Diebold Systems Wars Against Grassroots Critics

Electronic Voting - A Non-Partisan Issue

Diebold Systems Wars Against Grassroots Critics

“Are these companies staffed by folks completely ignorant of computer security,” [Mercuri] said, “or are they just blatantly flaunting that they can breach every possible rule of protocol and still sell voting machines everywhere with impunity?” -- New York Times

The New York Times

November 3, 2003

File Sharing Pits Copyright Against Free Speech

By JOHN SCHWARTZ

The complete article may be purchased online from the New York Times archives at-- http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10D15F93A540C708CDDA80994DB404482

Summary provided by New York Times--

By JOHN SCHWARTZ (NYT) 1660 words
Late Edition - Final , Section C , Page 1 , Column 5

ABSTRACT - Diebold Election Systems is waging legal war against grass-roots advocates, including dozens of college students, who are posting on Internet copies of company's internal communications about its electronic voting machines; students say effort to spread word about problems with company's software is valuable form of electronic civil disobedience, protected by copyright law's fair use exceptions; Diebold charges copyright infringement; has sent cease-and-desist orders to students and, in many cases, their colleges, demanding that 15,000 e-mail messages and memos be removed from each Web site; messages include discussions of software bugs and warnings that computer network is poorly protected against hackers; Swarthmore and some other colleges have removed documents; photo (M)

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/03/business/media

/03securehtml?tntemail1

Scoop (New Zealand)

Diebold Documents Spark International Campaign:

Will Your Vote Count?

Tuesday, 4 November 2003
Press Release: Why-War.Com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 3, 2003

Swarthmore, Pa. -- When American citizens step into the voting booth tomorrow, will their votes be counted? Today, with Diebold Elections Systems operating electronic voting in 37 states, the answer is a resounding "maybe." As a result of widespread security flaws and the lack of any verifiable check on their systems, Diebold cannot guarantee the accuracy of any election in which their machines are present.

An electronic campaign initiated two weeks ago by Why War? has sparked students from fifty universities nationwide to host copies of internal Diebold memoranda which demonstrate the insecurity and unreliability of their voting machines.

Why War's website has been innundated with e-mails and visitors from individuals worldwide pledging their support and offering to defy Diebold's attempts at suppression by hosting mirrors of the provocative documents.

"We've been receiving more hits than ever before," said Why War? member Micah White, who originally found and posted the memos in October. "Our goal when we started this campaign was to provide public access to this information, and we've been so successful that Why War? recently had to purchase higher bandwith to accommodate the sheer number of people who wanted to read the memos."

Why War? has built a coalition of concerned citizens across the nation who will soon be taking charge of the campaign against Diebold. "This is not a partisan issue," said Ivan Boothe, another member. "The people who have taken the initiative to host these documents come from all parts of the political spectrum."

In response to growing national interest, the coalition will soon be moving its center of operations from Why War's website, why-war.com, to a new location devoted specifically to voting issues and resisting Diebold's attempts to keep this information a secret.

Why War? believes that the Diebold documents are akin to the Pentagon Papers in their potential to reveal systemic corruption within the American election process. The task now at hand is to analyze the content of these documents.

More information about the campaign: http://why-war.com/

List of municipalities that use Diebold machines: http://why-war.com/features/diebold-campaign.pdf

Press contacts: Ivan Boothe, Swarthmore College, media@why-war.com, 267.496.6819 Joseph Lorenzo Hall, University of California-Berkeley, joehall@pobox.com, 510.918.0050 C. Scott Ananian, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, cscott@cscott.net, 617.233.1238 Derek Slater, Harvard University, slater@fas.harvard.edu, 617.493.0039 Austin Heap, Bentley College, HEAP_AUST@bentley.edu, 614.477.6579 Marquis Eusung Hwang, University of Chicago, mhwang@midway.uchicago.edu, 678.438.0137 Sechyi Laiu, Grinnell College, laiu@grinnell.edu, 641.269.3278 Matthew Hornyak, Carnegie Mellon University, matth@cmu.edu, 412.726.6968

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0311/S00024.htm __________________________________________

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