MY POV
IF YOU'RE NOT OUTRAGED, YOU'RE NOT PAYING ATTENTION!
|
||
|
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin 
PREVIOUS POV's
LINKS YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT: 34 Million Friends Campaign ACLU Alliance for Justice Americans United for Separation of Church & State The American Spectator Amnesty International Baghdad Burning Black Box Voting: site 1 Black Box Voting: site 2 The Bush Watch The Center for Responsive Politics Citizen Access Project Earthjustice Extreme Ashcroft FAIR The Funny Times Government Information Awareness Jim Hightower Law Enforcement Against Prohibition mediamouse Media Whores Michael Moore MoveOn Natural Resources Defense Council The Onion People for the American Way Project Censored Randy's Soapbox Save America Save ROE The Sustainability Institute This Modern World U.S. Green Building Council Witness World Press Review
Own this patriotic message.
Causes & Commentary: MY POV archives: previous rants Censorship: a great evil Hemp: why aren't we growing it? ETC Group: terminator seeds Anti-Semitism: an essay 
The Mars Society
Do a good turn with a mouse click a day: The Animal Rescue Site The Breast Cancer Site The Child Health Site The Hunger Site The Rain Forest Site
Satire has never served a better purpose. Go see. Before they cart us off to the camps.
"...The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone...."
Benito Mussolini
"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country... Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
Abraham Lincoln, November 12, 1864
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided man."
Martin Luther King Jr., 1963
"CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility."
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries."
James Madison (1751-1836)
"Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings." Heinrich Heine
Hermann Goering, Nazi Reichsmarschall Robert Scheer
|
Cowardice asks the question - is it safe? "My life is my message."
Gandhi
Posted: 29 Sept. 2004
From Grist on-line magazine. TOMORROW, TOMORROW, I LOVE YA, TOMORROW Bush administration postpones action on enviro issues until after election The Bush administration is pushing off a number of controversial environment-related moves until after the election. For example: Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham had requested a report from the National Petroleum Council on how to boost U.S. oil-refining capacity, to be released tomorrow. The U.S. EPA was expected to strongly object to the council's recommendations, which were to include the easing of several environmental regulations. Funny story: Turns out Abraham now has "a scheduling issue," according to an Energy Department spokesflack, and the report will be delayed until late November -- coincidentally, after the election. The same kooky scheduling issues seem to be afflicting a number of coming regulations on roadless areas, meat processing, and prescription drugs. While it's not unusual to delay some regulations in an election year, says Gene Kimmelman of Consumers Union, "What is unusual this time is the clear pattern of holding back regulatory decisions that will benefit the largest industry players and will drive up prices and marketplace risks for consumers." Marty Hayden of Earthjustice warns of "a fire sale such as we've never seen post-election." straight to the source: MSNBC.com, Reuters, Tom Doggett, 29 Sep 2004 straight to the source: The New York Times, Stephen Labaton, 27 Sep 2004
Posted: 29 Sept. 2004
There's a huge mess in Florida, and I'm not referring to the hurricanes. The outright fraud and unethical practices, combined with paperless voting machines, is a set-up to once again throw the election to Bush. Read on. Excerpts: Something rotten in the state of Florida Of the many weird and unsettling developments in Florida since the presidential election meltdown four years ago, none is so startling as the fact that Theresa LePore, the calamitously incompetent elections supervisor of Palm Beach County, still has her job. It was LePore who chose the notorious "butterfly ballot" - a format so confusing that it led thousands of Democrats, many of them elderly, retired Jewish people, to punch the wrong hole, giving their vote not to Al Gore, as they had intended, but to the right-wing, explicitly anti-Jewish fringe candidate Pat Buchanan. It was LePore, too, who caused huge problems for the fraught re-count process, first by insisting on the strictest standards for determining voter intent and then, with the final deadline 72 hours away, ordering her staff to take the day off for Thanksgiving. As a result, Palm Beach County fell short of completing its manual re-count on time, and the whole process - which even under LePore's strictures had turned up an extra 180 votes for Gore - was rendered void. Arguably, no one person did more to foul up the maddeningly close election in Florida in 2000, and no individual bears more responsibility for the fact that George Bush ended up President instead of Gore. (Without the butterfly ballot, Gore would have taken as many as 7,000 more votes and cruised past Bush's official 537-vote margin of victory.) Yet Theresa LePore will still be in charge for this November's presidential election - and things have got considerably worse in the interim. The 2000 election in Florida represented a huge conflict of interest, as the state Governor, Jeb Bush, was the brother of the Republican presidential nominee, and the person in charge of conducting the election, the Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, was doubling as George Bush's campaign co-chair. The conflict has persisted, in one form or another, over the past four years. The Republican Party finds itself in an unusual position in Florida: although voter registration slightly favours the Democrats, the Republicans have managed to engineer the demographics - through the gerrymandering of electoral districts - so that they have a lock on both houses of the state legislature and the Governor's office. They control almost all the machinery of government, including, in large part, the management of elections. The mess that is Florida nevertheless came as a profound shock to a group of international election monitors who toured the state last week. Dr Brigalia Bam, who chairs South Africa's Independent Electoral Commission, was stunned by the patchwork of jurisdictions, rules and anomalies. "Absolutely everything is a violation," she said. "All these different systems in different counties with no accountability... It's like the poorest village in Africa." November could be another agonisingly long month in American politics. READ THE REST.
Posted: 28 Sept. 2004
From Grist on-line magazine. WHEN GEEKS ATTACK Another group of scientists to campaign against Bush Scientists and Engineers for Change, a 527 advocacy group unveiled yesterday, plans to send scientists on speaking gigs in swing states to argue that the Bush administration disregards and distorts science -- in many cases, science relating to serious environmental problems. "We must begin to address climate change now. To do so, we must have an administration that listens to the scientific community, not one that manipulates and minimizes scientific input," said Nobel Prize winner Douglas D. Osheroff. Osheroff is one of 10 Nobel winners who will join others in giving talks on what they see as the Bush administration's manipulation of science in areas from stem-cell research to energy. The normally nonpartisan scientific community has seen unprecedented mobilization against Bush this year, including a letter endorsing John Kerry signed by a group of 48 Nobel winners and a campaign spearheaded by the Union of Concerned Scientists that accuses Bush of politicizing science. straight to the source: The New York Times, Kenneth Chang, 28 Sep 2004
Posted: 27 Sept. 2004
From Grist on-line magazine. WILD GAS CHASE Fear over chemical weapons -- the real ones -- grows The Bush administration claimed that Iraq harbored up to 500 tons of chemical weapons, but teams of investigators came back empty-handed. Perhaps the U.S. should have invaded Australia -- or China, or Russia, or, heck, itself. These countries each possess a share of the world's estimated 8 million chemical weapons, often unaccounted for and stored in facilities of unknown safety, and environmentalists are among the many groups raising a red flag over the problem. The 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention gave signatories, which include the U.S., Russia, and India, 10 years to destroy their declared chemical munitions. How's that going? As of last year, the Russians had eliminated 1 percent, the U.S. 20 percent. Often the delays have to do with methods of disposal -- most pollute the surrounding environment and are opposed by local communities. The U.S. Army's initial cost estimate for destroying the weapons was $1.7 billion; two decades later, it's spent $25 billion and counting. Still, says Global Green USA's Paul Walker, "the cost of getting rid of them is a small fraction of what we're spending in Iraq." straight to the source: The State, Associated Press, Charles J. Hanley, 25 Sep 2004
Posted: 27 Sept. 2004
Here's a website worth checking out for information about the Apollo Alliance, about where your money goes at the gas pump, and how the current administration is making us more dependent on oil. Here's a piece from the site: ourfuture.org Linguist George Lakoff Features Apollo Alliance in Newest Book In his new book, Don't Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate, world-renowned linguist George Lakoff praises the Apollo Alliance as an innovative, big-pictured initiative that addresses a variety of issues critical to the election cycle. "...Unlike the right, the left does not think strategically. We think issue by issue. We generally do not try to figure out what minimal change we can enact that will have effects across many issues. There are a very few exceptions. For example, at the present moment there is a strategic proposal called the New Apollo Initiative. "....In short, a massive investment in alternative energy has an enormous yield over many issue areas. This is not just about energy; it is about jobs, health, clean air and water, habitat, global warming, foreign policy, and Third World development. It is also about putting together new coalitions and organizing new institutions and new constituencies."
