Global Eye -- Vanishing Act Moscow Times

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

> http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2003/09/19/120.html
>
> The Moscow Times . Com
> Friday, Sep. 19, 2003. Page XII
> Global Eye -- Vanishing Act
> By Chris Floyd
>
> It's a shell game, with money, companies and corporate brands switching
> in a blur of buyouts and bogus fronts. It's a sinkhole, where mobbed-up
> operators, paid-off public servants, crazed Christian fascists, CIA
> shadow-jobbers, war-pimping arms dealers -- and presidential family
> members -- lie down together in the slime. It's a hacker's dream, with
> pork-funded, half-finished, secretly programmed computer systems
> installed without basic security standards by politically partisan
> private firms, and protected by law from public scrutiny. It's how the
> United States, the "world's greatest democracy," casts its votes. And
> it's why George W. Bush will almost certainly be the next president of
> the United States -- no matter what the people of the United States
> might want.
>
> The American vote-count is controlled by three major corporate players
> -- Diebold, ES&S, and Sequoia -- with a fourth, Science Applications
> International Corporation, coming on strong. These companies -- all of
> them hardwired into the Bushist Party power grid -- have been given
> billions of dollars by the Bush Regime to complete a sweeping
> computerization of voting machines nationwide by the 2004 election.
> These glitch-riddled systems -- many using "touch-screen" technology
> that leaves no paper trail at all -- are almost laughably open to
> manipulation, according to corporate whistleblowers and computer
> scientists at Stanford, Johns Hopkins and other universities.
>
> The technology had a trial run in the 2002 midterm elections. In
> Georgia, serviced by new Diebold systems, a popular Democratic governor
> and senator were both unseated in what the media called "amazing"
> upsets, with results showing vote swings of up to 16 percent from the
> last pre-ballot polls. In computerized Minnesota, former Vice President
> Walter Mondale -- a replacement for popular incumbent Paul Wellstone,
> who died days before the vote -- was also defeated in a large
> last-second vote swing. Convenient "glitches" in Florida saw an untold
> number of votes intended for the Democratic candidate registering
> instead for Governor Jeb "L'il Brother" Bush. A Florida Democrat who
> lost a similarly "glitched" local election went to court to have the
> computers examined -- but the case was thrown out by a judge who ruled
> that the innards of America's voting machines are the "trade secrets" of
> the private companies who make them.
>
> Who's behind these private companies? It's hard to tell: The corporate
> lines -- even the bloodlines -- of these "competitors" are so
> intricately mixed. For example, at Diebold -- whose corporate chief,
> Wally O'Dell, a top Bush fundraiser, has publicly committed himself to
> "delivering" his home state's votes to Bush next year -- the election
> division is run by Bob Urosevich. Bob's brother, Todd, is a top
> executive at "rival" ES&S. The brothers were originally staked in the
> vote-count business by Howard Ahmanson, a member of the Council for
> National Policy, a right-wing "steering group" stacked with Bushist
> faithful.
>
> Ahmanson is also one of the bagmen behind the extremist "Christian
> Reconstructionist" movement, which openly advocates a theocratic
> takeover of American democracy, placing the entire society under the
> "dominion" of "Christ the King." This "dominion" includes the death
> penalty for homosexuals, exclusion of citizenship for non-Christians,
> stoning of sinners and -- we kid you not -- slavery, "one of the most
> beneficent of Biblical laws."
>
> Ahmanson also has major holdings in ES&S, whose former CEO is Republican
> Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. When Hagel ran for office, his own
> company counted the votes; needless to say, his initial victory was
> reported as "an amazing upset." Hagel still has a million-dollar stake
> in the parent company of ES&S. In Florida, Jeb Bush's first choice for a
> running mate in his 1998 gubernatorial race was ES&S lobbyist Sandra
