any degree of autonomy. Since Vermonters speak the same language as New Yorkers, I think there are much stronger counterexamples.

[Supreme Court doesn't] have any term limits beyond "good behavior."

Arguably this (combined with the fact they are judges) dictates their actions, more then the fact they are appointed.

Let's note also that the Supreme Court found against Dred Scott, saying that a black man has no rights, no matter where he lives in the US.

By your logic of the importance of direct popular elections and the ability of it to protect the rights of the minority and the ability of direct popular election to ensure the rights of the people,

In any direct election, the elected person is likely to be one of the majority - that is, a white heterosexual Christian. But the black and gay and atheist votes still make up their 10% of their vote, which canidates ignore at their risk. But in an indirect election, the vast majority of the voters--way out of proportion with the population--are white heterosexual Christians. What leverage does the black and gay and atheist communities have over that person? What political motivation does that person have to respect their rights?

our national government [...] is able to propose constitutional amendments that would deny the states the right to marry gay couples

Which wouldn't be an issue if the states didn't have to respect marriages made in other states. Arguably, the problem is by that clause, the federal government gave any state the ability to define marriage for the Union. Note this is a problem because of increased transportation; anyone can fly up to Massachutes and get married.

Before the Seventeenth Amendment, states jealous of their own power wouldn't let such a bill get anywhere near the United States Senate

Historically, states rights have only been an issue when a state disagreed with the federal government. The Confederates who were chanting states rights in '61 were thrilled by the Dred Scott decision in '59 which deprived states of the ability to give rights to the black man.

Re:hooray! [a bit too early to say]

[waterbear]

It's not a win unless the EFF wins the actual case.

If the judge allows dismissal [...]

Yes -- and I was just now trying to puzzle out just where the two recent papers leave this case (transcript of hearing for an injunction, and Diebold's new document, see links in the main article).

Hopefully somebody with better insight into the procedure here will say more, but first it looks to me as if the parties had been waiting for the judge to decide, after a hearing, whether to grant an injunction against Diebold. (Was I the only one that found the hearing transcript obviously garbled in places, and the dialogue hard to decipher? I wonder how the judge manages to make use of such scrambled text?!)

It looked as if Diebold tried to pre-empt the next step, and the upcoming decision, by filing the paper with its concessions -- as if Diebold privately reckoned after the hearing that it would likely be on the losing side.

It looks as if the ball is now at least partly with EFF on what step to try next. The Diebold paper attempts to deal with the possibility that EFF might try to find a basis on which to persist in the suit for its 'test case' value, in spite of Diebold's concessions. Clearly Diebold hopes that its concessions took away enough of the 'sting' of injury caused by its DMCA activities, to leave the plaintiffs with nothing more to sue about, and to 'kill' the case before there is an adjudication that would likely make life harder in future for Diebold and other potential DMCA claimants.

I would guess EFF is now busy in legal conference and research to see if the case really is effectively dead beyond recall. (Go EFF!) Maybe we can still hope they will identify a way to take the case forward to an adjudication that could be of value, as a precedent to limit the scope for mischievous abuse of the DMCA in future. But I suppose it is possible no way will be found.

Theres always one way out

[t_allardyce]

Maybe if everything goes tits-up for diebold they can sell their voting system to iraq, i heard they are in great shortage of working arcade machines.

For gods sake the DMCA is about Copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are people trying to extend protection against copyright curmvention to every other aspect of computational systems, and don't try to fob me off on a vote being copyrighted, no one writes the circle-c on there voting slip.

After the ATM story

[lanalyst]

..about how Diebold cash dispensers were infected with the Nachi worm I think they were left with no choice.

Corporate?

[AndroidCat]

the inevitable courtroom clash between individual freedom and corporate manipulation of federal law

But one of the larger abusers of the DMCA like this is the Cthurch of Scientology and they're not a corp .. oh .. never mind, I haven't caffievolved yet this morning.

Re:DMCA - how can i abuse thee, let me count the w

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a violation of the right to due process. Basically, the DMCA has granted private entities the power to issue their own enforceable subpoenas with no judicial or even administrative review whatsoever. This is completely unprecedented.

Re:The Problem:

[RealProgrammer]

I'd be happy to learn the "President Bush is firmly in the pockets of Computer Hardware and Software manufacturers", but I don't have any evidence for that.