Posted: 21 Sept. 2004
Now THIS is really damned scary. It comes courtesy of democracyforamerica.com Jerry Falwell has a lot to say. Falwell is the fundamentalist who opened the Republican National Convention in 2000 (the GOP kept him under lock-and-key this time around). He asserts that the AIDS crisis is "God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals." Now he has started a law school. The purpose: to train fundamentalists to ignore laws they don't support and reinterpret others to enforce their radical agenda. The "school" is only the latest move in a monumental power play by the extreme right wing. They have taken over the Republican Party - and have set their sights on every branch of our government. In the coming weeks, Democracy for America wants to distribute $250,000 to candidates who will stop them. Supporting these candidates now builds the infrastructure we will need to compete with the radical right. But we need your help to make that investment in the future of our cause: http://www.democracyforamerica.com/contribute The press didn't say much about the new law school. But a timid, shallow media is not the only problem. People who support common sense and fairness do not have the same infrastructure as the radical right. For decades they have spent billions of dollars funding, training and amplifying their movement. That's why we are supporting judicial candidates like Anita Kelly in Alabama. She will use her office to enforce the law and address real problems. She has spent her career fighting to enforce laws that guarantee access to education, labor rights, and other liberties that people like Falwell would roll back. Democracy for America is the organization dedicated to stopping them. DFA is the only organization who will not be afraid to stand up and fight back now and build the infrastructure to compete with them for decades to come. Please contribute whatever you can today: http://www.democracyforamerica.com/contribute In the days after September 11th Falwell said that America deserved to be attacked for, "throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools." He implicated supporters of civil liberties and women's rights, among others, saying: "I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'" Like the rest of his and George Bush's agenda, the purpose of Falwell's law school is to roll back the progress of the last hundred years. The people of this country have spent a century unraveling hate and prejudice from out legal system. Falwell wants to bring all that back. I am committed to stopping him. The dozens of candidates DFA has endorsed for every level of office are committed to stopping him and his allies. There are just over 40 days left to make an impact on this election. Make your commitment to today: http://www.democracyforamerica.com/contribute With your contribution, we can make this substantial investment in the future of our movement for socially progressive, fiscally responsible, common sense change. Thank you. Gov. Howard Dean, M.D. Democracy for America
Posted: 18 Sept. 2004
Another example of womens' rights being threatened. I agree very much with the statement at the end of the article. 'Conscience clause' grows in health care Support sought for those who opt out of abortion, contraception NEW YORK (AP) -- In Congress and states nationwide, anti-abortion activists are broadening efforts to support hospitals, doctors and pharmacists who -- citing moral grounds -- want to opt out of services linked to abortion and emergency contraception. A little-noticed provision cleared the House of Representatives last week that would prohibit local, state or federal authorities from requiring any institution or health care professional to provide abortions, pay for them, or make abortion-related referrals, even in cases of rape or medical emergency. In Mississippi, a bill became law in July that admirers and critics consider the nation's most sweeping "conscience clause." It allows all types of health care workers and facilities to refuse performing virtually any service they object to on moral or religious grounds. And in states across the country, anti-abortion organizations and a group called Pharmacists for Life are encouraging pharmacists to refuse to distribute emergency contraceptives, which they consider a potential form of abortion. "We've seen increasing organization and networking to get more pharmacists to refuse to provide EC -- not just in the Bible Belt but all over," said Gloria Feldt, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "It's part of the anti-choice arrogance in which they believe they have the right to impose their ideology on everyone else." Karen Brauer, president of Pharmacists for Life, was fired by Kmart in 1996 for refusing to dispense a birth-control drug. She believes momentum now favors her movement. "More people, including pharmacists, are becoming informed how certain drugs operate -- and those who want to avoid ending the life of a human being would avoid those drugs," she said. Brauer, who lives in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, and works at a drugstore in Ohio, hopes more states will emulate Mississippi, South Dakota and Arkansas by specifying that pharmacists, as well as doctors, have the right to withhold services on moral grounds. She does not believe there should be any obligation to refer rebuffed customers to another pharmacist who would fill their prescription. "Forced referral is stupid," she said. "If we're not going to kill a human being, we're not going to help the customer go do it somewhere else." At the federal level, abortion rights groups are alarmed by the provision that cleared the House last week, broadening protections for hospitals and insurers that seek to avoid any involvement with abortions. The provision would prevent government officials from using any coercive means -- such as a funding cutoff or permit denial -- to ensure abortion-related services are available. Two years ago, the House passed a bill with the same goals, but it died in the Senate without a vote. Anti-abortion activists are pleased because the revived proposal was sent to the Senate as part of a broader appropriations bill and, at minimum, will go to a House-Senate conference committee. Opponents say the provision's impact would be felt primarily by low-income women who depend on federally subsidized health care and use Roman Catholic hospitals. According to the critics, the measure would enable hospitals to refuse to provide abortions, or referrals, even if a pregnant woman had been raped or was in critical medical condition. "That the U.S. Congress would be so callous as to add this kind of provision -- that affects only poor women in the most extreme circumstances -- is outrageous," said Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice. Kissling said she was heartened by developments in some states -- such as a California Supreme Court ruling that Catholic Charities of Sacramento must provide birth control options in its employee health plan. "But for women in conservative states, that's no help," she said. Mississippi's new law provides sweeping immunity for opting out of abortion and contraception services in a state where many women seeking abortions already travel to Alabama or Tennessee to obtain them. "We have doctors who won't even issue birth control prescriptions," said Nsombi Lambright of the American Civil Liberties Union's Mississippi branch. "It's not their job to impose their beliefs on others." In contrast, anti-abortion health professionals say it is their beliefs that are embattled. Texas pharmacist Gene Herr, for example, was fired this year by the Eckerd drugstore chain after refusing to fill an emergency contraception prescription for a rape victim. "They were forcing me to do something that I see is wrong," Herr said. The American Medical Association and American Pharmacists Association support their members' right to conscientious refusal. However, the pharmacists' group says patients also have a right to obtain legally prescribed therapies. Lourdes Rivera, who assists low-income patients as director of the Los Angeles-based National Health Law Program, worries that anti-abortion health providers are gaining too much leeway. "Yes, we need to respect individual freedom of religion. But at what point does it cross the line of not providing essential medical care? At what point is it malpractice?" she asked. "If someone's beliefs interfere with practicing their profession, perhaps they should do something else."
Posted: 13 Sept. 2004
From People for the American Way. Dear Activist, With only 7 weeks until Election Day, The New York Times reminds us once again what is at stake in this election and how far some will go to suppress and disenfranchise voters. Recognizing the critical role Election Protection will play, the Times urges readers to "keep the following number handy: 1-866-OUR-VOTE" - the toll-free Election Protection Voters' Hotline. With your support, Election Protection 2004 will be the nation's single largest and most far-reaching effort to protect voters' rights EVER! September 13, 2004 OP-ED COLUMNIST Protect the Vote By BOB HERBERT More than 80 percent of the population of Detroit is black. This is very well understood by John Pappageorge, who is white and a Republican state legislator in Michigan. "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote," said Mr. Pappageorge, "we're going to have a tough time in this election." Oops! Republicans aren't supposed to actually say they want to suppress black votes. That's so retro. It's so Jim Crow. This is the 21st century, and the thing now is to do the dastardly deed, but never ever acknowledge it. That's where our friend Pappageorge went wrong. After his startling quote was published several weeks ago in The Detroit Free Press, Mr. Pappageorge, who is 73, apologized and said he certainly never meant to suggest that anything racist or illegal take place. But he reiterated to me in a phone conversation last Friday that he did indeed mean that the vote in Detroit needed to be kept down. A lot of other Republicans have similar views about the vote in areas with large African-American populations. Most blacks vote Democratic. If those votes can be suppressed, Republicans benefit. And there is increasing evidence that a big effort to suppress the vote among blacks and some other heavily Democratic voting groups is under way, which is why it is important to keep the following phone number handy: 1-866-OUR VOTE. That's a hot line set up by the Election Protection Coalition, a group that was formed to identify and stamp out attempts to disenfranchise voters, especially in predominantly black and Latino precincts around the country. On Election Day in November, the coalition expects to have as many as 25,000 volunteers, including 5,000 lawyers, available to provide assistance to voters who encounter irregularities or feel they are not being treated fairly at the polls. Voters who call the hot line will immediately be put in touch with volunteers in their local area... Click here to read the full story. Thousands of volunteers have signed up so far to help guarantee a fair election. But Election Protection will require over 25,000 volunteers if we are to protect the polls in 17 states where voters are most at risk. Please sign up today to help us ensure that every voter has the right to cast a ballot that counts on Election Day.
Posted: 11 Sept. 2004
Pay attention to the voting machines. Our entire electoral system is at risk. California to sue Diebold over false claims SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) -- California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said Tuesday he would sue electronic voting machine maker Diebold Inc. on charges it defrauded the state with false claims about its products. Secretary of State Kevin Shelley has said Diebold deceived California with aggressive marketing that led to the installation of touch-screen voting systems that were not tested or approved nationally or in California. Lockyer's office issued a statement noting he has authority to intervene in and take over false claims cases involving vendors to state. "Lockyer determined sufficient evidence existed to go forward with a false claims lawsuit against Diebold," the statement said. The state's top lawyer earlier had dropped a criminal investigation of Diebold. Diebold Vice President Thomas Swidarski said in a statement that the company was pleased Lockyer dropped the probe. Despite Lockyer's decision to sue, the company is "confident that the state's decision to intervene will aid in a fair and dispassionate examination of the issues raised in the case," Swidarski said. California in April set tough new standards for electronic voting by ordering new security measures for e-voting machines, and California's Secretary of State called for a criminal probe into Diebold, the state's largest e-voting machine supplier.
