----- Original Message -----

From: Eric A. Smith

Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2006 5:30 PM
Subject: For your linking consideration: Miller Fesses Up (Again)... Moussaoui to Get New Cellmates?

Miller Fesses Up (Again)... Moussaoui to Get New Cellmates?
The ever-contrite Judith Miller is once again inconsolably sobbing out regret at her complicity in the unnecessary deaths of thousands.

Yes, as Sept. 11 co-conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui headed to federal prison to begin serving his life sentence we hear (again) he wasn't the only one with inside information about the September 11 attacks who kept it from the American public:
 
read the rest online at
http://aliberaldose.blogspot.com/2006/05/miller-fesses-up-again-moussaoui-to.html

*******************************

From: Eric A. Smith
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2005 9:36 AM
Subject: For Your Linking Consideration: "GOP: RIP."

GOP: RIP.


With the Republican Party floundering about in its recent sea of difficulties, I thought it only right to offer a little assistance as it were.

It's become patently obvious that the party of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, the PNAC, Diebold, Enron and Halliburton has diverged significantly from its roots -- the party of Lincoln, Roosevelt and Eisenhower, a party which once had some semblance of honor.

Thus, with the death of the Grand Old Party as such, the current group which has seized the reins of power finds itself in something of an identity crisis. Not to worry, however, as we liberals -- the adults -- are always at hand to clean up in the wake of the integrity- empathy- and reason-challenged infants across the Congressional aisle.

And so in the spirit of genuine, deep-seated hatred, revulsion and horror, I offer the following alternative mascots and pet names to the new party we all know and despise.

First there's the obvious POP (Party of Pork):


And, of course, the MOD (Merchants of Doom):

The TOB (Treacherous Old Bastards):

There's always the other POP (Party of Pestilence) to consider, for helping heap disease, ruin and misery upon so many:

Of course, there's always the distinguished-sounding GUI (Globally Unwelcome Interlopers), for their missions of dubious sanity and calamitous result across the globe:

 
 
Read the rest online at
 
Thanks for your time.
 
peace,
Eric
Tokyo

****    ****    ****    ****    ****    ****

No Exit and Other Lessons in Irony from the Torture Party

 
Looks like Bush and his ilk have finally discovered Hell, and it turns out to indeed be other people.

First, Korea times its troop withdrawal announcement for the day of Bush's arrival.

And as the rats begin their frantic scurrying, Ghoul-in-Chief Rumsfeld shows his complete lack of shame, blurting out the outrageous lie that he never advocated the invasion.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi government calls yet again for withdrawal, echoing the wishes of 83% of the civilian population (according to the British Ministry of Defense) and earlier desperate attempts to get rid of us.

And although Chief Pan Troglodytes publicly rhapsodizes about how "wonderfully" the occupation's proceeding, those with their boots are apparently in a completely different world than Bush's.

So, even though the two top commanders in the debacle have already delivered their detailed plans for ending the occupation, in answer, Bush's latest bumbling has become a metaphor for the Red House's hellish vision: for Americans and Iraqis in the Hell of occupied Iraq there will be no exit. It's "stay the course until evil has been vanquished", a patently never ending and completely arbitrary goal.

A brief glimpse at current developments in colonial Iraq is a further maddening exercise in doublethink, with irony piling upon irony.

For example "Operation Iraqi Freedom" and similar exploits have delivered not freedom, but incarceration to more than 83,000 in the last four years, even though a staggering 70 to 90 percent of those still being held in Iraq ARE KNOWN TO BE COMPLETELY INNNOCENT.

And we've certainly extracted more than our pound of flesh as, by now, far more died in Iraq than in all the terrorist attacks throughout history combined.

Those who have experienced its horrors firsthand are trying to uphold America's historic abhorrance of torture, but the walking national embarrassment called Bush is still threatening to veto any legal measures, blithely unaware of the irony in light of his own words:

The capture of this man was crucial to the rise of a free Iraq. It marks the end of the road for him, and for all who bullied and killed in his name. For the Baathist holdouts largely responsible for the current violence, there will be no return to the corrupt power and privilege they once held. For the vast majority of Iraqi citizens who wish to live as free men and women, this event brings further assurance that the torture chambers and the secret police are gone forever.
Now we learn the nuthatches directing the slaughter on our behalf have been repopulating the new and improved Iraqi army overwhelmingly with Saddam's own elite (the very folks who were lobbing mortars and firing bullets at our troops months, weeks and perhaps even days ago).

