JaBbA's Hut - Politics

Schneier on Security vs. Privacy

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 10:39:19 -0500

Bruce Schneier posted an article today on the false dichotomy between Security vs. Privacy:

If you set up the false dichotomy, of course people will choose security over privacy -- especially if you scare them first. But it's still a false dichotomy. There is no security without privacy. And liberty requires both security and privacy. The famous quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin reads: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." It's also true that those who would give up privacy for security are likely to end up with neither.

The American people have been bombarded with so much fear and anxiety that they have stopped thinking. And, unfortunately, for many people that's the way they like it. But I take some heart from the freefall of Rudy "9-11" Guiliani in the Polls - given enough time, people finally started looking at something other than his constant fear speech, and didn't like what they saw. He miscalculated, thinking that the security message could last almost 2 years. It's not that people are beginning to wake up - I think it's more that they have become habituated to the constant drumbeat that they are able to look past it.

But Schneier's right - security comes before social issues like privacy on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. We have to get over the fear before we can worry about civil liberties - and that's what the government is counting on. But there is a way - and that is to get people to fear the loss of privacy. Unfortunately, balancing fear of government intrusion against complete paranoia is difficult - and it's much easier to make people fear a violent attack.

This may be why I'm attracted do Obama's message of hope. If we can look forward to a future where we don't see enemies all around us, we can be more cognizant of the importance of personal liberty. I am beginning to believe that Obama sees that future and wants to lead the country there.

JaBbA says check it out.

Palast Irritating? Maybe. but Illegal?

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 08:47:21 -0400

Andrew Meyers, the UF student who was tasered while making a scene at a John Kerry speech, was holding a copy of Greg Palast's book Armed Madhouse, which he was using as his reference while challenging Kerry.

Palast's book makes a lot of people uncomfortable. It should, because it blows the lid off the American Political scene and it's refusal to deal with reality.

Apparently, however, there are people in a lot of places that don't want you to read Greg Palast. Including Websense, the web filtering company.

When you are on Palast's mailing list, links go to http://mailings.gregpalast.com. However, click on that link at work, and you get the following:

Illegal or Questionable? Is this censorship?

Caging Lists finally get on U.S. TV

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 12:04:17 -0400

Greg Palast's report about the caging of voters in Florida and Ohio finally made it to U.S. TV - 3 years too late. The News magazine NOW on PBS finally showed his reporting. You can watch it online.

JaBbA says check it out.

Starting Over in Cuyahoga County

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 12:17:52 -0400

New Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner is taking Voting Rights seriously. And she's not letting the status quo get in the way of creating a voting system that people might actually trust:

Brunner Calls For Clean Slate In Cuyahoga County

Columbus, OH â March 19, 2007 â Pledging to restore trust to elections in Ohio amidst the myriad of challenges facing the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, the state's chief election officer, Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, has asked for the resignation of the four-member board, two Democrats and two Republicans, effective the close of business March 21, 2007.

âCuyahoga County has historically faced challenges with its board of elections, but we are at a time when these challenges are so great that extraordinary measures are needed to improve the election process in the state's most populous county,â? said Brunner.

[...]

âWith maximum 18-month prison sentences being handed down to two Cuyahoga County election workers last week for their roles in the 2004 Presidential recount, the tremendous problems that surfaced in the May 2006 primary that delayed even the unofficial vote count for 5 days, and the uncertain future of this board as another Presidential election looms on the near horizon, it is incumbent on me as Secretary of State to provide the direction needed to get this troubled board on track. The voters of Cuyahoga County deserve it, the citizens of Ohio expect it, and the rest of the nation will be watching,â? said Brunner.

[...]

Those who do not resign by Wednesday will face a complaint and public hearing to be conducted in Cleveland by the Secretary of State's office at a time and date to be determined. Under state law the Secretary of State may âsummarily removeâ? board members for cause.

I love the phrase "summarily remove" when it comes to Bill Bennett. This is long overdue, and would NEVER have happened under Blackwell.