Posted: 11 Sept. 2004
This gives me hope for the world. And we need all the hope we can get. Can Islam change? Beslan and 9/11 are leading millions of Muslims to search their souls. Even clerics now question the harshest traditional laws and look for a more humane interpretation of their faith. By Ziauddin Sardar The Muslim world is changing. Three years after the atrocity of 9/11, it may be in the early stages of a reformation, albeit with a small "r". From Morocco to Indonesia, people are trying to develop a more contemporary and humane interpretation of Islam, and some countries are undergoing major transformations. Much of the attention is focused on reformulating the sharia, the centuries-old body of Islamic law deeply embedded in a medieval psychology. The sharia is state law in many Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and the Sudan. For many conservative and radical Muslims, the sharia is Islam: it cannot be changed, and must be imposed in exactly the shape it was first formulated in the ninth century. Since 9/11, there has been a seismic shift in this perception. More and more Muslims now perceive Islamic law to be dangerously obsolete. And these include the ulema, the religious scholars and clerics, who have a tremendous hold on the minds of the Muslim masses. In India, for example, where the secular state allows Muslims to regulate their communal affairs according to their own law, the "triple talaq" is being changed. Triple talaq gives a man the absolute right to divorce his wife by uttering "I divorce thee" three times. He can do it by letter, telegram, telephone, fax, even by text message. Quite apart from denying women's rights, the law has inherent absurdities. For example, as one critic has explained, "The moment a Muslim male utters 'talaq, talaq, talaq', his wife becomes unlawful to him, even if he has uttered those words under coercion, in a fit of rage or a drunken state, and regrets his utterance the very next moment." The only way out is for the woman to marry someone else, consummate the marriage, get the second husband to divorce her and then remarry the first husband. But in July, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board declared that triple talaq was wrong, promised to prepare a model marriage contract (which would require both husband and wife not to seek divorce without due legal process) and asked Muslim men to ensure that women get a share in agricultural property. These may look like minor changes, but there are enormous implications to the board's implicit admission that Islamic law is not immutable. Certainly, it has set defenders of the pure faith at the throats of members of Muslims for Secular Democracy (MSD), who are campaigning for root-and-branch reform. "Remain in your senses," the conservative Urdu Times warned Javed Akhtar, the poet and Bollywood screenwriter who is MSD president. "The day is not far when you too will be counted among the infamous blasphemers such as Salman Rushdie." Yet in India, at least, the purists - both the conservatives and the more aggressive radicals - are on the retreat. Uzma Naheed, an activist for women's rights and Personal Law Board member, says that even the religious scholars are changing. "It is not just that a person like me is invited to address large gatherings of the ulema in different parts of the country, where I am given a very patient and sincere hearing. It is what the ulema themselves have started saying in public meetings that is more significant." In Pakistan, however, the mullahs are still predominantly hardline and are locked in a virtual civil war with reformers. The contentious issue here is the Hudood Ordinance, which states the maximum punishments for adultery (stoning), false accusation of adultery (80 lashes of the whip), theft (cutting off the right hand), drinking alcohol (80 lashes) and apostasy (death). The ordinance was imposed on Pakistan in 1979 by the military ruler Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, under pressure from Islamic parties. It makes no distinction between rape and adultery; thus women who are raped often end up being whipped while the rapists are exonerated. Girls who have reached the age of puberty are treated as adults. Worse, women are not allowed to give evidence on their own behalf. Among the high-profile injustices was the case in 1983 of 15-year-old Jehan Mina, raped by an uncle and his son. She was sentenced to ten years in prison and 100 lashes, reduced to three years and 15 lashes in view of her age. In 1985, a blind maidservant, Safia Bibi, was sentenced to a similar punishment. In both cases, the girl's pregnancy was used as proof that the sex act had been committed but the men were acquitted on the benefit of the doubt. Several women have been sentenced to death by stoning, the most recent being Zafran Bibi in Kohat in 2002, although that sentence was quickly overturned on appeal. In the past three years, protests against the Hudood Ordinance, which was never popular, have reached a crescendo. The Joint Action Committee, a network of NGOs which has held a string of demonstrations across Pakistan, says that these "laws have not only given a bad name to our religion, but defamed Pakistan in the world". Though he has often promised to repeal the laws, the country's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, always caves in under pressure from puritan Islamist parties. "No one can deny," he told a recent meeting in Karachi, "that we have to adhere to the Koran and the example of the Prophet Muhammad. The question is of correct interpretation." He wants the Council of Islamic Ideology to decide on the issue. And the mullahs who dominate it have never previously voted for justice and women's rights. However, they cannot be left out of the equation. For the vast majority of Muslims, changes to Islamic law have to be made within the boundaries of the Koran's teachings if they are to be legitimate. Without the co-operation of the religious scholars, who bestow this legitimacy, the masses will not embrace change. This is where Morocco has provided an essential lead. Its new Islamic family law, introduced in February, sweeps away centuries of bigotry and bias against women. It was produced with the full co-operation of religious scholars as well as the active participation of women. Morocco retained much of the colonial legal system that France left behind, but, in family law, followed what is known locally as the Moudawana - the traditional Islamic rules on marriage, divorce, inheritance, polygamy and child custody. At first, King Mohammed VI had to abandon plans for change because, protesters claimed, he was trying to impose secular law and western culture on Morocco. In spring 2001, however, he set up a commission, which included women and was given the specific task of coming up with fresh legislation based on the principles of Islam. Given enormous impetus by 9/11 and its aftermath, it produced a report that many see as a revolutionary document. The resulting family code establishes that women are equal partners in marriage and family life. It throws out the notion that the husband is head of the family and that women are mere underlings in need of guidance and protection. It raises the minimum age for women's marriage from 15 to 18, the same as for men. The new Moudawana allows a woman to contract a marriage without the legal approval of a guardian. Verbal divorce has been outlawed: men now require prior authorisation from a court, and women have exactly the same rights. Women can claim alimony and can be granted custody of their children even if they remarry. Husbands and wives must share property acquired during the marriage. The old custom of favouring male heirs in the sharing of inherited land has also been dropped, making it possible for grandchildren on the daughter's side to inherit from their grandfather, just like grandchildren on the son's side. As for polygamy, it has been all but abolished. Men can take second wives only with the full consent of the first wife and only if they can prove, in a court of law, that they can treat them both with absolute justice - an impossible condition. Every change in the law is justified - chapter and verse - from the Koran, and from the examples and traditions of the Prophet Muhammad. And every change acquired the consent of the religious scholars. Even the Islamist political organisations have welcomed the change. The Party of Justice and Development described the law as "a pioneering reform" which is "in line with the prescriptions of Islam and with the aims of our religion". Elsewhere, the focus is not so much on Islamic law as on Islam as a whole. In a general election last March, the Malaysian prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, argued that Islam was almost totally associated with violence and extremism and needed to be formulated anew. He called his new concept "Islam Hadhari", or progressive Islam. It was pitted against the "conservative Islam" of the main opposition party, the Islamic Pas. For the first time, the governing coalition won more than 90 per cent of federal parliamentary seats. Pas, and its version of Islam (full implementation of the sharia, without modification; a leading role in the state for religious scholars; and so on), were routed. Badawi, who is a trained religious scholar, took the term "hadhari" from Ibn Khaldun, the 14th-century Muslim historian and founder of sociology. The term signifies urban civilisation; and Islam Hadhari emphasises economic development, civic life and cultural progress. When Muslims talk about Islam, says Abdullah Mohd Zain, a minister in the prime minister's department, "there is always the tendency to link it to the past, to the Prophet's time". Islam Hadhari gives equal emphasis to the present and the future. "It emphasises wisdom, practicality and harmony," says Zain. "It encourages moderation or a balanced approach to life. Yet it does not stray from the fundamentals of the Koran and the example and sayings of the Prophet." Islam Hadhari - fully explained in a 60-page document published by Badawi last month - emphasises the central role of knowledge in Islam; preaches hard work, honesty, good administration and efficiency; and appeals to Muslims to be "inclusive", tolerant and outward-looking. It advocates that Muslims should attend secular and not religious schools. Committees have been set up to spread the message throughout Malaysia, and mullahs have been instructed to preach it during Friday sermons. Nik Abdul Aziz, the spiritual leader of Pas, dismisses Islam Hadhari as "nonsense". But Muslim writers and thinkers, at an international conference in Kuala Lumpur in August, responded warmly. "It is certainly time," said one participant, "to change gear and concentrate on the humanistic and progressive aspects of Islam." As critics at the conference pointed out, however, Islam Hadhari stops short of changes to Islamic law. And Badawi himself is hardly a good advertisement for the concept. Government-controlled television and newspapers in Malaysia are full of crude propaganda. The repressive Internal Security Act, a legacy of British colonialism, is still in force. But Badawi's image will improve following the release this month of the former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, who was framed on homosexuality charges for which he was sentenced to nine years in prison. While Malaysia has a top-down model, Indonesia has opted for the bottom-up route. The reformist agenda is being promoted by Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the two largest and most influential Muslim organisations. Established at the dawn of the 20th century, they command between 60 and 80 million followers in mosques, schools and universities throughout Indonesia. NU, essentially an organisation of religious scholars, is usually described as traditionalist, while Muhammadiyah, dominated by intellectuals, is seen as modernist. Since 9/11, however, the two organisations have acted, in some respects, as one. Both are committed to promoting civic society and reformulating sharia. They are campaigning jointly against corruption in public life and in favour of accountable, open democracy. The newly formed Liberal Islam Network - intended to resist radical groups such as Laskar Jihad (Army of Jihad) and Jemaah Islamiyah, which was implicated in the October 2002 Bali bombings - follows a similar programme. Its membership consists largely of young Muslims. All three organisations promote a model of Islamic reform that they call "deformalisation". "The overemphasis on formality and symbolism has drained Islam of its ethical and humane dimension," says Abdul Mukti, chairman of Muhammadiyah's influential youth wing. "The first mission of deformalisation is to recover this missing dimension." Its second mission, he says, is "to separate the sharia from political realms". Islamic law, Mukti explains, cannot be imposed from the top - as it has been in Pakistan - but has to evolve from below. Indeed, the overwhelming view of scholars and thinkers I met recently in Indonesia - including teachers at a state religious university - was that the formal links between Islam and politics must be severed. Both Malaysia's Islam Hadhari and Indonesia's deformalisation emphasise tolerance and pluralism, civic society and open democracy. Both are likely to spread. Malaysia is trying to export Islam Hadhari to Muslim communities in Thailand and the Philippines. Meanwhile, Morocco is trying to persuade Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates to adopt its model of family law. Muslims worldwide are acknowledging the need for fundamental change in their perception of Islam. They are making conscious efforts to move away from medieval notions of Islamic law and to implement the vision of justice, equality and beauty that is rooted in the Koran. If such changes continue, the future will not repeat the recent past. Ziauddin Sardar's Desperately Seeking Paradise: journeys of a sceptical Muslim is published by Granta Books (£16.99)