So it comes as no surprise that we have been fostering a generation of professional Jeffery Dahmers, who have been secretly torturing our own informants in the most ghastly ways imaginable -- and with the covert assistance of some folks who harbor little fondness for us:

So far, it appears that the facts are these: that Iraq's interior ministry, whose top officials, strike forces and police commando units (including the so-called Wolf Brigade) are controlled by paramilitary units from Shiite militias, maintained a medieval torture chamber; that inside that facility, hundreds of mostly Sunni Arab men were bestialized, with electric drills skewering their bones, with their skins flayed off, and more; that roving units of death-squad commandos are killing countless other Sunni Arab men in order to terrorize the Iraqi opposition. Even the Washington Post, that last-ditch defender of America's illegal and unprovoked assault on Iraq, says:

Scandal over the secret prison has forced the seven-month-old Shiite-led government to confront growing charges of mass illegal detentions, torture and killings of Sunni men. Members of the Sunni minority, locked in a struggle with the Shiite majority over the division of power in Iraq, say men dressed in Interior Ministry uniforms have repeatedly rounded up Sunni men from neighborhoods and towns. Bodies of scores of them have been found dumped by roadsides or in gullies.

The New York Times reports that the Iraqi interior minister isn't all that upset about the torture center. Bayan Jabr, "speaking of the prison in an angry sarcastic tone, said, 'There has been much exaggeration about this issue.' And he added, "Nobody was beheaded.'" So, apparently not beheading innocents is the standard of justice in the New Iraq. And, apparently there may be dozens, scores or hundreds of similar facilities.

This is not a surprise.

Nearly two years ago, writing in the American Prospect, I wrote the following: "The Prospect has learned that part of a secret $3 billion in new funds—tucked away in the $87 billion Iraq appropriation that Congress approved in early November—will go toward the creation of a paramilitary unit manned by militiamen associated with former Iraqi exile groups...The bulk of the covert money will support U.S. efforts to create a lethal, and revenge-minded, Iraqi security force." Except for a parallel story by Sy Hersh in the New Yorker, the story was ignored.

Over the past two years, writing for TomPaine.com, I have repeatedly written about Shiite death squads and about abuses by the paramilitary Badr Brigade, the secret army trained and run by Iran's Revolutionary Guards. Iraqi Sunnis and opposition leaders, including Aiham Al Sammarae (as I wrote for TomPaine ) have charged that the Iraqi government has been running assassination teams. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, have been killed already, including two attorneys for those accused in the kangaroo court set up to convict Saddam Hussein and other former Iraqi government officials. The Post suggests that the prison uncovered in Baghdad was a "secret torture center run with the help of intelligence agents from neighboring Iran." Read that again: intelligence agents from Iran.
Then of course, there's our use of chemical weapons on the Iraqi population, another of the ostensible reasons for Bush's invasion.

So we claimed we'd free the iraqis, then jailed tens of thousands known to be innocent; we claimed to repudiate Hussein's torture policies, then surpassed him in our own efficiency at it; we claimed to want to rid Iraq of the WMDs Herr Rumsfeld and Bush Sr. had given him (which, as UN inspector Scott Ritter said three years ago had already been destroyed or rendered useless), then used our own WMD on its citizenry; we claimed to want to bring them a democracy, then rigged the vote; we claimed to embrace a free press, then began killing journalists and cracking down on dissent.

But, the smirking chimp waxes generous of late, pretending to welcome dissent, unless, of course, you happen to be a certain mother of a soldier killed in the quagmire, whose Constitutional rights to freedom of assembly and petitioning for redress are apparently less than those of certain high-profile Congressmen.

And then there's the tricky little Constitutional issue of a certain US citizen who's been jailed without trial or charges for 3 Years and 197 Days on the mere sayso of the White House.

Seems as though lately, America has become... well, downright UnAmerican.
Read the rest at:
 
http://aliberaldose.blogspot.com
 
peace,
Eric

***************************************

The Many Faces of the Modern Repugnican
A Retrospective Gallery of Original Liberal Dose Art
(click link above to view Eric's Blog)

Here at A Liberal Dose, the little elves have been hard at work lampooning
the evil bastards who have currently seized the reins of power in America
and are doing their utmost to smash, eat, steal, rape and/or kill everything
within reach of their tentacles.

