Must Be Fed

Guest Post: Don't Lose Turkey

2007-10-16T16:23:00Z

I have had a number of thoughtful and interesting conversations with my friend Tobias Anderson. He has recently returned from uniformed service in Iraq and had a take on the situation in Turkey which was both thoughtful and unlike most of the conversations others are having. He has composed an excellent guest post on the subject. - Spoon.

DON'T LOSE TURKEY

In one fell swoop, the new US Congress could do more damage to US foreign relations than anything done by the current Administration in the last 5 years. The House of Representatives' resolution, to declare the massacres of 1.5 million Armenians over 80 years ago a genocide, could cripple our forces fighting two wars, fracture NATO irreparably, and tilt the balance of power in the Middle East decisively in Iran's favor; and that is just the beginning.

Since the inception of the war in Iraq, the importance of Turkey to the United States has been virtually ignored by the media, and given short-shrift by our policy-makers. Recently, the discussion of the war in Iraq and the nuclear crisis with Iran has almost completely omitted references to Turkey, except when the PKK (Kurdish Worker's Party of Turkey) and the Iraqi Kurds are discussed. This is an enormous mistake, and horribly myopic. Both, the media and the policy-makers, have taken for granted Turkey's alliance with the United states and ignored Turkish grievances. Whether Turkey's grievances are valid or not, Turkey is NATO's second-largest military power, and is as crucial to US influence in the Middle East as Israel, and maybe even more crucial.

Currently, Turkey has 140,000 ¹ troops on the northern border of Iraq almost as many as the entire Coalition has in Iraq. Turkey's forces are poised for a massive invasion of the Kurdish Region, and could completely unravel the brightest spot of the war. Over a year ago, in reference to a possible invasion of northern Iraq, Turkey told its military to prepare for the possibility that they may come into conflict with US troops. Meanwhile, we are in a potential military showdown with Iraq's other major neighbor, Iran. Unfortunately for us, Iranian and Turkish interests are more closely aligned than US and Turkish interests because of their common struggles to eliminate Kurdish separatists in their two countries. If the Turkish government and military come to believe that US interests are fundamentally at odds with Turkish interests, they may leave NATO and shut-down the most critical logistics hub we have for our wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Due to the Armenian genocide resolution that passed the House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs Committee last week, Turkey has recalled their ambassador to the United States back to Ankara for "consultations". The temporary recall of their ambassador is a measure of their extreme frustration, and sends a message that they are willing to cut their ties with us. Furthermore, last week Prime Minister Erdogan's foreign policy adviser stated, "I can promise you [the Turkish reaction to the passage of the House Resolution] won't be pleasant". The deaths of 1.5 million Armenians was a horrible event, and may well have been genocide. However, this is probably the worst time to put the resolution to a vote, because it jeopardizes the well-being of almost 200,000 American soldiers and civilians who rely on supplies coming through Turkey to fight two wars.

According to Secretary of Defense Gates, 70% of our air cargo and 30% of our fuel for the troops in Iraq flies through Turkey. The NATO forces in Afghanistan are probably even more reliant upon Turkey as a logistics hub, because there are no other routes to Afghanistan that are both friendly and secure. Whose airspace will we fly through to get supplies to the troops in Afghanistan? Romania and Bulgaria may be possible staging sites, but our facilities in Eastern Europe and the Balkans are probably not prepared for the level of activity going through Turkey and are likely to be much less efficient and effective. Furthermore, the routes are longer and costlier and may put more stress on our airlift capabilities overall, and on the actual aircraft themselves. Losing Turkey could cost us any possibility at a victory in Afghanistan.

If Turkey shuts down our northern logistics routes for Iraq, then the US may end up relying solely upon the Straits of Hormuz to deliver supplies to our troops in the Persian Gulf. If we come into military conflict with Iran, then the Straits of Hormuz could become an extremely insecure supply route for our war effort. Logistics is not sexy, but it is critical. Wars and entire armies are lost when the military supply-chain is shutdown. That is one of the reasons why we defeated the Iraqi Army the first time we fought them. We cannot afford to have over one-third of combat troops at risk of being surrounded by a disgruntled Iraqi population, a hostile Turkish army, a hostile Iranian army and then also be in poor-supply. Soldiers can only fight as long as they have beans and bullets. If those are lost, then we may lose the Multi-National Corps – Iraq.

This sounds like an extreme scenario, but it isn't. We are facing the very real possibility of losing a critical NATO ally, gaining a regional rival and possibly sliding into conflict with the second-largest military power in NATO. Additionally, Turkey doesn't have an ocean and a continent to cross to deliver supplies and soldiers. Turkey's departure from NATO could critically fracture that alliance, and cripple one of the most critical elements of US foreign policy.

There has only been one country that has left the military component of the NATO alliance, and that was France. However, France continued to act and cooperate as an ally and remained a political member of NATO. Due to the nature of the tensions between the US and Turkey, it is not likely that Turkey would remain in the alliance at all. An alliance member of Turkey's size withdrawing completely from NATO could significantly diminish NATO's military capabilities in terms of combat-ready manpower, and result in the loss of a logistics hub that has been critical to US and NATO influence in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Without the ability to retain key alliance members and project power into areas critical to the NATO alliance, there may be less confidence in the benefits and protection that NATO claims to provide.

If Turkey were to leave NATO, and cease cooperation with the West on Middle Eastern policies, then we would have yet another, possibly hostile, rival vying for influence in areas which we consider strategically important. Turkey could counter US efforts at achieving an over-all Middle Eastern peace deal between the Israelis and the Arabs. The Turks could also become the missing piece of a hostile cordon around Iraq starting at the southern Iran/Iraq border and stopping at the Syrian/Jordanian border. Furthermore, Turkey could slowly begin to further destabilize the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Central Asia or work with Russia, Iran, and China to diminish or eliminate US influence in those regions.

If Turkish and Iranian cooperation begins to grow, then they could jointly present a fairly formidable presence within the Middle East and the surrounding regions. Turkey is already working to develop its economic links with Iran through trade and energy deals. A departure from pro-Western policies may likely jeopardize our efforts to use Turkish oil and natural gas pipelines as an alternative to Russian and Iranian routes into Central Asian energy fields. This may isolate the US and Europe from unfettered access to critical natural resources. The loss of Turkey as an ally has much greater implications than any of our policymakers or the media seem to realize.

In expressing their frustration toward US foreign policy, the Turks have a point. After Operation Desert Storm we choked off their trade with their second-largest neighbor, Iraq, and gave them very little in compensation. We have ignored their requests to crackdown on the PKK ( a terrorist organization according to our government), and we have raised the very real possibility of an independent Kurdish state on their border which fuels their fear of a Kurdish state rising from within their borders. Additionally, we have failed to influence the EU to consider Turkey's application for membership more favorably. From a Turkish point-of-view, it is understandable to feel that there is very little that the US has done for them lately. Furthermore, until now, they have continuously supported our military activities, on some level, in spite of the damage it has done to some of their critical interests. We have done nothing but exacerbate the Turks' worst fears, and pushed them much more closely into alignment with Iran.

The current Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and President Abdullah Gul both come from the Justice and Development Party, which arose from an Islamist party tradition that traces back to the Welfare Party of former prime minister Necmettin Erbakan. Developing closer ties to Iran, and other traditionally anti-American regimes in the Middle East, was one of Erbakan's principal foreign policy goals. Now, through our own short-sightedness, we are pushing Turkey toward a Middle Eastern foreign policy that we have strenuously opposed in the past, and may seriously damage our interests in the future.

If the United States can't speak with one voice on its foreign policy, and hold its most critical alliance together, we may look dangerously weak. How will our enemies and rivals react? North Korea is currently working with us, but will they continue to do so, if they believe that NATO is fracturing and that the US can't even keep its closest allies? How will this impact China's decisions about whether and when they are willing to attack Taiwan? Will this cause our current and potential allies to question whether America is still able to lead and protect them?

According to a press release, the US Ambassador to Turkey believes that, " The partnership between Turkey and the United States is strong and may remain so. We are determined to pursue our common vital interests and strengthen our shared values." Hopefully, he is right, but it almost seems delusional in the current crisis. As the situation stands now, we have over-extended our small active duty forces, and we are coming close to losing a critical ally. We need to cut a deal with Turkey and salvage our alliance right now, or we may regret it for years, and possibly decades, to come.

Tobias Anderson

The writer is a veteran of the war in Iraq.

A Soldier's Story

2007-09-14T00:57:00Z

This op-ed was mentioned at least twice in the Senate hearings Tuesday
by antiwar senators, one of them was Chuck Hagel.

These names have not been released yet by military...

September 12, 2007

2 Soldiers Who Wrote About Life in Iraq Are Killed

By DAVID STOUT
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/david_stou
t/index.html?inline=nyt-per>

WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 - "Engaging in the banalties of life has become a
death-defying act," the seven soldiers wrote of the war they had seen
in Iraq.

They were referring to the ordeals of Iraqi citizens, trying to go
about their lives with death and suffering all around them. They did not know
it at the time, but they might almost have been referring to themselves.

Two of the soldiers who wrote of their pessimism about the war, in an
Op-Ed article
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/opinion/19jayamaha.html?ex=1189742400
&en=10c7f4155337e9ab&ei=5070> that appeared in The New York Times on
Aug. 19, were killed in Baghdad on Monday. They were not killed in
combat, nor on a daring mission. They died when the five-ton cargo
truck they were riding in overturned.

The victims, Staff Sgt. Yance T. Gray, 26, and Sgt. Omar Mora, 28, were
among the authors of "The War as We Saw It," in which they expressed
doubts about reports of progress.
"As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and
feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest
we see every day," the soldiers wrote.

"My son was a soldier in his heart from the age of 5," Sergeant Gray's
mother, Karen Gray, said by telephone today from Ismay, Mont., where
Yance grew up. "He loved what he was doing."

"But he wasn't any mindless robot," said the sergeant's father, Richard
Gray. Sergeant Gray leaves a wife, Jessica, and a daughter, Ava, born
in April. He is also survived by a brother and sister.

Sergeant Mora's mother, Olga Capetillo of Texas City, Tex., told The
Daily News in Galveston that her son had grown increasingly gloomy
about Iraq. "I told him God is going to take care of him and take him home,"
she said.

A native of Ecuador, Sergeant Mora had recently become an American
citizen. "He was proud of this country, and he wanted to go over and
help," his stepfather, Robert Capetillo, told The Houston Chronicle.
Sergeant Mora leaves a wife, Christa, and a daughter, Jordan, who is 5.
Survivors also include a brother and sister.

While the seven soldiers were composing their article, one of them,
Staff Sgt. Jeremy A. Murphy, was shot in the head. He was flown to a
military hospital in the United States and is expected to survive. The
other authors were Buddhika Jayamaha, an Army specialist, and Sgts.
Wesley D. Smith, Jeremy Roebuck and Edward Sandmeier.

"We need not talk about our morale," they wrote in closing. "As
committed soldiers, we will see this mission through."

Was the 911 Investigation Stymied?

2007-09-11T16:01:00Z

It's been more than three years since the 9/11 Commission issued its final report.

But did it complete the investigation? Did it fully answer the question: What really happened 6 years ago today?

According to the 911 commissioners themselves, the investigation into the events of 911 was severely inadequate. They state that there wasn’t enough time, funding or access to critical information and documents to truly make it a definitive investigation. 911 Commission co-chairman Lee Hamilton highlights the incredibly difficult task the Commission faced in getting cooperation and documents from the federal government.

“There were two federal agencies that received a subpoena and we did not issue subpoenas lightly as I have suggested. They went to the FAA and to NORAD. Our staff found that they had not been fully responsive to our document requests and when our staff visited they command center, for example, in Rome, NY of NORAD, they uncovered all the tapes from 911 that had not been provided to the Commission so it was a very frustrating experience for us.”