In his bid for reelection, for example, he has raised (or lowered himself to) $84 million (totally dwarfing the $25M for Howard Dean, the richest Demokraut). Basically all of that is from individuals. Less than 0.5% is from any one group. All are presumably people with sufficient spare change, but hey, it's their money, right?

From opensecrets.org:

Updated 10/17/03 -- Merrill Lynch, the financial services giant, tops the list of contributors to President Bush's re-election campaign through September of this year, with $364,000 in donations from employees and their immediate family members, according to a preliminary study of third-quarter campaign finance filings by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Barratry?

[Andy_R]

Since Diebold has practically admitted to using the 'we're wrong but we've got more lawyers than you' approach, does what they did qualify as Barratry?

If so, let's hope the victims of Diebold's overzealous legal department strike back, recover their costs and have their moment of glory in public courts where the mass media will pick up on it?

Iraqi elections

[pommiekiwifruit]

The US has plans for Iraq to have a US-style presidential election.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini al-Sistani has condemned this, and has asked for a system whereby the person who gets the most votes gets elected instead.

Mod this TROLL

[Anonymous Coward]

or at least off-topic

Re:The Problem:

[CrazyDuke]

Well, here is one example, Microsoft donated next to nothing politically until the Presidential 2000 elections, I'll give you a cookie if you can figure out who that money went to. Oh, looks like they also dumped large sums into the Republican takeovers of the house and senate in '02. I'll give you another cookie if you can remember what suddenly happend to the anti-trust lawsuit soon after our neo-conservative friends got into office.

Oh, they did donate to Democrats, when it was for people on their own home state turf.

Bush got $71,750 from Microsoft.
Gore got $27,750.

53% went to Republicans in 2000.
60% in '02.

Isn't it a shame how so little money can buy so much influence?

Don't forget Kucinich supports Slavery Reperations

[Anonymous Coward]

that disqualifies the creep right there oh and he is a VEGAN!

Re:The Problem:

[Jeremy Erwin]

It is worth mentioning Mr. Kucinich is trying to get the presidential nomination and has very little financial contamination from the formentioned industries.

He has very little financial 'contamination", period.

Poor transcription quality

[Polymath Crowbane]

Was anyone else concerned about the poor quality of the transcript. Harper and Roe? Their for they're? Come on...doesn't anyone proof these things?

There is a serious side to this. The transcript is the official record of what happened in the case, and is quoted in appeals, future cases, etc. If this is an example of the quality of such things, how long before a substantive error of fact makes its way into one and becomes a part of our law.

I'd be embarrassed by this relase if I was the judge (or the transcriptionist).

Re:The Problem: NOT! Vote Third Party

[fallen1]

Why, oh why dear Lord, do "the people" seem to be stuck on Democrat vs. Republican? If enough of the slashdot population that are in America and can vote would educate 5 of our friends about what is going on and present it in reference to them and then get them to educate 3-5 of their friends and (you get the picture) and ALL of these newly educated _voters_ voted third party - green/independent/libertarian - then we can start a revolution by putting someone not in the "old boy" dem/rep camp into office.

With all the devisiveness in the Democratic camp (how many on the ticket? 10? 12?) and the fact most people I know support the troops but are beginning to KNOW that "W" is not there to support the people and probably will not be president for a second term there is no better time to push for a third party candidate - as president, as senators, or as representatives. Yes, it is very slim a third party candidate can win the presidency but if all of us who read /. and really understand what is going on with our civil liberties and the rape and pillage of the Constitution and Bill of Rights would educate our friends and family there is a chance to make a change.

Now you have to ask yourself - do you want change? Or do you want a fresh round of DMCA/RIAA/MPAA/PATRIOT whores in office that will make things worse "for the people" but easier "for the megacorps"? Me, I'm for the people since nowhere did the Constitution guarantee corporations protection under the law to abuse the rights of the people.

Re:The Problem: NOT! Vote Third Party

[OblvnDrgn]

We're stuck because of pragmatism, not poor judgment. I won't speak for the rest of the voting /. population, but I have enough problems convincing 3-5 friends to not click on the attachments labeled "NOT A VIRUS. REA11Y!" It's rather hard to create a pyramid scheme convincing people that third parties have any shot of winning.

