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Politics : Bush-The Mastermind behind 9/11? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Don Earl who wrote (2198)	8/26/2003 11:02:13 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Respond to of 20039

Don, Re: The sad part is it isn't likely to be covered in such a way as to reach mainstream America I just got done watching the Howard Dean Campaign Rally in Bryant Park in NYC. There were about 10,000 people there, 15,000 in Seattle on Sunday. deanforamerica.com Each and every one of these people is potentially able to help us get the word out about 9/11. There are events being scheduled on 9/11 in San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Portland, Eugene and that's just what I'm familiar with now. The word is going to get out. In spite of the media censorship. It's pretty amazing to think that Ruppert can't get greedy corporations to take money for his ad. They've got to be really afraid of the truth to be stonewalling so thoroughly. Re: Eventually even the worst media in the world (which probably describes ours) will cover the facts when it's no longer possible to pretend they don't exist. The opposition media in Venezuela may have our beat. That's because the CIA has a freer hand there. Also, there was an interesting passage in the coverage of the CIA's overthrow of Iran's Mossadeq in 1953 indicating that the CIA and MI6 actively engaged in providing articles and editorials for the Iranian press before the coup d'etat. democracynow.org democracynow.org These secret police organizations are disgusting. Just a pack of disingenuous and congenital liars. Ours may be the worst of the lot.

To: Don Earl who wrote (2198)	8/26/2003 11:10:12 PM
From: KonKilo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20039

Nice job of connecting several dots re eVoting: : August 25, 2003 :: Connecting the Dots I spent the weekend pondering what I heard at the ITAA/E-voting secret phone conference Friday. I then went and did a little checking into names and people and came up with some interesting facts and even more interesting questions. 1) The Elections Systems Task Force was the major lobbyist for the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). The ESTF's main purpose was to get congress to foot the bill for e-voting machines ($3.9 billion) and moving the country away from an auditable system, to a system that has no credible auditibility. Questions: How much money did these companies spend getting HAVA enacted? Who got the money? 2) The ESTF was comprised of Northrop-Grumman, Lockheed-Martin, EDS and Accenture. These companies all have major government contracts, most with the Defense Department. Question: Why are defense contractors mucking about in our voting process? 3) Accenture bought Election.com from Osan Ltd., a private Saudi Firm. Election.com, described as a cash-starved company, has never made money, yet two different companies stepped in to rescue it. First the Saudis, then Accenture. Question: Didn't anyone wonder about a Saudi firm owning a company that makes voting machines for American elections? 4) Accenture used to be Andersen Consulting, formally part of Arthur Andersen of Enron fame. According to the Canadian Polaris Institute, Accenture is heavily involved in projects to privatize public services, especially welfare programs in the US, Canada and the EU. The company's short history is rife with cost overruns and scandals, the most recent being a possible violation of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Accenture's political contributions (2000-2002) totaled $220,000, with the GOP getting 57%. Soft money contributions were $86,000, with the GOP enjoying a 3:1 advantage in contributions. 5) No techs or programmers were present at the meeting as far as I could tell. I have yet to hear any credible computer scientist come out in favor of digital voting systems. 6) One of the members of ITAA's enterprise division board of directors is Ronald J. Knecht, who is also senior VP at Scientific Applications International, Corp. (SAIC). Why is this important? Because SAIC has been hired to assess the security of Diebold's voting software for the state of Maryland. So, ITAA is trying to get hired by Diebold et al, to lobby congress and elections officials to buy into e-voting, plus launch a PR campaign to convince the public the machines are safe. At the same time, a member of ITAA is working for the company hired to assure the trustworthiness of the same machines. One of the principle issues discussed at the Friday meeting was "establishing certifications standards", or more specifically aggressively lobbying the independent testing authorities (ITAs) with "input" on what the standards should be. Question: Isn't SAIC acting as a de facto independent testing authority for the state of Maryland, and thus ITAA would be in the position of providing "input" to SAIC, who have a VP on ITAA's board of directors? Question: In any case, isn't it a conflict of interest, and at the very least rather improper for there to be a tie between ITAA and SAIC? Question: Has SAIC disclosed this conflict to the state of Maryland? Question: Has ITAA disclosed the conflict to its prospective clients in the e-voting industry? 7) Accenture is incorporated in Bermuda as a tax dodge, and as one of the top 100 federal contractors ($279 million in 2001), has been criticized for this. Half the partners in the firm are not U.S. citizens. Accenture was recently awarded a contract to provide internet voting to the military. Internet voting is the least secure and the most prone to fraud. Accenture refused to reveal how much it was paid for the contract. Question: Why is the price of the contract a secret? Question: Why is an offshore company, run by non-citizens, allowed to handle something as sensitive as military voting? Question: Why is the military being given a voting process highly vulnerable to fraud or disruption? 8) R. Doug Lewis, head of the Election Center, apparently was the prime instigator of Friday's meeting with the BBV crowd. Question: Isn't it rather improper for Lewis to be helping the e-voting industry form a lobby? :: David Allen thoughtcrimes.org