Posted: 7 Sept. 2004
From Grist online magazine. Pollution Causes Animals to Act All Freaky It seems to some folks that humans behave in more and more bizarre fashion these days, but animals have tended to go about their animal business in a generally ordinary fashion. No more: Ubiquitous chemical pollutants known as endocrine disruptors -- everything from heavy metals to PCBs -- are altering animal behavior in zany ways. Male gulls are trying to mate with each other. Goldfish are hyperactive. Macaques are roughhousing more roughly. Newts can't find each other to mate. It's kind of funny, only not. According to two major new reviews in the journal Animal Behaviour, these behavioral disruptions could pose a larger threat to animals' survival than previously thought. The researchers say different concentrations of pollutants can cause different, sometimes contradictory, behaviors, and they argue it's high time for biologists and toxicologists to work together more closely. "The most important point" of the studies, says researcher Dustin Penn, "is the incredible amount of evidence that this is a widespread problem." straight to the source: New Scientist, Andy Coghlan, 03 Sep 2004
Posted: 5 Sept. 2004
Taken from Project Censored. "Media criticism does exist in America. But by and large, it is not citizen-based criticism designed to make media a better source of information in a democracy. Instead, it is a cynical manipulation of the discourse designed to silence even the mildest dissent from the conservative, militantly pro-corporate dogma that has come to pass for news in an era when "reporters" brag about the size of their American-flag lapel pins." Robert McChesney and John Nichols The Ashcroft-Rove Connection: The Ties That Blind Title: ""The Ashcroft-Rove Connection: The Ties That Blind" By: Amy Goodman, Jeremy Scahill & the staff of Democracy Now! Source : Democracy Now!, Fall 2003 Researched by Vanessa Castellanos. Attorney General John Ashcroft is refusing to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate who in the administration leaked the name of a CIA operative to journalists. This despite the fact that Ashcroft has long standing ties to one of the main suspects: President Bush's top political advisor Karl Rove. Rove has been accused of leaking the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame, in retaliation for her husband, veteran diplomat Joseph Wilson, blowing the whistle on the Bush administration's charge that Saddam Hussein attempted to import uranium for nuclear weapons from Niger. Rove is best known as the driving force behind Bush's taking of the presidency, but he also worked for Ashcroft over the course of two decades. Author James Moore says that it goes all the way back to the mid 1980ís when John Ashcroft first ran for governor and then when he ran for the United States Senate against Mel Carnahan. Karl was so intimately involved. Not only did Rove work for Ashcroft in the 80ís, but he was one of the main forces behind Ashcroft's controversial appointment to the job he currently holds as attorney general. Rove lobbied intensely for his former employer's nomination after Ashcroft lost his senate seat to the late Mel Carnahan. While Ashcroft was not Bush's first choice for attorney general, Rove reportedly told Bush that spilling some blood over the nomination of the fiercely right-wing Ashcroft was "a no-lose proposition" Now attorney general, Ashcroft is refusing to hand over the reigns of the criminal investigation of his political ally, former employee and longtime advisor, Karl Rove. Source : Democracy Now!, Fall 2003, "The Ashcroft-Rove Connection: The Ties That Blind" by Amy Goodman, Jeremy Scahill & the staff of Democracy Now! Researched by Vanessa Castellanos. Oppression of Afghani Women Continues Title: "What Liberation? The Taliban may be gone, but women in Afghanistan are still being arrested for 'moral' crimes" By: Kimberly Sevick Source: The Mother Jones, July-August 2003 Researched by John Hernandez. Afghani women continue to be oppressed in Herat, Afghanistan's the second largest city in the country live in fear after the Taliban has left. Women are mainly in fear of talking to any men who aren't their husbands. Gynecologist in Herats hospital who asked to be called Dr. Afzali says she was forced to perform numerous "chastity tests" on women who have been arrested for talking to any man even their own relatives. Dr. Afzali says that security officers don't ask questions of the women but take them in and have the doctor perform forced chastity tests on teenage girls and women against their will if they are thought to be doing something wrong. Dr. Afzali also makes the comment that any young woman arrested in this manner that their reputation is destroyed due to false accusations. The writer Sevick also comments on how the American government falsely led the public to belief that the oppression of women stopped after the Taliban. It started with President Bush comment shortly before the bombing in Afghanistan in October 2001 in which he says that the Taliban oppression of women was over than their was Laura Bush first lady who went on to say after Taliban was chased out by the Northern Alliance, "Women are no longer imprisoned in their homes." Even in the state of the union address after the victory in Afghanistan President Bush says, "Today Women are free." All false indications of the extent of freedom of oppressed women in Afghanistan actually enjoyed within their communities. The reality of the matter is that US has made some gains in the capital of Kabul where Unicef has estimated 1.2 million girls last year have been going to school and some women have been able to work in the capital in the regions where peace keepers are in place. But CNN has reported on Kabul prisons reveals that oppression of women is evident in the prison have still been implemented in regions where the supposed peacekeepers are in place. This is one indication that women have some freedom in Kabul, but other regions like Herat the governors and warlords known as "regional commanders" are commanding regions in Afghanistan. These commanders in the regions are forcing women into marriage and threatening families if they don't comply. The central governments are denying arrests of women because of moral crime, but arrests are being done on the grounds of false adultery often without a trial. Another issue is the fact that the country has seen plenty of destruction because of Bush's war. Promised rebuilding has been focused on construction not on programs for women. To top it off in October the U.S. backed the government in Kabul and expects a constitution that will give women equal rights sadly that doesn't seem to matter much when warlords and lack of money for women's program funding will ever appear or be resolved. To some it up Dr. Afzali said, "With one side of the mouth, the government is granting new rights to women. But with the other side, they are trying to control us." Big Brother Is Watching Title: "Stranger Than Strangelove" By Jim Hightower Source: The Texas Observer, 2003 Researched by Brooke Finley. DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, operating within the Pentagon, is bringing a new form of surveillance into our private worlds. CTS, otherwise known as Combat Zones that See, is an urban surveillance system that uses thousands of cameras linked to a central computer to track, record, and analyze the movements of every vehicle in the city. Its software can identify your cars by size, shape, license plate - and even by your face. It let's authorities (government and corporate) keep an eye over everyone's movements in entire cities. CTS say that its goal is to "track everything that moves," storing and categorizing phenomenal amount of data so that it is instantly retrievable. Act suspicious and CTS flashes an alert to authorities, complete with your profile. DARPA says that CTS is only for foreign surveillance but the corporate contractors developing the system claim differently. "The whole theme here is homeland security," says one of the staff. DARPA is also the agency that have given us such systems as: the Total Information Awareness Program which can ransack any and all databases and compile secret profiles on each of our lives, and PAL, the cognitive computer system with sensors that let its wearers secretly record our words and movements. Rash Indicates New Breast Cancer Risk Title: "A New Form Of Breast Cancer" By Jill Shinn Source: Mother Warriors Voice, pg.12, Spring 2003 Researched by Sabrina Bronson. There is a new breast cancer disease popping up in America. In November 2002 a rare form of breast cancer was found, a woman developed a rash on her breast, similar to that of nursing mothers. The woman's mammogram was clear so the doctor treated her with antibiotics for an infection. The rash continued to get worse and the doctor sent her for another mammogram, and this time it showed a mass. Further study of a biopsy found a fast growing malignancy. The patient started chemotherapy to shrink the growth and after intense treatment she was declared a full bill of health. The cancer later returned to the liver and she was only given five months to live. This rare form of breast cancer is found on the outside of the breast, on the nipple and areola. It appears as a rash and later becomes a lesion with an oozing crusty outer edge. Usually only one nipple is affected. Symptoms include itching and/or soreness. The biggest problem with this disease is that such symptoms appear to be harmless. It is frequently mistaken for skin inflammation or an infection. If this woman had been diagnosed with breast cancer in the beginning, perhaps it would not have spread. Therefore women and their doctors are urged to pay extra attention and look for these rare signs. Washington Buys Friends by Giving Out Weapons to Rogue Nations Title: “Arms to the World: Washington Buys Friends by Doling Out Weapons to Rogue Nations” By : Joseph Hart. Source: Utune May/June 2003 Researched by: Jose Castellanos Since the September 11th attacks, the United States has stepped up both gifts and sales of advanced weapons as a way to entice reluctant nations to support our military actions, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Jan./Feb.2003).Many of the countries on our anti-terrorism gift list would normally be banned from receiving U.S. weapons. Laws dating from World War II forbid the transfer or sale of military gear to governments with a consistent pattern of gross violations of human rights. But the Bush administration has been using various loopholes to arm new allies that often fail to meet those standards. For instance, the United States has lifted sanctions against arms sales to Tajikistan, an authoritarian regime that relies on a handful of commanders who use their forces almost as private armies, according to a report issued by the Bush State Department. These government forces, the report continues, routinely use torture, beatings, threats, extortion, looting, kidnappings, disappearances, and outright murder. Yet the State Department estimates U.S. aid to Tajikistan in 2003 at $490 million, including $21.5 million earmarked for these same military and police forces. Other countries receiving military or police aid are not much better. In fact the United States exported weapons in 2001 to 42 countries with poor or extremely poor human rights rankings from the State Department and provided $2 billion in grants and loans for purchasing weapons to countries with similar records. Laws require the State Department to report to Congress on weapons transfers, and some senators have raised concerns about human rights abuses. But the Bush administration would like to find a way to hand out weapons without congressional involvement. Tucked into the Department