Thursday, November 02, 2006

Maybe now the curtain is visible.

I just viewed the HBO documentary, "Hacking Democracy." Besides briefly hitting on some voter irregularities and inequities, it follows an organization, Black Box Voting, and their thorough and well documented investigations into voting technologies, especially Diebold. They hired credible researchers to do the technical work, which has been substantiated by independent researchers. It comes down to the fact that our democracy is now more than ever a farce due to the proprietary designation of computer counting and balloting. There are human issues already, but the documentary shows the fallible and hackable nature of these machines provided by a company that has direct monetary connections to political parties and persons. See it if you can...or find some of the research that has been conducted for it has been eeking out here and there before this documentary has aired. It is interesting to say the least, but shocking in the ramifications of the investigations...I literally cried.

8 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Fearing Diebold will rig an election is like fearing PayPal will steal your money. Their entire business model relies on the fact that it is secure. There is not nearly enough gain from risking it. But then again, I don't believe in conspiracies.

However, I also don't believe Bush lying to get us into Iraq is a conspiracy: it's just a fact.

7:55 AM  
Blogger ajparrillo said...

Saying that you don't "believe" in conspiracies is an naive view of the world. This is like saying I don't believe in trains. You don't "believe" in the multiple proven conspiracies revolving around the Enron collapse? That ia a pretty absurd statement, but then again, I think you misspoke. You think proven conspiracies are catapulted to the new classification of "fact." While that may true, if it invlolves a secret agreement to do an unlawful or wrongful act or an act which becomes unlawful as a result of the secret agreement than it still is a conspiracy along with being now a proven fact.
As for voting...first there there are proven irregularities and publically documented instances of machine failures and/or possible tampering. Next there is no paper trail with some and only paper trails only past a certain point in the counting process... or adhering to your paypal example... no way to track your spending records and fees accurately. Next, the situation with voting machines is not an open consumer market. If I don't want to use Diebold machines in my precinct, I cannot spend my political currency anywhere else without possible upheavals in life (moving to another county or state). The decision has been made for me. AND if there is no access to the internal workings or a record of what actually takes place, this relationship/contract is absolute slanted towards the company. There is no current safeguards in our current regulation to deal appropriately with this technology, which only leads towards more questions. Watch the documentary that I cited, or read some news and scientific articles, and you will see the tip of an iceberg of possible considerable size.
Before you choose to debate, at least use relevant analogies and agreed upon terminology.

10:33 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

My terminology on conspiracies was intentionally ambiguous, sorry about that.

I still don't get why Diebold would be willing to risk their entire business on rigging an election.

Ok, well... if you could prove they hired Jack Abramoff as their security expert maybe then I could see the connection.

2:03 PM  
Blogger The Cruise said...

If Diebold makes the political party who bought the machines stay in power, and make it so no one can find out they fixed it, then how can they lose their business?

There's no Abramoff/Diebold connection that I know of, but here's somebody adam and I went to high school with:

http://www.jackinthehouse.org/characters/details.php?view=2

2:07 PM  
Blogger ajparrillo said...

Neil Volz a Republican? I got drunk in high school with him and cory's bro and that dude was always high!

2:51 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sweet site, kyle. love them abramoff hats!

I have to go double check my paypal account. Have a good weekend.

2:54 PM  
Blogger The Cruise said...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/usvotemachines


The machines breaking down isn't a definite conspiracy.
Turning voters away is.

11:08 AM  
Blogger ajparrillo said...

Unless SOME are programmed to fail more often...

3:59 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home