philly

W is Not Above the Law

The above graphic is an ad by the ACLU which appears in today's NY Times.

via Susie

Santorum: Flip Flopper

The last paragraph of this Inky article on the flip floppiness of Dick $antorum on the issue of Intelligent Design is just too much:

"I'm a little disappointed," said [Jim] Cashman, one of eight pro-intelligent design board members who were ousted in the November election. "He's trying to come to the center more, and that bothers me. He used to be more conservative."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. He used to be more conservative.

On a side note, the Democratic party used to have balls.

Threats to National Security

According to one FBI report reviewed by the NY Times:

1. a Vegan Community Project
2. a Catholic Workers group
3. PETA llama protesters

I didn't see Osama bin Laden on there.

Giuliani on Expiration of Patriot Act

So when the Senate blocks the renewal of the Patriot Act, [rollcall] led by Democrats [minus Tim Johnson (SD), Ben Nelson (NE) and abstaining Christopher Dodd (CT)] and along with four Republicans [Chuck Hagel (NE), Lisa Murkowski (AK), John E. Sununu (NH) and Larry E. Craig (ID)] who does the Right Wing call upon to answer in the pages of the NY Times? Rudy Fucking Giuliani.

Rudy says:

...I support the extension of the Patriot Act for one simple reason: Americans must use every legal and constitutional tool in their arsenal to fight terrorism and protect their lives and liberties.

The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, made clear that the old rules no longer work. The terrorists who attacked us seek to kill innocent men, women and children of all races and creeds. They seek to destroy our liberties. They willingly kill themselves in their effort to bring death and suffering to as many innocents as they can, here in this country or anywhere in the world where freedom has a foothold.

Riiight, like the Constitution has ever stopped W from doing whatever the fuck he wants.

Rudy did a lot of arguably good things when he was DA and Mayor back in NYC. He's progressive on things like equal rights. He doesn't mind dressing in drag on Saturday Night Live. But he falls lock step in line when tapped to do so, just like McCain, when told to do so. It's a façade and it annoys me that others can't see through it.

Librulz Have Gone 2 Far

Activist Judge Cancels Christmas.

Diebold in North Carolina III

This is the third installment of taking a look at Diebold in North Carolina. Last posted on here.

To recap, Diebold makes electronic voting [e-voting] machines. They refuse to make them spit out a paper trail making them non-recountable. The North Carolina Board of Elections enacted a new law mandating that all of the source code, including third party code by vendors like Micro$oft, be placed in escrow to be turned over for review if there was a close election result. Diebold refused to agree to the terms. NC BoE said bye bye Diebold. Then, they said, wait, come back.

Now, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed suit against two state agencies of N.C. for certifying the illegal machines. From Wired News:

The case comes as e-voting-machine makers put on their best faces in advance of looming deadlines for states seeking to qualify for federal funds to replace aging voting systems.

Amid the jockeying, Diebold Systems chairman and chief executive Walden O'Dell resigned from his post Monday. The move caps a controversy that engulfed the company after O'Dell wrote a fund-raising letter at the height of the 2004 presidential contest promising to deliver Ohio to President George W. Bush.

In the suit filed last week, EFF says the North Carolina State Board of Elections -- working with the Office of Information Technology Services -- certified two vendors to sell machines in North Carolina although the vendors did not comply with a new law requiring them to place all source code for a system into escrow before the machines could be certified.

The people at Diebold say that the third party code is just commercial off the shelf [COTS] code and that they don't have the authority to release it. But...

This has long been a stickler for voting activists and computer scientists who say Diebold does modify Windows CE. Furthermore, COTS software is just as vulnerable to tampering as any other software and probably more so if hackers or election fraudsters know it will never be examined. This is why, they say, the North Carolina law is so important.

I know that I can go in an hack my Windows XP SP2 box if I wanted to. It's not hard. I know that they are more than capable of doing the same thing. Modified code is no longer 'not theirs' - they probably broke licensing agreements with Micro$oft if they did modify it as well.

This suit went to court in N.C. earlier today.

Diebold in North Carolina II

I mentioned earlier on how the North Carolina Board of Elections told Diebold to shove off because they didn't meet the new standards set forth by the Board. The Board wanted Diebold to make availabe all the code [including third-party vendors like Micro$oft] that went into the machines in the event of a close election or a voting mishap like, say we may have seen in the past two election cycles? I jumped for joy. Now, I clutch my head in disgust.