of Defense supplemental appropriations bill of 2002 were provisions that would have provided $100 million to support foreign nations in furtherance of the global war on terrorism with weapons and training, and an additional $30 million to outfit indigenous forces, such as revolutionary insurgents- all to be spent in secret at the military’s discretion and without oversight from Congress, or even from the administrations own State Department. The provisions were stripped from the final bill, but the idea is likely to resurface. The U.S Government’s Tests of Warfare Agents on Servicemen and Civilians Title: "Northern Exposure” By: Korey Capozza Source: The Nation, August 18/25, 2003 Researched by: Brooke Finley In 1952, The U.S. Army created a 19,000-acre, top-secret reserve in Fort Greely, Alaska for the explicit purpose of testing deadly chemical and biological weapons. According to a few veterans’ recollections, between 1962 and 1967, the Army blasted hundreds of rockets and bombs containing sarin and VX nerve agents into the region’s richly wildlife-populated forests. Canisters of VX agents were either buried approximately a half of a mile from the Alaska Highway or thrown onto a frozen lake during the winter of 1966 where they later sank to the bottom in the spring. Incidents such as these continued to happen until 1970, when the testing of the deadly weapons was discontinued. Now, thirty years after the tests were conducted, veterans who served in Fort Greely are coming forward with different health problems that they suspect are directly related to their involvement in the secret weapons testing. Because Fort Greely was highly top-secret, the Department of Veterans Affairs medical staff had a hard time believing the veterans when they started appearing with medical problems. There were no records available, of any testing, at any time done on that site. As the medical cases grew in number, the VA began putting pressure on the Department of Defense to release any documents that might help in the care of the Fort Greely veterans. Release of some of the documents revealed that the test site was operated with a blatant disregard for the health of military personnel and the residents in the small towns surrounding the site. The documents also suggest that some of the deadly materials used on the site are still unaccounted for. Under the Bush Administration’s March 25th executive order delaying the release of government documents, the DOD has yet to give the Fort Greely veterans a clear definition of possible causes of their health problems. The DOD also refuses to grant any of the veterans’ health care based on exposure to agents used in the secret site’s experiments. International Movement Takes on Water Industry Title: “Tidal Wave: International movement takes on water industry” By: Erica Hartman Source: IN THESE TIMES, June 23, 2003 Researched by: Sara Brunner In a new grassroots movement to combat the corporatization of water, organizers gather in Ghana in mid May for their first annual water forum titled, Securing the Right to Water in Africa. Various groups all who oppose the efforts of multi-national corporations and lending institutions to privatize water sponsored this event. The World Bank has set its eyes on Ghana as its poster child for water privatization. Under Bank loan requirements monthly water rates for the average Ghanaian has sky rocketed. Now, the Bank is demanding the country privatize its system. Many countries worldwide may face the same fate, with lawmakers pledging that by 2015 they will reduce the amount of people who are deprived of clean drinking water by half. Privatization is being promoted by World Bank and by multi-national corporations as the solution to global water scarcity. This can be done by turning water into an economic good; a commodity to be controlled by global corporations and sold to the highest bidder in international markets. In places like Nicaragua and Accra, citizens are fighting the commodification of water at the local level. Earlier in this year another water forum held in Kyoto Japan, was the sight of the Third World Water forum, and they released a statement that now over 300 groups have signed. It is an inalienable human right and a public trust to be protected and nurtured by all peoples, communities and nations, and the bodies that represent them at local state, and international level. US Rejected Peace Offerings from Iraq and Afghanistan Title: “Dreamers and Idiots” By: George Monbiot Source: The Guardian, November 12, 2003 Researched by: Brooke Finley While thousands of innocent lives have been lost due to the war in Iraq, new information has come out that President Bush and Tony Blair had many opportunities for a peaceful solution before the war began. As most already know there appears to have been no weapons of mass destruction and no evidence to suggest that, as President Bush claimed in March, Saddam had “trained and financed…al Qaeda”. But now, even more lies are starting to surface. Over the four months before the coalition forces invaded Iraq, Saddam Hussein’s government made a series of offers to the United States. In December, the Iraqi intelligence services approached Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA’s former head of counter-terrorism, with an offer to prove that Iraq was not linked to the September 11th attacks and to permit several thousand US troops to enter the country to look for weapons of mass destruction. If the object was regime change, then Saddam, the agents claimed, was prepared to submit himself to internationally-monitored elections within 2 years. According to Cannistrao, these proposals reached the White House, but were “turned down by the President and vice President.” By February, Saddam’s negotiators were offering free access to the FBI to look for weapons of mass destruction wherever it wanted, support for the US position on Israel and Palestine, and rights to Iraq’s oil. Another attempt was made on Sept. 20, 2001, before the war with Afghanistan. The Taliban offered to hand Osama bin Laden to a neutral Islamic country for trial if the US presented them with evidence that he was responsible for the attacks on New York and Washington. The US rejected that offer. On October 1st, they repeated the offer and once again, the US rejected it. The charter of the United Nations specifies that “the parties to any dispute…shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation” and as we are beginning to see, President Bush and Tony Blair have somehow, become exempt from international law. Public Relations and the Pharmaceutical Industry Title: “Disease Mongering” By: Bob Burton and Andy Rowell Source: PR Watch, First Quarter 2003 Researched by Erin Cossen The pharmaceutical industry spends twice as much on public relations, marketing, and administration as it does on drug research and development. During 2000 more than $13.2 billion was spent on pharmaceutical marketing in the U.S. Half of global legal drug sales occur in the United States alone. Drug companies such as Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, and Astra Zeneca hire specialist “healthcare” PR companies to help create profits. The leading healthcare PR companies in the U.S. are Edelman, Ruder Finn and Chandler Chicco Agency. These groups are responsible for persuading doctors and patients to use the drug companies’ products. Patient groups are wooed to assist with “disease awareness campaigns.” They also organize medical conferences to provide a platform for well trained “product champions” to announce promising results of drug research. PR firms aim to create “buzz” about the new drug in order to increased sales. Chandler Chicco Agency had much success with this when they created the buzz: over Pfizer’s $1 billion-a-year impotence drug, Viagra. Drug company advertising tends to overemphasize the benefits of medication. Other strategies for dealing with problems are ignored. Diseases are created to create new markets for new drugs. Patient groups are created to boost a new drug that is about to emerge from the drug company’s “pipeline.” An investigation by the Journal of the American Medical Association found that it is commonplace practice for articles to be “ghostwritten” by PR firms for well-respected medical researchers. This creates a market for new products by creating dissatisfaction with existing products. How Bush and his coal industry cronies are covering up one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history. Title: "Dirty Business" By: Phillip Babich Source: Salon.com, Nov. 13, 2003 Title: “Mine Safety Official Critical of Policies Faces Firing” By: James Dao Source: New York Times, Nov. 9, 2003 (pg. 18) Researched by: Jose Castellanos Jack Spadaro was selected to be one of eight members of an accident investigation team to determine the causes of the nation’s largest coal slurry spill at the Martin County Coal Company in Inez, Kt., on Oct. 11, 2000. The EPA called the Inez spill the worst environmental catastrophe in the history of the Eastern United States. Far more extensive in damage than the widely known 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska, the Martin County Coal slurry spill dumped an estimated 306 million gallons of toxic sludge down 100 miles of waterways. Before the change in political administration, Spadaro and his teammates had been uncovering information that had far-reaching implications for both Massey Energy (the parent company of Martin County Coal and a major contributor to the Republican Party) and the coal industry as a whole. Testimony and documents revealed that executives at Martin County Coal and federal regulators were aware that there was potential for a catastrophic failure at the slurry impoundment but didn’t take proper actions to avoid it. But MSHA and Martin not only ignored the recommendations, MSHA actually allowed Martin to add coal waste to its impoundment. By the end of 2000, Spadaro and other investigation team members felt they were beginning to collect enough evidence to issue Massey Energy citations for willful and criminal negligence. In addition, MSHA was going to be held accountable as well. But that all changed when George W. Bush moved into the White House. Within days of Bush’s inauguration a new team leader was brought in to head the Martin County Coal investigation. The scope of the investigation was dramatically narrowed – offering another example of how the wholesale takeover of the White House by the energy industry is having a real impact on real lives. In Oct. 2002, MSHA released its final accident report, which cited Martin County Coal for two minor violations with fines totaling $110,000, and left MSHA district officials completely off the hook. In a 10-page complaint sent to Mr. Spadaro on Oct. 2, mine safety officials accused him of abusing his authority, failing to follow orders and proper procedures and misusing a government credit card by taking unauthorized cash advances that cost the government $22.60 in bank fees. Mr. Spadaros lawyer, Jason E. Huber, argued in a response that the complaints were too trivial to justify firing. “It is readily apparent that Mr. Spadaro’s proposed termination is not a result of meritorious complaints… but is rather the Department of Labor, Secretary Elaine L. Chao, Senator Mitch McConnell, and the Bush administration’s retaliation against Mr. Spadaro for whistle-blowing activities.” The apparent vendetta against him, and a mass of other evidence, raise serious questions as to whether Bush administration officials, ranging from mining safety officials all the wat to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, orchestrated a coverup to whitewash Martin County Coal of any serious responsibility for the coal slurry disaster. Ms. Chao as secretary of labor oversees the mine safety agency. Senator McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, is her husband. Mr. Spadaro has asserted that Mr. McConnell has tried to protect Martin County Coal and its parent, the Massey Energy Company, because they are major campaign contributors. More than 300 million gallons of the black wastewater spewed through the mine and into local streams, killing hundreds of thousands of fish, flooding homes, polluting wells and blackening waterways all along the Kentucky-West Virginia border. Doping Kids Title: "Doping Kids" By: Helen Cordes Source: Mother Jones, Vol. 28, No.5, Sept.