So for your perusing pleasure, we proudly present a gallery of
our own homespun subversive art.

peace,
NAP

************************************

An Emergency Call-to-Arms: 
A Five-Step Battle Plan for YOUR Future

This is a call to arms to you -- as an American and a custodian
of your nation's future. Please act as if your life depends on it -- it well might.

We have been led down a dark, perilous road.

The journey has touched us all, from mothers and fathers burying children
in a war over nonexistent WMD, to firefighters and policemen promised
vital funds only to be cheated and asked to work for free. Millions of
Americans have been cut loose as corporations exploit foreign
workers on the cheap and CEOs gorge themselves on riches
unprecedented in history. While Americans take second and
even third jobs just feed their families, the Bush Administration
has poured America's wealth into the greedy hands of defense
contractors and tax-dodging megacorporations, notorious
companies like (#1 Bush donator Kenneth Lay's) Enron or
Cheney's wartime ripoff-artists at Halliburton.

Our environment, safety, economy, national security,
labor protection and Constitutionally-guaranteed
rights have all been gutted and left to die
in a worker-hostile economy.

NOW WE FIGHT BACK.

Here's what we're facing:

This November, the Bush election machine has more than
three times the spending power of its opponenets(1) 

And they are fighting dirty, just as they did in 2000, when
they purged Florida voter rolls(2), rioted to stop
recounts(3), barred citizens from voting (ibid) and even
threatened the Vice President and his family on their front lawn (4).

This year, through gerrymandering, data theft from Congressional
computers, impeachments and recess judicial appointments,
they are trying to consolidate their unprecedented power.
And they have a special election-season surprise in store
for us as well -- as the AFL-CIO argued before the
Supreme Court last December(5), the Bushites have
MADE IT A CRIME FOR THIRD PARTIES TO
CRITICIZE THE PRESIDENT OR SAY THINGS
TO INFLUENCE THE ELECTION during the
election's most critical phase:

"This blackout will become national in scope on July 31,
30 days before the August 30-September 2 Republican
National Convention . . and it will then continue without
interruption throughout the remaining 60 days until the
November 2 election. Thus, from July 31, 2004 until
the election, it will be a crime for a union, corporation,
or incorporated non-profit organization to pay to
broadcast any 'reference' to the President by
'name,' 'photograph,' 'drawing' or other
'unambiguous' means anywhere
in the United States." (6) 

They are ruthless, and will not concede victory without
a vicious fight. Expect the outlawing of gay marriage to
"divide and conquer", marginalize opponents and
consolidate support from the religious right, a
base estimated to be 30 million strong (7).

Expect the Supreme Court to halt recounts again.
Expect a "surprise" discovery of WMD even
after Blix, David Kay and Iraq's scientists
saying they were all destroyed. (8) Expect
the "suprise" capture or "destruction"
of Bin Laden conveniently close to the
election (9). Expect lots of scary
terrorism warnings and perhaps
even an attack.(10) General
Tommy Franks has even
suggested a second 9-11
-scale attack will lead to
martial law in America (11).

None of this should deter you; remember it was the
same group (Rumsfeld, Cheney, Baker, Bush Sr.,
Perle, etc.) that armed and funded Hussein and
Bin Laden in the first place. The blood of our
dead is therefore on their hands.

We must not underestimate the ruthlessness of those
willing to start an international war based on known
and transparent lies -- virtually against the will of the
entire planet. Make no mistake; they are willing to
throw away American lives in their quest for global
dominion. And if you rise up and oppose them, you
may be bullied, harassed and threatened, perhaps
even by the FBI.(12)
YOU MUST NOT LET
THIS DETER YOU. WE MUST NOT BE
BULLIED INTO LETTING THEM
SEIZE POWER AGAIN!


For example, from the NY Times: "When a Times
editorial writer dropped in on one Palm Beach
precinct where there were reports of
malfunctioning machines, county officials
called the police to remove him."(ibid)

And here we come to the deep, dark heart of the matter:

This year 28% of the vote (and counting) will be tallied
on electronic voting machines or scanners, which have
been repeatedly hacked and can be used to fix an
election -- all without a trace. Below you'll find a
link to the diagrammed, step-by-step report of
how e-vote activist Bev Harris hacked one(13).
If you think this is exaggeration, please follow
the links listed below, where everything has
been well-documented and by the NY Times,
the Washington Post, CNN, ABC, CBS, the BBC, etc.

