Phony Terror Alert Revelations

American Scofflaw

The Bush administration has never shied from playing the fear card to distract the American public from scandal or goad them into supporting a deeply flawed foreign policy. Here a history of the administration's most-dubious terror alerts — including three consecutive Memorial Day scare-a-thons — all of which proved far less terrifying than the screamer headlines they inspired.

Easy as Theft

American Scofflaw

"No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse."— Theodore Roosevelt
I’ll add that no people can be wholly civilized if they don’t even notice offices getting stolen - I like to think that most folks would notice somebody stealing their purse.
But, you never know with today’s crowd.

Can Bound

American Scofflaw

A federal judge sent accused Illinois political fixer Antoin "Tony" Rezko to jail today after federal prosecutors accused him of violating his bail terms by a convoluted series of financial transactions with Mideast banks.

Operation: Screwup

American Scofflaw

Iran's security calculus has changed. It has almost reached the point of Tehran considering the option of reciprocating the perceived excess Western intrusion into its vicinity by allowing a military base for China at one of Iran's Persian Gulf ports or on one of its islands.

Without doubt, this would be a significant geopolitical move on both Iran's and China's part, bound to unsettle the US superpower that enjoys hegemony in the oil region. It also represents once again the laws of unintended consequence.

In other words, we remove a status quo goon (Saddam) to keep militant Shia and their allies in Iran, China and Russia in check so we don't have to, and now they're threatening to invite themselves right in. And, what can we do about it?--Nothing!

What a Joke

American Scofflaw Girls Never Take Crap

Yep, I do believe they're stealing the Gold

American Scofflaw

U.S. central banks may have less than half the gold they claim to possess in their vaults, charges a watchdog group in an ad scheduled for publication in the Wall Street Journal this week.

Kill em all, let God sort em out

American Scofflaw

Attacking other countries to stop them acquiring nuclear weapons repudiates a key principle of international law.

"Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation of slave labor or for any other purpose of the civilian population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity."

Right in the Nuggets

American Scofflaw

Taser stun guns may not be as safe as their manufacturer claims, according to a study carried out by Chicago researchers, CBC News has learned.

The team of doctors and scientists at the trauma centre in Chicago's Cook County hospital stunned 11 pigs with Taser guns in 2006, hitting their chests with 40-second jolts of electricity, pausing for 10 to 15 seconds, then hitting them for 40 more seconds.

When the jolts ended, every animal was left with heart rhythm problems, the researchers said. Two of the animals died from cardiac arrest, one three minutes after receiving a shock.

The findings call into question safety claims made by Taser International, the Arizona company that makes the stun guns, which are used by dozens of police departments across Canada

Please Handcuff Me

This young lady is grabbing for her handcuffs. The strange thing is she has a kind of traffic police uniform with extremely short skirt and way to unpractical heels. When they all look like this in japan, then I must visit it for sure. Driving around like crazy, hoping to get arrested by this beautiful young lady. What a legs, it just look great! (00)

16th Amendment be Damned

American Scofflaw

Here comes the spin.

Like it or not, the Wesley Snipes tax case is going to introduce a wider segment of the American public to the possibility that the Federal Income Tax is not entirely legal, that the 16th Amendment was never properly ratified, and that "income" means gain from corporate activity, NOT wages and salaries which are exchanged for labor of equal worth.

The problem is that the majority of Americans are well aware that the US Government lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. And as they struggle to pay their bills, they will probably be taking a good hard look at that 1040 form and wondering just how a supposedly free society came to have a government so greedy.

So inevitably, the same media that helped sell that lie about Saddam's "nookular" bombs is trying to reassure us serfs that taxes are legal, that we can trust the US Government when it says that the 16th Amendment was ratified (even though nobody is able to document that fact), and that we should go on making do with less so that the government can have more.