-Oct Researched by Adam Stutz Adult pharmaceutical companies have been endangering children. Between 1997 and 2000 the FDA reported 7,000 cases of adverse reactions in children and out of these 7,000 reported incidents there were 769 reported deaths due to allergic reactions attributed to prescription drugs. There have been a large number of children who are often receiving these prescriptions in combination with other medications. The effects can be devastating. Nearly a quarter of a million children took Prilosec in 2000, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and nearly 100,000 children were prescribed similar "proton pump inhibitors"(PPI) heart burn drugs such as Prevacid, Nexium, Protonix, and Aciphex. None of these PPI’s were approved for pediatric use at the time (Prevacid was in 2002). The FDA had warned that children taking Prilosec could face the risk of developing pancreatis and liver problems. Three out of four children’s prescriptions are "off label." Drug salesmen are prohibited from this practice but it still occurs quite commonly. The pharmaceutical companies look at children as a very lucrative demographic. This can be made apparent in the amount of advertising undertaken by pharmaceutical companies at various children related activities such as sporting events. Indian Rice Feeds Cattle and not Starving Indians Title: "Indian Rice and Wheat feeds American Cattle, Rather than Starving Indians" By: Devinder Sharma Source: Gene Watch, March-April 2003 Researched by Beth Reiken The World Trade Organization is forcing the Indian government to export food rather than feed starving people. The Indian government in complying with WTO demands has abdicated its responsibility to feed the nation, and instead shift the economy to food exports. The main foods being exportedare wheat and rice, which is sent to the United States to feed our cattle. There is an estimate of 320 million people who are starving in India. However, the Indian Government is cooperating with Monsanto and the American company Rice X want to extract rice brand from raw rice Kernels to feed people. The process had not yet been proven safe on human and is currently used to feed cattle. The Indian people would be the first experiment of RiceX on humans. Sex Discrimination in Florida Title: "Florida Court Blocks Medicaid-Funded Abortions" By: V/A Source: People’s Weekly World Researched by Maria Kyriakos Florida courts still continue to refuse medical aid to women needing abortions this proactice is putting women’s health at risk, yet Florida’s medical program provides all medical aid necessary for men’s reproductive health services Florida’s Third District Court of Appeals issued an opinion refusing to overturn Florida's ban on Medicaid-funded abortions. The Center for Reproductive Rights challenged the ban last August in A Choice for Women, Inc vs. Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, charging that the ban discriminates on the basis of sex. The court ignored the sex discrimination claim and upheld the ban as "rational," thereby allowing the state to continue violating women’s rights at the expense of their health. The Center for Reproductive Rights argued that it’s unconstitutional to deny low-income women Medicaid-funded abortions when their health is threatened by a pregnancy. By covering all reproductive health services needed by men and denying a particular reproductive health service needed by women, Florida is discriminating against women on the basis of sex. In a Miami health center, a woman was denied Medicaid funding for an abortion even though she suffers from epileptic seizures and her epilepsy medication posed a serious threat to the health of her fetus. Without Medicaid coverage for abortions some low-income women are forced to carry complicated pregnancies further or delay obtaining the procedure while they seek alternative funds. Either way the law threatens the health of these women. Currently, 17 states cover all abortions in their Medicaid programs. While courts in Florida deny Medicaid coverage for abortions for women receiving low income, courts in New Mexico and Connecticut have ruled that denying this coverage is indeed a form of sexual discrimination. Corporations Privatize Freedom of Speech Title: "The Invisible Gag" By: Lawrence Soley Source: Dollars & Sense Researched by: Jessica Cortez Corporations pose a growing threat to freedom of speech and information in our society. In some areas, including Washington, D.C., Florida, Arizona and California, the majority of housing units built in the past five years have been in planned developments. Because the rules and restrictions on behavior in planned communities are viewed by courts as voluntary contractual agreements, corporations such as Disney, Mobil Oil and the American Nevada Corporation, who build these communities, can write contracts that limit the colors of exterior paint, types of grass, and colors of drapes. In some cases clotheslines, birdbaths, and basketball hoops are prohibited as well as parking pick-ups and campers within the developments and posting yard signs Corporate controlled e-mail can also be restrict freedom of speech. AOL's e-mail servers are privately owned and are available only to the subscribers who pay a fee for their usage. AOL can bar e-mail messages sent by any non-AOL subscribers. AOL-Time Warner and other ISP's can limit incoming messages and pick and choose the material seen by their subscribers. AOL-Time Warner has censored e-mails sent by Harvard University to applicants, informing them of their acceptance to the school. AOL claims that it mistakenly identified the e-mails as spam. Even so, the mistake shows that AOL is vigorously censoring their e-mails, even those that subscribers want. Corporations can restrict the release and distribution of internal documents, claiming that they are copyrighted or private property; restrict speech on corporate-owned property; terminate employees who speak out about corporate practices; pressure the mass media to kill or alter stories with threats of lawsuits or by withdrawing advertising dollars; or file lawsuits against critics and activists, claming injury to their businesses as a result of free speech. Pharmaceutical Companies Spend More on PR than on Disease Title: "Disease Mongering" By: Bob Burton and Andy Rowell Source: PR Watch, First Quarter 2003 Researched by: Erin Cossen The pharmaceutical industry spends twice as much on public relations and marketing than it does on drug research and development. During the year 2000 more than $13.2 billion was spent on pharmaceutical marketing in the U.S. Drug companies such as Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, and Astra Zeneca hire specialist "healthcare" PR companies to help create profits. The leading healthcare PR companies in the U.S. are Edelman, Ruder Finn and Chandler Chicco Agency. These groups are responsible for persuading doctors and patients to use products from the various companies that they represent. Patient groups are wooed to assist with disease awareness campaigns." They also organize medical conferences to provide a platform for well trained "product champions" to announce promising results of drug research. PR firms aim to create "buzz" about the new drug in order to increased sales. Chandler Chicco Agency had much success with this when they created the buzz over Pfizer’s $1 billion-a-year impotence drug, Viagra. Advertising for drug companies tends to overemphasize the benefits of medication. Other strategies for dealing with problems are ignored. Diseases are created to create new markets for new drugs. Patient groups are created to boost a new drug that is about to emerge from the drug company’s "pipeline." An investigation by the Journal of the American Medical Association found that it is commonplace practice for articles to be "ghostwritten" by PR firms for well-respected medical researchers. This creates a market for new products by creating dissatisfaction with existing products.
Posted: 2 Sept. 2004
From Grist online magazine. DO GOOD Stand Up for the Roadless Rule A plan unveiled by the Bush administration in July would essentially toss out the popular Clinton-era roadless rule, which protects nearly 60 million acres of roadless areas in national forests, and replace it with a rule that could open these pristine lands to logging, mining, and development. Like the sound of that? If not, submit a public comment to the U.S. Forest Service letting them know how you expect your national forests to be treated. do good: Take action to protect pristine areas of national forests
Posted: 1 Sept. 2004
From blackboxvoting.org. Do you want a fair election or a rigged one? Consumer Report Part 1: Look at this -- the Diebold GEMS central tabulator contains a stunning security hole Submitted by Bev Harris on Thu, 08/26/2004 - 11:43. Investigations Issue: Manipulation technique found in the Diebold central tabulator -- 1,000 of these systems are in place, and they count up to two million votes at a time. By entering a 2-digit code in a hidden location, a second set of votes is created. This set of votes can be changed, so that it no longer matches the correct votes. The voting system will then read the totals from the bogus vote set. It takes only seconds to change the votes, and to date not a single location in the U.S. has implemented security measures to fully mitigate the risks. This program is not "stupidity" or sloppiness. It was designed and tested over a series of a dozen version adjustments. Public officials: If you are in a county that uses GEMS 1.18.18, GEMS 1.18.19, or GEMS 1.18.23, your secretary or state may not have told you about this. You're the one who'll be blamed if your election is tampered with. Find out for yourself if you have this problem: Black Box Voting will be happy to walk you through a diagnostic procedure over the phone. E-mail Bev Harris or Andy Stephenson to set up a time to do this. Whether you vote absentee, on touch-screens, or on paper ballot (fill in the bubble) optical scan machines, all votes are ultimately brought to the "mother ship," the central tabulator at the county which adds them all up and creates the results report. These systems are used in over 30 states and each counts up to two million votes at once. The central tabulator is far more vulnerable than the touch screen terminals. Think about it: If you were going to tamper with an election, would you rather tamper with 4,500 individual voting machines, or with just one machine, the central tabulator which receives votes from all the machines? Of course, the central tabulator is the most desirable target. Findings: The GEMS central tabulator program is incorrectly designed and highly vulnerable to fraud. Election results can be changed in a matter of seconds. Part of the program we examined appears to be designed with election tampering in mind. We have also learned that election officials maintain inadequate controls over access to the central tabulator. We need to beef up procedures to mitigate risks. Much of this information, originally published on July 8, 2003, has since been corroborated by formal studies (RABA) and by Diebold's own internal memos written by its programmers. Not a single location has yet implemented the security measures needed to mitigate the risk. Yet, it is not too late. We need to tackle this one, folks, roll up our sleeves, and implement corrective measures. In Nov. 2003, Black Box Voting founder Bev Harris, and director Jim March, filed a Qui Tam lawsuit in California citing fraudulent claims by Diebold, seeking restitution for the taxpayer. Diebold claimed its voting system was secure. It is, in fact, highly vulnerable to and appears to be designed for fraud. The California Attorney General was made aware of this problem nearly a year ago. Harris and Black Box Voting Associate Director Andy Stephenson visited the Washington Attorney General's office in Feb. 2004 to inform them of the problem. Yet, nothing has been done to inform election officials who are using the system, nor have appropriate security safeguards been implemented. In fact, Gov. Arnold Swarzenegger recently froze the funds, allocated by Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, which would have paid for increased scrutiny of the voting system in California. On April 21, 2004, Harris appeared before the California Voting Systems Panel, and presented the smoking gun document showing that Diebold had not corrected the GEMS flaws, even though it had updated and upgraded the GEMS program. On Aug. 8, 2004, Harris demonstrated to Howard Dean how easy it is to change votes in GEMS, on CNBC TV. On Aug. 11, 2004, Jim March formally requested that the Calfornia Voting Systems Panel watch the demonstration of the double set of books in GEMS. They were already convened, and the time for Harris was already allotted. Though the demonstration takes only 3 minutes, the panel refused to allow it and would not look. They did, however, meet privately with Diebold afterwards, without informing the public or issuing any report of what transpired. On Aug. 18, 2004, Harris and Stephenson, together with computer security expert Dr. Hugh Thompson, and former King County Elections Supervisor Julie Anne Kempf, met with members of the California Voting Systems Panel and the California Secretary of State's office to demonstrate the double set of books. The officials declined to allow a camera crew from 60 Minutes to film or attend. The Secretary of State's office halted the meeting, called in the general counsel for their office, and a defense attorney from the California Attorney General's office. They refused to allow Black Box Voting to videotape its own demonstration. They prohibited any audiotape and specified that no notes of the meeting could be requested in public records requests. The undersecretary of state, Mark Kyle, left the meeting early, and one voting panel member, John Mott Smith, appeared to sleep through the presentation. Diebold has known of the problem, or should have known, because it did a cease and desist on the web site when Harris originally reported the problem in 2003. On Aug. 11, 2004, Harris also offered to show the problem to Marvin Singleton, Diebold's damage control expert, and to other Diebold execs. They refused to look. Why don't people want to look? Suppose you are formally informed that the gas tank tends to explode on the car you are telling people to use. If you KNOW about it, but do nothing, you are liable. LET US HOLD DIEBOLD, AND OUR PUBLIC OFFICIALS, ACCOUNTABLE. 