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Can Software Steal Votes?

STEALING AMERICA: Vote by Vote

Can hackers alter the computers that store voting data? Is it possible to use software that steals votes during any given election? Does this happen almost every election? Do you really think that the press is going to report this type of activity on the news? Is the voting game rigged?

Clint Curtis, a United States computer programmer and ex employee of NASA and ExxonMobil, was asked a question: “So one person putting in bad code in the central tabulation machine could affect thousands and thousands, or tens of thousands of votes?” Curtis answered: “Right.”

Soon after this hearing, Curtis passed a lie detector test given by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

It has been proven that computer hackers can manipulate votes electronically, without leaving a trail. In only a few minutes, a voting machine can be hacked by simply exchanging memory cards. And get this — one master key can be duplicated. Which means every voting precinct could potentially have a key…

A company near Atlanta, Georgia, ChoicePoint, has acted as a private intelligence service to government and industry.

Source Wikipedia:
ChoicePoint combined personal data sourced from multiple public and private databases for sale to the government and the private sector. The firm maintained more than 17 billion records of individuals and businesses, which it sold to an estimated 100,000 clients, including 7,000 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies (March 30, 2005 estimates).

ChoicePoint was used to perform consumer and criminal background checks on prospective employees of the Obama administration.

In the aftermath of the vote (2000 presidential election), the owner of DBT Online, ChoicePoint,was accused of cooperating with Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Secretary of State of Florida Katherine Harris, and Florida Elections Unit Chief Clay Roberts, in voter fraud, conspiracy involving the central voter file. It was also accused of having a bias in favor of the Republican Party, for knowingly using inaccurate data, and for racial discrimination.

The allegations charge that 57,700 people (15% of the list), primarily Democrats of African-American and Hispanic descent, were incorrectly listed as felons and thus barred from voting. Reports estimate that 80% of these people would have voted, and that 90% of those who would have voted, would have voted for Al Gore. Other allegations include listing voters as felons for alleged crimes said to have been committed several years in the future. The official (and disputed) margin of victory, in the election, was 537 votes.

ChoicePoint says that it acquired DBT Online after DBT delivered the initial 2000 voter exception list to Florida officials for verification and that it has…”no involvement in any election in any country.” However, ChoicePoint’s acquisition of DBT Online was made public on February 14, 2000 and in May 2000, DBT discovered that approximately 8,000 names were erroneously placed on the exclusion list, so their claim of no involvement does not match the timeline.

On February 16, 2001, DBT Senior Vice-President George Bruder testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that the company had misinformed the Florida Supervisors of Elections regarding the usage of race in compiling the list. Greg Palast concludes, “An African-American felon named Will Whiting might wipe out the registration of an innocent African-American Will Whiting, but not the rights of an innocent Caucasian Will Whiting.” Palast alleges that 80% of the 57,700 people allegedly barred from voting were African-American.

STEALING AMERICA: Part 1
STEALING AMERICA: Part 2
STEALING AMERICA: Part 3
STEALING AMERICA: Part 4
STEALING AMERICA: Part 5
STEALING AMERICA: Part 6
STEALING AMERICA: Part 7
STEALING AMERICA: Part 8
STEALING AMERICA: Part 9 (???)
STEALING AMERICA: Part 10

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GlaxoSmithKline Busted In Scandal

GlaxoSmithKline, a British multinational pharmaceutical, has been busted in a scandal. On July 2, 2012, Glaxo pleaded guilty to and agreed to a $3 billion settlement. This could be the largest health-care fraud case in U.S. history.

GSK has been caught up in bribe, illegal promotion of drugs, and failure to report the safety data.

The drugs involved in the scandal were Paxil, Wellbutrin, Advair, Lamictal, and Zofran for off-label, non-covered uses. Those and the drugs Imitrex, Lotronex, Flovent, and Valtrex were involved in the kickback scheme.

In March and April of 1999, Dr. Drew Pinsky was paid $275,000 by Glaxo to talk about certain drugs.

The $3 billion fine would be an enormous fine for most of us, but this is small change for a company this big. Still, this may be a step in the right direction. Much more needs to be done.

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FAIL: Repeal Of The Glass-Steagall Act

We should all stop for a moment and give thanks to the people who caused the financial meltdown of the 21st century. The Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLB), also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, was enacted November 12, 1999. This legislation repealed the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933, and now ten years plus later, it is widely known that this was a total failure.

President Bill Clinton has admitted he was wrong in a video finally, after doing a bit of stumbling in the beginning. It was on Clinton’s watch that Citicorp violated the rules. From Wikipedia:

A year before the law was passed, Citicorp, a commercial bank holding company, merged with the insurance company Travelers Group in 1998 to form the conglomerate Citigroup, a corporation combining banking, securities and insurance services under a house of brands that included Citibank, Smith Barney, Primerica, and Travelers. Because this merger was a violation of the Glass–Steagall Act and the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, the Federal Reserve gave Citigroup a temporary waiver in September 1998.