Another challenge that the Commission faced were the rules that the Administration placed on the Commissioners themselves. Former Nebraska Senator and 911 Commissioner Bob Kerrey explains.

“We did a good a job as we could under the circumstances of the Administration resisting at every turn the delivery of witnesses and documents. I mean, the regulatory friction that was imposed upon the 911 Commission to get documents was more than I’ve ever experienced. I had to go to 3 or 4 locations. My notes had to remain where they were. I couldn’t take them back home with me and I never got access, we got access in a limited way to the Presidential Daily Briefings. We never got face to face access to Khalid Sheik Mohammad or Ramsey Bin Al-Shieb or all others who were the ring leaders. We had to submit questions and the CIA then aksed them and delivered back the answers. So I would say, no. There was not enough time on tap, there was less cooperation than we needed and there was insufficient funding.

Former Indiana Congressman and Commissioner Tim Roemer agrees.

"There wasn't enough time. There wasn't enough money".

So how much money was spent initially? The Bush Administration authorized $3 million for the investigation of the greatest tragedy on American soil. In contrast, the Monica Lewinsky and Whitewater investigation of President Bill Clinton received an authorization of $64 million and the Challenger disaster investigation received $50 million. After the Commission and families fought for more funding, the White House allocated $15 million. The Commission spent $14 million and returned $1 million.

Diebold: The Untold Story

2007-09-06T16:37:00Z

Electronic voting fraud. It’s real. It happened in 2000 and in 2004. And it will happen again in 2008.

Supporters of electronic voting machines have launched an aggressively savvy campaign to discredit anyone who questions the validity or accuracy of this technology.

But the bottom line is your vote can be stolen.

How do I know this?

I spent the last two and a half years investigating electronic voting fraud.

I did so on my own time and own dime, despite working as a producer for one of the most respected network news organizations in the world.

During the course of my research, I interviewed 7 highly accredited computer scientists, statisticians, election officials, poll workers, senators, secretaries of state and former electronic voting machine company employees.

In my quest to find the truth about how these machines process and count America’s votes, I could not find one, not one person who could unequivocally state that this equipment could not be compromised.

Two years ago, I showed my findings to various colleagues at the ABC News bureau in Washington, insisting we cover this story.

Many thought I was wearing a tin hat. So I continued on my own, investigating the four private companies that control American elections. Finally, I was able to persuade the Radio division’s bureau chief that I had a rock-solid story. He could see I had a tiger by the tail. In many cases, I had not two, but three or four sources on many of my claims against this technology. I even had a former Diebold contractor, known in voting integrity circles as “Diebthroat” willing to be interviewed. He fully checked out as legitimate source. And he had documents. Lots of documents. He even agreed to sign an affidavit. My correspondent and I were so convinced he was the real deal, we told our bureau chief we would go to jail in order to protect his identity. So my Lou Grant went to bat for me.

I was given a one-hour special for network radio. I spent nine months working on it, becoming a near expert on the inner workings of electronic voting machines and its players.

I sent twelve versions of this story to our corporate lawyers who ripped it apart.

I diligently but begrudgingly rewrote my piece each time, telling myself that even if I couldn’t tell the full story, at least the public would have an idea of what was happening.

I remember one young attorney, after reading my 40 page script said, “We’ve never seen anything like this before.” I replied, “Yes, that’s the way we used to do news here.”

Every time I complied with an edit, they had another change. And another one. And another one.

They pulled the Diebold whistleblower from the script.

I fought like crazy to keep Diebthroat in – feeling oddly like Al Pacino when he portrayed Lowell Bergman in the “Insider.”

I recall the famous lines.

“Do we have a whistleblower? Yes!
Is he telling the truth? Yes!

Are we going to air the piece? No!”

I almost quit my job of 11 1/2 years over this story.

I was told to take a vacation and think about things.

I finally acquiesced – realizing that even without the

whistleblower the story still had legs and had to be told.
Then I was asked to write to Diebold and ES&S (the two companies the piece was focused on) informing them of our plans to air the story.

I contacted Diebold on seven occasions. Each time they declined an interview.

Diebold pushed back at some of the claims we were about to make and our attorneys caved. They did not want a lawsuit.

Apparently having an untarnished record of not being sued was more important to the head office than airing the biggest story in decades.

This wasn’t about shelving my piece.

This was about keeping the truth from the American public.

I felt betrayed and absolutely sick to my stomach..

It was true. The corporation was setting the news agenda.

A dear colleague convinced me to stay on, noting I could still

get a few good stories under the radar.

I watched with disgust as I saw snippets of this story hit the front page of the New York Times, seven months after I took it to my supervisors. I walked around the bureau

waving the headlines at people. Still, no one wanted this story.

A few months prior to the midterm elections, I arranged to have Dr. Ed Felten, the head of Princeton’s computer science department perform an exclusive on-camera hack of a Diebold touchscreen voting machine. Still, ABC News would not touch this story.
Then after Felton’s hack hit the front page of the New York Times and Washington Post, an executive producer in New York called me.

I produced two spots for Good Morning America and Weekend World News. They were two minutes each -- hardly enough time to explain an incredibly complex subject.

The day the piece was to air on Sunday night's World News, we were pre-empted by sports.
The network aired half the show. But instead of restacking the newscast, our piece was pulled for
"McDonalds Gets a Makeover." Two weeks before the midterms and we couldn't possibly
air a piece warning voters that their vote could be comprised.
It was at that moment that I realized we were never really going to do this story justice.
The piece did finally air during the west coast re-feed but half the nation never saw it.
This should have been a week long investigative series. But apparently teenage tanning addicts won that air time.

I was also asked to brief a senior correspondent on Diebold. Diebold’s spokesman David Bear agreed to an interview on Good Morning America but cancelled at the last minute.

The correspondent told our viewers that we would keep calling Diebold.

We never did.
The story died.

And we helped kill it.

I was beginning to think it was unwritten policy that as a news organization, we would never do this story, despite the fact that we could have broken it, won awards and most importantly, served the public interest.

It’s now time to do so.

For the next few weeks, I will post my unaired interviews.

Below is the first installment, a portion of my interview with “Diebthroat.”

It took me seven months to develop this source and gain his trust. On January 20, 2006, my correspondent and I flew out of state to meet with him. We spent the day in a hotel room. There, he told us his story.

PART ONE

Q: Why did Diebold get into the voting machine business?

A: Being in this business, having the power of controlling elections, not necessarily the outcomes, just controlling elections is priceless.

Q: Is that what Diebold is doing?

A: Electronic voting leaves a lot of doors open for manipulation of the vote. Not that I can prove that was taking place. But there was a conservative agenda at work in the management and the acquisition. Things changed when Diebold took over (discusses company’s history).

Q: What about back-door software? Is it true these machines can be accessed without a password?

A: You can actually enter the Global Elections Management System, GEMS, which is the tabulation software through the back door. In other words, you can access the data base. This whole thing sits on top of Microsoft Access, so you can go in the back door, without going in the front door and needing a password and make alternations to the data base and Homeland Security recognized this threat and it’s documented on the Internet now.

Q: Why construct a system like that?

A: It’s not actually the machine, it’s the tabulation part of the system. We have the touch screens and we have a server and they all work in unison. But to answer your question, poor design is one reason and to manipulate the vote if it is needed. To make corrections should thing come out of balance there’s a back door you can go in, undetected and you can balance the books so to speak

Q: Who knows how to do this?

A: Certainly most of the Diebold employees who know how GEMS works. Many of those are available on Election day, involved in tabulation on election day. I haven’t heard any rumors that they’ve done it but they could.. A savvy client, whom Diebold has sold the equipment to, could do the same thing, who had a good technician on staff or a good software person. Anyone who was hired by a third party to infiltrate the system and make changes on their behalf, they could do it. It’s not difficult to do. It doesn’t take a lot of background research.

Q: Is that one of the attractive features of Diebold? That a partisan could tamper with the results?

A: I think the corporation would tell you it can’t be done. But in fact it can be. It’s just poor design and I don’t think it was ever intended it would be discovered as a security risk.

Q: Is it poor design or is it a deliberate design?

A: A little bit of both.

Q: Can you elaborate?

A: It’s a poor design in that it’s an early release of an elecgtronic voting system. It’s like a model-T. They didn’t anticipate many things they needed to. I will let Diebold off the hook in that sense. Now that they know, they should close the door and they haven’t. That makes them guilty.

Q: When did you first notice the tabulators had back door access?

A: I first noticed it in 2004 doing a search for GEMS. The GEMS software is on the net and can be downloaded. Anyone who wanted to hack the program, they can download it and practice it before they do it.

Q: Yes, but wouldn’t you have to be at the server to gain access?

A: I could figure out to change this, possibly remotely. I wouldn’t have to be at the server. So I construct a program to give the server instructions and I place that in the server to execute at a particular time. And that instruction could be to allow my candidate to win by 3 percent. Always, regardless of how many votes come in.

Q: Who has access to the server?

A: Who should have access? Only election officials, people who are government officials and who have had background checks and have been authorized by law to be involved in tabulation. And I think if you looked at the laws in some states, there are restrictions on that. Because we’ve gone electronic, we’re left with the paper rules. You can compare a lot of this to the Internet. It’s moved at lightening speed and the law hasn’t been able to keep up.

Q: So election officials and poll workers don’t know how to work the equipment?

A: Yes. In fact, we have a condition in Broward County where the vendor has a contract that he tabulates the votes. We have at many times been at the server on Election night, at the control panel. We put the votes into the server. We run the server roomn. We accumulate the votes. And when I say we, I mean Diebold Elections Systems.

Q: Let me get this straight, Diebold employees have full control of the polls on Election day?

A: Yes. Here’s what happens weeks before Election day. Diebold will bring in a team of people from corporate and they will be assigned to hire temporary staff. They don’t need to be qualified, just breathing. They train them two or three days and get them ready to be called "technicians." On Election day, they may bring in – in the case of a state like Georgia, they put 400 or 500 temps in the field and are supervised by Diebold people. So we ran the entire first election in the state of Georgia when they used the touch screen system. The election officials didn’t know how to run the system, they didn’t have the time to learn. The implementation was a six month implementation for 20-thousand machines or so. You can’t learn it that fast.

Q: Have you ever processed ballots?

A: I have personally loaded votes into servers in several states. I have done this. I have observed the president of Diebold doing this. I have observed the president of Diebold’s communications division, Mark Ratke, Bob Urosevich doing this. So it’s been done. It’s been done countless times. The times I’ve stated are the times I was there and actually participated.

I would like to mention one other thing about the Homeland Security warning on the Internet and the back door to the Diebold tabulators. Homeland Secuirty knew about the back door before the presidential election (2004) and they should have done something. That was my view and that’s when I really began to think there was a rat involved in this. Something was seriously wrong with everything I had done in the way of electronic voting and the representation of electronic voting.

Q: Didn’t you think it was irregular that you were opening and closing the polls and handling ballots?

A: I thought it was irregular but necessary in the sense that I was saving the elctions officials or the precincts from a lot of problems and that I did have the knowledge, it was very difficult for me to keep my hands behind my back. They were really fumbling along and I had many precincts under my control and I had to make sure those precincts opened and closed on time. So many Diebold employees had to take charge or the elections wouldn’t have happened.

Q: Where you ever asked to load software onto the machines?

A: The only time that we were requested to add a patch to the system, the certified system that’s supposed to be locked in and you can’t change it unless you go back for recertification, was in Georgia in 2002 when Diebold introduced what is now called "the Georgia patch."

I as involved in applying the patch in two of the counties. In Fulton County and also in Dekalb County.

