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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (752232)	10/23/2006 10:01:59 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769670

...U.S. intelligence information indicating that what al-Qaeda really wants is for the United States to remain bogged down in Iraq so the terrorist band can use the American occupation to recruit and train a new generation of jihadists, who can then be deployed against targets outside Iraq. Recently disclosed internal al-Qaeda communiqués make clear that bin Laden's terrorist band is counting on a long-term U.S. occupation of Iraq to build its movement. In a letter, dated Dec. 11, 2005, ( centcom.mil ) a senior al-Qaeda operative known as "Atiyah" lectured the then-leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, on the necessity of taking a long view and building ties with elements of the Sunni-led Iraqi insurgency who have little in common with al-Qaeda except hatred of the Americans. Atiyah told Zarqawi that "the most important thing is that the jihad continues with steadfastness and firm rooting, and that it grows in terms of supporters, strength, clarity of justification, and visible proof each day. Indeed, prolonging the war is in our interest." [Emphasis added.] The "Atiyah letter" -- like a previously intercepted message attributed to al-Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman Zawahiri -- suggests that a U.S. military pullout in 2005 or earlier would have been disastrous for al-Qaeda's militants in Iraq, which are estimated at only about 5 to 10 percent of the anti-U.S. fighters. Without the U.S. military presence to serve as a rallying cry and a unifying force, the al-Qaeda contingent faced disintegration from desertions and attacks from Iraqi insurgents who resented the wanton bloodshed committed by Zarqawi's non-Iraqi terrorists. The "Zawahiri letter," which was dated July 9, 2005, said a rapid American military withdrawal could have caused the foreign jihadists, who had flocked to Iraq to battle the Americans, to simply give up the fight and go home. "The mujahaddin must not have their mission end with the expulsion of the Americans from Iraq, and then lay down their weapons, and silence the fighting zeal," said the "Zawahiri letter," according to a text released by the U.S. Director of National Intelligence. The "Atiyah letter," which was discovered by U.S. authorities at the time of Zarqawi's death on June 7, 2006, and was translated by the U.S. military's Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, also stressed the vulnerability of al-Qaeda's position in Iraq and the need to buy time. "Know that we, like all mujahaddin, are still weak," Atiyah told Zarqawi. ( consortiumnews.com ) "We have not yet reached a level of stability. We have no alternative but to not squander any element of the foundations of strength or any helper or supporter." Playing into al-Qaeda's hands....

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (752232)	10/23/2006 10:38:47 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769670

Electronic Voting Machines Could Skew Elections Researchers, Candidates Have Little Confidence in Machines Designed to Make Elections Easier to Call By JAKE TAPPER, REBECCA ABRAHAMS and EDUARDO SUNOL abcnews.go.com Oct. 22, 2006 — - Cheryl Kagan, a former Maryland Democratic legislator, was shocked when she opened her mail Wednesday morning. Inside, she discovered three computer discs. With them was an anonymous letter saying the discs contained the secret source code for vote-counting that could be used to alter the votes cast through Maryland's new electronic voting machines. "My understanding is that with these disks a malicious person could skew the outcome of an election," Kagan said. Diebold, the company that makes the voting machines, told ABC News, "These discs do not alter the security of the Diebold touch-screen system in any way," because election workers can set their own passwords. But ABC News has obtained an independent report commissioned by the state of Maryland and conducted by Science Applications International Corporation revealing that the original Diebold factory passwords are still being used on many voting machines. The SAIC study also shows myriad other security flaws, including administrative over-ride passwords that cannot be changed by local officials but can be used by hackers or those who have seen the discs. The report further states that one of the high risks to the system comes if operating code discs are lost, stolen or seen by unauthorized parties -- precisely what seems to have occurred with the discs sent to Kagan, who worries that the incident indicates the secret source code is not that difficult to obtain. "Certainly, just tweaking a few votes in a couple of states could radically change the outcome of our policies for the coming year," she said. Worry That Elections Could Be Hacked Computer experts and government officials have voiced serious concerns that if these machines malfunction, no paper record will exist for a recount. Even worse is the fear that an election could be hacked. Princeton University researchers using an Accuvote TS -- a touch screen version of the Diebold machine -- showed how easy it would be to deploy a virus that would, in seconds, flip the vote of any election. "We're taking the vote-counting process and we're handing it over to these companies -- and we don't know what happens inside these machines," said Edward Felten, a professor and a researcher at Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy, which ran the study. Diebold called the Princeton study "unrealistic and inaccurate." But many computer scientists, including cyber-security expert Stephen Spoonamore, disagree, pointing out that the Accuvote TS was used in the 2004 presidential election and is still used in at least four states -- including all machines in Georgia and Maryland. Spoonamore said the hack attacked the operating system layer of software and would affect any touch screen machine built by Diebold. Diebold argues that the software from the 2004 elections has been updated to fix any possible security problems. But Spoonamore is not convinced, saying Diebold's "system is utterly unsecured. The entire cyber-security community is begging them to come back to reality and secure our nation's voting." There is also the matter of computer glitches. In primary elections and test runs this year, there were glitches with electronic voting machines from Diebold and other companies. Machines malfunctioned in Texas, where 100,000 votes were added. In California, directions for voters with vision problems came out in Vietnamese. And in Maryland, screens froze and memory cards went missing. Gov. Robert Ehrlich, a Republican running for reelection, advised residents to vote by absentee ballot because he had no confidence in the machines. "I don't care if we paid half a billion dollars or $1 billion," Ehrlich said. "If it's going to put the election at risk, there's no price tag for a phony election or a fraudulent election." Many are concerned about how the confusing technical issues will be handled by poll workers, who tend to be senior citizens and who are not necessarily tech-savvy. Electronic voting machines were supposed to be the solution to the paper ballot problems from the 2000 presidential election. But to many critics, America's voting system has gone out of the frying pan and into the fire. Copyright © 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures