The "labor policies" that were changed in that Executive Order concerned what is more popularly known as the whistleblower statutes. These were laws designed to protect government employees against recrimination for calling attention to misdeeds, incompetence, what have you.
That the President of the United States felt compelled to deny this very specific group of individuals protection under these statutes, the very day after evidence is produced implicating the Navy in this tragedy can be seen as nothing less than an attempt to cover-up the truth.
Unless, of course, you've got your blinders on.
As for the NTSB, that report is mostly crap. It doesn't talk about how NTSB agents appeared in front of a Senate subcommittee and testified against the FBI, accusing them of confiscating and deliberately destroying evidence, both felony activities.
I actually got to see those hearing live on C-SPAN. (But now that I think about it, it could have been unmarked black helicopters transmitting secret mind control signals that only my tin-foil hat was capable of receiving.)
Of course, having the ability to do something and actually implementing it are two very different things.
The service providers had no need to track users locations beyond that necessary to establish service. It was government fiat that compelled them to install the systems necessary to harness this information, collate it, and make it available to government agents on demand.
Clinton signed that Executive Order the day after the French periodical Paris Match published the radar transcripts showing that there was something else in the air next to TWA 800 when it exploded.
Nobody's expecting you to remove your blinders. But maybe if you could just take a peek every now and again at the world outside, you know, a sort of reality check.
And now that the terrorists have moved on to other techniques, is our privacy restored by removing the ability to track users' cell phones? Of course not.
The lame excuse we are given is that we need to track cell phones for 911 purposes, but that needn't be mandated by the government. If you want a cell phone that can give your location to authorities, buy one with a built-in GPS receiver that transmits your location. There was never any legitimate need to upgrade the infrastructure to allow for tracking any cell user at will.
It's no different than what happened after TWA 800 was shot down by the Navy. They screamed "Terrorist! Terrorist!" and so they placed all these onerous security restrictions on the public (having to show your papers when travelling, for instance.) But once they agree on a cover story implicating the center fuel tank exploding (something that had never happened before and has never happened since), do they restore our privacy and our liberty?
I'm talking about voters, not bureaucrats, and I think that was pretty obvious, no? Obviously if you're a political appointee you're losing your job when the other side wins.
If the CEO of EvilCorp tried to force a guy standing on the street corner with the Nader signs to vote for bush...
If a CEO or anyone else tries to coerce you into voting your way, here's what you do: get them on tape. Take a picture of them in the act. Call the media. Call the police. Call the elections board.
What you fail to appreciate is that the act of affixing that sticker to your bumper or wearing that T-shirt carries with it more influence over the election than that single vote you get to cast. If Mr. Evil CEO (man, what are you on anyways?) is going to go after anybody, it's going to be people who stand up for their beliefs by advertising their support for the wrong candidate.
The far likelier attack is for this CEO to corrupt those who are behind the scenes at the election. Pay them off. Give them the choice; silver or lead. And given that choice, most of us would choose the silver. THAT'S the scenario we have to protect against. THAT'S what our voting system should be designed to thwart.
And THAT can only be accomplished if we publish votes.
You take a digital camera into the voting booth with you and take a picture of how you voted.
And there are NO ways of securing an election against fraud without publishing votes. Every effort to date is more convoluted--and prone to fraud--than the one before. Ultimately it comes down to placing your trust in a small group of individuals, and once you do that, you create power. And power corrupts. Etc.
You can do this today. You can sell your vote to someone and verify for them that you voted a certain way. Take a picture of your ballot. Digital cameras are tiny. Depending on how and where you vote, you might require a video instead. Digital video recorders are tiny too.
And if your boss is demanding you vote a certain way, it stands to reason he's making the same demand of everybody else in the company. And since votes are being published, this becomes simple to demonstrate. I'm not suggesting that attempting to coerce a person's vote in this way be made legal, and so there is quite a disincentive against attempting to coerce your employees in this manner.
Thugs can demand all sorts of things. Probably the least consequential of these things is your vote.
Secret ballot = opportunity to game election in secret.
And this is a peculiar quote:
More democracy will be denied if secret ballots are done away with.
