Paging the E-Voting Geek Squad!

Following public records requests in Riverside County, CA, the Election Defense Alliance has received a public copy of code used to program a recent election on an e-voting system made by Sequoia Voting Systems, Inc.

The result is a first-of-its kind public examination of such code, as now underway on a wiki page called the "Sequoia Voting System Study Project" which was created by the group this week.

"For the first time ever, the internal guts of a modern voting system will be publicly examined in a collaborative, open fashion," the page explains before explaining that the code, prior to being released, was first given to Sequoia by Riverside County to strip out whatever they regarded as proprietary information.

"As near as we can tell," the wiki page notes, "instead of stripping out proprietary stuff of any sort, Sequoia simply committed vandalism: they stripped the Microsoft SQL header data off the top, expecting that this would ruin access to the data under any possible database utility, making the contents unreadable."

But according to project participant Jim March --- a long time citizen e-voting watchdog and inveterate software geek --- Sequoia didn't succeed...

IN TODAY'S AUDIO REPORT: Water, water everywhere --- but doooon't drink it!; Countdown to Copenhagen ... PLUS: The media and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce get totally punk'd and we love it!... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA': 'Freakonomics' Sequel gets panned & slammed for climate change denial chapter; Ecuador Oil Pollution Case Only Grows Murkier; US agriculture department confirms H1N1 virus found in pig; Gizmag Explainer: What is an LED TV?; An H1N1 "Swine Flu" Story: A Pregnant Woman’s Ordeal; Australians to fortify coast homes against climate change, rising seas ... PLUS: Rebranding, and the Idea of America....

Info/links on those stories and all the ones we talked about on today's episode follow below...

This is, of course, the precise sort of thing which FBI linguist-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds has been alleging concerning both Turkish and Israeli interests for some time. In her case, she has testified under oath to nearly-identical behavior by U.S. scientists, military personnel and academics at top-secret nuclear and military installations who are alleged to have done precisely what Stewart David Nozette has now been busted for, as reported today by AFP...

In addition to allegations against a network of moles said to be based at U.S. nuclear weapons facilities, Edmonds has also fingered current and former members of Congress, such as Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Dan Burton (R-IN), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Stephen Solarz (D-NY) and Tom Lantos (D-CA, deceased), as well as high-ranking Pentagon and State Dept. officials such as Marc Grossman, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, as having participated, via bribery and blackmail schemes, in related espionage with Turkish and Israeli interests.

Despite several high profile front-page features on all of this in the UK Sunday Times last year (here, here and here), Edmonds' recent sworn deposition on these matters, a recent cover-story interview in American Conservative magazine, and an 18-year FBI executive officer corroborating key elements of her story and calling for a "Special Counsel" to investigate and prosecute, the U.S. corporate mainstream media have failed to report on the Edmonds story at all since she was finally allowed to speak about these matters in August following seven years of gag orders from the Bush Administration's invocation of the so-called "State Secrets Privilege."

[Hat-tip RAW STORY. More details at WakingUpNow.]

The November 3rd Election Day is nearing, so naturally the words "glitch," "hiccup," "snafu," and "snag" are back in the headlines, instead of the word "failure," which would be the appropriate one to use in such cases.

Today, it's our old friends in Sarasota, under the continuing and now-legendarily failed direction of Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent and her latest failed voting system, this one an optical-scan system made by Diebold, featured in the Charlotte Sun's "Scanning glitch in vote machine test":

The machine that didn't work --- no, it's not a "glitch," it didn't succeed in carrying out the purpose for which it was designed and purchased anymore than a car which didn't start, or whose brakes failed could be said to have a "glitch" --- was the old, failed Diebold Accuvote optical-scan system, similarly used in hundreds and hundreds of counties in dozens and dozens of other states.

The "solution" Dent ultimately settled on in response to the failure of the machines made by Diebold (now calling themselves Premier and recently purchased by their larger competitor ES&S) is as bad, and as offensive, as the original failure itself...

I'm thinking of changing the name of The BRAD BLOG to What Up? Anybody see any downsides to that?

UPDATE 10/17, 11:23pm PT: I actually presumed the irony above was self-evident. If many of the comments left are any indication, apparently it wasn't. So here's the previously-unlinked reference. Beyond that I must say I was surprised and rather moved, by the reaction in many of the comments, from around the world, even if they came as a result of having been inadvertently misled. So thanks very much for those and apologies for the goose chase. (Though I did enjoy it, nonetheless.) I think I'll call the blog Change the Game instead. Any objections?

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

As recounted in a front-page article in The New York Times, on the strength of a single "yes" from a member of the Party of No, President Barack Obama described the 14 to 9 Senate Finance Committee vote in favor of the Baucus health care bill as "a critical milestone," adding, "We are now closer than ever to passing health care reform."

With all due respect, Mr. President, it is nothing of the sort. To the contrary, the Senate Finance Committee has produced nothing less than a legislative obscenity.

After nearly a year of back room deals and unending propaganda, which has included extensive corporate media coverage of insurance industry sponsored, wing-nut assaults on town halls, fabricated issues about "death panels," the exclusion of single-payer advocates from the White House and the Senate Finance Committee, and a deafening corporate media silence about the widespread public support* for a single-payer (Medicare for All) system, the time has come to pierce through the confusion by asking and answering a few simple questions...

A group of computer scientists and security experts from California's 2007 landmark "Top-to-Bottom Review" (TTBR) of electronic voting systems have sent a two-page letter [PDF] of condemnation to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), taking the federal body to task for their approval of misused security findings from the TTBR in recent certification testing for a new e-voting system made by Diebold/Premier.