Q: Tell me about this.

A: It was 10 days to two weeks away from the election, very close. In elections you start preparing and that’s gonna be your deadline: two weeks away to have the election ready. So we were applying a patch, supposedly to fix what is called the real time clock that keeps track of events on Election day, it makes sure the polls open and close on time. There’s a clock inside the machine. This patch was supposed to fix that.

Q: Looking back, what do you think was the reason for the patch?

A: The patch did not fix the real time clock.

Q: What did the patch fix?

A: I don’t know what the patch did. At the time I was told it was for the clock and I used the patch where I was told to use it. So as far as I’m concerned, it was the clock. But when the clock wasn’t fixed, I thought something was just wrong with the patch.

Q: The patch is called "Rob Georgia dot zip?" Was that the technology title for it? "Rob Georgia dot zip?

A: Well I think that may have been in reference to, and I don’t know this, a person by the name of Robert and it was his patch and it was the way of identifying ownership. I don’t know if they would ever name something that they were gonna rob a state of its right to vote. I just don’t know!

Q: Do you recall the outcome of that election in Georgia?

A: As I understand, it was somewhat historical in that Georgia elected a Republican. This seems to be sort of a consistent pattern with these machines. In Maryland, it was once again an unusual even of a Republican being elected in a Democratic state. It’s nothing that I can tie directly to the machines. But you know, two coincidences, you begin to wonder.

Q: Looking back, do you thing that the patch was designed to jimmy the machines so that, no matter what, the Republican would emerge with a majority?

A: A lot of people think that fixing elections is a very difficult process. So when people say, was the election fixed? And they say well, it takes a big conspiracy – because we used to tell people it takes a conspiracy of hundreds and hundreds of people. When in fact, it does not take that type of conspiracy.

Q: How so?

A: Let’s say I wanted to rig a national election for president. I certainly wouldn’t go in every state. Some states are already gonna vote my way, whatever way it is, Democratic or Republican. I would go to major states, let’s say. Let’s go to the big states: Illinois, Ohio, New York, California, Florida, Texas. And even in those states, I would not bother with every county. I’d bother with key counties. So I’d take key counties in key states and I’d flip a national election. That’s how easy it is. In Georgia, I applied the patch to DeKalb County and Fulton County. I don’t know, in fact I’m almost certain, the entire state was not done. There simply was not enough time or manpower to do it. But it was certainly done in those counties.

Q: Was the patch certified?

A: No. The patch was not certified. It was not known to the state of Georgia. In fact, the patch was applied in somewhat of a secret rush manner.

Q: Diebold, the people who make the machines, applied it secretly?

A: Yes they did. It was sort of done very quickly and there was no communication from my understanding with the State. And we were just to do it and to do it very quickly.

Q: How would you have gained access to those machines?

A: We had access and control of all the machines in the state of Georgia.

Q: And who gave you that access?

A: The state of Georgia did. This was a fast implementation. I’ll just put a time window of six months or less on the implementation and that’s not enough time to train poll workers and voters and elections officials on how to use this technology. It’s just not enough time. So we were running the entire election of 2002 for the state of Georgia.

Q: Kathy Cox was the Secretary of State. She allowed this?

A: That’s right. It was necessary politically for the Secretary of State to go forth and say "We are the first electronic state" and make that claim. From a political standpoint, this was the feather she wanted in her cap and so Diebold helped her get that feather.

Q: Do you have a lingering suspicion that those patches were designed to give a majority to the Republican candidate?

A: I don’t think anyone could prove that and what we have to rely on is the preponderance of evidence – what was the outcome and what did we do as a corporation during that period of time that was illegal. And when you marry those two together, I think people can draw their own conclusion. There’s absolutely something wrong.

Q: There was something wrong with the results?

A: There was something wrong with the entire election, the process of implanting that voting system in the state of Georgia. And the fact that a corporation had essentially taken over the rights of voters in the state of Georgia. Remember, limiting access, machines, voter registration: if you combine the right mix, you can pretty much tailor campaigns and get certain outcomes. It’s a science now. If you could only take out a certain percentage of voters, you can get a desired outcome. It’s not hard at all.

Q: Getting back to this patch in Georgia, what do you think was on the patch?

A: Something illegal. Something illegal. Had it been legal, we would have taken it through the proper certification procedures and we would have applied it as the rules call for. So something illegal, known to be illegal, was put on those machines. That makes the election illegal.

Q: Did the Secretary of State know?

A: Yes, there’s a document where she asks Diebold, "Did you patch all my machines?" so she doesn’t know what they did and it comes across very clear in her punch list of issues after the election.

Q: The Secretary of State didn’t know if the voting machines had been certified?

A: After the election, there was a memo put out, because the elections in 2002 in Georgia was a mess and there were problems although they went forth into the media and said, "Oh, it was a great election. It was a good outcome." At the same time, Kathy Cox, the Secretary of State, was drafting a letter to Diebold, Bob Urosevich, indicating there’s a number of problems that needed to be addressed. One of the problems was certifying the machines. She was asking are the certifications complete? Well, it’s my understanding, under Georgia law, that the State is the certifying authority. If you look at the punch list, and you look at the memo she sent to the President of Diebold, Diebold is the certifying authority.

Q: But that’s not constitutionally possible.

A: But it’s corporately possible because they did it. They had a $55 million contract. And they did it by controlling the whole election. What we’re seeing is the first phases of privatizing elections, like we privatized jails and many other things in this society. But this method is taking something very personal – something people have died for and you’re basically putting it on Wall Street, up for grabs.

So when you look at something like a Voters Rights Act and Civil Rights Act, these are now corporate issues. How much access they will grant to voters. They sort of write the policy.

Q: You make it sound like a takeover.

A; This is a takeover. This is a takeover like anybody would take over a government. But it’s just a module of government called the Election Department. And they actually take it over. Policies are rewritten.

Q: Is this something that Diebold finds attractive?

A: I’d say so.

Q: Is Diebold interested in establishing a new political paradigm in this country so they have positioned themselves in this particular industry to achieve that outcome?

A: Think in retrospect, that looking back on everything, and once again, in looking at the evidence, I would say: that’s a true statement. In the sense that, they never thought the advocacy of the electorate would rise to the level it’s at right now. People object to, and they take it very personally, that their vote is being affected by a corporation. People are very mad about what they’ve attempted to do. And if it wasn’t for this movement, by the way, I think we would have voting – even at ATM machines righ now because that’s one of their plans, vote at ATM machines. So it’s all ntertwined under this master plan to make voting more convenient. Because as Americans, we tend to be addicted to convenience. And it was all part of the master plan.

Q: What’s Diebold’s political agenda?

A: It’s very conservative. There’s very much an environment of straight laced conservatism, especially after the Diebold takeover of Global Election Systems, it was our way or no way – you should be happy to be working here was the attitude.

Q: What about the overall corporate culture?

A: I think they see things as we’re right and everyone’s wrong and whatever we need to do to get our agenda across, we’ll do it. And it’s just sort of part of this whole wave that’s happening in this country that we do things because they’re right, not because they’re correct and not because they’re legal. But because we think they’re right. And that’s the attitude that you get with some of these voting machine vendors. There’s a culture of fear. And most of the people inside the company do not talk about the negatives. So there may be conversation, there may conversation going back and forth, but the negatives are never talked about. For example, for the elections that go bad – they’re not talked about. The minute they go bad, the next day the cover-up starts. "Well, we just had a minor problem and we’re addressing that." That’s how it always is.

Lawmakers with Children Fighting in Iraq

2007-07-24T17:11:00Z

Congress continues to debate U.S. troop funding and Iraq withdrawal plans. Yet of the 535 members of Congress, only eleven have sons and daughters who have served in Iraq or may soon be deployed.

They are:

- Rep. Todd Aiken (R-MO) - his son Perry, a Marine lieutenant, served in Iraq in 2005, may be headed for a second tour.

- Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond (R-MO) - his son Sam, a Marine lieutenant, served in Iraq last year, scheduled to return in July.

- Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO) - her stepdaughter Jessica Gladney was stationed in Iraq in 2004.

- Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) - his son. Lt. Duncan Duane Hunter, has served two tours in Iraq.

- Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD) - his son Brooks served in the Army in Iraq in 2003.

- Rep. John Kline (R-Minn) - his son Dan served in Iraq in the Army last year.

- Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) - his son Jimmy, a newly enlisted Marine, may soon be deployed to Iraq.

- Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO) - has two sons in the military. Declines to disclose their assignments citing security and privacy concerns.

- Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) - his son Jimmy was serving with the Marines in Iraq as of late November.

- Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) - has three sons in the military. His son Alan spent a year in Iraq.

- Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE) - his son Beau, serves as a first lieutenant in the Delaware Army National Guard.
Beau's unit is scheduled for deployment to Iraq in early 2008.

Eleven, yes eleven Congressional Members with children fighting for "freedom" in Iraq.

This begs the question whether those who make decisions about war would think differently if their children had to fight in the wars that they sign off on.

Perhaps Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) has the right idea. Rangel, a Korean War vet, has called for the reinstatement of the draft, noting it would help the mililtary reach its goals and force politicians to think twice about armed conflicts..

"Decision-makers who support the war would more readily feel the pain of conflict and appreciate the sacrifice of those on the front lines if their children were there too," Rangel wrote in a January 7, 2003 op-ed piece, "Minorities comprise 35 percent of the military and Blacks 20 percent, well above their proportion of the general population. They, along with poor and rural Whites do more than their fair share of service in our ground forces. Yet the value of our foot soldiers is demeaned by those who promote the unproven notion that high-tech warfare will bring a quick and easy victory in Iraq."

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney do not have children serving in the military. And, with the exception of Joe Biden, Duncan Hunter and John McCain, neither do any of the presidential candidates.

Cheney: No Executive Privilege

2007-06-25T18:52:00Z

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel says he will tack on an amendment to an executive spending bill that will freeze funds for Vice President Dick Cheney’s office and official residence until he determines whether he belongs to the executive or legislative branch of government.

The Vice President exempted his office from the presidential order establishing government-wide procedures for safeguarding classified national security information, insisting his office is not an "entity within the executive branch."

Cheney says as President of the Senate, he and his staff are governed by the legislative branch.

According to the Washington Post, President Bush said the law does not apply to Cheney or his staff.

If that is the case, so be it.

That would mean that information regarding the energy task force meetings, Halliburton and Scooter Libby no longer falls under executive privilege. Cheney had conveniently invoked executive privilege to evade testimony and prevent the release of documents.

Let the President of the Senate answer to Senate rules.

I can only assume Patrick Fitzgerald is smiling somewhere.

Legal Hacking: White House vs. Capital Hill

2007-06-09T19:56:00Z

One growth area of modern computing is legal hacking. Stealing the other sides information, briefs, email and strategy in a legal matter has a huge range of valuable elements.

Like stealing the other teams playbook, it lets you gear up and practice for every play they have. Cybrinth has worked on several such events recently.

When I saw Fred Fielding was adding 9 Rock Stars to the White House Legal Team, my attention, usually taken up with finding hackers was unnaturally alerted. I asked a several friends in the legal community about the announcement. T

he range of reaction covered: very softly spoken "woahs," "damns," "uh-ohs," and one "Crap, why am I not in on this Team!"

Everyone seems to agree the The White House is positioning for a huge Legal War. I then asked if the team the WH had chosen was a team assembled for general purposes, or one that seemed PRECISELY targeted for something huge and specific. All agreed this was a team set up by someone with something very specific (and very very large) in mind. Besides wondering in the larger sense what this means for our nation...I ask this: How does the White House know what's coming? How did they know who to hire? When did they know? This seems like a team it would take a few months, or at least a few weeks to get freed up from previous work, no?