Dr. Seuss (ish) on W

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 07:47:25 -0500

This isn't my writing. But it's too good to pass up:

"I hear the voices and I read the front page and I know the speculation,"
the president told reporters in the Rose Garden. "But I'm the decider and
decide what's best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the
secretary of defense."

-------- George W. Bush.

Well, it took me awhile, but I finally realized what "I'm the decider,"
reminds me of. It sounds like something that a character in a Dr. Seuss
book might say. So with apologies to the late Mr. Geisel, here is some
idle speculation as to what else such a character might say:

By Roddy McCorley

I'm The Decider

I'm the decider.
I pick and I choose.
I pick among whats.
And choose among whos.
And as I decide
Each particular day,
The things I decide on
All turn out that way.
I decided on Freedom
For all of Iraq.
And now that we have it,
I'm not looking back.
I decided on tax cuts
That just help the wealthy.
And Medicare changes
That aren't really healthy.
And parklands and wetlands
Who needs all that stuff?
I decided that none
Would be more than enough!
I decided that schools
All in all are the best.
The less that they teach
And the more that they test.
I decided those wages
You need to get by,
Are much better spent
On some CEO guy.
I decided your Wade
Which was versing your Roe,
Is terribly awful
And just has to go.
I decided that levees
Are not really needed.
Now when hurricanes come
They can come unimpeded.
That old Constitution?
Well, I have decided-
As "just Goddamn paper"*
It should be derided.
I've decided gay marriage
Is icky and weird.
Above all other things,
It's the one to be feared.
And Cheney and Rummy
And Condi all know
That I'm the Decider -
They tell me it's so.
I'm the Decider
So watch what you say,
Or I may decide
To have you whisked away.
Or I'll tap your phones.
Your e-mail I'll read.
'cause I'm the Decider -
Like Jesus decreed.

* This is an exact Bush quote!

Signs of sanity returning

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 09:10:21 -0500

Republican Senators Specter and Leahy have introduced a bill in congress to repeal the parts of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that suspend Habeus Corpus.

Let's hope this begins the long climb uphill out of the swamp BushCo has sunk us in.

This is America?

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 14:26:44 -0500

Just when I start to calm down, something like this happens.

I found the following email stuck in a SPAM queue. It had been forwarded into our email by one of our high-level employees. I've removed all names to protect the sheep.

It just makes me sick.

(links removed)

Dear [Sheep],

Please take a moment to read the following TownHall.com
column by Dennis Prager, who is a Jew.

OK, because the racist writing the article is a Jew, that somehow makes it OK?

After reading the column, take the suggest action at the bottom of this email.
After you have read it, please forward it to your friends and family.

America, Not Keith Ellison, decides what book a congressman takes his oath on

By Dennis Prager - Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to the United States Congress, has announced that he will not take his oath of office on the Bible, but on the bible of Islam, the Koran.

He should not be allowed to do so -- not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization.
[Rest of REALLY scary and idiotic article moved to the extended entry]

Take Action

1. Send an email asking your U.S. Representative and Senators to pass a
law making the Bible the book used in the swearing-in ceremony of
Representatives and Senators.

Don't these people understand what America IS?????

2. Forward this email to your friends and family today!

Write your Representative and Senators Now!

Sincerely,

Donald E. Wildmon, Founder and Chairman
American Family Association

P.S. Please forward this e-mail message to your family and friends!

Ok, give me a minute to calm down.

[Deep breaths. Calming thoughts.....]

The author is correct on one very small poiint - there is only ONE appropriate document for oaths of office to be taken with. The only document that EVERY elected official in this county is required to hold sacred....

The Constitution of the United States

Continue reading "This is America?"

Cuyahoga Commisioners want to dump Diebold DREs

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 08:35:21 -0500

A report on the front page of the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that at least some of the Cuyahoga County Commissioners want to dump the DREs for Optical Scan ballots:

Cuyahoga County commissioners want to dump their new touch-screen voting machines, which cost taxpayers $17 million, and get another system in time for the 2008 presidential election.

"Even though we have a substantial amount of money in it, we're considering scrapping the whole system," Commissioner Tim Hagan said.

[...]