(14) Once paperless, effortlessly hackable (10) voting
machines have been installed, the situation will be
PERMANENT -- we will never know or be
able to prove if an election has been stolen.
And if it HAS -- those who have stolen it
CAN NEVER BE VOTED OUT. And
without the fear of voter reprisal,
whoever takes advantage of
such a situation could do
literally anything they
wanted and NEVER
LOSE POWER.

It will mean the end of Democracy. And if you work
for an activist group, it will certainly mean the end of your organization.

We have less than six months to prepare to fight
the biggest power grab in human history. 

Do your part. 

Help save America.

There will not be a second chance.

A 5-STEP BATTLE PLAN:

I. LOBBYING (20 minutes approximately)

Tell your representatives to support Bills H.R. 2239
and ESPECIALLY 1980 (14)

Online e-petitions:
http://www.mediafordemocracy.us/campaign/evote
http://www.truemajority.org/actionregister/
http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821
http://www.verifiedvoting.org
http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/petition.cfm?itemid=14993
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/
348035553?ts=1079111375&sign[partner_userID]=
304336170&sign[memberID]=304336170&sign[partnerID]=1
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/cleanvote.html

Congress
http://www.senate.gov/
Toll free: 1-800-839-5276 
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/

State elections boards
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID29/47.html

State Attorneys General
http://www.naag.org/ag/full_ag_table.php

State Election Officials
http://www.nased.org/

Members, Natl. Assoc. of County Recorders,
Election Officials and Clerks

http://www.nacrc.org/leadership/st_coord.htm

Penelope Bonsall, national director of the Office of Election Administration
Office of Election Administration
Federal Election Commission

999 E Street, NW
Washington, DC 20463
vss@fec.gov
(202) 694-1095 (phone)
(202) 219-8500 (fax)

II.
MEDIA BLITZ (one to three hours approximately)
Write a ltter and email or fax it to Radio & tv stations,
newspapers & magazines in your area:
http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/News/
http://newslink.org
http://www.cantufind.com/american_newspapers.htm
http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Networks/
http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Stations/
http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/Cable/
http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/
http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Broadcasting/Information/

National Media Contacts:
CBS Evening News
212-975-3691
evening@cbsnews.com

NBC Nightly News
212-664-4971
nightly@nbc.com

Peter Jennings : ABC World News Tonight
Tel : (212) 456-4025, Fax : (212) 456-2381
PeterJennings@abcnews.com 

Washington Post :
abramowitz@washpost.com, colemanm@washpost.com ,
letters@washpost.com , hadarm@washpost.com ,
kingc@washpost.com , milbankd@washpost.com ,

New York Times:
nytnews@nytimes.com, oped@nytimes.com,
president@nytimes.com, publisher@nytimes.com,
society@nytimes.com, washington@nytimes.com,
web-editor@nytimes.com, letters@nytimes.com
USA Today: editor@usatoday.com 
Houston Chronicle: viewpoints@chron.com
San Francisco Chronicle: letters@sfchronicle.com 
Los Angeles Times: letters@latimes.com 
Chicago Tribune: ctc-TribLetter@Tribune.com
Washington Post: letters@washpost.com 
Newsday: letters@newsday.com 
New York Daily News: voicers@edit.nydailynews.com

CNN HeadLine News executives :
cameron.baird@turner.com, dave.willis@turner.com, 
bill.schneider@turner.com ,
james.broyles@turner.com, jason.evans@turner.com,
lou.dobbs@turner.com , moneyline@cnnfn.com ,
kathy.slobogin@turner.com , paul.varian@turner.com ,
judy.fortin@turner.com, bill.galvin@turner.com,
susan.jalali@turner.com, kurt.kasting@turner.com,
tim.mallon@turner.com, wade.mckinney@turner.com,
jerry.mihoch@turner.com, stephanie.minter@turner.com,
dennis.newman@turner.com, alan.schrack@turner.com,
rolando.santos@turner.com, steve.shusman@turner.com,
jennifer.c.thomas@turner.com,