All we ask is that you study the matter carefully and think for yourself. Do not let the TV talking heads tell you what truth is, for they do not know themselves. Certainly do not listen to judges who claim that taxes are legal, for after all, they are paid from tax revenues, and more to the point, the Constitution does not allow a judge to declare something legal from the bench when it is not so, nor does the Constitution compel us to accept such a judicial declaration when we know it to be untrue.

T safest in a decade

Safest in a decade??? Hey, what the hell is going on here?

American Scofflaw

Niiiice

Back Off, Scofflaw

American Scofflaw

The T’s top cop, Paul MacMillan, says subway gropers tend to prey on women on crowded trains.

So what should you do if you’re groped or fondled by a subway pervert? Slap him silly and give him a loud verbal lashing, says one veteran self-defense expert.

“A women should immediately slap the guy and loudly say, ‘Don’t touch me like that’ and move away,” said David Leggeri, owner of Villari’s Self Defense Centers in Somerville.

All Aboard the P-Line

Pervert Line nothing new to stressed female riders

American Scofflaw

Subway-stalking perverts are more likely to attack women riding the Red Line than any other MBTA route, a Herald review of T police reports over the past two years shows.
All told, 35 indecent assault and battery incidents reported on the MBTA in 2006 and 2007 took place on trains and at stations up and down the Red Line, the T’s second busiest subway line. That’s roughly 40 percent of the 87 reported on the entire transit system in that period.
The police reports reviewed by the Herald detail a range of lurid attacks by sexual predators, from exposing themselves in front female passengers, to masturbating, to grinding up against them, and grabbing and groping their breasts, buttocks and crotches.

Wake Up, Scofflaw

Join Today, Die Tomorrow

American Scofflaw
Profile in US military recruiting scams

The US military is resorting to some very heavy handed tactics to lure unsuspecting suckers into military service. The motivation is desperation. Nobody is signing up, and the military justy doesn’t have enough w arm bodies to fill the ranks.

Anything is better than nothing so the scam floodgates are wide open. Criminal record, no problem. Can’t read or write, okay. Just sign on the line and we’ll take it from here. Of course, if you don’t come back, you don’t come back, that’s all.

Girl of the Day-MILLA JOVOVICH

Anybody There?

More holes in US electronic security

American Scofflaw

The story on Israeli spying inside the focused on three companies, Amdocs, which provides billing and directory assistance for most American phone companies, Comverse Infosys, which installs and mainstains telephone tapping equipment for US law enforcement, and Odigo, which provides services for the various "Instant Message" systems on your computer. All three companies are owned by Israel and have strong ties to the Israeli Defense Force.

Both Amdocs and Comverse Infosys were implicated in the sale of telephone data which compromised US investigations into drug running, and Comverse Infosys phone taps are suspected of being the means by which Bill Clinton's phone sex sessions were recorded, as reported in the Ken Starr Report. Odigo, which had offices near the World Trade Towers, is the company which received a two hour advance warning of the attacks of 9-11

Now, I want you all to stop and think for a minute of the full ramifications of this. Israeli interests have the ability to listen in on ANY phone in America connected to any of the systems used by Amdocs or Comverse Infosys

Are People Stealing Gold?

"Anybody Seen Our Gold?" is the title of the ad, which alleges U.S. gold reserves held at depositories such as Fort Knox and West Point may have been seriously depleted.
American Scofflaw

Ron Paul humors John 'Psycho' McCain

At Least that's what it looks like
American Scofflaw

Going, Going, Gone?

Hack Me Not, Scofflaw

Data related to my clients' projects is stored on 100 Gig shirt-pocket USB drives. BUT, the data is encrypted, and both the encryption program and the keys are on a jump-disk drive on my keyring.

So, if I should lose the shirt pocket drive (or more to the point, some damn hacker steals it) the data on it will be very difficult to read as both the means of encryption and the keys used are not on the stolen drive but on my keyring. As it is a non-standard encryption method, the cost of breaking the code greatly exceeds the value of the contents.