The voting system, Premier's Assure 1.2 --- made by Premier Election Solutions, Inc. (formerly named Diebold Election System, Inc. and recently purchased by Election System and Software, Inc.) --- was granted federal certification by the EAC last August under new test protocols which "should not have received the EAC's approval," according to the letter penned by Aaron Burstein and Joseph Lorenzo Hall, and signed by twelve other investigators and participants in the TTBR project.

The letter was addressed to the EAC's Director of Testing and Certification Brian Hancock, a longtime official at the commission with a disturbing background of helping to hedge test results for other electronic voting systems...

IN TODAY'S AUDIO REPORT: Bush Administration smacked down (again); Critics of mountaintop removal coal mining shouted down; GOP complaints shut down a hearing on forged letters ... PLUS: One airline's novel idea for "lightening the load" to save fuel ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA': How CBO budget scoring devalues efficiency ... WITH PUPPIES!; What the hell is a 'Smart Grid' and why should you care?; Surprisingly, banks are a roadblock to walkable development; Scientist says Arctic Ocean to be ice-free in summer; Aspen trees die across the West; Gut Check: Warmer planet, fewer crops?; Austin sees huge potential for solar power, thanks to satellites ... PLUS: Project Censored 2010: U.S. consumers exposed to toxic chemicals banned in Europe ....

Info/links on those stories and all the ones we talked about on today's episode follow below...

Alternet has just published my most recent op-ed article written for the Commonweal Institute (where I am a Fellow). The subject is the desperate need for media reform, particularly reform of our publicly-owned airwaves. The piece calls on Progressives to begin this most important conversation, while calling out Democrats for running away from it with their collective tails between their legs.

The article starts this way...

For more, please read, comment and/or hit recommend on the full piece at Alternet...

How queer. With 75,000 protesters --- about the same number that turned out for the "gigantic" Teabagger rally on 9/12 in D.C. --- turning out last Sunday in D.C. to rally for equal protection under the law for all Americans (yes, even gay ones), Fox "News," and all the others, seem to have forgotten to send out anybody to cover it.

No outrage from you teabaggers about that? Glenn Beck? Really? Nothing? Hmm. Video courtesy of RAW STORY...

According to a press release from CA Sec. of State Debra Bowen [PDF] today, CA Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed one bill for improvement to state election law, while using his veto pen to terminate three other "common-sense elections bills ... aimed at enhancing government transparency."

The one he approved will allow emergency workers in the field, such as fire fighters battling a wild fire, to vote from wherever they may be at the time. That's good. But Bowen "laments" --- as does The BRAD BLOG --- the other ones which she supported, and which he, incredibly enough, vetoed. He said hasta la vista to three bills which would have been very helpful in adding much-needed "common-sense" checks and balances to the nearly unabated rise of the machines in our electoral system...

Florida's Sun-Sentinel is reporting that Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) will announce tomorrow that he's resigning from Congress:

It's not clear what job he'll be taking, though Spencer Ackerman at The Washington Independent speculates it could be U.S. Ambassador to Israel or head of USAID (though both of those, it seems, would be "working for the Obama administration", counter to Sun-Sentinel's report).

Losing Wexler will be a loss to progressive Democrats in the House given his historic tenacity on any number of issues, from taking on the nonsense of the Clinton Impeachment, to fighting for the responsible Bush Impeachment, to fighting for electoral integrity in the state of Florida. That'll be one less bulldog with a "D" by his name, unfortunately, in a House that could use a lot more of 'em.

UPDATE: Miami Herald's coverage is now here and similarly points to the issues we mentioned above. They offer no additional details, however, on either Wexler's future plans or the specific reason for his surprise resignation.

LATER UPDATE: Miami Herald updates their report (same link as the above), to report: "In a conference call Tuesday night with Democratic leaders, Wexler said he will become director of the Washington-based Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation."

UPDATE 10/14/09: Wexler's official statement is now here. Though questions are still percolating as to the real reasons behind this move. TPM offers a round-up of a few opinions of note, the general consensus so far being his interest in helping to move Obama's Mideast peace effort forward. But the question of why he couldn't have done so from his "dream-job" (as he described it back in January) in Congress still remains a bit of a mystery at this hour.

IN TODAY'S AUDIO REPORT: Rising waters, shrinking glaciers; Slouching to Copenhagen; A Republican breaks ranks? ... PLUS: Even energy companies are taking on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over climate legislation ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA': Columbia Journalism Review: Environmental Journalists accused of protecting Gore --- but filmmaker’s criticism is self-serving and wrong; George Soros to Invest $1 Billion in Green Energy; Is UK decision to scuttle new coal plant a blow against coal?; Marcellus Shale water quality: Who will pay to monitor gas drilling?; Solar Living, Without Compromising on Lifestyle ... PLUS: What lessons can be learned from the Spanish solar market collapse?....

Info/links on those stories and all the ones we talked about on today's episode follow below...

Given that Obama ran on ending "Don't Ask Don't Tell" and repealing the "Defense of Marriage Act," those who believe in equal justice under the law --- as per the Constitution --- are justifiably none too happy about the fact that he hasn't gotten around to doing either yet.

He did give a rousing speech to the Human Rights Campaign over the weekend, however, re-promising to do all of the above, even if he failed to give a timetable for either of them.

Both DADT and DOMA are federal law, so he can't just change them unitarily over night....