It's perhaps a poor attitude to have, "Well, they can't possibly win now, so why bother," but it's more or less accurate. Start campaigning for Congresspeople to be from third parties, then move on to Governors and Senators before you try to tackle the President. For now, worry about picking the lesser of two evils, because the last thing you want is the worse team to win by less than the number of votes that your third party guy got.

I say NAY

[alexborges]

Diebold has filed a responsive pleading...

Pleeeathe maathter, dont kill us in a PR war with the g33x0rx... Please...

EFF Sayz: NAY, i hereby condemn you to the removal of both your bits.

Re:The Problem: NOT! Vote Third Party

[CrazyDuke]

I'm not stuck on the vs. BS. But realistically, who the hell is actually going to get the presidency? I can and have tried to educate people on the matter, and quite frankly, it makes them think for 2 whole seconds, then *flush* right down the mental toilet. And that is assuming I don't run across one of those "I'm always right" blowhards. "Mickey Mouse" probably gets more votes than the other parties. And honestly, regardless of what party, I want the current set of fucktards out of office ASAP, even if it means "dealing with the devil" (AKA that other bunch of corporate ass kissers) so to speak.

Re:DMCA - how can i abuse thee, let me count the w

[Politburo]

The DoJ wasn't doing it because they weren't directed and more likely because they didn't have the money. Note that the language says "The bill authorizes appropriations to ensure...." That means "We're giving the DoJ money to enforce IP." If they didn't have the money to enforce IP in the budget before, they simply didn't do it. The DoJ does not recieve enough money to investigate everything, usually only enough for drugs and terrorism, or else we might have seen some of the people involved with Enron actually go to jail.

Re:DMCA - how can i abuse thee, let me count the w

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

The part where a judge authorizes the warrant..

Re:hooray! [a bit too early to say]

[kaltkalt]

The essense of Diebold's memo 'dropping' the suit (sorta) is this:

"hey, ok, we give up because it's futile and we so respect free discourse blah blah... but since we're doing so, we really don't want the EFF to make a test case out of this (because that would be bad for us next time this happens, and for anyone else who wants to abuse the DMCA in the future). So, if the EFF would like to continue this, even though we've so kindly given up, we recommend a court-ordered mediation as the next step to resolve this once and for all without future court action."

So in that sense, yes, the ball is now in EFF's court. Frankly, I hope they do take the case forward and make a test case out of this, because this case, more than any other i've seen thus far, shows how horrible the DMCA (and draconian copyright law in general) is for free speech and democracy.

And yes, even though Diebold's "we give up" memo sounds sorta nice and fluffy, there are still many ways the case can be taken forward as a test case, and trust me, Diebold knows it. Copyright misuse (which they mention in the memo) is something that really needs to be revived judicially as a doctrine which should be able to trump the DMCA. Although that's more along the lines of the garage-door opener cases rather than a mere notice-and-takedown DMCA procedure re: infringing material on a website. But I think this is a great occasion to expand (judicially of course) the copyright misuse doctrine.

To be frank, I think Diebold made a very smart legal move here. Hopefully the EFF will plod on with this one. Usually they do. But don't think for a second that this somehow "blocks" any EFF future action on this case. It sure makes it sound like the EFF would be the bad guy for doing so, but that's just Diebold's (smart) spin.

Re:The Problem: NOT! Vote Third Party

[Shajenko42]

It's our voting system: "First Past the Post" means that, since you can only vote for one person, you've got to vote for the one with at least a snowball's chance in hell of actually winning, otherwise you might as well not vote.

Support "Approval Voting": it's the best compromise between simplicity and fairness in voting methods.

Publication by Congress

[Animats]

No one has mentioned this, but members of Congress are immune to lawsuits like this. That's why it's useful, on major public interest issues involving documents, to get a member of Congress to put them into the record, as Kucinich has done here.

• "The Senators and Representatives shall ... in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place." -- U.S. Constitution

Any individual member of Congress has that privilege, and historically, it's been an important one. That keeps Ashcroft from harassing members of Congress, for example.

Re:The Problem:

[fishbowl]

"The Democrats are firmly in the pockets of the RIAA and MPAA that want to keep the DMCA to help them keep their strangleholds in thier markets."