My question from an IT Perspective was different: Is the White House hacking the Hill?

I assume the only something big enough to demand this much White House lawyer up, with these skills, must be coming from the Hill. I suppose they could be about unleash their False Flag Nuke in Seattle and need this team to set aside the constitution...but baring something at extreme...the concern must be something specific coming from The Hill. But, as far as I can tell, the Hill has not given the White House 10 weeks notice to get lawyered up. Or have they?

Whatever it is, it is. The Red Alerts in the part my brain used 24/7 to watch for data leaks are very loud right now. It seems to me likely some-one is doing Legal Hacking of the Hill on behalf of the WH to give a leg up to Fred Fielding's Drafting Process. While the Hill seems to have no access White House IT, email, systems or uses even for oversite. Zero. Has anyone examined if the GOP/White House has access to the Hill's IT? This Press release, to me, indicates they do.

What type of WH access to Hill IT exists? 100% Access? Partial access? Is the Hill still using the systems installed during Delay's tenure as speaker?

Within the IT community the vendors selected to rebuild IT on the Hill from 2000-2006 are considered highly partisan arms of the GOP, not companies building solid solutions, but companies building partisan IT Tools.

Does the House and Senate have a traffic monitor and IDS system on this? I am, without any examination, looking at this from a Hunch. But getting and following hunches on IT issues is my job. I hope I am wrong. As a Reaganite Believer in the "Trust, but Verify" model, I would strongly suggest a system be put in place to drill down into the tens of thousands of communications coming and going from these systems. I bet a tiny handful will be very suspect. Following that tiny handful would be very interesting.

I have a good hunches of where they would lead. Or maybe it's normal for Presidents to add such a specific fleet of lawyers with these skill sets. At the public expense. As a precaution against...uhm...the unknown.

In Case our reader has missed the WHPR.

FROM THE WHITE HOUSE For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary June 8, 2007 Personnel Announcement White House News

President George W. Bush today announced that he has named nine individuals to serve in his Administration: The President has named J. Michael Farren to be Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President. Mr. Farren recently served as Corporate Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of the Xerox Corporation. Prior to this, he served as Under Secretary for International Trade at the U.S. Department of Commerce. Earlier in his career, he served as Deputy Campaign Manager for the Bush-Quayle Re-election Committee and Deputy Director of President George H.W. Bush's Transition Team. Mr. Farren received his bachelor's degree from Fairfield University, his master's degree from Trinity College, and his JD from the University of Connecticut.

The President has named William Burck to be Deputy Assistant to the President and Special Counsel to the President. Mr. Burck recently served as Counselor to the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division at the Department of Justice. Prior to this, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Staff Secretary at the White House. Earlier in his career, he served as Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and as a Law Clerk to the Honorable Anthony M. Kennedy of the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Burck received his bachelor's degree from Yale University and his JD from Yale Law School.

The President has named Emmet Flood to be Deputy Assistant to the President and Special Counsel to the President. Mr. Flood recently was a Partner at Williams & Connolly, LLP. Prior to this, he served as a Law Clerk to Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States. Earlier in his career, he served as Law Clerk for Judge Ralph K. Winter, Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Mr. Flood received his bachelor's degree from the University of Dallas and his JD from Yale Law School. He received his master's degree and PhD from the University of Texas at Austin.

The President has named Scott Coffina to be Associate Counsel to the President. Mr. Coffina recently served as a Partner at Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads in Philadelphia. Earlier in his career, he served as Assistant United States Attorney in United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and an Associate at Miller Alfano & Raspanti in Philadelphia. Mr. Coffina received his bachelor's degree from Cornell University and his JD from the University of Pennsylvania.

The President has named Amy F. Dunathan to be Associate Counsel to the President. Ms. Dunathan recently served as an Associate at Wiley Rein & Fielding, LLP. Earlier in her career, she served as a Law Clerk for the Honorable Ricardo M. Urbina of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and as Senior Republican Counsel at the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs. Ms. Dunathan received her bachelor's degree from Brown University and her JD from Georgetown University Law Center.

The President has named Francis Q. Hoang to be Associate Counsel to the President. Mr. Hoang recently served as an Associate at Williams & Connolly LLP. Earlier in his career, he served as a Judicial Law Clerk to the Honorable Thomas B. Griffith on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Deputy Chief of Police and SWAT Commander at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Mr. Hoang received his bachelor's degree from the United States Military Academy, his master's degree from Washburn University and his JD from Georgetown University Law Center.

The President has named Al Lambert to be Associate Counsel to the President. Mr. Lambert recently served as an Associate at Wiley Rein & Fielding, LLP. Earlier in his career, he served as a Law Clerk for the Honorable Laurence H. Silberman, United States Court of Appeals, DC Circuit and Summer Associate at Patton Boggs, LLP. Mr. Lambert received his bachelor's degree from New York University and his JD from Harvard Law School.

The President has named Michael Purpura to be Associate Counsel to the President. Mr. Purpura recently served as Senior Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General at the United States Department of Justice. Earlier in his career, he served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Hawaii and as an Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. Mr. Purpura received his bachelor's degree from the United States Military Academy and his JD from the Columbia University School of Law.

The President has named Kate Todd to be Associate Counsel to the President. Ms. Todd recently served as a Partner at Wiley Rein & Fielding, LLP. Earlier in her career, she served as a Law Clerk to the Honorable Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States and a Law Clerk to the Honorable J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Ms. Todd received her bachelor's degree from Cornell University and her JD from Harvard Law School.

Illegally Blonde: Poor Monica Goodling

2007-05-23T15:45:00Z

Goodling testifying before the House Judiciary Committee
Wednesday, May 25, 2007

Editorial.

Poor Monica Goodling. Poor, poor Monica. Oh, the indignity of it all -- having to testify before the House Judiciary Committee today.

She may have violated laws but she didn't mean to. I guess it's all better now. And clearly Committee members agreed -- practically falling all over her with apologies for having been brought forth to testify. Goodling, the former Department of Justice's White House liaison and senior counselor to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, was granted immunity from prosecution during testimony regarding the White House's role in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. And while she was the White House liaison, Goodling asserted that she did not "hold the keys to the kingdom" as some have suggested.

The first three hours of testimony shed little light on the plan to remove the USA's. Although Goodling did say she believed Deputy Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty had delivered inaccurate testimony before Congress. In particular, Goodling said, McNulty had not been forthcoming about newly appointed Arkansas U-S Attorney Tim Griffin's use of caging lists.

Goodling testified that there were "problems with her historic memory" and agreed that the firings should have been handled differently. She believed the USA's in question should have been given a chance to learn about their performance and given an opportunity to improve. Goodling believed the firings should have been done in person, noting "it was the right thing to do."

Goodling recounted a November 27, 2006 meeting she attended concerning the firing of Nevada U-S Attorney Daniel Bogden. She said the general consensus was that the Justice Department could do better than Bogden, noting, "good people needed to be put in those spots." Goodling said Gonzales agreed to use a provision within the Patriot Act to axe Bogden. Funny, Gonzales has sworn up and down he doesn't even remember attending the meeting. Regardless, Bogden, an Independent, was not the man for the job, despite the fact that he served the Department for more than sixteen years. The Nevada U-S Attorney, testifying before a House Judiciary Subcommittee on March 6, 2007, recounted what Associate Deputy Attorney General William Mercer said was the reason for his dismissal:

"He said that the administration has a very short two-year window of opportunity, concerning the United States attorneys positions, and that this would be an opportunity to put others into those positions so they could build their resumes, get an experience as a United States attorney, so that, for future possibilities of being federal judges or other political-type positions, they would be better enhanced to do so."

But according to Gonzales' testimony on April 19th, 2007 before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the attorneys were not dismissed for any "improper reason" or for "partisan political gain."

Nonsense.

Now back to Monica.

Ranking Minority Member Lamar Smith (R-TX), pleased with Goodling's testimony, accused Democrats of trying to "graft new legs" on a story that clearly had none. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) called it a fishing expedition, saying "there ain't no fish in the water."

Goodling admits to "crossing the line" and going too far "by asking political questions" during interviews with potential career attorneys. In fact she says she did block or delay appointments of liberal Democrats from employment, noting on one occasion, "When I looked at that resume I made a snap judgment and I regret it."

But Goodling says she did not have prior knowledge of any plans to fire US Attorneys.

Rep. Dan Lundgren (R-CA) commended Goodling on her "strong testimony", adding she had clearly acquitted herself because there were no "gotcha moments" during her testimony.

I didn't know there was so much love on Capitol Hill.

evasion@thewhitehouse.com

2007-05-22T00:18:00Z

On March 6, 2007, a grand jury convicted former vice presidential chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby on four of five counts of perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements to the FBI. Since then, several court documents have been made public including letters from prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to the Libby defense team. In one letter Fitzgerald notes his concerns about numerous 2003 emails that had disappeared from White House computer archives. The letter states:

"… In an abundance of caution, we advise you that we have learned that not all email of the Office of Vice President and the Executive Office of the President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system."

Fitzgerald was definitely on to something. How big? Perhaps at the time he may not have known. But what is now clear is that there are an untold number of emails missing from the White House. According to CREW, as many as five million. And then there are Karl Rove’s missing emails from the Republican National Committee server, an account that was said to contain 95-percent of his emails.

And while those emails may never surface, the White House and Karl Rove may find themselves in violation of the Presidential Records Act.

It’s no secret that President Bush has consistently attempted to weaken the Presidential Records Act (PRA), which was intended to open presidential documents to the public after a period of no more than 12 years. It was passed in 1978, after Watergate, "to underscore the fact that presidential records belong to the American people, not to the president," notes Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA). But after 2001, Bush issued a decree that now allows "former presidents and their heirs to bar the release of documents for almost any reason." He has promised to veto any attempt to return to the bill’s original intent. Recent revelations in the Bush Administration’s firings of eight U.S. attorneys shed new light on another way the White House has been deliberately evading the PRA – by using political, non-government e-mail addresses to correspond to one another. Since the White House system automatically keeps records of all-emails, Bush Administration officials – including Karl Rove – are using accounts provided by the RNC and the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign to dodge public oversight. Unfortunately, after Waxman notified these groups to begin preserving all e-mails by and from White House officials, administration staffers started looking for new ways to hide presidential records from public scrutiny.

AVOIDING_OVERSIGHT@GWB43.COM: The easiest way to reach a White House official may not be through a White House e-mail address. Karl Rove does almost all of his e-mailing using his RNC-based account. Many other aides in the Political Affairs office "use the RNC account as an alternative to their official government e-mail addresses to help keep their official and political duties separate." Susan Ralston, Rove’s former assistant, used not only an RNC account, but also accounts at george.bush.com and aol.com to communicate White House information with lobbyist jack Abramoff. At one point, an Abramoff aide noted that Ralson told him to e-mail her at her political account because "it is better to not put this tuff in writing in (the White House) … email system because it might actually limit what they can do to help us, especially since there could be lawsuits, etc." E-mails show that Rove’s deputy, J. Scott Jennings, used a political email address – Sjennings@gwb43.com – to help orchestrate the prosecutor purge. Even former President George H. W. bush said his son, the current president spurns e-mailing because the records could be subpoenaed. But the White House e-mail system has been crafted to comply with the PRA. It "automatically copies all messages created by staff and sends them to the White House Office of Records Management for archiving." By avoiding the White House e-mail system, the Bush Administration has raised serious questions about "whether it is taking all necessary steps to maintain presidential records to provide a full accounting of all activities" during Bush’s tenure.