"In 2008, we're going to be in a predicament," Dimora said. "Our system can't handle the number of voters,"

Tom Hayes, who helped run the election, said counties with optical scan voting machines can handle big fluctuations in the number of voters. With optical scanners, voters fill out paper ballots to be scanned into computers. Elections officials can handle large turnouts just by adding places for voters to mark ballots.

"Electronic voting systems are not scalable to meet demand on Election Day," Hayes wrote in his final report to the commissioners. "Unlike optical scan or punch cards, where you can simply add inexpensive voting stations, there are not additional DRE (touch screen) machines available."

The dark lining to this good news is that they aren't looking past Diebold to supply the optical scan readers. The political influence, and the fact that they are an Ohio company, seems to be enough to have the county commissioners ignoring Diebold's recent history of incompetence and gross distortions to cover up their problems.

We need to look past the current crop of voting machines and look to companies that have a track record for secure machines that can be easily audited - slot machine manufaturers, for instance.

Bruce Schneier has a clear understanding of the requirements for secure elections.

UPDATE Vote for this at Daily Kos

Greg Palast - How They Stole the Midterm Election

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 23:48:26 -0500

Read this. And take tomorrow off, go help. What are you doing?

Here's what I'm doing:

5:30am - Official Poll Monitor, setup at a local polling place that had problems in May.
6:30am - 10:00am - Official Poll Monitor at 15 of the 23 Polling places in Cleveland Hts. I will be going from place to place observing and reporting.

10am - I go from Monitor to Pollster. Exit Polling at a precinct in Cleveland.
2pm - Election Protection - Working for the Democratic Party to make sure voters in Euclid aren't turned away at the polls.
7pm - Monitoring the website I wrote that will collect exit poll data so that any inconsitencies here in Cuyahoga County can be challenged.

Tomorrow - if necessary, participating in protests. If all goes well, enjoying morning in America.

So tell me...What are you doing?

HOW THEY STOLE THE MID-TERM ELECTION

by Greg Palast
for The Guardian (UK), Comment
Monday November 6, 2006

Here's how the 2006 mid-term election was stolen.

Note the past tense. And I'm not kidding.

And shoot me for saying this, but it won't be stolen by jerking with the touch-screen machines (though they'll do their nasty part). While progressives panic over the viral spread of suspect computer black boxes, the Karl Rove-bots have been tunneling into the vote vaults through entirely different means.

For six years now, our investigations team, at first on assignment for BBC TV and the Guardian, has been digging into the nitty-gritty of the gaming of US elections. We've found that November 7, 2006 is a day that will live in infamy. Four and a half million votes have been shoplifted. Here's how they'll do it, in three easy steps:

Theft #1: Registrations gone with the wind.

On January 1, 2006, while America slept off New Year's Eve hangovers, a new federal law crept out of the swamps that has devoured 1.9 million votes, overwhelmingly those of African-Americans and Hispanics. The vote-snatching statute is a cankerous codicil slipped into the 2002 Help America Vote Act -- strategically timed to go into effect in this mid-term year. It requires every state to reject new would-be voters whose identity can't be verified against a state verification database.

Sounds arcane and not too threatening. But look at the numbers and you won't feel so fine. About 24.3 million Americans attempt to register or re-register each year. The New York University Law School's Brennan Center told me that, under the new law, Republican Secretaries of State began the year by blocking about one in three new voters.

How? To begin with, Mr. Bush's Social Security Administration has failed to verify 47% of registrants. After appeals and new attempts to register, US Elections Assistance Agency statistics indicate 1.9 million would-be voters will still find themselves barred from the ballot on Tuesday.

But don't worry: those holding passports from their ski vacations to Switzerland are doing just fine. And that's the point. It's not the number of voters rejected, itâs their color. For example, California's Republican Secretary of State Bruce McPherson figured out how to block 40% of registrants, mostly Hispanics. In a rare counter-move, Los Angeles, with a Hispanic mayor, contacted these citizens, "verified" them and got almost every single one back on the rolls. But throughout the rest of the West, new Hispanics remain victims of the "JosÃ© Crow" treatment.