I think the General might just be the one to say "to hell with the entertainment industry -- they don't run this country, I do."

Re:Speech and Debate clause is limited

[sunbird]

Actually, the speech and debate clause would not protect Kucinch here. Look at the limiting clauses:

. . . be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session . . . and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House . . . .

For example, in Hutchinson v. Proximire, 443 U.S. 111 (1979), a congressman issued a press release awarding the "Golden Fleece" Award, given to projects exemplifying government waste. One of the recipients did not take kindly to receiving the award and sued the Senator for defamation. The Supremes held that the speech and debate clause offered no protection. The Senator would have been protected if he had read the award at a committee meeting or on the floor of the Senate, but the press release was not privileged.

So, why isn't Kucinch being sued? My guess - the last thing Diebold needs is more bad publicity.

Donate

[Synn]

This kind of stuff is why I donate to the EFF and would recommend others to do the same. They're one of the best, if not only, organization out there looking out for our electronic rights. They make a difference and you can too by supporting them.

Link to their donation page.

Re:The Problem:

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it surprising that the party with the most elected officials would get the most money?
Is it surprising that the party which more people are voting for would get the most money?
Is it surprising that the party which demonizes large business would get the least money from businesses?
Is it surprising that the party which forcibly takes money from business (based on the party's opinion of their ability to give) and gives it to others (based on the party's opinion of their need) would get the least money from businesses?

KUCINICH FOR PRESIDENT! GROW SOME BALLS, PEOPLE!

[Cryofan]

Businessmen and investors know that sometimes you have to take some risks; you have to change and grow.

And we citizens own this countries. We have invested our lives in it. So why on earth are we afraid to vote for change? Why do we keep electing Republicrats?

Yes, of course, Kucinich will not be able to make all the changes he wants and that we need. But we need someone who will fight for the citizen against established power. Kucinich has already and repeatedly shown that he has a serious grudge against established power.

We already have 500 Republicrats in the House and the Senate. You have heard of "checks and balances"? Well, Kucinich is the check and balance we need.

GROW SOME FUCKING BALLS FOR ONCE!

Re:DMCA - how can i abuse thee, let me count the w

[mpe]

Talk about a poorly crafted piece of legislation. There are so many ways to abuse this ridiculous thing. It really needs to be amended to get rid of all of these legal like mechanisms that do not involve the courts. You should have to get a judge to issue an injunction to take material offline, not just say "You have to do it".

It can't be quite that simple. Otherwise there would be no way that SCO could continue to make their Linux distribution available. We appear to have a "copyright law" which whilst quite useful for corporates who wish to shut people up isn't much good for dealing corporations seeking to make money through copyright infringement.

Kucinich IS electable on the issues and character

[Cryofan]

He has strongly advocated moving immediately single payer health care. Polls show that 70+% of the public ALSO wants single payer health care.

But the Democratic frontrunners (Dean-Clark-Kerry) DO NOT call for single payer health care.

The majority of the public also support decriminalization of marijuana. So does Kucinich, but not Dean-Clark-Kerry.

Also, Dean is a Bush clone. He even went to a more prestigious prep school than Bush. Dean's grandmother invited Bush grandmother to her wedding. Dean and Bush even went to Yale at the same time. They are both Old Money Bluebloods, and that is who they are going to look after and have empathy with.

Kucinich OTOH is a card carrying union member from a working class background. His family never even owned a home when he was growing up. More than once they had to sleep in the family car between homes.

Now if you are a rich investor or a CEO, then Bush or Dean is your man. Otherwise, you want someone who has the background and experience to understand what the average person goes through.

corruption

[Anonymous Coward]

The most important link
in the whole article.

The Diebold employee Ken Clark admits that numerous state counties had requested the .mdb files to not have passwords.

Re:KUCINICH FOR PRESIDENT! GROW SOME BALLS, PEOPLE

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, welcome our new communist overlord Kucinich.

What kind of commie...