COMMUNICATING THROUGH TEXTING: On Monday, March 26, 2007, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman wrote to the RNC and the Bush-Cheney ’04 Campaign and directed them to preserve all e-mails by and for White House officials because they "may be relevant to multiple congressional investigations." Waxman also requested that they meet with the committee about the legal issues involved in conducting official government business using partisan e-mail accounts. But since receiving those letters, White House officials have decided that more evasion – rather than more transparency – is now necessary. U.S. News reports that some aides "have subsequently bought their own private e-mail system through a cellular phone or blackberry server. When asked how he communicated, one aide pulled out a new personal cell phone and said, ‘texting.'"

Montana’s U-S Attorney Bill Mercer: Politically Suspect From Day One

2007-05-21T23:50:00Z

1994—2001: Bill Mercer serves as an assistant U.S. attorney from Billings, Montana.

Mercer began his term as U.S. Attorney for the district of Montana on April 20th, 2001-- recommended for the position by now former Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT), [Source: United States Senate] and on September 4th, 2001, four and a half months after he began his tenure, arguably close to within what, pre-Patriot Act Reauthorization, was the 120-day term for interim appointments, President George W. Bush sent his nomination to the Senate. He was confirmed by the Senate on November 6, 2001, and sworn in as US Attorney on December 4, 2001, nearly seven months after his actual appointment.

May 12, 2001: Moreover, records show that Mercer’s chief ally, then-Senator Burns, had already accepted more than $12,000 in May 2001 from lobbyist Jack Abramoff whose illegal donations ultimately ended Burns’ career.

Mercer’s Rise To #3 At Department of Justice:

Under Fire Politically At Home and In Court

Mercer’s connection to Senator Burns, then only one of four federal lawmakers under heavy investigation, was not lost on the incoming unconfirmed Acting Assistant Attorney General or Montana’s political community.

May 9, 2005: Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey announces the dual appointment of William W. Mercer as Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, while he continues to serve as United States Attorney for the District of Montana. Mercer will begin service in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General in June. The Senate never confirmed Mercer.

In taking on his dual roles as US Attorney and his newly appointed, though not confirmed, position, Mercer received valid questions by the Montana Democratic Party:

July 12, 2005: "On May 11th, 2005, it was reported that you would be taking on new responsibilities at the Justice Department. Specifically, that you have been promoted to a new role as a top official at Justice in a position of influence over the departments investigating and possibly prosecuting the Burns-Abramoff connections. Mr. Mercer, is it appropriate under these circumstances for you to recuse yourself from an investigation with which you have a very obvious conflict of interest? I would like to hear back from you as soon as possible about this issue."

Mercer never responded.

October 20, 2005: Meanwhile Montana U.S. District Chief Judge Donald W. Molloy wrote a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in October 2005 demanding that Mercer be replaced. Molloy wrote that Mercer’s absence had led to "a lack of leadership" in the Montana office and created "untoward difficulties for the court" and for career prosecutors. The judge also questioned whether Mercer complied with residency requirements.

Gonzales wrote back the next month that Mercer was handling both jobs admirably, and suggested that Mercer’s absence would be short-lived. Relations between Mercer and Molloy have not improved since. Molloy berated Mercer during a court hearing last year, accusing him of bringing weak cases to court to pump up statistics and telling him: "You have no credibility — none." "Your lawyers are not getting their briefs in on time," Molloy said. "You’re in Washington, D.C., and you ought to be here in Montana doing your work. Your office is a mess." [Source: Billings Gazette, May 17, 2006]

Yet the Molloy incident had little effect on Mercer who was now moving to henchman inside the Gonzales circle.

(Note some references are taken from the release of recent DOJ documents, confirmed through specific offices. Where possible, particularly with regard to Bill Mercer, specific dates are included.)

March 2, 2006: The Senate passes The USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005.

March 9, 2006: Bush signs the USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005.

June 5, 2006: In an email Sampson asks Mercer, "Has ODAG ever called Carol Lam and woodshedded her re: immigration enforcement? Has Anyone?"

June 20, 2006: Mercer writes Paul McNulty to discuss publicity around the immigration prosecution records for Southern California. Of the four options, three recommend getting rid of Lam.

July 8, 2006: Mercer derides Lam to Michael Elston. Mercer jokes that Elston will be sad because, "Carol Lam can't meet a deadline or that you'll need to interact with her in the coming weeks or that she won't just say, 'O.K. You got me. You're right, I've ignored national priorities and obvious local needs. Shoot, my production is more hideous than I realized.'"

August 2006: Justice officials suggest bypassing the two Democratic senators in Arkansas, who normally would have had input into the appointment. The way to bypass them, of course, would be to use the provision in the Patriot Act provision.

September 2006: Sampson put together another list of candidates, totaling nine. Cummins, he said, was "in the process of being pushed out." Six of those nine, including Cummins, were among the eight ultimately fired in December. Additionally Sampson writes to Miers, "I am only in favor of executing on a plan to push some USAs out if we really are ready and willing to put in the time necessary to select candidates and get them appointed." He urged using the Patriot Act provision in order to get their "preferred person" appointed.

September 2006: President Bush nominates Mercer as Associate Attorney General. Among others, duties would include protection of Civil Rights, Antitrust oversight of the offices of Justice Programs, Community Oriented Policing Services, Tribal Justice, Dispute Resolution, Information and Privacy, Community Relations Service, and Violence Against Women.

October 2006: New Mexico's Iglesias was added to the list, "based in part on complaints from Sen. Pete V. Domenici and other New Mexico Republicans that he was not prosecuting enough voter-fraud cases." Also in October, President Bush mentions complaints about voter-fraud investigations to Gonzales in a conversation in October 2006. "Gonzales does not recall the conversation, Justice Department officials said."

November 15, 2006: Sampson prepares USA replacement plan.

December 2006: Sampson emails "the White House with a copy to Ms. Miers outlining plans to carry out the firings":

"We would like to execute this on Thursday, Dec. 7," Sampson wrote. Because some United States attorneys were still in Washington attending a conference, he planned to postpone telling them they were being fired.

He writes to Mercer, "We want to wait until they are back home and dispersed to reduce chatter."

Within one week, calls go out.

Sampson then suggests that Gonzales use the Patriot Act provision to put Karl Rove's former aide Timothy Griffin in place until the end of Bush's term. "[I]f we don't ever exercise it then what's the point of having it?" he wrote to a White House aide.

January 18, 2007: Alberto Gonzales testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee. In response to questioning by Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA), Gonzales does not deny that his office has asked U.S. Attorneys to resign in the last year. He also testifies: "I would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney for political reasons or if it would in any way jeopardize an ongoing serious investigation. I just would not do it."

March 25, 2007: Former Las Vegas Attorney General recounts phone call with Mercer in interview with Las Vegas Sun: "He says, ‘The administration has a short two-year window of opportunity where they can get candidates out to your positions, where they can get the résumé together, they can have the experience of the U.S. attorney in their background that would make them a more viable candidate for future judgeships, for political office.’"

April 12, 2007: William Mercer testifies before a closed session of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the firings of the 8 US Attorney Generals.

Did Mercer Violate The Patriot Act Passed as of December 9, 2001?

The Patriot Act of December 9, 2001: United States Attorneys are required to reside in the district for which they are appointed as a general rule, 28 U.S.C. 545. Sec.501.

Beginning in June 2005, Mercer assumed his dual position thereby serving nearly a full year since the Act was amended. Was he in violation of the law and it begs a larger question? Under the reauthorized version, why is such an obscure ruling changed?

The Patriot Act of March 26, 2006: Eliminates the authority of the court and allows the temporary U.S. Attorney to serve until confirmation of a replacement, 28 U.S.C. 546.

(From the Molloy/Gonzales chain)

Oct. 20, 2005: Montana U.S. District Chief Judge Donald Molloy claims in a letter to Gonzales that Mercer was violating federal law because he "no longer resides in Montana" and was living with his family in the Washington area.

Nov. 10, 2005: Gonzales responded to Molloy that Mercer "is in compliance with the residency requirement" under federal law (28 U.S.C. 545. Sec. 501) because he "is domiciled there, returns there on a regular basis and will live there full-time as soon as his temporary assignment is completed."

So did Gonzales lie in this letter?

December 2005: The Administration, via Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter's (R-PA) chief counsel, slipped a provision into the Patriot Act reauthorization bill that made it possible to replace U.S. Attorneys permanently without Senate confirmation.

So who was responsible for pushing the Patriot amendment? Clearly it had to be somebody at Justice who could get to Specter's Chief Counsel, Brett Tolman. Perhaps it may have been Mercer.

William E. Moschella is the Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General and has been investigated by House and Senate staff in March 2007. It is unknown whether he was asked about the residency issue. However, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) singled Gonzales out on the subject during recent testimony before the Committee.

April 19, 2007: Leahy: "I'm talking about an office that the Judge himself says is in disarray in Montana, and Mr. Mercer has testified that he's in Montana just three days a month -- three days a month -- while he's acting as your Associate Attorney General. I just mentioned that because if we're talking about absentee landlords, sometimes the absentee landlords are created by your own office.

(Note: that Gonzales tries to misdirect line of questioning to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. Leahy in fact puts it right back, "I'm not talking about Mr. Fitzgerald.")

April 12, 2007: Mercer was interviewed in a closed door session. This is where the three days a month figure came out as Leahy discloses.

The Case Of The Fired U-S Attorneys As Seen Through Rove Colored Glasses

2007-05-21T22:26:00Z

During an appearance at Troy University’s School of Journalism on Thursday, March 15, 2007, White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor Karl Rove said the removal of prosecutors was based entirely on policy and personnel matters at the Justice Department.

Rove claimed the dismissals were no different than ones in the Clinton Administration, and he questioned why the Bush Administration's action is drawing "super-heated rhetoric" while the dismissals during President Clinton's terms did not.

"In each of these instances a decision was made at the Department of Justice on the basis of policy and personnel," Rove told students at a journalism seminar.

"We're at a point where people want to play politics with it. That's fine," he said. "I'd simply ask everybody who's playing politics with this be asked to comment about the removal of 123 U.S. attorneys during the previous administration and see if they had the same super-heated political rhetoric."

The 123 included 93 Republican appointees that the Democrat Clinton replaced when he began his first term, which is common in such a change of command. Rove refused to elaborate on any details on who the other 30 were.

By comparison, he said, "We've replaced a total of 128."

The argument by the President’s political guru is misleading at best, a blatant lie at worse.

Mr. Rove would have people believe that if the president wants to weed out those who have been less than satisfactory by whatever subjective standard the president or his staff may wish to apply, then there is no reason that he cannot take away what he has given.

Yes, while the power to appoint U.S. Attorneys is one of executive privilege, manipulation as if they were pieces in a game of political chess as numerous emails and speeches given by Mr. Rove in the run up to the 2006 elections demonstrate barely meets the his own standard of plausible deniability.

So just how does Rove’s view of reality put forth by the Bush Administration match that of previous administrations? Business as usual? Or a complete break from past practice and an unprecedented move?

That question appears to be largely resolved by a Congressional Research Service report.

CRS examined the tenure of all U.S. Attorneys who were confirmed by the Senates between the years 1981 and 2006 to determine how many had served—and of those how many had been forced to resign for reasons other than a change in administration.

The answer; of the 468 confirmations made by the Senate over the 25-year period, only 10 left office involuntarily for reasons other than a change in administration prior to the firings that took place in December, according to the available evidence gathered by CRS. The average incidence of such involuntary departures was one out of every two-and-a-half years; the largest number of such departures prior to this administration was a total of four departures during the Clinton administration.

But the December firings by the Bush Administration stand in even more stark contrast with the firings that took place in previous administrations when the grounds for the departures are examined. In virtually all instances prior to the December firings, including two previous departures during this administration, serious issues of personal or professional conduct appeared to be the driving issue.