1) Let there be no one who can say "I didn't know." 2) Let there be no election jurisdiction using GEMS that fails to implement all of the proper corrective procedures, this fall, to mitigate risk. This problem appears to demonstrate intent to manipulate elections, and was installed in the program under the watch of a programmer who is a convicted embezzler. According to election industry officials, the central tabulator is secure, because it is protected by passwords and audit logs. But it turns out that the GEMS passwords can easily be bypassed, and the audit logs can be altered and erased. Worse, the votes can be changed without anyone knowing, including the officials who run the election. Multiple sets of books The GEMS program runs on a Microsoft Access database. It typically recieves incoming votes by modem, though some counties follow better security by disconnecting modems and bringing votes in physically. GEMS stores the votes in a vote ledger, built in Microsoft Access. Any properly designed accounting program will allow only one set of books. You can't enter your expense report in three different places. All data must be drawn from the same place, and multiple versions are never acceptable. But in the files we examined, we found that the GEMS system contained three sets of "books." The elections official never sees the different sets of books. All she sees is the reports she can run: Election summary (totals, county wide) or a "Statement of Votes Cast" (totals for each precinct). She has no way of knowing that her GEMS system uses a different set of data for the detail report (used to spot check) than it does for the election totals. The Access database, which contains the hidden set of votes, can't be seen unless you know how to get in the back door -- which takes only seconds. Ask an accountant: It is never appropriate to have two sets of books inside accounting software. It is possible to do computer programming to create two sets of books, but dual sets of books are prohibited in accounting, for this simple reason: Two sets of books can easily allow fraud to go undetected. Especially if the two sets are hidden from the user. A hidden trigger The data tables in accounting software automatically link up to each other to prevent illicit back door entries. In GEMS, however, by typing a two-digit code into a hidden location, you can decouple the books, so that the voting system will draw information from a combination of the real votes and a set of fake votes, which you can alter any way you see fit. That's right, GEMS comes with a secret digital "on-off" switch to link and unlink its multiple vote tables. Someone who tests GEMS, not knowing this, will not see the mismatched sets of books. When you put a two-digit code into a secret location can you disengage the vote tables, so that tampered totals table don't have to match precinct by precinct results. This way, it will pass a spot check -- even with paper ballots -- but can still be rigged. How and when did the double set of books get into GEMS? Black Box Voting has traced the implementation of the double set of books to Oct. 13, 2000, shortly after embezzler Jeffrey Dean became the senior programmer. Dean was hired as Vice President of Research and Development in September 2000, and his access to the programs is well documented through internal memos from Diebold. The double set of books appeared in GEMS version 1.17.7. Almost immediately, according to the Diebold memos, another Diebold programmer, Dmitry Papushin, flagged a problem with bogus votes appearing in the vote tables. The double set of books remained, though, going through several tweaks and refinements. From the time Jeffrey Dean was hired in September, until shortly before the Nov. 2000 election, GEMS went through over a dozen changes, all retaining the new hidden vote tables. For four years, anyone who has known how to trigger the double set of books has been able to use, or sell, the information to anyone they want. Black Box Voting Associate Director Andy Stephenson has obtained the court and police records of Jeffrey Dean. It is clear that he was under severe financial stress, because the King County prosecutor was chasing him for over $500,000 in restitution. During this time, while Jeffrey Dean was telling the prosecutor (who operated from the ninth floor of the King County Courthouse) that he was unemployed, he was in fact employed, with 24-hour access to the King County GEMS central tabulator -- and he was working on GEMS on the fifth floor of the King County Courthouse. (Dean may now be spending his nights on the tenth floor of the same building; after our investigations appeared in Vanity Fair and the Seattle Times, Dean was remanded to a work release program, and may be staying in the lockup on in the courthouse now.) Jeffrey Dean, according to his own admissions, is subject to blackmail as well as financial pressure over his restitution obligation. Police records from his embezzlement arrest, which involved "sophisticated" manipulation of computer accounting records, report that Dean claimed he was embezzling in order to pay blackmail over a fight he was involved in, in which a person died. So now we have someone who's admitted that he's been blackmailed over killing someone, who pleaded guilty to 23 counts of embezzlement, who is given the position of senior programmer over the GEMS central tabulator system that counts approximately 50 percent of the votes in the election, in 30 states, both paper ballot and touch screen. And just after he is hired, multiple sets of books appear in GEMS, which can be decoupled, so that they don't need to match, by typing in a secret 2-digit code in a specific location. Dr. David Jefferson, technical advisor for California voting systems, told Black Box Voting that he could see no legitimate reason to have the double set of books in a voting program. He surmised that it might be incredible stupidity. Dr. Jefferson should speak to Jeffrey Dean's partners and those who worked with him. "Stupid" is not how he is described. The descriptions we get, from Dean's former business partner, and from others who worked with him, are "sophisticated," "cunning," "very bright," "highly skilled," and "a con man." This is the man who supervised the programming for GEMS when the multiple set of books was installed. Diebold, however, is the company that did nothing about it. Internal memos show that Dean was sent the passwords to the GEMS 1.18.x files months after Diebold took over the elections company. Diebold clearly did not examine the GEMS program before selling it, or, if it did, chose not to correct the flaws. And after exposing this problem in 2003, Diebold still failed to correct it. Elections were run on this tamper-inviting system for more than three years, and anyone who knew could sell the vote-tampering secrets to anyone they wanted to, at any time. It has been a year since this report was first printed, and Diebold has never explained any legitimate reason for this design, which is rather elegant and certainly is not accidental. But do new security measures solve the problem? The MS Access database is not passworded and can be accessed illicitly through the back door simply by double-clicking the vote file. After we published this report, we observed unpassworded access on the very latest, GEMS 1.18.19 system in a county elections office. Some locations removed the Microsoft Access software from their GEMS computer, leaving the back door intact but, essentially, removing the ability to easily view and edit the file. However, you can easily edit the election, with or without Microsoft Access installed on the GEMS computer. As computer security expert Hugh Thompson demonstrated at the Aug. 18 California Secretary of State meeting, you simply open any text editor, like "Notepad," and type a six-line Visual Basic Script, and you own the election. Some election officials claim that their GEMS central tabulator is not vulnerable to this back door, because they limit access to the GEMS tabulator room and they require a password to turn on the GEMS computer. Any county that uses modems to transfer votes may inadvertently be giving control of the entire central tabulator to anyone who gets at the computer through the modem phone lines (even if it is NOT attached to the Internet). This allows Diebold, or any individual, to manipulate votes at their leisure, from any personal computer anywhere in the world. Let's talk about getting at the central tabulator through telephone lines: Mohave County, Arizona, for example, has six modems attached to its GEMS computer on election night. King County, Washington has had up to four dozen modems attached at once. You will hear that the GEMS machine is stand alone, and is never connected to the Internet. It does have an Internet component, called "jresults," but nowadays most counties say that they do not hook GEMS up to the Internet. They say that they remove the disk from the GEMS computer and physically take it to another computer, from whence the Internet feed comes. Very nice -- BUT: You can access a computer through phone lines as well as through the Internet. In fact, famous hacker Kevin Mitnick liked to hack through telephone lines, not the Internet. If you have the dial-in numbers, it is possible to get at the GEMS computer from anywhere, using RAS. The dial-in protocols are given to poll workers, many people in Diebold have them, lots of temps have them, and the configurations have been sitting on the Internet for several years. What if your county doesn't use any modems at all? That's excellent, but here's what we found: Harris & Stephenson visited county elections officials to ask for lists of names. We asked who was allowed to access the central tabulator, after it was already turned on, and who is given a password and permission to sit at the terminal? Several officials told us they don't keep a list. Those who did, gave us the names of too many people -- County employees (sometimes limited to one or two). Diebold employees. Techs who work for the county, like county database technicians, also get access to GEMS. Printshops who do the ballots have some access also. Diebold "contractors," who are temporary workers hired by subcontractors to Diebold were also reported to have gained access to the GEMS tabulator. (Diebold accounts payable reports obtained by Black Box Voting indicate that Diebold advertises for temps on Monster.com, hotjobs.com, and uses several temporary employment firms, including Coast to Coast Temporary, Ran Temps Inc, and also works with many subcontractors, like Wright Technologies, Total Technical Services, and PDS Technical Services.) What if there is a password even to get onto the GEMS computer itself? There usually is. The problem is this: Once that computer is open and running GEMS (on election night, for example), that password doesn't much matter. Votes are pouring in pell-mell, and they aren't about to shut that computer down until hours later, sometimes days later. Also, Black Box Voting found another problem with the design of GEMS: Check out the Audit Log, which is supposed to record everything that happens. In every database, you find everyone logging is as the same person, "admin." There is a reason for this. We did not find a way in GEMS to log in as a new user unless you close GEMS and reopen the file. Now who, on election night, with votes pouring in, is going to close and reopen the file? They don't. Instead, everyone calls themselves the same name, "admin," thereby ruining the audit log (which can be easily erased and changed anyway.) What about counties that limit access to just one person, the county elections supervisor? We've found nowhere that actually does this. The reason: Elections officials are dependent on the vendor, Diebold, during the election. Suppose we have a computer whiz county official who is the ONLY person who can access GEMS? Unlikely, but if you do: "Trust, but verify." We should never have to trust the sanctity of a million votes to just one person. The following things can be done when you go in the back door in GEMS using Microsoft Access: 1) You can change vote totals. 