This presumes knowledge as to how many elections have been successfully tampered with to date. I don't believe you can know that. It may be true that there will be isolated cases where someone is intimidated or otherwise sees their vote affected in some way, but that is a very, very small price to pay for the certainty that the election at large has integrity.
Our elections have no integrity. And everybody thinks that because that's normal, it's OK. It isn't. 2000 showed us why it isn't. And Diebold is showing us why it isn't today.
I'm going to guess that you're under the age of 30. You're obviously clueless.
I'm going to guess you're 80 and wearing a diaper.
You have NO RIGHT to know how I voted.
I have a right to know that my vote is counted, and the only way I can be assured of this is if I can see it published. So yes, I do have the right to see how you vote too. That is, as long as we are interested in maintaining the pretense that this is a democracy.
All you need to know is the cumulative count of all votes.
There's no way of truly knowing that without publishing each of the votes comprising that total.
If you don't think that there has been, and still is, discrimination in this country (and others) based on one's vote you're a fool.
And keeping the ballot secret accomplishes nothing in this regard.
If you don't think that election after election in this country hasn't been victim to fraud, then it is you who is the fool.
Consider the following issues: voting rights, race, immigration, labor rights, abortion, the environment, financial matters and general politics. ALL of these have engendered discrimination and violence against individuals and property brought about by the extreme polarization these topics generate.
Tis a drop in the bucket compared to the violence generated when democracy is denied.
In your idiotic way of thinking, we should have jurors pronounce their individual votes in court cases for the benefit of the losing side.
In my idiotic way of thinking, decisions rendered by juries require unanimity. Ergo, it is very clear how each individual member voted.
If you don't think those points stand up to scrutiny...
It only took me one minute to demonstrate that they don't.
The only thing threatening to subvert democracy are fools such as yourself who obediently believe everything they're told without once mustering up the will to think it through for themselves.
I don't recall his having opposition. And I didn't get to count the votes; our media misrepresents election results all the time, so why not theirs?
And it may be a bad example because, to date, it is very clear to me that Saddam Hussein was telling the truth while our government was lying. This was a secular government, after all, the most progressive in the region, for instance, with regards to women's rights. I suspect your view of Saddam Hussein is shaped entirely by our media, so I would respond to your question by asking you whether it isn't possible that he was genuinely beloved by his people, that all the stories we hear of his being feared and hated are nothing more than American lies (there have been so many after all), and that if it came down to a contest between Iraq and America to see which was more democratic, whether the winner shouldn't be that nation that has toppled the fewest number of democracies?
In any event, clearly a different standard has to be applied to a nation that is making a transition from totalitarian rule to a more democratic one. I suppose the most important question to ask is, do the people bear arms? If they do, they stand a much greater chance at overcoming the sort of intimidation you're suggesting than if they didn't.
All that being said, this is America. Supposedly, we have a rich and storied history of democracy in this country. The problems and shortcomings experienced by other nations shouldn't factor into how we run our elections. We have our own problems and shortcomings to worry about.
Are you serious!? How do you suppose someone would use knowledge of your party registration against you? They can force you to register for any party they like...
I've yet to hear of anyone suffering any repercussions from their party affiliation. Party registration is *not* meaningless: most people vote for the candidate that is in their party.
Your vote is what matters, and the people with the money or power could easily force your vote if they could only see who you voted for.
Then why aren't they doing this now? C'mon, all sorts of people openly advocate for one candidate or the other. Bumper stickers, T-shirts... free speech. If it is such a problem as you say it is, certainly it should be manifesting itself today, yes?
You haven't even tried to explain how this concern doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
I've posted along these lines many times in the past on slashdot, and every time I get somebody replying who can do nothing but recite the propaganda fed to them when they were in social studies class in public school. They raise points exactly like yours, and no, they don't stand up to examination.
The only people who are served by the secret ballot are those who would seek to manipulate that ballot in secret. And given the fact that this is exactly what has been happening all throughout American history it shouldn't surprise anyone that the same people who profit from election rigging are the same people who decide what gets taught in social studies class. And what is it they want us to learn?
That you can't have an election unless the ballots are secret.
You're overstating the problem by several orders of magnitude, but even if you're right, there's a simple solution to that: don't vote.
Come on, people gave their lives for our right to vote, and you want us to worry about those who can't even muster up the courage to simply exercise that right?
I'd rather see the cowardly skip an election or two than risk seeing democracy be subverted on a grand scale.
It is impossible to argue that moving to an electronic system is not inevitable, any more than it is possible to argue in favour of abandoning cell phones and reverting to tin cans and string, or abandoning email in favour of carrier pigeons.
Impossible? To start with, we've already adopted cell phones, whereas we haven't yet truly embraced electronic voting. Moreover, cell phones don't present the kind of threat to our democracy electronic voting does.
It has to be said, over and over again, that once we lose the right to vote, the only way to get it back will be through violence. So it's important that we do everything we can to see to it that the right isn't lost in the first place.
With a corrupt incumbant, people could be intimidated into voting for them, out of fear that the government might quietly (or worse - aggressively) discriminate against anyone who voted for their opponent.
I think that's ridiculous. People register in different political parties all the time, without ill effect.
I would argue in fact that it is vital we publish the ballots that people cast. It is the only way to be certain that an election is on the level. The arguments we always hear against this doing this never stand up to scrutiny.
The only people who benefit from the secret ballot are those who seek to game the election.
He was a election judge in Baltimore County, MD. Near the end of his story, Avi writes "My biggest fear is that super Tuesday will be viewed as a big success."
And here's what the local media had to say the next day:
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, they zapped all my karma. Went from excellent to terrible in just two posts.
And all because I dared to suggest that TWA 800 was shot down by the Navy.
Whatever. I suspected going in that slashdot was rife with censorship. Now I know for sure.
yup
But there's no reason the service can't be provided via GPS, and on a voluntary basis.
Thank you.
Don't worry, the not-ready-to-be-unplugged set has seen my posts are moderated down into non-existance.
In answer to your question though, you might want to reference this post.
The "labor policies" that were changed in that Executive Order concerned what is more popularly known as the whistleblower statutes. These were laws designed to protect government employees against recrimination for calling attention to misdeeds, incompetence, what have you.
That the President of the United States felt compelled to deny this very specific group of individuals protection under these statutes, the very day after evidence is produced implicating the Navy in this tragedy can be seen as nothing less than an attempt to cover-up the truth.
Unless, of course, you've got your blinders on.
As for the NTSB, that report is mostly crap. It doesn't talk about how NTSB agents appeared in front of a Senate subcommittee and testified against the FBI, accusing them of confiscating and deliberately destroying evidence, both felony activities.
I actually got to see those hearing live on C-SPAN. (But now that I think about it, it could have been unmarked black helicopters transmitting secret mind control signals that only my tin-foil hat was capable of receiving.)
If you want to learn the facts about TWA 800.
The lawsuit against NTSB over TWA 800.
Of course, having the ability to do something and actually implementing it are two very different things.
The service providers had no need to track users locations beyond that necessary to establish service. It was government fiat that compelled them to install the systems necessary to harness this information, collate it, and make it available to government agents on demand.
Here's the cover-up.
Clinton signed that Executive Order the day after the French periodical Paris Match published the radar transcripts showing that there was something else in the air next to TWA 800 when it exploded.
Nobody's expecting you to remove your blinders. But maybe if you could just take a peek every now and again at the world outside, you know, a sort of reality check.
And now that the terrorists have moved on to other techniques, is our privacy restored by removing the ability to track users' cell phones? Of course not.
The lame excuse we are given is that we need to track cell phones for 911 purposes, but that needn't be mandated by the government. If you want a cell phone that can give your location to authorities, buy one with a built-in GPS receiver that transmits your location. There was never any legitimate need to upgrade the infrastructure to allow for tracking any cell user at will.
It's no different than what happened after TWA 800 was shot down by the Navy. They screamed "Terrorist! Terrorist!" and so they placed all these onerous security restrictions on the public (having to show your papers when travelling, for instance.) But once they agree on a cover story implicating the center fuel tank exploding (something that had never happened before and has never happened since), do they restore our privacy and our liberty?