Casino Royale

And Still More of Your Money

Those planes being flown into Buildings back in 2001 generated quite a bit of profit for our government and market losses for the general population. Massive amounts of money shifted out of circulation from the public's hands into and under the control of government.

The Joys of Driving

American Scofflaw

Louisiana: City Hearing Officer Caught on Tape Laughing at Motorists
A Lafayette, Louisiana city official is caught on tape laughing at motorists with an independent adjudicator. Audio clip at bottom of story.

A Lafayette, Louisiana city official was caught on tape last week laughing at motorists behind closed doors with an independent hearing officer and a representative from a speed camera vendor. The conversation followed an adjudicatory hearing where Mark and Phil Abshire successfully beat a pair of photo radar tickets by showing the city cited the wrong ordinance on the citations issued. (View story and video of the hearing) Lafayette City Traffic and Transportation Director Tony Tramel joined independent adjudicator Fred Davis and an unidentified employee, likely of Redflex, in discussing the twins' case.

Listen to an MP3 recording of the tape (2.4mb download). A written transcript appears below.

Who Is Printing Our Money?

American Scofflaw

America's accusations against North Korea are on very shaky ground ... A rumor has circulated for years among representatives of the security printing industry and counterfeiting investigators that it is the American CIA that prints the Supernotes at a secret printing facility.

Speed Camera Vendor May Have Falsified Documents

American Scofflaw

The Arizona Secretary of State's office is looking at allegations made yesterday that a photo enforcement vendor falsified the documents used to certify speeding convictions. Lafayette, Louisiana motorists Mark and Phil Abshire had requested written records from Redflex, the Australian company in charge of the city's automated ticketing program, to help beat a pair of speed camera citations each separately received on October 10, 2007. One document happened to be the official, notarized deployment form for the speed camera van that issued the tickets.

"I, first being duly sworn, depose and say... using the correct procedure, [I] operated the traffic camera to monitor traffic," Redflex employee Scott Michael Bernard swore under oath before Redflex's notary public, Cheryl A Krough. "I certify that upon reasonable grounds I believe that each of the defendants complained against on this date upon the basis of this traffic camera committed the act described contrary to law and I have caused a notice with a copy of the complaint to be mailed to each defendant."

Bernard also certified on the form that he performed "tuning fork tests" at the "beginning of deployment" and at the "end of deployment." Krough, who works in the Redflex Traffic Systems office in Scottsdale, Arizona, notarized the document with a seal indicating the document was "sworn to before me" in Maricopa County, Arizona, on October 10, 2007.

Mark Abshire confirmed with Krough that Scott Michael Bernard never actually made the 1400 mile trip to Scottsdale. Instead, Krough claimed to haven notarized the document after she recognized Bernard's signature. According to Arizona law, whenever the phrase "subscribed and sworn to before me" is used on a notarized document, "the notary certifies that a signer, whose identity is proven by satisfactory evidence, has made in the notary's presence a voluntary signature and has taken an oath or affirmation vouching for the truthfulness of the signed document." (Arizona Revised Statutes, Section 41-311)

Moreover, the Lafayette van program uses a Swiss-made Multanova 9F DRS-3 Ka-band radar unit which is not calibrated with a tuning fork. "No tuning forks are available" for the device, according to a document provided by the manufacturer. In a separate case, a Redflex official testified that speed camera operators, in fact, do nothing other than drive the van to its location and turn on the system. The operators have no knowledge whether any motorists have committed any acts contrary to law.

"Affiant has personal knowledge that the 'Redflex Photo Speed System' is fully automated requiring no intervention by the driver after the system is operational and that the drivers of the vans are not a part of the process of detecting and videotaping speeders," Redflex Regional Sales Manager Charles Buckles, swore in a Louisiana deposition taken under oath in East Baton Rouge on October 31, 2007. "Affiant does further depose that the van drivers merely drive to the designated location and turn on the fully automated Redflex equipment contained therein."