[biendamon]

...wants to suppress my rights as a red-blooded American to talk about any damn thing I want? If Diebold's election machines are crap and they've admitted it in speech that's reached the public, it smacks of authoritarian communism to try to undermine knowledge of it. I'm an American, damn it. We've got a little something called the U.S. Constitution that protects my right to criticize any business, politician, or organization any way I see fit! And if you don't like it when I have my say on Diebold, Microsoft, the Bush administration, the religious right, or anything else I choose to talk about... Well, you can just go right back to communist China or try to get the Soviet Union up and running again! America! Love it or leave it! ((My god, that felt good! I feel liberated! In fact, I feel liberal! And proud! I love this country!))

Re:What kind of commie...

[Anonymous Coward]

Then do not influence the innocent, ok?
Want to be a nationalist then stick to your nation.
IOW: no wars for oil.

Damn plutocrats.

One question

[jafac]

how does one pronounce "kucinich"?

Re:One question

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm dunno how to explain that.
There's a movie on his site.
30 min :)

Re:One question

[hesiod]

> how does one pronounce "kucinich"?

Koo - sinn - itch

Re:Kucinich IS electable on the issues and charact

[Zeinfeld]

Also, Dean is a Bush clone. He even went to a more prestigious prep school than Bush. Dean's grandmother invited Bush grandmother to her wedding. Dean and Bush even went to Yale at the same time. They are both Old Money Bluebloods, and that is who they are going to look after and have empathy with.

Oh come on, Dean got a medical degree. I don't think you get onto those courses through the 'positive discrimination' that Yale practices to favor 'legacies'. I certainly don't think you can get a medical degree and practice as a doctor if you don't have the brains and work at it.

Dean got into full time politics in by accident. He was the leuitenant governor, a part time job in Vermont and became governor when the sitting governor suddenly died in office. He was a successful governor for over a decade.

The odd thing about Texas politics is that the Lieutenant Governor actually has more power than the governor. It is a legacy from a time when they had a corruption issue with the then incumbent.

Kucinich OTOH is a card carrying union member from a working class background.

Which is great. But that is not enough for a platform.

Kucinich has the luxury of knowing that he is not going to get nominated. So he does not have to worry about advancing politically costly ideas with a marginal return.

Kucinich supports "studying" Slave Reperations!

[Anonymous Coward]

that disqualifies the creep right there oh and he is a VEGAN!
A pro-reperations animal rights wacko thats the way to get those flyover states in your electoral column.

Dean/Edwards...you can bet on it

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless he can't get a first ballot nomination in which case...
Rodham /Graham
Clark is too much the loony loose cannon to be Veep
Seriously I assume you are a left-leaning Democrat but how is it that Bush is "ultra-right wing"?
He is actually a center-right moderate much as Clinton was a center-left moderate.
As an ultra-right -wing libertarian I think the Bush administration is WAY too liberal.The only reason he has support from us far-righties is 'cause he opened up a can of whoop ass on the ragheads instead of apologising and surrendering after 9/11.

Re:Dean/Edwards...you can bet on it

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing gives republicans a hard on like killing.

Re:KUCINICH FOR PRESIDENT! GROW SOME BALLS, PEOPLE

[Anonymous Coward]

As a trusted....uh whatever I can be helpful in enslaving others to work in his underground slavery reperations caves.

Re:Speech and Debate clause is limited

[Animats]

But see Gravel vs. US, which is more on point. That's the Pentagon Papers case. Hutchinson is a defamation case. The question in Hutchinson was whether a member of Congress has unlimited right to defame or libel anyone, and the Supreme Court ruled that the member does not. The question in Gravel relates to the release of protected information to influence public debate.

The current Supreme Court might well decide Gravel differently.

Has this ever come up before in an intellectual property context? And has it come up recently, since the expansion in intellectual property rights in the last decade?

Re:Don't forget Kucinich supports Slavery Reperati

[Anonymous Coward]

how about some links to his website that states your accusation as fact?

oh wait, this is slashdot...

Why is this such a bad thing? Also who cares if he's a vegan! I'm sick of people using shallow reasons to vote for candidates.

snippet from http://kucinich.us/announce-news.htm

"I have joined Congressman John Conyer's call to study reparations for those whose African American ancestors suffered enslavement. And let me tell you why I've done that- because we must recognize the debilitating effects of slavery which are with us still, the debilitating effects of racism which still exist. We must recognize this because so many of our African American brothers and sisters are locked still in prisons of poverty, substandard housing, unemployment, run-down schools, without health care, without hope. I know this. And my brother Gary, my brother Frank, my brother Larry, my sister Terry, my sister Beth, my brother Perry- We know this, because often we were the only Caucasian family living in a community of color. We know this.