> Mortham, who made a mint installing the machines that counted Jeb's
> votes.
>
> Sequoia also has a colorful history, most recently in Louisiana, where
> it was the center of a massive corruption case that sent top state
> officials to jail for bribery, most of it funneled through Mob-connected
> front firms. Sequoia executives were also indicted, but escaped trial
> after giving immunized testimony against state officials. The
> British-owned company's corporate parent is private equity firm Madison
> Dearborn -- a partner of the Carlyle Group, where George Bush I makes
> millions trolling the world for war pork, privatizations and sweetheart
> deals with government insiders.
>
> Meanwhile, the shadowy defense contractor SAIC has jumped into the
> vote-counting game, both directly and through spinoffs by its top brass,
> including Admiral Bill Owens, former military aide to Dick Cheney and
> Carlyle honcho Frank Carlucci, and ex-CIA chief Robert Gates. SAIC's
> history of fraud charges and security lapses in its electronic systems
> hasn't prevented it from becoming one of the largest Pentagon and CIA
> contractors -- and will doubtless pose little obstacle to its entrance
> into election engineering.
>
> The mad rush to install unverifiable computer voting is driven by the
> Help America Vote Act, signed by Bush last year. The chief lobbying
> group pushing for the act was a consortium of arms dealers -- those
> disinterested corporate citizens -- including Northop-Grumman and
> Lockheed-Martin. The bill also mandates that all states adopt the
> computerized "ineligible voter purge" system that Jeb used to eliminate
> 91,000 eligible black voters from the Florida rolls in 2000. The
> Republican-run private company that accomplished this electoral miracle,
> ChoicePoint, is bagging the lion's share of the new Bush-ordered purge
> contracts.
>
> The unelected Bush Regime now controls the government, the military, the
> judiciary -- and the machinery of democracy itself. Absent some unlikely
> great awakening by the co-opted dullards of the corporate media, next
> November the last shreds of a genuine American republic will disappear
> -- at the push of a button.
>
>
> Annotations
>
> E-Voting: How it Can Put the Wrong Candidate in Office
> Common Dreams, Sept. 3, 200320
>
> The Theft of Your Vote is Just a Chip Away
> Thom Hartmann, July 31, 200320
>
> How George W. Bush Won the 2004 Presidential Election
> Infernal Press, September 200320
>
> Now Your Vote is the Property of a Private Corporation
> Thom Hartmann, March 11, 200320
>
> The Diebold AccuVote TS Should be Decertified
> USENEX Security Symposium, Aug. 6, 200320
>
> Who Counts the Votes?
> Southern Exposure, Winter 2002/200320
>
> Florida Invests $24 Million in Wireless Voting Machines
> Wireless News Factor, Jan. 31, 200220
>
> Diebold Internal Mail Confirms U.S. Vote Vulnerabilities
> Scoop, Sept. 12,200220
>
> Voting Machine Controversy as Diebold Chief Backs Bush
> Cleveland Plain Dealer, Aug. 28, 200320
>
> The Voting Machine Fiasco: SAIC, VoteHere and Diebold
> Online Journal, Aug. 20, 200320
>
> Hacking Democracy?
> Salon.com, Feb. 20, 200320
>
> Possible Flaw Triggers Electronic Voting Concerns
> Houston Chronicle, Sept. 11, 200320
>
> Piecing it Together
> Black Box Voting, Aug. 25, 200320
>
> Bay of Pigs 2000: The November Surprise
> Madcow Morning News, Dec. 26, 200020
>
> Slavery Under God's Laws
> The Institute for Christian Economics,20
>
> Stoning: Integral to Commandment Against Murder
> The Institute for Christian Economics,20
>
> World Conquest: The Obligation of Christian Politics
> The Changing of the Guard, Dominion Press,20
>
> An Anthology of Reconstructist Thought
> Christian Reconstructionism, November 200220
>
> Judicial Warfare: Christian Reconstructionism and its Blueprint for
> Dominion
> Crown Rights Press, 200320
>
> British Firm Buys Controlling Interest in Sequoia Voting Systems
> Eastbay Business Times, May 29, 200320
>
> A High-Tech Ambush
> Eco Talk, Oct. 29, 200220
>
> Louisiana Election Commissioner Pleads Guilty in Kickback Scandal
> The Oak Ridger, Nov. 28, 200020
>
> Pipeline Partnership Take Under: Madison Dearborn and Carlyle
> Meter Reader Energy Stock Analysis, April 24, 2003

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