On July 25, 2012, former Citigroup Chairman and CEO Sandy Weill, considered one of the driving forces behind the considerable financial deregulation and “mega-mergers” of the 1990s, surprised financial analysts in Europe and North American by “calling for splitting up the commercial banks from the investment banks. In effect, he says: bring back the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 which led to half a century, free of financial crises.

Arthur Levitt, Chairman of the SEC under Clinton, was criticized for not pushing for tougher accounting rules. Since May 2001, he has been employed as a senior adviser at the Carlyle Group, of which the Bush family is a part of.

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FISA: Laws To Steal Your Privacy

Senator Ronald Wyden is one of the few members of Congress that is willing to spread the message about FISA, of which goes against measures that were originally designed to protect the privacy of the people. Senator Weyden has attempted to explain to his colleagues and the American people of this calamity that was created by the infamous Dubya. Some have proported that this type of legislation is illegal. These are laws intended to steal your privacy.

Weyden concludes:

I will also explain my reasoning a bit further, in case it is helpful to any colleagues who are less familiar with this issue. Over a decade ago the intelligence community identified a problem: surveillance laws designed to protect the privacy of people inside the United States were sometimes making it hard to collect the communications of people outside the United States. The Bush administration’s solution to this problem was to set up a warrantless wiretapping program, which operated in secret for a number of years. When this program became public several years ago many Americans–myself included–were shocked and appalled. Many Members of Congress denounced the Bush administration for this illegal and unconstitutional act.

However, Members of Congress also wanted to address the original problem that had been identified, so in 2008 Congress passed a law modifying the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. The purpose of this 2008 legislation was to give the government new authorities to collect the communications of people who are believed to be foreigners outside the United States, while still preserving the privacy of people inside the United States.

Specifically, the central provision in the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 added a new section to the original FISA statute, now known as section 702. As I said, section 702 was designed to give the government new authorities to collect the communications of people who are reasonably believed to be foreigners outside the United States. Because section 702 does not involve obtaining individual warrants, it contains language specifically intended to limit the government’s ability to use these new authorities to deliberately spy on American citizens.

The bill contained an expiration date of December 2012, and the purpose of this expiration date was to force Members of Congress to come back in a few years and examine whether these new authorities had been interpreted and implemented as intended. Before Congress votes this year to renew these authorities it is important to understand how they are working in practice, so that Members of Congress can decide whether the law needs to be modified or reformed.

In particular, it is important for Congress to better understand how many people inside the United States have had their communications collected or reviewed under the authorities granted by the FISA Amendments Act. If only a handful of people inside the United States have been surveilled in this manner, then that would indicate that Americans’ privacy is being protected. On the other hand, if a large number of people inside the United States have had their communications collected or reviewed because of this law, then that would suggest that protections for Americans’ privacy need to be strengthened.

Unfortunately, while Senator Udall of Colorado and I have sought repeatedly to gain an understanding of how many Americans have had their phone calls or e-mails collected and reviewed under this statute, we have not been able to obtain even a rough estimate of this number.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence told the two of us in July 2011 that “it is not reasonably possible to identify the number of people located in the United States whose communications may have been reviewed” under the FISA Amendments Act. I am prepared to accept that it might be difficult to come up with an exact count of this number, but it is hard for me to believe that it is impossible to even estimate it.

During the committee’s markup of this bill Senator Udall and I offered an amendment that would have directed the inspectors general of the intelligence community and the Department of Justice to produce an estimate of how many Americans have had their communications collected under section 702. Our amendment would have permitted the inspectors general to come up with a rough estimate of this number, using whatever analytical techniques they deemed appropriate. We are disappointed that this amendment was voted down by the committee, but we will continue our efforts to obtain this information.

I am concerned, of course, that if no one has even estimated how many Americans have had their communications collected under the FISA Amendments Act, then it is possible that this number could be quite large. Since all of the communications collected by the government under section 702 are collected without individual warrants, I believe that there should be clear rules prohibiting the government from searching through these communications in an effort to find the phone calls or e-mails of a particular American, unless the government has obtained a warrant or emergency authorization permitting surveillance of that American.

Section 702, as it is currently written, does not contain adequate protections against warrantless “back door” searches of this nature–even though they are the very thing that many people thought the FISA Amendments Act was intended to prevent. Senator Udall and I offered an amendment during the committee’s markup of this bill that would have clarified the law to prohibit searching through communications collected under section 702 in an effort to find a particular American’s communications. Our amendment included exceptions for searches that involved a warrant or an emergency authorization, as well as for searches for the phone calls or e-mails of people who are believed to be in danger or who consent to the search. I am disappointed that this amendment was also voted down by the committee, but I will continue to work with my colleagues to find a way to close this loophole before the FISA Amendments Act is extended.