2) You can change flags, which act as digital "on-off" switches, to cause the program to function differently. According to internal Diebold memos, there are 32 combinations of on-off flags. Even the programmers have trouble keeping track of all the changes these flags can produce. 3) You can alter the audit log. 4) You can change passwords, access privileges, and add new users. Let's talk about passwords How many people can have passwords to GEMS? A sociable GEMS user can give all his friends access to the vote database. We added 50 people, and gave them all the same password, which was "password" -- so far, we haven't found a limit to how many people can be granted access to the election database. Election meltdown: We found that you can melt down an election in six seconds, simply by using the menu items in GEMS. You can destroy all data with two mouse clicks, and with four mouse clicks, you can destroy the configuration of the election making it very difficult to reload the original data. Does GEMS even work as advertised? According to testimony given before the Cuyahoga Elections Board, the Microsoft Access database design used by Diebold's GEMS program apparently becomes unstable with high volume input. This problem, according to Diebold, resulted in thousands of votes being allocated to the wrong candidate in San Diego County in March 2004. The Audit Log Britain J. Williams, Ph.D., is the official voting machine certifier for the state of Georgia, and he sits on the committee that decides how voting machines will be tested and evaluated. Here's what he had to say about the security of Diebold voting machines, in a letter dated April 23, 2003: "Computer System Security Features: The computer portion of the election system contains features that facilitate overall security of the election system. Primary among these features is a comprehensive set of audit data. For transactions that occur on the system, a record is made of the nature of the transaction, the time of the transaction, and the person that initiated the transaction. This record is written to the audit log. If an incident occurs on the system, this audit log allows an investigator to reconstruct the sequence of events that occurred surrounding the incident. Since Dr. Williams listed the audit data as the primary security feature, we decided to find out how hard it is to alter the audit log. We went in the front door in GEMS and added a user named "Evildoer." We had Evildoer perform various functions, including running reports to check his vote-rigging work, but only some of his activities showed up on the audit log. When we had Evildoer melt down the election, by hitting "reset election" and declining to back up the files, he showed up in the audit log. No matter. It was a simple matter to eliminate Evildoer. We went in through the back door and simply deleted all the references to Evildoer. Microsoft Access encourages those who create audit logs to use auto-numbering, so that every logged entry has an uneditable log number. Then, if one deletes audit entries, a gap in the numbering sequence will appear. However, we found that this feature was disabled, allowing us to write in our own log numbers. We were able to add and delete from the audit without leaving a trace. Could the double set of books be legitimate? From a programming standpoint, there might be reasons to have a special vote ledger that disengages from the real one. For example, election officials might say they need to be able to alter the votes to add provisional ballots or absentee ballots. If so, this calls into question the training of these officials. If election officials are taught to deal with changes by overwriting votes, regardless of whether they do this in vote ledger 1 or vote ledger 2, this is improper. Also, if it was legitimate, it would be a menu item in the GEMS program, not executed in a hidden location triggered by a secret 2-digit code. Nothing in the GEMS documentation describes the use of any feature like this whatsoever. Here's why we need to involve CPAs in vote tabulation regulations, procedures, and design: If changing election data is required, the corrective entry must be made not by overwriting vote totals, but by making a corrective entry. It is never acceptable to make changes by overwriting. Data corrections should not be prohibited, but must always be done by indicating changes through a clearly marked line item that preserves each transaction. However, according to elections officials we interviewed, GEMS is improperly designed, and cannot perform an adjustment, and you can't journal changes that occur for weird reasons that really happen. (For example, a poll worker might accidentally run ballots through twice. You need to be able to correct this and still show your work.) Instead of doing an adjustment and showing the explanation, retaining a permanent record of everything that happened, a common procedure is to wipe out the mistake, and simply overwrite it with new data. This is completely improper, from an auditing standpoint. It is certainly improper to have the summary reports come from the second ledger, while pulling the spot check reports from the first ledger, with a provision in the back door to allow these two ledgers to be mismatched. But there is more evidence that these extra sets of books are illicit: If the extra set of books is legitimate, the county officials, whose jurisdiction paid for and own the voting system, should be informed of such functions. Yet Diebold has not explained to county officials why it is there at all, and in most cases, never even told them these functions exist. As a member of slashdot.org commented when we originally published this information: "This is not a bug, it's a feature." Recommendations: County officials should be required to maintain the following procedures to mitigate risk: - Control access to the central tabulator through key logs and access cards - Get rid of all modems and any wireless communications. The use of the digiboard modem bank attached to GEMS has got to stop. - All corrective entries should be journaled and documented and publicly available, whether or not "they would change the outcome of the election." - Maintain a list of everyone who enters the central tabulator room, with log in and out times and dates - Any Diebold techs or county IT people who are allowed access the central tabulator room should be formally deputized or certified and sworn as election officials. Their names and credentials should be available to the public. The names of all individuals allowed access to central tabulators should be posted publicly during elections, and all individuals who have access the central tabulator should be available to citizens through public records requests. - Physical control, in addition to keys to the room, should include blocking off access through ceiling panels and limiting physical access through all other means. - In Diebold counties especially, the touch screens have got to go. The combination of a central tabulator that can be hacked six ways from Sunday in seconds, including the option of melting down the entire election, destroying the data, cannot be combined with unauditable electronic systems which keep no physical record of the vote. Short term corrective action for touch screen counties: All counties who have touch screens also have central count machines for paper ballots, for counting absentee votes. In November, use paper ballots and count them all in the high speed central count machine used for absentees. Polling place tapes State officials should require all counties to post polling place tapes containing all results before votes are transmitted to the central count facility. - Two copies should be printed, one to be posted at the polling place and the other to be attached to the vote data, sealed, and transported to the county in front of at least two witnesses. - A one hundred percent audit of all polling place tapes against the data in GEMS should be performed. This must include summing up the data on all polling place tapes, to compare totals from polling place vs. central tabulator. Remember: The way GEMS is constructed, it will pass the polling place comparison unless data is also totalled on both reports. The importance of the second copy: The first copy is sent privately to the county elections official. A second copy is needed in order to make an audit set of data available to the public simultaneously. - Quit co-mingling of data. Absentee and provisional/challenge/early votes must not be mixed together with polling place votes, but must be accounted for as a separate line item. - There must be consequences for failure to follow risk reduction procedures. - Taxpayers should demand that their local government dump Diebold and seek restitution of their money under consumer protection laws. WAYS TO GET TAXPAYER RESTITUTION: Attorneys: Black Box Voting may join in your county, state, or federal Qui Tam actions, waiving our right to the whistleblower bounty, retaining your own for attorneys fees if possible, providing the evidence we have (and it fills a small warehouse by now), in order to get taxpayer restitution for the purchase of this system. What about the Qui Tam requirement to seal the evidence? We believe that in this case, the fraudulent claims cases should be filed anyway, with a refusal to seal the evidence, to recover money for the taxpayer. Yes, there are some who say that to prevail with a false claims act, the evidence must be sealed, and some have kept quiet about what they are gathering, saying "nothing can be done until after the election." We disagree. We, all of us, have an obligation to head off this train wreck. ALL evidence must be put into the hands of the public, so that we can have a fair election. Let us go forth with preventive actions instead of sabotaging the election in order to profit on the back end. Consumer fraud cases are needed to achieve taxpayer restitution. The evidence must not be sealed, because it is needed in order to put approprate security procedures in place to protect the election. California is expected to announce on Sept. 6 whether they will help seek taxpayer restitution in the existing Qui Tam. We predict that the California Attorney General will reject the effort to seek taxpayer restitution. Instead, they will try to rehabilitate Diebold. Two members of the California Voting Systems Panel have told Black Box Voting that they intend to deal with Diebold after the election. Diebold has just demonstrated its "voter verified paper ballot" to California. Yet, this system really doesn't matter, if you don't have security in place, don't audit, and can hack the central tabulator. More predictions Diebold (and many public officials) will claim, again, that they have corrected the problem. Public officials will omit any mention of the messy little business where the embezzler put the election-manipulation program into the central tabulator, or the uncomfortable fact that Diebold left it there for years, for anyone to use or sell. The GEMS software will remain secret, and even the county officials won't examine it, because they are forbidden to do so by their contract with Diebold. (See our consumer report on contracts) While we are walking local officials through the problems with GEMS over the phone, showing them it exists, we expect high ranking officials and the Diebold company to justify their decision to do nothing by attacking the messenger, (Black Box Voting). We will be called nuts, kooks, and cranks. How much taxpayer money is involved? You can't run the multimillion dollar Diebold voting system without GEMS. State of Georgia: $52 million State of Maryland: We hear it is up to $70 million by now. State of Arizona: Approx. $50 million State of California: In total, approx. $100 million All in all, the Diebold system is used in about three dozen states, and the amount of money spent nationwide is between 1/2 and 3/4 billion. This nasty situation reminds us of the Savings and Loan crisis in the 1980s, in that it is such a boondoggle that one hardly wants to admit that it exists. But, like the S&L scandal, the train wreck is approaching. It's not too late. * Voters want and deserve security procedures to protect the integrity of their vote this fall. * Taxpayers want and deserve their money back. * Public officials must be informed, and if they refuse to look, it must be documented so that they can be held accountable. * Anyone who looks has a moral obligation to do something about this. Any public official who looks has a legal obligation to take the appropriate steps. Click here to donate. 
|
|