It is no surprise that Karl Rove’s black hand has once again put him squarely on the wrong side of political history where he seems to have set up permanent residence every election cycle lording over a factless domain, torturing numbers until they say what he wants them to.

But this time principal may have prevailed over political gain.

It is clear that the four administrations in control the executive branch of government during the past quarter-century, only the current administration has held the view that U.S. Attorney can or should be removed absent serious cause. In no instance is there any indication of a removal because a U.S. attorney failed to meet certain political criteria, such as prosecuting cases that were considered too sensitive to partisan issues or failing to prosecute cases that would be helpful from a partisan perspective.

And if there are those in need of further convincing, consider the following email dated January 9, 2005 by the recently departed Kyle Sampson, who seemed to understand the political price that would be paid if Mr. Rove’s unprecedented plan was implemented, but took the bullet for him anyway: "Due to the history, it would certainly send ripples through the U.S. attorney community if we told folks they got one term only. ...That said, if Karl thinks there would be political will to do it, then so do I."

Web 3.0 and Digital Anarchy in Our Time

2007-05-18T15:51:00Z

I believe Evgeny understates the coming Digital Anarchy.

Reprinted from the Globalist. By Evgeny Morozov | Friday, May 18, 2007

Most computer users around the world are still coming to terms with Web 2.0 and its many options for operating social networks and engaging in collaboration. Yet, they should quickly adjust their learning schedules — and get ready for the next upgrade. Web 3.0 is just around the corner and, at first sight, it looks nastier than its predecessors, argues Evgeny Morozov. orget all the highfalutin talk about metaverses and folksonomies. We are entering a world where users can accomplish more with a click of a mouse than lawyers and bankers can do with threats of a lawsuit and angry phone calls to the chief executive.

Web 3.0 could be all about anarchy, lawsuits and brutal demands by a battalion of self-styled digital Robin Hoods, with a pinch of cyberbullying thrown in to match the emotional spectrum of real life. True to the revolutionary spirit, the riot that changed everything occurred on May 1, 2007. As most old-school radicals were marching across the globe to celebrate the International Workers' Day, the reform-minded among them engaged in more-innovative action, taking on the sacred cow of the entertainment industry — digital rights management (or DRM). DRM is a technology used by publishers and owners of copyrighted material to prevent unauthorized sharing and usage of digital data. (If you ever had to transfer a song from one iPod to another, you’ve seen DRM in action.) The public response Needless to say, DRM has faced constant attacks from the digital crowd, which has accused it of penalizing those who pay for the files they access by limiting how they can use the files. (The billions of illegal mp3 files that are downloaded from dubious music sites, for example, have no DRM restrictions whatsoever).

On May 1, 2007, though, the revenge of the nerds went online, taking unprecedented and often mysterious forms. The rebellion started on the social news website Digg.com, which allows users to share links to interesting stories found on the Internet and then vote on how much they like each submission. The number affair One such story contained a string of Try mobilizing online civic action of the same magnitude for most global causes--and you'll see that the magic number to unlock a HD-DVD leads to much more focused, organized and passionate action. 32 digits that can be used to unlock HD-DVD protections, which would make all HD-DVD discs easy to copy and share. Digg was hardly the first site to publicize the number.

It has been available on the Internet for a few months and was nothing new to the hyperactive hacking crowd. After hundreds of users voted for the story, it got a lot of prominence on Digg's front page, which is composed entirely on the basis of user recommendations (hence the "social news” element). Industry fires back However, a request coming from the Advanced Access Content System — a consortium of companies managing licensing for high-definition copy protection — forced Digg to temporarily remove any mentions of the number from its page. But the genie was out of the bottle. Many Digg users kept submitting new stories about the magic number. A growing threat Many other websites and blogs started reposting it (including creative drawings and photos of the number appearing on a popular photo-sharing site, Flickr, The day somebody invents the user-generated cash and user-generated lawyers, the transformation of the Web will be complete. videos of the number on the popular video-sharing site YouTube — and t-shirts with the number imprinted on them in many online shops). Curiously, many bloggers were constantly quoting the First Amendment, among a plethora of other justifications for their actions. All major Web services got involved. Each of them had to make a major decision that may yet result in multi-million dollar lawsuits. Some of them — like Wikipedia — were used to vandalism and had all the necessary mechanisms and editorial layers to deal with it quickly.

Lawsuits tangle Web Some — like Digg — didn't, and after a period of indecision, they sided with their users, not the letter of the law. In the words of its founder Kevin Rose, Digg decided to "go down fighting — rather than bow down to a bigger company." The incident revealed a lot about the changing nature of the Web. Paradoxically, the main threat that it faces is not viruses, malicious software or censorship. It's the Web itself, with its constantly growing capacity to generate and accommodate lawsuits. Users run the show Forget the good old times when Web and entertainment companies owned bits of each other in a series of intertwined but not always successful deals (think AOL and Time Warner). Nobody really likes the fact that they can't copy a DVD they bought or transfer a music file they legally downloaded—and companies are slowly waking up to that. Enter the times when the very same companies are suing each other to death for copyright violations that are perpetrated by their users (think Google and Viacom).

Digg's case has shown, it's the users — not investors, legal authorities or company executives (the Digg management acknowledged not consulting their investors on what they did) — that are often driving the strategic direction of many successful Web 2.0 businesses. The world is lagging Hence the sudden tectonic shift from user-generated content to user-generated power. The day somebody invents user-generated cash and user-generated lawyers, the transformation of the Web will be complete. But as the complicity of Wikipedia, Google and some other services in this affair has shown, for quite a bit of time we will still live with the “crippled” “old” mindset — where the law and the buck are still king (doesn’t that seem so Web 2.0 now?). How should it be handled? Yet, things may change soon. Governments don't give in to demands of terrorists for a good reason. the main threat that it faces is not viruses, malicious software , censorship. It's the Web itself, with its constantly growing capacity to generate and accommodate lawsuits.

If you give in once, countless copycats will follow. Digg's users are not terrorists, but their demands bordered on the extreme — and Digg gave in to them. Now, what would happen next time that YouTube is pressured to remove controversial materials from its website? What would its users — many of whom are the same people who rebelled against Digg — do? Most likely, they would rebel against YouTube, plus whoever has coerced YouTube into removing the offending content. As we are entering a world where users can accomplish more with a click of a mouse than lawyers and bankers can do with threats of a lawsuit and angry phone calls to the chief executive, even Viacom would want to think twice before submitting itself to thousands of hack attacks after another lawsuit aimed at Google. The power of self-interest What is most troubling about this story is that the tremendous power of crowds is still being wasted on issues of marginal global importance. Try mobilizing online civic action of the same magnitude for most global causes: climate change, human rights, or Darfur — and you'll see that the magic number to unlock a HD-DVD leads to much more focused, organized and passionate action. The problem of digital rights management epitomized by the “number affair” is, of course, important and would eventually be solved through a constructive dialogue between big business and customers. After all, nobody really likes the fact that they can't copy a DVD they bought or transfer a music file they legally downloaded — and companies are slowly waking up to that fact. An end in sight? For a good reason, there are not many economists, scientists or politicians who would rank the digital rights management problem among the top 50 issues that requiring immediate global attention.

Paradoxically, the up-and-coming new media community that constantly accuses the big and old media of permanent attention deficit disorder suffers from similar sins, only on a grander scale. Thus, it would be a major disappointment to both old and new media if Web 3.0 would only reinforce that lack of attention — instead of rectifying it.

Government Official Admits we are at Cyber-War

2007-04-20T19:03:00Z

I would like to add the strongest support, thanks and heartfelt "hoo-ahhs" to the statement below by James Langevin. At the very same time Abu Gonzales was lying his way to infamy, this very wise and brave leader of our Governement was telling the truth about the ongoing, growing and increasingly dangerous Cyber-Wars being waged. Not only do I offer the thanks of myself and the serious IT professionals I work with every day, I would like to publicly offer to Buy You a Beer. No higher honor exists among IT Engineers. Now that we have Cyber-Govt-Leaders admitting we have secure systems cut to ribbons by overseas hackers, cant restart State Dept Computers or large portions fo NDU...can we also admit Electronic Voting is utterly hackable and should be banned? Thanks James. You are very correct. James Langevin Statement 4/19/07 Hearing
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, Science and Technology hearing on the hacking of federal systems and privately-owned critical infrastructure.
I’d like to begin by thanking the witnesses who appear before us today, and I appreciate your testimony.
I’d like to focus my remarks this afternoon on our first panel, which will discuss the security of information technology on the federal level.
Let me be clear about the threat to our federal systems: I believe that the infiltration by foreign nationals of federal government networks is one of the most critical issues confronting our nation.
The acquisition of our government’s information by outsiders undermines our strength as a nation. If our sensitive information is stolen and absorbed by our enemies, we are strategically harmed.
Over time, the theft of critical information from government servers could cost the United States our advantage over our adversaries. This is a most critical issue that we cannot afford to ignore any longer.
Today we’re hearing from several agencies that have experienced significant cyber attacks against their systems.
These are not the only agencies experiencing these problems. They are simply the only attacks that have been made public.
In October 2006, hackers operating through Chinese Internet servers launched an attack on the computer system of the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) at the Department of Commerce.
The hackers penetrated the computers with a “rootkit” program, a form of software that allows attackers to mask their presence and then gain privileged access to the computer system.
In reviewing the Commerce testimony for today’s hearing, I am troubled by several things.
Though Commerce learned on July 13 that its computers were first infected, this was not the date of initial infection. In fact, Commerce has no idea how long the attackers were inside their systems, nor do they know if the attackers are still within their systems. As far as I can tell from the responses, rogue tunnel audits, authentication changes, and complete machine rebuilds have not occurred.
We’re also not sure how much information was lost. Though Commerce tells us that data was not “lost,” data can easily be “copied” and sent outside through the Internet.
Unfortunately, Commerce isn’t the only federal agency with a problem.
Prior to the Commerce hack, in June 2006, hackers accessed networks at several State Department locations, including its Washington headquarters, and inside the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
They did so by sending a socially-engineered email to an employee. The employee opened the Microsoft Word document attachment, which contained an exploit code.
I am concerned about the temporary fix that State put in place.
Security authorities that I have spoken with are highly dubious about the success of “temporary wrappers,” the kind which State had to put in place due to the absence of a Microsoft patch for several months.
Most targeted attacks involve root-kits, which cannot be detected or stopped by a “temporary wrapper.” I don’t understand, therefore, why State wouldn’t take its entire system offline for a full kernel inspection.
In reading State’s testimony, I believe that State made the determination that accessibility to data is more important than confidentiality and integrity. If State really valued confidentiality and integrity, they would have taken the system off line and done a full wash.
Both agencies insist that these attacks are less serious because they involve “unclassified servers.” I disagree.
As you are no doubt aware, FISMA requires federal agencies to track down and identify every device and system on an agency’s network, and to make sure that the network topology is fully described.
As we learned last week, both State and Commerce received F’s in the latest round of FISMA scores. According to page 10 of the Fiscal year 2006 FISMA Report to Congress, the Inspector General at the Department of State reported that the agency did not complete at least 50% of its system inventory. The IG at the Department of Commerce certifies that at least 96% of Commerce systems have been inventoried.
I will suggest to our panelists today that if they can’t certify their network topologies to FISMA, then they can’t know for certain whether these incidents don’t involve the classified networks.
Furthermore, just because these attacks are occurring on the unclassified network does not mean this isn’t sensitive information. Information that may be deemed “classified” in the future may first appear on an unclassified network.
But this isn’t just about Commerce and State.
I am disappointed and troubled with the Department of Homeland Security’s progress in securing cyberspace.
The Department is the agency responsible for securing the nation’s critical infrastructure, and yet they received a “D” this year on its FISMA score. It is the first time since 2003 that the Department did not receive an “F.”
Our issue today is with the NCSD, but I’ll be honest with you: I don’t know how the Department thinks it’s going to lead this nation in securing cyberspace when it can’t even secure its own networks.
Not only are these grades embarrassing, it’s dangerous. Think about all of the critical information the Department is keeping on its networks. I can assure everyone here that the kinds of questions that have been asked to the State Department and the Commerce Department will be asked to DHS.
With regard to NCSD’s response to these incidents, I have a few thoughts.
It is my understanding that NCSD does not adequately share commonalities of attack information with other agencies that may be at risk. For instance, an agency like Commerce or State that has been hacked by a “zero-day exploit” will provide this information to the NCSD. But the NCSD can’t just sit on that information.
We need the NCSD to be the group that fuses information from across the federal government together and distributes a product for agencies to use.
Unfortunately, I understand that NCSD does not have protocols in place to share this kind information with other agencies in the federal government or perform that level of work.
This subcommittee will continue to monitor these issues to ensure that information sharing and technical response improves.
In closing, I think these incidents have opened up a lot of eyes in the halls of Congress.
We don’t know the scope of our networks. We don’t know who’s inside our networks. We don’t know what information has been stolen.
We need to get serious about this threat to our national security. Thank you. Yes. We do.

