Subject: Fwd: All Black Box Voting files confiscated, including personal info on activists by Diebold.
From: Bev Harris Here's what you can do to help: Get the word out far and wide that
Diebold has done this thing.
1. Diebold issued a pull-down demand under DMCA for the
BlackBoxVoting.org web site, citing a link posted on a forum in the
site, claiming that the link allowed web visitors to visit an
unrelated page which contained items they say they own the copyright
to.
2. Not only was BlackBoxVoting.org pulled down, but ALL of the
documents, databases and programming for approximately 500 pages of
material, most of which did not relate to Diebold at all, was
confiscated. Dozens of web pages were pulled down which had nothing
whatever to do with the disputed information. AIT Inc. has indicated
that it believes it has the right to pull down the entire web site
including unrelated pages. It then confiscated all of the material.
3. The confiscated pages included personal contact information for 200
activists, and the private strategy sessions for voting machine
activists. BlackBoxVoting.org has yet to receive any explanation at
all as to what authority was claimed to confiscate them. We demand
their immediate
return.
4. Most of the memos in question were written in Canada, and resided
on a server in Canada up to and including 2003 after Diebold bought a
Canadian company called Global Election Systems. In Canada, company
correspondence, even internal memos, is not protected by copyright. To
date we have been unable to find evidence, other than a claim in a
letter, that Diebold even owns the copyright to these memos.
5. These memos are more properly termed "Evidence," because they
contain evidence of a pattern of lawbreaking that dates back at least
to 1999.
6. Lexis-Nexis would be a worthwhile exercise now for every one of
these search terms pertaining to the origins of Global Election
Systems: This firm was a wholly owned subsidiary of North American
Professional Technologies, Inc., which was in turn a wholly owned
subsidiary of MacroTrends Ventures International, Ltd. Charles Hong
Lee is one of the principals with these firms; He has been tied in the
press to
participation
in a scheme to bilk immigrants out of some $47 million; he is also
connected with a scandal in which a Mr. Graye was prosecuted, relating
to Vinex Wines. Charles Hong Lee was also involved with something
called "The Vancouver Maneuver," a stock pump & dump scheme that
bilked investors out of millions in connection with an entertainment
company and something called Beverly Development. Charles Hong Lee was
a principal with Global Election Systems, along with the late Clinton
Rickards. Talbot Iredale, currently the V.P. for Research and Development for Diebold
Election Systems, began with the company in 1991, right around the
time the Vancouver Maneuver was exposed in Barron's magazine. This is
the pedigree from whence the Diebold Memos arose.
Here is a contribution originally from Slashdot, made available for
the Black Box Voting book by Donald Way.
(Diebold: This is satire and meant for entertainment purposes only. If
you would like to spend several more $500 per hour lawyer fees suing
us over satire, go right ahead.)
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT
Pending: your vote is now the property of Diebold, Inc. Any
attempt on your part to ascertain the disposition of your vote is
hereby declared to be in violation of federal law, e.g., the Digital
Millenium Copyright Act.
You have the right not to vote. Any vote you make can be used against
you in a court of law. The judge presiding in such a court of law may
be appointed by Diebold, Inc., and need not require a jury, but if a
jury is summoned, it need not be a jury of your peers.
By acting to vote you consent to our determining whether your vote is
valid, and in the event it is judged not to be valid, you consent to
our voiding your vote and further voiding your right to vote in the
future. You furthermore acknowledge that owing to storage and
bandwidth
limitations
that Diebold, Inc., may experience, your vote may be digitally
compressed in a way such that your true intent in casting the vote may
be lost. If such an eventuality should occur, your vote may be
determined using statistical data derived from any source we deem
appropriate or
convenient.
You have the right to protest if your vote is cancelled, altered, or
in
any
way modified as the result of such action on our part, however, you
hereby acknowledge that in such an eventuality, Diebold, Inc. may
determine that your right to vote is deleterious to democracy as
implement by Diebold, Inc., and therefore may be considered to be an
overt act against the national security of these United States. You
have 10 seconds to comply.
God Bless America
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Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 02:11:26 -0700 (PDT)