USA Today :
editor@usatoday.com , fanklam@usatoday.com ,
jbacon@usatoday.com , lbranson@usatoday.com ,
dcolton@usatoday.com,

Los Angeles Times :
dean.baquet@latimes.com , op-ed@latimes.com ,
john.carroll@latimes.com , janet.clayton@latimes.com ,
letters@latimes.com , latmag@latimes.com ,
marjorie.miller@latimes.com, john.puerner@latimes.com
james.rainey@latimes.com, bill.stall@latimes.com ,

REUTERS :
michel.gelbart@reuters.com , eddie.evans@reuters.com ,
editor.reuters@reuters.com, daniel.grebler@reuters.com ,
stephen.jukes@reuters.com , reshma.kapadia@reuters.com ,
andrew.mitchell@reuters.com , dick.satran@reuters.com ,
david.schlesinger@reuters.com, eddie.evans@reuters.com ,
washington.daybook.newsroom@reuters.com,
miami.newsroom@reuters.com, michel.gelbart@reuters.com,
boston.newsroom@reuters.com, toronto.newsroom@reuters.com ,
mexicocity.newsroom@reuters.com ,

Associated Press:
info@ap.org, msilverman@ap.org,
gjohnson@ap.org , hjung@ap.org
tkorte@ap.org , sthomsen@ap.org
etompson@ap.org , ntrott@ap.org
rtanner@ap.org, mtighe@ap.org,
kathleen.carroll@ap.org, dcrary@ap.org,
adinnocenzio@ap.org, jaffleck@ap.org,
mfeldman@ap.org, paula.froke@ap.org,
tfuentez@ap.org, kgazlay@ap.org,
chanley@ap.org, bharpaz@ap.org,
lheinzerling@ap.org, rherschaft@ap.org,
hitalie@ap.org, sjacobsen@ap.org,
ajesdanun@ap.org, tkent@ap.org


III. WITNESS E-VOTE EVALUATIONS (one afternoon) 
Ask your elections board (about any e-voting purchase
evaluations meetings to be held in your district.
As a member of the voting public, it is your
legal right to attend as a witness, although,
out of convenience, they may try to avoid
giving you the information. Insist on your rights. 

If you do attend as a witness, you may well be a victim
of intimidation tactics. Insist on voter-verified paper
ballots. Bev Harris has written comprehensive
answers to arguments you will hear.


DO NOT BACK DOWN OR BE INTIMIDATED
BY CIVIL SERVANTS -- they are your
EMPLOYEES, paid by YOUR TAXES:


From Bev Harris, http://www.BlackBoxVoting.Org

Assertion: "Upgrading the printer already in the (Diebold)
machine costs money" Fact: Diebold has stated in writing
that their pre-installed internal printers are sufficient to
generate a voter-verified paper trail.

Assertion: "The paper is very expensive"
Fact: No, thermal paper is the cheapest made.
And with an estimated maximmum of 300
people voting at each touch screen.
A LARGE precinct may have
seven touch screens, but many
have just two or three. It might
cost $15 per precinct
to print those ballots.

Assertion: "The paper won't last" Fact: If the report to be by
the machine will last the required amount of time, the ballots
will too, if printed on the same paper. The printer is there
to report totals at the polling place. 

Assertion: "the machines will jam" Fact: The printer is similar
to models used in supermarkets and WalMart. Remember:
the total number of transactions, will be about 300. Do
supermarket and WalMart printers jam every 15 sales?
No; They process thousands of printouts without jamming.

Assertion: "the ink will run out" 
Fact: There is no ink in a thermal printer

Question: "If a paper ballot record doesn't match a machine record,
which is the legal vote?"  Fact: The voter-verified paper must trump
the machine unless a mechanical defect or fraud is shown, because
it is a physical record seen and verified by thousands of individual
voters, whereas the machine is bits and bytes that can be changed
by a single technician!

Assertion: "Paper ballot systems have been tampered with" Fact:
Yes, and machines have been frequently wrong as well. Do not
allow sidetracking of the discussion or assertions that you are
"against electronic voting" -- no, we want them to put paper
in a printer and use it for auditing.

Assertion: "Officials won't know what to do with paper ballots
and new laws must be written." Fact: Laws and procedures
set up for optical scans are applicable.