ELECTRONIC VOTING SYSTEM SECURITY

2006-11-03T20:30:00Z

Original SAIC Report

(Redactions are crossed through by unknown party and Additions are underlined by unknown party)

The federal Help America Vote Act requires that each state have a voting system meeting federal requirements by January 2006, including a Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) or other accessible voting unit in each precinct for voters with disabilities. Chapter 564 of the Laws of Maryland (2001) requires a uniform statewide voting system for polling places and a uniform system for absentee voting by 2006, for all jurisdictions in Maryland.

To meet these requirements the State Board of Elections (SBE) selected the Diebold AccuVote-Touch Screen for polling pIace voting and the Diebold AccuVote Optical Scan for absentee voting. The agency entered into a contract for the Phase I implementation covering four counties on December 12,2001, and the system was used in those counties for the 2002 elections. SBE signed a contract modification on July 19,2003 to provide for additional equipment and services for 19 jurisdictions (Phase II), to be used b e m g with the March 2004 primary election. The remaining jurisdiction, Baltimore City, is scheduled to implement the system for the 2006 elections.

In a report dated July 23,2003 entitled "Analysis of an Electronic Voting System," (the Rubin report) computer scientists from Johns Hopkins University and Rice University stated results of their analysis of source code for a Diebold touch screen voting system. The report described potential security issues and vulnerabilities of source code found on a Diebold web site and suggested that the security of the system could be compromised ~~easily~~. The report indicated that administrative controls and procedures for use of the voting system were not analyzed, and based observations on the assumption that the voting devices operate on the Internet.

In response both SBE and Diebold affirmed ~~stated~~ that the devices do not operate on the Internet, and that the State's procedural controls reduce or eliminate many, if not all, of the vulnerabilities identified in the report. Nonetheless, the Rubin report, representing observations of computer security experts, prompted strong public interest in verifying security of the voting system.

On August 5,2003, Governor Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr., directed the Department of Budget and Management to carry out an independent security review of the voting system to determine security risks, and corrective actions required to ensure the integrity of the voting process. Science Applications InternationaI Corporation (SAIC), an independent consulting firm internationdly respected in the fieId of technology security, performed the analysis and has delivered its security analysis report.
~~The SAIC security analysis reviewed compliance with a total of 329 requirements for voting system security, including management, operational and technical controls~~.The analysis included testing of a complete AccuVote-TS system, software analysis, interviews of elections professionals, and reviews of administrative procedures and controls for election processing security.

A total of 329 requirements were reviewed and the following: results were found: ~~A total of~~ 217 requirements (66%) were found to be met with existing procedures and technical features. ~~Fourty six~~ 46 requirements (14%) were deemed not applicable to this specific system. ~~Sixty six~~ 66 requirements (20%) were found to need further action, of which 26 (8%) were judged to be high risk factors.

SAIC found few risks represented by the Diebold equipment. The most significant vulnerability, use of hard-coded passwords, has been reported by Diebold to have been corrected and submitted for federal certification. SAIC further recommended encryption of certain data in storage and in transmission, and 100% verification of data transmitted. The analysis noted that risk of compromise via the Internet is ~~minimized~~ eliminated by the fact that the system is not connected to the Internet.

Risks identified were predominantly associated with a wide variety of absent administrative controls for voting system security. Among management andoperational controls, SAIC found risks in the controls on access to servers, administration of passwords, use of system audit logs, intrusion detection, and level of security training for elections personnel. SAIC concluded that with the management and operational procedures currently in use, the risk of system compromise is high.

SAIC indicated however that these vulnerabilities can be mitigated, if not eliminated, by adequate security planning and administration. SBE has prepared an Action Plan in which the agency proposes to develop and carry out immediately series of upgrades in its security procedures to meet these requirements. These include the following types of actions:

SBE will create and implement a formal Information System Security Plan (ISSP);
SBE wilI implement a formal Information System Security Training Program;
SBE wilI develop a plan for alI local jurisdictions to implement policies and procedures uniformly;
SBE wiIl verify that no voting system server is attached to a network accessible externally.

The administrative changes are proposed to be completed in phases: Phase I by September 22, 2003; Phase II by January 31, 2004; and Phase III by March 311, 2004.

The Board of Elections believes that:

1. Management and operational requirements can and will be met to fully assure
the integrity of the voting process for all voters, including those with disabilities.

2. The Diebold AccuVote-TS system selected by the Board is capable of meeting the
security requirements with minor changes and proper controls.

In considering appropriate plans, the Department of Budget and Management and SBE evaluated two main options: Continue the existing project and Diebold contract, or discontinue the contract and use an alternative voting system. Since few significant vulnerabilities were found with the Diebold equipment, which in addition meets the requirements of federal and State elections law, and since procurement of an alternative system would likely result in major costs and disruption to the election preparations in the State, continuing the present contract is recommended, subject to successful mitigation of risks identified by SAIC.

SBE proposes keeping to the original schedule of statewide implementation of the voting system by March 2004. Doing so would prevent overlap of that project with the voter registration system project, also required by 2006. An aggressive schedule is required to completed tasks including the intensive security program by March 2004. Implementation ~~of some counties~~ by the November 2004 general election in lieu of the primary remains a possible alternative if needed. In that case, advance plans must be made with the counties to retain previously acquired equipment until the actual conversion.

SBE projects a need for three additional personnel to manage the security plan. SAIC recommended establishing one SBE System Security Officer position. Two additional State contractual positions are proposed, one to develop procedures and coordinate actions with local Boards of Election, and one to manage the voter outreach and training. SBE has received federal funds under the Help America Vote Act of 2002(HAVA) to implement election reform, for which the Assistant Attorney General for SBE has provided an opinion that the personnel costs will be an acceptable use of funds. The Department of Management and Budget concurs in the retention of a Systems Security Officer and the voting system vendor and contract, and recommends immediate implementation by the State Board of Elections of all security upgrades required to ensure absolute reliability and integrity of Maryland's voting process.

James C. DiPaula, Secretary

The Two Faces of Diebold

2006-11-03T20:13:00Z

The Two Faces of Diebold

Stunning Document Surfaces to Show That America's #1 Voting Machine Manufacturer Hides Security and Operation Flaws from The State of Maryland and the Country

By Rebecca Abrahams

In September, 2003 Linda Lamone, the Administrator of Maryland's State Board of Elections and President of the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) hands over a critical study on the security of the Diebold Election Systems machines that count all of Maryland's votes.

Between the time that the State of Maryland commissioned the highly respected Scientific Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to evaluate the effectiveness and security of their electronic voting machines and the time that the study is made public, critical pieces of information have been edited, omitted and, in some cases words added, to fundamentally alter the original meaning of the report's conclusions.

Enter the world of electronic voting machines, the “cure” to hanging and dimpled chad.

It is a seamy world of secrecy, proprietary software, partisan executives “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President”, politicians asking programmers to design software to flip vote totals, and lots and lots of money.

And it is a world of completely inconsistent realities. Diebold and the other manufacturers insist that their machines are safe and secure yet every single cyber security expert and computer scientist has, for years, been screaming into an empty wilderness of media attention, that . . .

The machines can be hacked, by the implanting of malicious code, at the factory.

The machines can be hacked during transport from the factory.

The machines can be hacked while on “Sleepovers” before the election.

The machines can be hacked (in 1 minute with a .50cent mini bar key) during the election, and

These machines can be hacked, at the tabulator, after the election.

What makes this SAIC report, called "The Pentagon Papers of Electronic Voting" by some computer experts, so important is that:

1. It shows, in black and white, that what Diebold says to election officials and voters across the country is not the truth.

2. It shows that there are virtually no security protocols in place for certain Diebold machines and that the recommended security protocols were purposely removed.

3. It shows that the analyzed Diebold machines were not functional nor secure for use in elections and raises serious doubts that they are ready for the November 7, 2006 Midterm elections.

The study, dated September 17, 2003, is the response to research performed by Johns Hopkins University Computer Science Professor Avi Rubin citing severe security flaws on the Diebold touch screen machines, including a surprising lack of security, (encryption), on the memory cards. Maryland sought to ascertain whether their Diebold Touch Screen machines were, in fact, safe for Maryland voters to use.

But Diebold, in return for allowing their super secret, proprietary machines to be examined by the independent laboratory, insisted on two huge concessions from the State of Maryland.

First, SAIC would not be allowed to even look at the source code, the heart and guts of electronic voting machines. Second, they would be allowed to go through the SAIC Report, line by line, and redact anything and everything that they felt was proprietary, had a potential for security breaches or could provide a roadmap for anyone who wanted to compromise the system.

In other words, whatever they wanted to do with the public part of the report they could.

In addition to its value in showing the massive difference between the public and private, redacted and un-redacted faces of Diebold, this document is exceedingly relevant as we go into the November 7 elections. 468 federal seats and countless state and local contests are being decided by Diebold and other similar electronic voting machines. The outcome of these elections will set the direction of our country for the next two years.

The issue is whether Diebold has implemented the critical changes in its software and hardware called for by the full, genuine un-redacted SAIC Report. What makes this so very important is that the software, including the core “source code” that runs the machines that process and count almost all of America’s vote on November 7 is as secret as the formula for Coca Cola and recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken. Why tabulators, for example, which act as nothing more than an elaborate abacus, have “proprietary software”, hidden from election officials, Secretaries of State, Attorneys General and even the Governor of every state, is a true mystery and raises huge and angry suspicions within the computer scientist and cyber security communities.

And no one, except these four private, for profit corporations, Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia and Hart, is allowed to see or inspect the software (and the core source code) to EVER know if the machines have operated properly or if there was, or is, malicious software that could alter the vote.

Now we come back to Linda Lamone.

It seems that Maryland’s Board of Elections, under orders from Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich, hired another firm, Freeman, Craft and McGregor, to review the vulnerabilities identified in the SAIC Report, the real one, and confirm to the Governor and the State that they had all been fixed.

The report has been completed but Linda Lamone will not disclose the contents of the report. Governor Ehrlich can’t get her to do it, nor can Giles Berger the Chairman of the Maryland Board of Elections. It is important to note that even Berger, the SBE’s Chairman, has not seen the original, unredacted report. Berger and his staff have been left to make sense of the 38 page report. Although this version had been made public, it was intended for limited official use. SBE members say they were aware redactions had been made but they were not allowed to see the original report. But SBE Administrator Linda Lamone has.

Back on August 11, 2006 Lamone briefed her staff about then Freeman report, telling them that the report <i>also </i>needs to be proprietary and not made public.