This is not only about repairing the breach for African Americans. This is about healing our world. This is about what is called in the Jewish faith tikkun olam. We must heal the breach! We must heal the breach. We must begin this process of reconciliation and healing. We must be repairers of the breach, and we can help to repair the breach by having a nation which stands for jobs for all, health care for all, education for all! Let's use this as a moment to lift up America!"

Re:Speech and Debate clause is limited

[sunbird]

Yes, but in Gravel the Pentagon Papers were read into the public record at a subcommittee meeting. Later, the same Senator privately published the materials. The court found that the former was protected, not the latter:

The grand jury, therefore, if relevant to its investigation into the possible violations of the criminal law, . . . may require from [the Senator's aide] answers to questions relating to his or the Senator's arrangements, if any, with respect to republication or with respect to third-party conduct under valid investigation by the grand jury, as long as the questions do not implicate legislative action of the Senator.

408 U.S. at 628.

Thus, the Supremes held that information about private publication of the papers was not protected, but any "legislative actions," such as reading the text into the subcommittee's record, are fully protected.

If Kucinch had read the Diebold memos into the record, he would be absolutely protected. But, posting it on a website is not protected, public interest or not.

zerg

[Lord Omlette]

You mean we actually won one? Holy shit, someone pass around a hat so we can get everyone involved in the win some blowjobs and liquor!

Thanks for quoting Kucinich's call for Reperations

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you ask for a link when you know.
The "study" is about how they are going to be paid-individually or to a foundation.
Fuck Kucinich he may be a VEGAN but I bet he puts meat in his mouth on a regular basis.

Re:The Problem:

[CrazyDuke]

Alright, I'll be man enough to admit when I screw up, and I screwed up. I was wrong.

But, not the way you think.

You see, the great grand parent post challenged me to prove the Republicans where baught and paid for just like the 'crats and probably at least some of the smaller parties. I went ahead and provided some information that showed the corruption in an easy to see fashion without haveing to go into a big research essay. I used the evidence that Microsoft, never really a big donater, saw its donations skyrocket in the 2000 and 2002 elections. They where subsequently let off the hook on a major federal lawsuit they had already lost. I pointed out the Republicans got a slight majority in the 2000 election, and after we got a Republican President, Microsoft was let off the hook. Then they donated even more with a much bigger spread of the money in 2002.

This was my mistake.

I did not mean to set the argument in a partisan, "Dems vs. Repubs" fashion. But, I did. And it allowed blowhard assholes like this jerkoff to "win" the argument by using the "Dems vs. Repubs" argument as a Red Herring. Where they "win" by making points that seem valid, but are infact unrelated to the issue at hand. Think of the "Innocent by Chewbaca" skit that has been floating around slashdot recently. My point was the Republicans where corrupt as well as the Democrats and there was not much hope with the others getting elected. These guys end up making it a Democrat (which I am not of) and Republican mud slinging fest.

Hell, I only like how Mr. Kicinich's political fundraising is unfolding. He seems to concentrate too much on labor unions for me. But, that is an aside.

Ok. Now for this guy:

"Is it surprising that the party with the most elected officials would get the most money?"

-Not as surprising as how they got the most money, then got the most elected officials.

"Is it surprising that the party which more people are voting for would get the most money?"

-Again, see above. You would have a point if political donations where equal in amount per person.

"Is it surprising that the party which demonizes large business would get the least money from businesses?"

-Funny, they seem to bend over and do a goatse just like the other corporate money whores. The only difference I've seen is a tendancy to support different sets of corporate and industrial interests. I really should offer some research to back this up... Ok, watch the financial news and read between the lines instead of the spin. If you have good observational and rational skills you'll pick it up after a while.

"Is it surprising that the party which forcibly takes money from business (based on the party's opinion of their ability to give) and gives it to others (based on the party's opinion of their need) would get the least money from businesses?"

Ok, that statement only makes partial sence. You need to state that clearer. I'll respond to what I do understand. The rich paying less taxes than the poor does not have have any statistical backing. What does is the lack of taxes paid by corporations. Many get more money back from the government -not including purchases and contracts- than they pay in taxes in the first place. This "corporate welfare" takes the wealth of citizens -rich, poor, and everyone else- and basically hands it over to corporations that are "too big" to let collapse under thier own corruption. So much for the free market.