Assertion: "A paper trail will only lead to demands for more
complicated and stringent auditing" Fact: Yes, it will. We're
asking for that anyway, with optical scanning. It is still be
cheap and efficient compared to many of the changes
currently being implemented to accomodate the sales
of more touchscreen machines.

Question: "Why use machines at all if you're demanding paper ballots?"
Fact: Voting machines are helpful for the visually impaired 

Assertion: "Paper ballots prevent the visually impaired from voting"
Facts: Wheelchair-assisted voters can use a touch screen with the
same efficiency whether or not there is a paper printout, and the
visually-impaired are can be provided with headphones for
these machines. Nor does a paper printout
hinder their ability to vote.

Alternatives to the Diebold, Sequoia and ES&S machines
(operated by heavily partisan CEOs, designed to operate
WITHOUT a paper trail, and whose code and
components are not allowed to be examined) exist. 

Avante Systems has a machine that shows a printout through
a glass screen. After the voter confirms it is correct, the
paper ballot is droped into a storage box so it can be
checked against the machine totals and the AccuPoll
system has a scanner that can pass over the
printed ballot to verify votes.

Sequioa machines can be attached to normal printers.
If your group has some at its disposal,
by all means, bring them.

Alternative, secure e-voting machines you can suggest
to your elections officials:
http://www.accupoll.com/
http://www.aitechnology.com/avantetech/home.html


IV. VOLUNTEER ELECTIONS MONITORING
(three days approximately, including preliminary training)
Votewatch is organizing election monitor volunteers here:
http://www.votewatch.us/forum/register.php?

Bev Harris has outlined a point-by-point strategy on
specifically what to look for when monitoring
electronic voting machines. It is also
recommended that you either
download her free e-book
"Black Box Voting", or
better yet, purchase it here:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org

From Bev Harris, http://www.BlackBoxVoting.Org

CITIZEN WATCHDOGS:
What to look for and report --
Let's get good at this before November! 

Optical-scan systems and absentee ballots: We have
information that all systems recognize carbon
containing marks (soft lead pencil). Some
DO NOT recognize all inks. You may
want to bring a soft lead pencil to the
polling place with you to mark
your optical-scan ballots. 

All Diebold counties (AccuVote and AccuTouch are
Diebold brands) -- Demand that the poll workers
print a report and post a copy at the polling place
at the end of the day, whether they are required
to or not. All Diebold machines, both touch-
screen and optical-scan, contain internal
printers and have the ability to print a
polling place results report.
This takes 60 seconds
and costs nothing,

and is an important check and balance to compare
with the county results from the GEMS system,
which we believe to contain security flaws.
Votes should not change from the
polling place to the county. 

Report any instance of mismatched polling place/county tabulations here.
Do NOT accept the excuse that they won't match because early votes,
absentee, provisional, or challenge votes were added into the polling
place totals. That is called "co-mingling" the data and is not an
acceptable record-keeping practice. Additional categories of
votes must be accounted for as separate line items. 

Sequoia touch-screens do not have an internal printer.
A printer can easily be hooked up with a serial port.
If you see printers, demand a polling place report. 

Watch for any "wandering vote tallies" on election night,
especially if any votes go DOWN.
(Yes, this has been known to happen). 

Late poll openings: Report these immediately and we'll try to get
cameras there. This is a form of vote suppression,
often occurring in minority areas. 

Late vote results: Report late incoming tallies. These can be indicative
of the county trying to resolve voting machine anomalies
before filing reports. 

Observe how many cords come in and out of the voting machines.
Report any evidence of networking the machines together. Report
any time you see more than a simple power cord plugged in while
the election is in progress. 

War drive election sites. See if you can pick up wireless signals either during
or after the election. Wireless communication is not permitted. Also, report
any use of cell phones for vote transfers, which is also not permitted. 

Election workers: Report the procedures used for training if they
seem insecure. For example, we have already had reports that in
Georgia, some poll workers were told to take voting machines home
after training; Georgia flag artwork was uploaded right before the
election; and other unwise and insecure procedures were followed. 

Go visit the polling place at the end of the day and see how secure it is.
We had reports recently of machines left in the polling place unattended. 