What are they hiding from the State of Maryland? What are they hiding from America’s voters??

As a result of the courage of a top Maryland official, the entire SAIC report, showing the Diebold edits, omissions and additions, was just made available.

Now we can see, precisely, what Diebold is . . . and should be, afraid of!

The full State of Maryland Electronic Voting System Security Study, conducted by the SAIC and delivered to Maryland on September 17, 2003 is 152 pages plus 41 pages of appendices. The report that Linda Lamone handed to the Governor and to her own Board members was only 38 pages. 38 pages!

In total there are hundreds of edits, omission and additions. Here are a few examples:

Table of Contents page VII

Original SAIC Report:

Chapter 5: Risk Assessment Results, Steps 2 - 9

5.1 Step 2: Threat Identification

5.2 Step 3: Vulnerability Identification

5.3 Step 4: Control Analysis

5.3.1 Management Controls Analysis

5.3.2 Operational Controls Analysis

5.3.3 Technical Controls Analysis

5.4 Step 5: Likelihood Definition

5.4.1 Likelihood Rating Rationale

5.5 Step 6: Impact Analysis

5.5.1 Impact Rating Rationale

5.6 Step 7: Risk Determination

5.7 Detailed Risk Assessment Results

Submitted Report: Risk Assessment Results Chapter Completely Omitted

Executive Summary Page 2

Original SAIC Report: In response both SBE (Maryland State Board of Elections) and Diebold stated that the devices do not operate on the Internet, and that the State's procedural controls reduce or eliminate many of the vulnerabilities identified in the report.

Un-submitted Edited Version: In response both SBE and Diebold affirmed that the devices do not operate on the Internet, and the State's procedural controls reduce or eliminate many, if not all, of the vulnerabilities identified in the report.

Submitted Report: Completely Omitted

Executive Summary Page 3

Original SAIC Report: Risks identified were predominantly associated with a wide variety of administrative controls for voting system security. Among management and operational controls, SAIC found risks in the controls on access to servers, administration of passwords, use of system audit logs, intrusion detection and level of security training for elections personnel.

SAIC concluded that with the management and operational procedures currently in use, the risk of system compromise is high. SAIC indicated however that these vulnerabilities can be mitigated by adequate security planning and administration

Edited Version: Risks identified were predominantly associated with a wide variety of ABSENT administrative controls for voting system security. Among management and operational controls, SAIC found risks in the controls on access to servers, administration of passwords, use of system audit logs, intrusion detection and level of security training for elections personnel.

Submitted Report: Completely Omitted

Page 5

Original SAIC Report:

2.1.4 SBE does not require the secure transmission of election vote totals

"The SBE does not require encryption for the election results transmitted from the local polling sites to the LBE. Those results are transmitted over a private, point to point connection, via modem. Those transmitted results become the official results after the canvassing process is completed. A 100% verification of the transmitted totals to the original PCMCIA cards (i.e., computer memory storage of actual vote totals) or the paper totals is not performed.”

Submitted Report: "The SBE does not require encryption for the election results transmitted from the local polling sites to the LBE. Those transmitted results become the official results after the canvassing process is completed. A 100% verification of the transmitted totals to the original PCMCIA cards (i.e., computer memory storage of actual vote totals) or the paper totals is not performed.”

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Original SAIC Report:

2.1.8 Controls are not implemented to detect unauthorized transaction

attempts by authorized and/or unauthorized users

There is no documentation that describes security controls for detecting unauthorized transaction attempts by authorized or unauthorized users. Therefore, the application of security controls may be applied inconsistently, incorrectly or incompletely.

Since a threat source is more likely to exploit a system if the evidence of his/her actions cannot be gathered or will go undetected, failure to have controls for detection increases the likelihood of system attacks, and consequently, of system compromise:

Submitted Report: Completely Omitted

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Original SAIC Report:

2.1.9: No documentation currently exists regarding appropriate access controls to the AccuVote-TS voting system

There is no documentation that identifies the process for maintaining appropriate access controls to the AccuVote-TS voting system. Without proper documentation, the consistent implementation of security controls cannot be verified or validated.

The lack of proper documentation has resulted in the vendor default settings being left in place with the default user ID in the configuration. This information (i.e., passwords) is also documented in various manuals.

Failure to correctly document access procedures, and use of vendor default passwords allows anyone with access to those documented passwords authenticated user privileges to the system. That access would allow the unauthorized user to do anything the legitimate user could do.

Submitted Report: Completely Omitted

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2.3.1 Audit logs are not configured properly and are not reviewed

Original SAIC Report: The GEMS server audit logs are not configured to log any security events (i.e., extended logging) at the operating system level and the current log size is too small. Consequently, recorded events are overwritten. In addition, the audit logs are not reviewed.

Failure to properly log and to review those logs makes it significantly more likely that an intruder’s actions will not be detected. Assurance on non-detection may encourage a possible intruder to attempt a penetration of the system.

We recommend that the Windows 2000 operating system be configured to audit all security events and the log size should be set to an appropriate size. We also recommend that the event logs be reviewed on a regular basis.

Submitted Report: Completely Omitted

Despite its original date, and certain Diebold claims that all problems have been remedied with its machines, the report is considered to be a serious "smoking gun" by all computer experts who have seen it. It is evidence, they say, of a very purposeful plan by Diebold to hide the operational and security flaws on the machines that count all of the votes in Maryland and Georgia and many of the votes in states across the country.

The extreme sensitivity to investigation of Diebold voting hardware and software by Linda Lamone, the person who many say is responsible for selling Diebold systems to election directors across the country and even internationally, played out in a highly unusual unaired network television interview. Lamone, the former President of the NASED, was chiefly responsible for making recommendations to other states on which electronic voting machines they should use. Lamone is acutely aware of the problems associated with Diebold voting machines, yet remains steadfast in her defense of them. In her offices in Annapolis, Maryland last month, with a Diebold touch screen voting machine proudly displayed right behind her, Lamone abruptly stopped our interview, ripped off her microphone and walked off when I asked about the source code – and whether she believed its counting software should remain secretly controlled by Diebold.

Abrahams: Alright so you don’t want to talk about the source code issues at all? (Lamone shakes head no) It is not relevant that we know that source code has been viewed?

Lamone: (looking at someone off camera) Yeah the ITA did it. And that whole system has been taken over by the national Institute for Standards and Technology in partnership with the election assistance commission. We are because I am participating in this are writing new, we have written new standards against which the voting systems are going to start being tested next year. I am participating in another project with the election assistance commission to write management guidelines covering security and other issues for election officials across the United States.

Abrahams: The reasons honestly why I ask the questions about the source code is because there are a lot of people out there- elected officials and scientists who say even if the machines are secure when those memory cards are taken to the tabulator and those tabulators count the votes we don’t know how the votes are counted. The state doesn’t know and the state has not been able to see the source code so it is an issue of voter confidence.

Lamone: I think you are in fantasy land. (speaking to someone off camera) I think I want to end this.

Abrahams: I am not in fantasy land- I just have a couple more questions

Lamone: No (takes off her microphone)

Abrahams: You don’t want to finish? I just have a couple more questions…

Lamone-: No! (Finishes taking the microphone off and speaks to someone off camera)

Abrahams: I don’t know why you don’t wish to continue this. I am asking you legitimate questions relating to the Diebold voting systems.

(Camera holds on empty chair with the Diebold Electronic Voting Machine, sitting alone, in the immediate background)

Given the voting breakdowns in Maryland during the September Primaries and the upcoming November 7 Midterms, the edits to the SAIC study and the reactions of Lamone during the ABC interview are of great concern to those studying electronic voting.

This is ever more so, according to the experts, because in 2002, under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), America totally turned its elections, and in a very real sense, its Democracy over to Diebold and three other private for profit corporations - ES&S (Election Software & Systems), Sequoia and Hart Intercivic.

These four corporations make the E-poll books that now hold America's voter rolls, the electronic voting machines that process America's votes and the tabulators that count America's vote.

There is still time, for a courageous Secretary of State, Attorney General or Governor, to stand up and publicly demand that Diebold and the other manufacturers do the following:

Prove that the many recommendations, contained in the un-redacted SAIC Report, have been complied with.
In Maryland, release the Freeman, Craft, McGregor Report showing what, if anything has been fixed since the SAIC Report
Make the electronic voting machines and tabulators available immediately before, during and after the November 7 election for identified, certified computer scientists from the state government, (an “Election Swat Team”) to inspect for evidence of tampering, factory installed malicious code, malicious code that might have been added after leaving the factory, malicious code that might have been added during the election.
Make emergency Paper Ballots available for all voters who are not comfortable trusting the electronic machines. If the counties across this country have to pay Rush Fees to printers in their jurisdiction, so be it. Democracy demands nothing less.

We do not have only Diebold to blame for the critical position the un-redacted SAIC Report shows we are in. The Federal Government, despite mandating these machines has refused to exercise any oversight over them and bears huge responsibility, from The White House to the Congress.

George Bush’s own appointee to the Chair the EAC, The Election Administration Commission, Rev. DeForest Soares, quit that post, stating, rather dramatically that, “There is no prototype. There are no standards. There is no scientific research that would guarantee any election district that there’s a machine that can be used to answer these very serious questions. And so, my sense is that the politicians in Washington have concluded that the system can’t be all that bad because, after all, it produced them. And as long as an elected official is an elected official, then whatever machine was used, whatever device was used to elect him or her, seems to be adequate. But there’s an erosion of voting rights implicit in our inability to trust the technology that we use and if we were another country being analyzed by America, we would conclude that this country is ripe for stealing elections and for fraud.”

And Congress has refused to do anything to protect the voters or the Democratic process.

Congress refused to require that the four manufacturers make the software available for inspection (the Independent Testing Laboratories only perform tests on the machine’s functionality.) They do not even look (and they’re not required to look) for vote-flipping malicious code inside the software. Congress refused to require voter verified paper trails where the voter would look at a paper receipt inside the machine (not take it home with them), verify that it was correct and then allow for it, the hard copy, to be stored separately. And, further, Congress has refused to require mandatory random audits at polling stations or any other verification that the totals that are reported are, in fact, anything close to what they should be.

And, it is unlikely that Congress will ever solve the problems indicated in the SAIC Report. Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, the man who will likely become Senate Majority Leader, (together with convicted Ohio Republican Congressman Bob Ney) lead the effort to keep legislation requiring voter verified paper trails and machine transparency from ever coming to a vote in Congress, and even urged their Congressional colleagues to vote against any efforts to do so (see “Dear Colleague” Letter on March 3, 2004)

See contents of that letter here: http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?optionfiltered=com_content&task=view&id=713&Itemid=990)

See ABCNews.com blog here: Click here: Political Punch

In other words, despite the brilliant rallying cry of their hero, Ronald Reagan, "Trust but Verify", the Republican Leadership has, in fact, created a Democracy where we are asked to do one but with no effort at all to do the other.

The leaked, un-redacted SAIC Report makes it clear that these machines are not ready for our midterm elections next week and that Diebold, and, perhaps the three other manufacturers, have been fraudulently hiding serious operational and security flaws from the states and the voters.

Unless there is emergency action undertaken by our states, we could have 468 mini Florida 2000s and the control and direction of our Congress debated for many months to come. Nonetheless, absent the ability to properly inspect the software on these machines, the best safeguard may, indeed, be for everyone to vote. The larger the turnout and, conceivably, the larger the margin of victory, one way or another, the less likely these far from proven machines will be able to alter the vote in defiance of the exit polling.

Until we can get Diebold and the other manufacturers who hold our democracy in their corporate hand to tell the truth about their hardware and software, our democracy may hinge on people doing what it is really all about anyway, getting out and voting.