American Scofflaw

AMERICAN SCOFFLAW MERCHANDISE

Don't kill the job, I mean, taxpayer

American Scofflaw

A “catastrophic event.” That’s what the lawyers call it. The unions have a different phrase: “Don’t kill the job!” So what if a few motorists have to drown, as long as the OT keeps coming.

Here's the deal, as reported by Howie Carr, you, the taxpayer, basically must finance your your own potential physical annihilation.

Remember, April 15th is just around the corner!

Bail Bonanza for Lowlifes

American Scofflaw

Two Chestnut Hill men were out on bail yesterday within hours of pleading not guilty to charges that one of them acted as a lookout while the other broke into two Boston University student dorm rooms and laughed as he sexually assaulted women, prosecutors said.

Daniel Glaser, 20, and Aaron Goodliss, 21, neither of whom attends BU, are accused of convincing two female students early Sunday to sign them into Claflin Hall, where they allegedly searched for doors that were unlocked.

Someone initially had signed Glaser into the building about 2:30 a.m., prosecutors said, but he was asked to leave when he became unruly and made unwanted advances toward one of his hosts.

Afterward, Glaser allegedly called Goodliss over to the dorm, where they told two residents that they didn’t have their Boston University IDs. Those residents signed them in, contrary, BU officials say, to university policy.

As Goodliss waited outside a 12th-floor room, Glaser allegedly walked in, climbed into bed and groped an 18-year-old student until she awoke and told him to get out, according to prosecutors.

The men then made their way to another unlocked room, where Goodliss again waited in the hallway as Glaser used a chair to climb into a student’s loft and groped her, prosecutors said.

Both men left the floor using the stairs but were detained by university police.

The attacks left women on campus shaken and questioning just how safe they really are in their housing.

“The fact that it was a completely random attack is what’s really frightening,” said Katie Peterson, a 19-year-old sophomore now in her second year living at Claflin.

Colin Riley, a Boston University spokesman, called the attacks a “reminder that students need to take responsibility for their guests.”

Glaser, a student at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, was charged with two counts of indecent assault and battery, two counts of unarmed burglary and one count of breaking and entering at night with the intent to commit a felony.

Goodliss, a student at Johnson and Wales University in Rhode Island, was charged with breaking and entering at night, as well as marijuana possession.

Assistant District Attorney Megan O’Rourke recommended that both men be held on $25,000 cash bail.

However Brighton District Court Judge David T. Donnelly set significantly lower bail, $7,500 for Glaser and $2,500 for Goodliss.

How much for your soul, Scofflaw?

American Scofflaw

This is all for show. That $600 check you are going to get is a drop in the bucket compared to all the money government has taken from you. The extra cash is going to drive prices up that much more, which means that in the end, you will not actually get anything extra, just a slightly larger number on the bottom of next year's tax form, and based on the rebates of 2004, you will be asked to return the money next year anyway.

Let's do some math. The rebates cap at $75,000. Depending on your deductions, that means you pay about $9000 in Federal income Tax every year. (You actually pay far more in hidden excises and fees in the products and services you buy, but for the purpose of this thought experiment, let's just take the income tax.) Let us say that you have held the same earnings level for the last 20 years. That's $180,000 you have paid in taxes. And now that the government has taxed you to the very edge of collapse, they want to loan you a fast $600 to get you through so they can extract another $180,000 from you over the next 20 years.

And in exchange for this $600 scrap from their table, the government expects that in your gratitude, you will forget about all the lies used to take that money from you in the first place, all the lies used to trick us into a war, all the rigged elections, all the loss of our freedoms and civil rights.

I don't know about you, but my soul is not for sale for $600. And neither should yours be.

American Scofflaw Girls Take No Crap!

Says it all, doesn't it?