Not on your life.
No, the link in the story clearly states that this was reported back on Feb. 10.
Most. Obvious. Microsoft. Shill. Ever.
...like a month ago and saw it rejected I guess that's because I have cooties or something, is this correct?
We're talking about voters and repercussions that might prevent them from voting in a certain way.
Your contribution here is entirely irrelevant to the discussion.
Go annoy someone else.
I'm talking about voters, not bureaucrats, and I think that was pretty obvious, no? Obviously if you're a political appointee you're losing your job when the other side wins.
If the CEO of EvilCorp tried to force a guy standing on the street corner with the Nader signs to vote for bush...
If a CEO or anyone else tries to coerce you into voting your way, here's what you do: get them on tape. Take a picture of them in the act. Call the media. Call the police. Call the elections board.
What you fail to appreciate is that the act of affixing that sticker to your bumper or wearing that T-shirt carries with it more influence over the election than that single vote you get to cast. If Mr. Evil CEO (man, what are you on anyways?) is going to go after anybody, it's going to be people who stand up for their beliefs by advertising their support for the wrong candidate.
The far likelier attack is for this CEO to corrupt those who are behind the scenes at the election. Pay them off. Give them the choice; silver or lead. And given that choice, most of us would choose the silver. THAT'S the scenario we have to protect against. THAT'S what our voting system should be designed to thwart.
And THAT can only be accomplished if we publish votes.
You can sell your vote today, OK?
You take a digital camera into the voting booth with you and take a picture of how you voted.
And there are NO ways of securing an election against fraud without publishing votes. Every effort to date is more convoluted--and prone to fraud--than the one before. Ultimately it comes down to placing your trust in a small group of individuals, and once you do that, you create power. And power corrupts. Etc.
You can do this today. You can sell your vote to someone and verify for them that you voted a certain way. Take a picture of your ballot. Digital cameras are tiny. Depending on how and where you vote, you might require a video instead. Digital video recorders are tiny too.
And if your boss is demanding you vote a certain way, it stands to reason he's making the same demand of everybody else in the company. And since votes are being published, this becomes simple to demonstrate. I'm not suggesting that attempting to coerce a person's vote in this way be made legal, and so there is quite a disincentive against attempting to coerce your employees in this manner.
Thugs can demand all sorts of things. Probably the least consequential of these things is your vote.
Secret ballot = opportunity to game election in secret.
And this is a peculiar quote:
More democracy will be denied if secret ballots are done away with.
This presumes knowledge as to how many elections have been successfully tampered with to date. I don't believe you can know that. It may be true that there will be isolated cases where someone is intimidated or otherwise sees their vote affected in some way, but that is a very, very small price to pay for the certainty that the election at large has integrity.
Our elections have no integrity. And everybody thinks that because that's normal, it's OK. It isn't. 2000 showed us why it isn't. And Diebold is showing us why it isn't today.
People will do *anything* for power.
I'm going to guess that you're under the age of 30. You're obviously clueless.
I'm going to guess you're 80 and wearing a diaper.
You have NO RIGHT to know how I voted.
I have a right to know that my vote is counted, and the only way I can be assured of this is if I can see it published. So yes, I do have the right to see how you vote too. That is, as long as we are interested in maintaining the pretense that this is a democracy.
All you need to know is the cumulative count of all votes.
There's no way of truly knowing that without publishing each of the votes comprising that total.
If you don't think that there has been, and still is, discrimination in this country (and others) based on one's vote you're a fool.
And keeping the ballot secret accomplishes nothing in this regard.
If you don't think that election after election in this country hasn't been victim to fraud, then it is you who is the fool.
Consider the following issues: voting rights, race, immigration, labor rights, abortion, the environment, financial matters and general politics. ALL of these have engendered discrimination and violence against individuals and property brought about by the extreme polarization these topics generate.
Tis a drop in the bucket compared to the violence generated when democracy is denied.
In your idiotic way of thinking, we should have jurors pronounce their individual votes in court cases for the benefit of the losing side.
In my idiotic way of thinking, decisions rendered by juries require unanimity. Ergo, it is very clear how each individual member voted.