I recognize that the collection that has taken place under the FISA Amendments Act has produced some useful intelligence, so my preference would be to enact a short-term reauthorization to give Congress time to get more information about the impact of this law on Americans’ privacy rights and consider possible modifications. However, I believe that protections against warrantless searches for Americans’ communications should be added to the law immediately.

An obvious question that I have not answered here is whether any warrantless searches for Americans’ communications have already taken place. I am not suggesting that any warrantless searches have or have not occurred, because Senate and committee rules regarding classified information generally prohibit me from discussing what intelligence agencies are actually doing or not doing. However, I believe that we have an obligation as elected legislators to discuss what these agencies should or should not be doing, and it is my hope that a majority of my Senate colleagues will agree with that searching for Americans’ phone calls and e-mails without a warrant is something that these agencies should not do.

[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 87 (Monday, June 11, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3895-S3896

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Project Quote Approval

You were remotely aware of this all along weren’t you? Does journalism represented by major news outlets in the US, require government censorship? Just how filtered is the news that we absorb in our daily lives? Is the mainstream really speaking for government on a large-scale?

In a shocking (maybe not so shocking) revelation we discover that The New York Times must acquiesce to political candidates, of whom are seeking election. Journalists cannot publish a story until the material is approved by the candidate it was written about. They deem this benevolent tactic as “quote approval”.

“Quote approval” is standard with the Obama campaign, as the story is deciphered and transferred via emails. The same standards apply to the Romney campaign as well.

And we wonder just how far this this oblique style of reporting has gone? Does this refer to the campaign trail, or is this common routine? Hmmm.

Does this only apply to The New York Times, or is this applicable to all news outlets? The report stated that “Bloomberg, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, Reuters and The New York Times have all consented to interviews under such terms.” This is probably not the entire list either.

While no evidence of censorship is claimed, it is quite clear that the opposite is in fact the reality. How can we mention freedom of press when the press is not “free” to edit itself?

Let’s get the facts straight here, political censorship isn’t only implemented in Cuba, China, and North Korea. This seems to be the tacitly implied rule, which amounts to nothing but total hypocrisy. As you judge for yourself, aren’t these politicians and journalists practicing the same principles?

The Obama and Bush administrations are not the first to play this game. Many regimes have long used many forms of censorship, including Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Nicolae Ceaușescu of Romania. The so called capitalist nations are not immune from censorship.

The Bush administration was not an open form of government — “The Bush Administration has an obsession with secrecy,” says Representative Henry Waxman. “It has repeatedly rewritten laws and changed practices to reduce public and congressional scrutiny of its activities. The cumulative effect is an unprecedented assault on the laws that make our government open and accountable.”

Anonymity has dramatically increased to new levels with the Obama administration  — It has quietly put into practice an ‘incomplete idea’ left over from the Bush II presidency: creating a de facto ‘presidential international assassination program.’ Court documents, evidence offered by Human Rights Watch and a special United Nations report allege that US citizens suspected of encouraging “terror” had been put on “death lists.”

Under their terms we might call this Project Quote Approval…

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Big Brother Is Storing Your Emails

Can the NSA collect all our phone conversations and emails, without warrants or oversight?

Orwellian: Big Brother is storing your emails automatically without your permission. This is a violation of the fourth amendment and has been occurring since the 9/11 tragedy. The NSA is the department responsible, and it has a carte-blanche to pursue an ongoing database.

Shhh. It’s Godwin’s law. Be careful about your every conversation on the phone, because it becomes an opportunity. They are listening to your every word. Can you say Stellar wind?

Kirk Wiebe, former senior analyst; and William Binney, former technical director, share their expertise on the subject via Viewpoint with Eliot Spizer.

Thomas Drake, a former senior executive of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), is against this invasion of privacy that the NSA keeps ignoring. Drake sheds light on the topic:

They really opened up a Pandora’s Box and under the excuse of 9/11 they just said hey, the constitution is null and void, and national security takes privacy. And… what’s now being created a decade plus later is a pernicious, persistent, and permanent database. The real risk and danger is this is something that’s not going to go away; and in secret they’re going to have access to it, and in secret they’ll be able to build dossiers on practically everybody they want to. Or go back in time to find out anything they would like to.

In speaking of electronic surveillance, we’re now treating the United States of America as equivalent of a foreign nation. What’s interesting is a lot of ex post facto laws have been passed since 9/11, particularly in the last 5 or 6 years, to essentially make legal what was critically illegal after 9/11.

The three men are involved in a legal case with the agency.