Felony watch: In some states, IT IS A FELONY for technicians who
are not sworn elections officials to touch the vote database in any way,
shape or form after votes have been cast. In fact, if you look at
Chapter 13 of Black Box Voting, the San Luis Obispo incident
was probably illegal (Diebold tech Sophia Lee was tied to a
live vote database that appeared on the Internet five hours
before the polls closed). 

Watch for statistical anomalies. Look at everything.
Time is of the essence, as these analyses take
some time and there are only a few days
before the election is certified. 

V. LEGAL CHALLENGES (indeterminate)

Author Lynn Landes has questioned the
constitutionality of voting machines. 
http://www.ecotalk.org/VotingMachinesUnconstitutional.htm

If your organization has the wherewithal to raise a legal
challenge on these (or other grounds) here are some resources below:

Election campaign and civil rights lawyers listed for every city:
http://lawyers.findlaw.com/lawyer/practice/
Election Campaign & Political Law
http://lawyers.findlaw.com/lawyer/practice/CivilRights

Institute for Justice:
http://www.ij.org/index.shtml

Center for Individual Rights:
http://www.cir-usa.org/intakehtml

Class actions:
http://www.bigclassaction.com/civil_rights.html

Southeastern Legal Foundation:
http://southeasternlegal.org/

Electronic Frontier Foundation attorneys:
gwen@eff.org
jason@eff.org
owlswan@eff.org
wendy@eff.org
tien@eff.org
fred@eff.org

Other challenges:
http://www.palmbeachpostcom/localnews/content/auto/
epaper/editions/tuesday/local_news_04d49255058760a400d8.html
http://www.electionguardians.org/actions.htm
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/dieboldlawsuit.pdf

Pax Christi is also organizing an international group of elections monitors.
More information here:
http://www.paxchristiusa.org/news_events_more.asp?id=887

REFERENCES

1 (GOP:$115,667,827 ; Dems:$44,175,502). 
http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/index.asp

2.
Greg Palast, Harper's Magazine "The Great Florida Ex-Con Game" 
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=122&row=2

3 a. "Unprecedented" -- internet preview of the film
http://wwwunprecedented.org/UnprecedentedPreview.htm

3 b.
Lynn Landes: "Mission Impossible -
Federal Observers & Voting Machines"
http://www.ecotalk.org/FederalObservers.htm

4.
Barbara Walters interview "The Note":
http://wwwfreerepublic.com/focus/f-news/791744/posts

5.McConnell vs the Federal Election Commission
http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/case/1637/

6. http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0404/hentoff.php

7. "Bush Assures Evangelicals of Commitment to Marriage Amendment"
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/12/politics/12EVAN.html?
pagewanted=print&position

8a.
Online Journal: "Wag the Osama"
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/
031004Burns/031004burns.html

8b.NewsNet5: "
Ridge Sidesteps Question On Bin Laden's Capture"
http://www.newsnet5.com/news/2917298/detail.html

9.
U.S. Unloading WMD in Iraq 
http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=
3/13/2004&Cat=4&Num=011

10. Aljazeera.net: "Purported Al Qaida Statement"
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/2CDD53D6-7AF7-40C7-
AF88-32A16072F81B.htm

11.
NewsMax: "Tommy Franks: 'Martial Law
Will Replace Constitution After Next Terror Attack'"
http://infowars.com/print/ps/franks_martial.htm

12.
The New McCarthyism, the Progressive:
http://www.progressive.org/0901/roth0102.html

NY Times: "Florida as the next Florida"
http://wwwnytimes.com/2004/03/14/opinion/14SUN1.html

13. Scoop: "Inside a US Election Vote Counting Program"
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm

14a.
NY Times: "Hack the Vote"
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/120303A.shtml

b.
CBS: "Electronic Voting Causing Concern"
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/03/
eveningnews/main591185.shtml

c.
UK Independent: "All the President's Votes?"
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1013-01.htm

d. Salon: "Will the Election be Hacked?"
http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2004/02/09/voting_
machines/index_np.html

e.
BBC: "Concerns over US Computer Voting"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3489877.stm

f.
ABC News: "Avoiding Another Florida Fiasco"
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/SciTech/
Voting_machines_040305-1.html

g.
"Comparison of Senate Bills 1980, 1986, and 2045"
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/senate_bill_comparison.asp

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Hot Damn! Design
Tokyo, Japan
81-03-3959-5371
snowdog@juno.ocn.ne.jp
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