Just read on Corrente that the Board broke it's own laws and is now certifying the Diebold machines after all. From the EFF:

"The Board of Elections has simply flouted the law," said EFF Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. "In August, the state passed tough new rules designed to ensure transparency in the election process, and the Board simply decided to take it upon itself to overrule the legislature. The Board's job is to protect voters, not corporations who want to obtain multi-million dollar contracts with the state."

Wonderful.

Looks like someone came away with some greasy palms. Where's John Edwards in his own home state?

I haven't seen anything on three North Carolina blogs I read, but I suspect that there will be a flurry of action soon on Brian Russell's Audio Activism, Ruby Sinreich's Lotus Media and the Orange County progressive blog Orange Politics.

New Jersey Congressman Rush Holt is asking people to sign his petition for HR 550: The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act.

Chuck Pennacchio wants ballot integrity and supports Congressman Holt's HR 550. More about Dr. Pennacchio on the issues.

***UPDATE*** 11.13a [thanks to Ruby!]
More from Blue NC, dKos and three stories from The News & Observer here, here and here under cover stories on the lottery commission.

Showing ID

Wired News consistently has great information on a daily basis. Today is no different with this story on EFF co-founder John Gilmore's pending lawsuit against the W administration.

On Thursday [tomorrow, the 8th], Gilmore and his lawyers will get 20 minutes in front of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to make their argument against identification requirements and government secrecy, in a case that time and shifting public opinion has transformed from a quirky millionaire's indignant protest into a closely watched test of the limitations of executive branch power.

"The nexus of the case has always been the right to travel," Gilmore said. "Can the government prevent Americans from moving around in their own country by slapping any silly rules on them -- you have to show ID, you have to submit to searches, you have to wear a yarmulke?"

Gilmore hasn't taken a bus, train or domestic flight since July 4, 2002. He has, however, flown internationally as he doesn't see a problem with showing his passport when travelling to another country.

Interestingly, he first started thinking of filing suit back in 2002. Several civil liberties groups encouraged him not to do so fearing a high profile case and set precedent with a loss, the article reports. But things are different now and there's a wide anti-W sentiment in the U.S. with W's approval ratings in the shitter [and by "shitter" I mean hovering around 35%].

On Thursday, Gilmore will argue that the government's secret identification rules -- no federal law compels travelers to show ID -- and no-fly list infringe on his First Amendment rights, but don't make the country safer.

In addition, government lawyers long denied the existence of the rule -- which predates the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- even though there are signs in airports cautioning passengers that they are required to show identification.

The government recently switched tactics, acknowledging the rule exists but arguing that the identification requirement is a law-enforcement technique.

And nobody has ever seen this "show your ID" rule because since 9/11, the TSA is allowed to withhold sensitive information like this from the public.

I've heard of the same policies here in Philly in regards to taking photographs on SEPTA and on the Ben Franklin Bridge among other places. I've been told, firsthand, of people who were told to stop taking photos of such-and-such place by an officer and when asked to come up with the documentation to back up the request, the officers started to get tough and become more threatening. One photog recounted a story of having his film confiscated. SEPTA does not have any written rules about photography on the trains or in the stations from what I'm told. NYC went through a similar debacle ending with photographers retaining the right[s] to photograph at will on the trains and in stations.

Redacted? Woops!

CIA Realizes It's Been Using Black Highlighters All These Years.

Oh, I love you The Onion.

Rape Victim Stabs Attacker

Yesterday afternoon a man shoved his way into a woman's home and raped her at knifepoint and was subsequently stabbed, with a different knife, by the woman he raped reports the Inky. This Germantown crime happened on the block where my best friends here in Philly live.

The fifty-one year old man was apparently going up and down the block asking people if they wanted their leaves raked. The woman said no and the man asked for a glass of water and then pushed his way into her home. My friends tell me that people come to knock on their door all the time to sell things, ask for money...

The woman stabbed the rapist after she convinced her assailant to let her put her toddler upstairs. She came back down with a knife and stabbed the man. He tried to run away, but collapsed a couple of houses down the block. He's in critical condition at Albert Einstein.

If the information in the story is all correct, I hope this fucker makes a full recovery and then gets thrown into jail with the general population. I hear rapists and child molesters are at the bottom of the food chain in there.