If that where not enough, they get special legistlation, like the DCMA, to prop themselves up in what appears to be a corporate version of an aristocrasy. And as to which class profits from this, how many poor and middle class can afford significant investments right now? Hell, most can barely afford their bills right now or worse.

KUCINICH SUPPORTS PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION

[Cryofan]

I cannot BELIEVE that so many supposedly educated people such as we have here on /. do not even realize how bad our voting system is. They are not ever aware of the alternatives such as prop. rep and approval voting etc.

And then we have the whole "horse race" viewpoint that the establishment media has pushed upon and that we fall for...

I am seriously thinking of moving to Europe where people take running their country and govt seriously. The voter apathy has caused this country to fall seriously behind the western euro social democracies such as Denmark, Sweden, etc. These countries know how to control the elite. Just look at their social benefits: free schooling, free student stipends, 5 weeks vacations plus numerous other days off. Far more accessible welfare and unemployment.....

Re:Don't forget Kucinich supports Slavery Reperati

[Anonymous Coward]

Me too. Wanna date?

Like we say in Chicago

[t0ny]

Vote early, vote often.

good and bad news

[DunbarTheInept]

Good News: They backed down, so complaints on their bad voting technology can go forward.

Bad News: This avoided a situation where the DMCA could have been challenged in court like it desperately needs to be.

OT:Kucinich Blog on Election Activism

[Lord Omlette]

Well, Bush never specifically used the word 'imminent' when describing the thread Saddam posed, and it certainly seems like everyone's let him off the hook, so I guess I'm sorry for putting words in your mouth.

Increase name recognition with multiple runs.

[jbn-o]

Start campaigning for Congresspeople to be from third parties, then move on to Governors and Senators before you try to tackle the President.

People say that like it's significantly easier to get local or Congressional district third-party candidates to win than it is to get a third-party President. It's much the same battle, no matter what level you're talking about, and virtually all of the people I've heard give that advice have no idea how much struggle is involved to get a third-party candidate on the ballot, much less in debates, advertised on TV, and getting them to win an election. Sometimes the press coverage of a presidential run coupled with local, district, and statewide runs are what third parties need to begin to be known. I think that's true for the Greens, for example.

I campaigned for a local man for Congress, he ran on a Green Party ticket. I joined the campaign chiefly because I wanted experience with politics I couldn't get any other way. I picked the Green campaign because of the available options (Republican or Green) the Greens were closer to my own political views. It was a lot of work just to get his name to appear on the ballot. The Democrats were initially not going to run any candidate against the incumbent Republican. But once they knew the Greens were serious about getting in office, the local Democratic Party contacted everyone they could to run and the last person they were going to call fortuitously accepted the job.

The reason the name "Green" meant anything to people who signed the petition to put our candidate on the ballot is because of Ralph Nader's celebrity and his run for President (which was endorsed by the Green Party). If we didn't have that to build on, I estimate that getting our candidate on the ballot would have been much more difficult.

Despite the Democratic Party's candidate showing up late to some events, speaking very poorly (being clearly out of his league on some topics), and not needing a public mandate to get on the ballot, the Democrat got roughly 30% of the vote. In the end, the predictable happened--the Republican incumbent won. He won the seat he paid over a million dollars to win the first time he ran (remember, that most of the time the candidate that spends the most wins). Incumbency also carries its own advantages ("franking" literature, for example, and having it delivered just in time to help with one's campaign for reelection) that only the richest candidate can afford to compete with. These and other factors help set the stage for staying in office until one chooses to retire. This means third parties require a lot of name recognition to effectively compete, particularly when one's party is unlikely to help pay for steep campaign bills (most of which are due to the steep cost of local media buys).

Wow, someone modded you a troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Republicans think you're a troll if you point out the obvious about the last Presidential election.

just another anti-Bush troll

[ChipMonk]

Let me get this straight. You rant about how the Republicans rigged the election in Florida, but you don't mention one word about the Democrats in Chicago? Where the voting corruption still is so endemic that they're the butt of a national joke?

Bias exposed, game over.