Black Widow

American Scofflaw

A SOLDIER thought he was in for a night of sexual adventure when he let a woman handcuff him but instead she assaulted him because she thought he had wronged her, a Perth court has been told. Nicola Clunies-Ross went on trial in the West Australian District Court today accused of luring her Darwin-based soldier lover to her Perth home on October 28, 2006.

She has pleaded not guilty to assault occasioning bodily harm, aggravated sexual penetration without consent and deprivation of liberty. Prosecutor Amanda Burrows told the jury today that Ms Clunies-Ross believed her 19-year-old lover had wronged her and was lying about an ex-girlfriend and may have had hepatitis C.

Ms Clunies-Ross lured him to her flat, told him she had a surprise for him, ordered him to strip and handcuffed him to a chair. "He consented to being constrained at that point in time. He thought he was in for a night of sexual adventure," Ms Burrows said. But instead, a champagne-sipping Ms Clunies-Ross smiled at the man and told him "I am going to destroy you", Then her longer-term boyfriend Peter Gurdulic, also a 19-year-old Darwin-based soldier, arrived with a big vibrator which she used on her victim in a one-hour ordeal.

Speeding Tickets? Who Pays Speeding Tickets?

Get Away, Scofflaw

NH Votes Missing, Stolen???

Memory cards missing as attorney voices concerns about NH vote count
American Scofflaw

Huge disparities between votes cast on Diebold electronic voting machines and actual hand counted tallies are emerging during the New Hampshire recount, with Hillary Clinton gaining the most from over a hundred unaccounted for votes in one Manchester Ward.
The recount in Manchester's Ward 5 revealed a disparity whereby establishment candidates received over a hundred 'black hole' votes between them that could not be tallied during the hand count.

CLINTON------Diebold Result:683 Hand Count:619
EDWARDS----- Diebold Result:255 Hand Count:217
OBAMA--------Diebold Result:404 Hand Count:365

At the moment there is no indication of where these extra votes came from, but the figures again cast the accuracy of Diebold voting machines into severe doubt and provide further evidence of the need for a return to hand counted paper ballots only in all federal elections.

In addition, 550 ballots in Stratham were not read by the Diebold machines at all and were rejected as blank ballots.

Voting Rights attorney John Bonifaz spoke of his deep concerns about the transparency of both the initial election as well as the recount. "I'm very concerned that this is not a fully transparent process that is happening there," he said.

Diebold memory cards used in New Hampshire, which have been proven to be vulnerable to hacking and could easily be used to steal an election, are "missing" according to state officials.
Bonifaz, "Says he was told by Secretary of State William Gardner that his office doesn't get involved in tracking what happens to those memory cards. Some have reportedly been returned to LHS, and may have had their memory erased already."

"When you have a private company counting 80% of the votes, and you later learn that the memory cards are unaccounted for, you have a serious question about the transparency and accountability in that process," Bonifaz said.

$1340 BeatDown: Comes with food, parking and game

American Scofflaw

It was late last Saturday night after the seemingly invincible Pats defeated Jacksonville to advance to this weekend’s AFC title game.

“I was wearing my Tedy Bruschi jersey and my friend Jeff had a Tom Brady shirt on,” Brian Wormstead said. “But my cousins, who flew up for the game from Jacksonville, were wearing Jaguars gear.

“Suddenly, two guys behind us start mouthing off, just being obnoxious. So I turned around and said, ‘C’mon, we just won the game. These are my cousins from Florida. Let’s just have a nice night, OK?’ ”

Then he turned back.

Tanya Watson, 35, Brian’s cousin, decribes what happened next.

“They hit him from behind,” she said. “And when Jeff stepped in, they knocked him to the ground. My husband Chris was walking ahead of us; when he saw what was happening he came running.

“So Chris gets one of these guys in a headlock, trying to pull him away, and while they’re on the ground, someone else kicks him in the head. That’s how he got the black eye and swollen cheek. My husband never got hit by the ones who started it; he got hit by the ones passing by.”

Wormstead, 40, can’t describe his attackers.