In hotly contested Ohio, Kenneth Blackwell, Secretary of State and the Republican's candidate for Governor, remains voter-rejection champ -- partly by keeping the rejection criteria a complete secret.

Theft #2: Turned Away - the ID game

A legion of pimple-faced Republicans with Blackberries loaded with lists of new voters is assigned to challenge citizens in heavily Black and Hispanic(i.e. Democratic) precincts to demand photo ID that perfectly matches registration data.

Sounds benign, but it's not. The federal HAVA law and complex new ID requirements in states like New Mexico will easily allow the GOP squads to triple the number of voters turned away. Rather than deny using these voter suppression tactics, Republican spokesmen are claiming they are "protecting the integrity of the vote."

I've heard that before. In 2004, we got our hands on fifty confidential internal memos from the files of the Republican National Committee. Attached to these were some pretty strange spreadsheets. They called them "caging lists" -- and it wasn't about zoo feeding times. They were lists (70,000 for Florida alone) of new Black and Jewish voters -- a very Democratic demographic -- to challenge on Election Day. The GOP did so with a vengeance: In 2004, for the first time in half a century, more than 3.5 million voters were challenged on Election Day. Worse, nearly half lost their vote: 300,000 were turned away for wrong ID; 1.1 million were allowed a "provisional" ballot -- which was then simply tossed out.

Tomorrow, new federal ID requirements and a dozen new state show-me-your-ID laws will permit the GOP challenge campaign to triple their 300,000 record to nearly one million voters blocked.

Theft #3: Votes Spoiled Rotten

The nasty little secret of US elections is that three million ballots are cast in national elections but not counted -- 3,600,380 not counted in 2004 according to US Election Commission stats. These are votes lost because a punch card didn't punch (its chad got "hung"), a stray mark voided a paper ballot and other machinery glitches.

Officials call it "spoilage." I call it, "inaugurating Republicans." Why? According to statisticians working with the US Civil Rights Commission, the chance your vote will "spoil" this way is 900% higher for Black folk and 500% higher for Hispanics than for white voters. When we do the arithmetic, we find that well over half of all votes spoiled or "blank" are cast by voters of color. On balance, this spoilage game produces a million-vote edge for the GOP.

That's where the Black Boxes come into play. Forget about Karl Rove messing with the software to change your vote. Rather, the big losses occur when computers crash, fail to start or simply don't respond to your touch. They are the new spoilage machines of choice with, statistically, the same racial bias as the old vote-snatching lever machines. (Funny, but paper ballots with in-precinct scanners don't go rotten on Black voters. Maybe that's why Republican Secretaries of State have installed so few of them.)

So Let's Add it Up

Two million legitimate voters will be turned away because of wrongly rejected or purged registrations.

Add another one million voters challenged and turned away for "improper ID."

Then add yet another million for Democratic votes "spoiled" by busted black boxes and by bad ballots.

And let's not forget to include the one million "provisional" ballots which will never get counted. Based on the experience of 2004, we know that, overwhelmingly, minority voters are the ones shunted to these baloney ballots.

And there's one more group of votes that won't be counted: absentee ballots challenged and discarded. Elections Assistance Agency data tell us a half million of these absentee votes will go down the drain.

Driving this massive suppression of the vote are sophisticated challenge operations. And here I must note that the Democrats have no national challenge campaign. That's morally laudable; electorally suicidal.

Add it all up -- all those Democratic-leaning votes rejected, barred and spoiled -- and the Republican Party begins Election Day with a 4.5 million-vote thumb on the vote-tally scale.

So, what are you going to do about it? May I suggest you â¦ steal back your vote.

It's true you can't win with 51% of the vote anymore. So just get over it. The regime's sneak attack via vote suppression will only net them 4.5 million votes, about 5% of the total. You should be able to beat that blindfolded. If you can't get 55%, then you're just a bunch of crybaby pussycats who don't deserve to win back America.

Freedom

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 13:57:19 -0500

Music by George Michael. Images courtesy of 6 years of Republican corruption.