If you don't think those points stand up to scrutiny...
It only took me one minute to demonstrate that they don't.
The only thing threatening to subvert democracy are fools such as yourself who obediently believe everything they're told without once mustering up the will to think it through for themselves.
I don't recall his having opposition. And I didn't get to count the votes; our media misrepresents election results all the time, so why not theirs?
And it may be a bad example because, to date, it is very clear to me that Saddam Hussein was telling the truth while our government was lying. This was a secular government, after all, the most progressive in the region, for instance, with regards to women's rights. I suspect your view of Saddam Hussein is shaped entirely by our media, so I would respond to your question by asking you whether it isn't possible that he was genuinely beloved by his people, that all the stories we hear of his being feared and hated are nothing more than American lies (there have been so many after all), and that if it came down to a contest between Iraq and America to see which was more democratic, whether the winner shouldn't be that nation that has toppled the fewest number of democracies?
In any event, clearly a different standard has to be applied to a nation that is making a transition from totalitarian rule to a more democratic one. I suppose the most important question to ask is, do the people bear arms? If they do, they stand a much greater chance at overcoming the sort of intimidation you're suggesting than if they didn't.
All that being said, this is America. Supposedly, we have a rich and storied history of democracy in this country. The problems and shortcomings experienced by other nations shouldn't factor into how we run our elections. We have our own problems and shortcomings to worry about.
Are you serious!? How do you suppose someone would use knowledge of your party registration against you? They can force you to register for any party they like...
I've yet to hear of anyone suffering any repercussions from their party affiliation. Party registration is *not* meaningless: most people vote for the candidate that is in their party.
Your vote is what matters, and the people with the money or power could easily force your vote if they could only see who you voted for.
Then why aren't they doing this now? C'mon, all sorts of people openly advocate for one candidate or the other. Bumper stickers, T-shirts... free speech. If it is such a problem as you say it is, certainly it should be manifesting itself today, yes?
You haven't even tried to explain how this concern doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
I've posted along these lines many times in the past on slashdot, and every time I get somebody replying who can do nothing but recite the propaganda fed to them when they were in social studies class in public school. They raise points exactly like yours, and no, they don't stand up to examination.
The only people who are served by the secret ballot are those who would seek to manipulate that ballot in secret. And given the fact that this is exactly what has been happening all throughout American history it shouldn't surprise anyone that the same people who profit from election rigging are the same people who decide what gets taught in social studies class. And what is it they want us to learn?
That you can't have an election unless the ballots are secret.
Bullshit.
You're overstating the problem by several orders of magnitude, but even if you're right, there's a simple solution to that: don't vote.
Come on, people gave their lives for our right to vote, and you want us to worry about those who can't even muster up the courage to simply exercise that right?
I'd rather see the cowardly skip an election or two than risk seeing democracy be subverted on a grand scale.
Wouldn't you?
It is impossible to argue that moving to an electronic system is not inevitable, any more than it is possible to argue in favour of abandoning cell phones and reverting to tin cans and string, or abandoning email in favour of carrier pigeons.
Impossible? To start with, we've already adopted cell phones, whereas we haven't yet truly embraced electronic voting. Moreover, cell phones don't present the kind of threat to our democracy electronic voting does.
It has to be said, over and over again, that once we lose the right to vote, the only way to get it back will be through violence. So it's important that we do everything we can to see to it that the right isn't lost in the first place.
With a corrupt incumbant, people could be intimidated into voting for them, out of fear that the government might quietly (or worse - aggressively) discriminate against anyone who voted for their opponent.
I think that's ridiculous. People register in different political parties all the time, without ill effect.
I would argue in fact that it is vital we publish the ballots that people cast. It is the only way to be certain that an election is on the level. The arguments we always hear against this doing this never stand up to scrutiny.
The only people who benefit from the secret ballot are those who seek to game the election.
He was a election judge in Baltimore County, MD. Near the end of his story, Avi writes "My biggest fear is that super Tuesday will be viewed as a big success."
And here's what the local media had to say the next day:
Elections Officials Say Electronic Voting Successful
SCO is having a phone conference today at 9:00am MST (11:00am EST), remember?