YouTube

But he'll never actually USE it...

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 10:45:34 -0500

What's the problem with the suspension of habeus corpus?

Paranoid? It's Really Happening...

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 19:05:52 -0500

Is it paranoia if they are really out to get you?

Thanks to early voting, we are already seeing the vote-flipping happening.

In Texas

She watched I as I finished my choosing. I voted for the State Board of Education Representative and then the the slate offered only Republicans for the rest of the offices. I did not vote for any of them telling the woman when I did not want a candidate with no opposition I did not give them my vote.

As the summary appeared for me to check it, Perry, Dewhurst and Combs all had an X WHICH I AM SURE I DID NOT GIVE TO THEM. As the woman watched, I ran the summary twice to be sure that it was correct as I intended it to be voted before removing the card from the machine.

Arkansas

Worst of all, the machine on which Serge tried to vote hadn't been calibrated correctly so that when he touched the screen to vote for Mike Beebe the vote was cast for A$a! Serge finally figured it out but when he went to look at the paper-tape printout of his votes the ballot was too big to show through the little window anything except the last three or four votes on his ballot.

Missouri

A friend of our familyâs went last Friday to early vote in Maplewood at Sunnen Park. He voted for Claire McCaskill, but each time he, the election worker, and the election supervisor pressed the screen for Claire, the screen said he had voted for Jim Talent.

and Florida

Debra A. Reed voted with her boss on Wednesday at African-American Research Library and Cultural Center near Fort Lauderdale. Her vote went smoothly, but boss Gary Rudolf called her over to look at what was happening on his machine. He touched the screen for gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis, a Democrat, but the review screen repeatedly registered the Republican, Charlie Crist.
â¦
Joan Marek, 60, a Democrat from Hollywood, was also stunned to see Charlie Crist on her ballot review page after voting on Thursday. "Am I on the voting screen again?" she wondered. "Well, this is too weird."

Marek corrected her ballot and alerted poll workers at the Hollywood satellite courthouse, who she said told her they'd had previous problems with the same machine.

So where are the reports of Republicans being surprised to see their votes being cast for Democrats?

Special Comment - Advertising Terrorism

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 07:36:12 -0400

Another special comment by Keith Olbermann, on how the Bush Administration is engaging in terrorism of its own 2 weeks before the election.

JaBbA says check it out.

UPDATE MSNBC has posted the transcript

Special Comment - The Beginning of the End of America

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 00:53:47 -0400

Keith's Special Comment tonight was moving, powerful, and hopefully a wake-up call for the American people.

The text is at the MSNBC Site. I've copied it into the extended entry.

I'm uploading the video to Youtube as I write this. I'll update this entry with a link to it as soon as it's up.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens âunlawful enemy combatantsâ? and ship them somewhereâanywhere -- but may now, if he so decides, declare you an âunlawful enemy combatantâ? and ship you somewhere - anywhere.

...

âOne of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks,â? you told us yesterday, âsaid he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America.â?

That terrorist, sir, could only hope.

Not his actions, nor the actions of a ceaseless line of terrorists (real or imagined), could measure up to what you have wrought.

*UPDATE*

Full text below:
Continue reading "Special Comment - The Beginning of the End of America"

Have a Corpse?

nospam@example.com (JaBbA) — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 13:47:30 -0400

I used to think Habeus Corpus was the principle that you couldn't be prosecuted for murder unless the police had a body.

Oops.

It's nothing less than the foundation of all our freedoms, and has been a principle of western law since before the Magna Carta. (That's almost 800 years old now, folks).

And it's gone, as of yesterday. Bush is the first president to have the power to suspend Habeus Corpus since Grant did so to try to break the KKK in South Carolina. And see how much good that did.

I can't explain it all that well. But Keith can. That was before it was actualy signed into law.

Watch MSNBC Tonight at 8pm or Midnight EDT for Keith's special commentary on the death of Habeus Corpus - and what it means to you.

UPDATE Here's the Oct. 17th episode. Still, watch the Special Commentary on Wed. the 18th. I'll post a link as soon as I find it.