“It was pretty dark out where they’re putting up all those new buildings,” he said. “So I didn’t get a good look. Besides, at 5-foot-8, everybody looks big to me. I just know I’ve got a punctured eardrum and lumps all over me; Chris has cuts all over his face; and Jeff

“But this was worse than going to New York for a Yankees-Sox game, and I’ve done that plenty of times. I go to sporting events all the time and don’t mind spending the money because I love our teams. I spent $1,200 for four tickets last Saturday, plus $40 to park and $100 for food. And Chris and Tanya paid to fly here, only to watch their team take a beating and then take a beating of their own.”

Wormstead recalled visiting the Watsons a year ago in Jacksonville where they have season tickets.

“I wore my Patriots gear and had no problem,” he said. “In fact, after we won I even had my picture taken sitting on the statue of the Jaguar outside their stadium. No one gave me a hard time.”

“I think I’m mentally strong,” Wormstead said. “But this upset me terribly, taking the fun out of everything. I was planning to go this Sunday. I can get the tickets; that’s no problem. But I’m not sure I want to, even though I’ve loved the Patriots all my life.

“I’m thinking I’ll just stay home and watch them on TV.”

For once, this guy uses his noggin.

FBI Coverup?

THE FBI has been accused of covering up a key case file detailing evidence against corrupt government officials and their dealings with a network stealing nuclear secrets.

The assertion follows allegations made in The Sunday Times two weeks ago by Sibel Edmonds, an FBI whistleblower, who worked on the agency’s investigation of the network.

Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office.

She says the FBI was investigating a Turkish and Israeli-run network that paid high-ranking American officials to steal nuclear weapons secrets. These were then sold on the international black market to countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

One of the documents relating to the case was marked 203A-WF-210023. Last week, however, the FBI responded to a freedom of information request for a file of exactly the same number by claiming that it did not exist. But The Sunday Times has obtained a document signed by an FBI official showing the existence of the file.

Edmonds believes the crucial file is being deliberately covered up by the FBI because its contents are explosive. She accuses the agency of an “outright lie”.

“I can tell you that that file and the operations it refers to did exist from 1996 to February 2002. The file refers to the counterintelligence programme that the Department of Justice has declared to be a state secret to protect sensitive diplomatic relations,” she said.

The freedom of information request had not been initiated by Edmonds. It was made quite separately by an American human rights group called the Liberty Coalition, acting on a tip-off it received from an anonymous correspondent.

The letter says: “You may wish to request pertinent audio tapes and documents under FOIA from the Department of Justice, FBI-HQ and the FBI Washington field office.”

It then makes a series of allegations about the contents of the file – many of which corroborate the information that Edmonds later made public.

Edmonds had told this newspaper that members of the Turkish political and diplomatic community in the US had been actively acquiring nuclear secrets. They often acted as a conduit, she said, for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s spy agency, because they attracted less suspicion.

She claimed corrupt government officials helped the network, and venues such as the American-Turkish Council (ATC) in Washington were used as drop-off points.

The anonymous letter names a high-level government official who was allegedly secretly recorded speaking to an official at the Turkish embassy between August and December 2001.

It claims the government official warned a Turkish member of the network that they should not deal with a company called Brewster Jennings because it was a CIA front company investigating the nuclear black market. The official’s warning came two years before Brewster Jennings was publicly outed when one of its staff, Valerie Plame, was revealed to be a CIA agent in a case that became a cause célèbre in the US.

The letter also makes reference to wiretaps of Turkish “targets” talking to ISI intelligence agents at the Pakistani embassy in Washington and recordings of “operatives” at the ATC.

Edmonds is the subject of a number of state secret gags preventing her from talking further about the investigation she witnessed.

“I cannot discuss the details considering the gag orders,” she said, “but I reported all these activities to the US Congress, the inspector general of the justice department and the 9/11 commission. I told them all about what was contained in this case file number, which the FBI is now denying exists.

“This gag was invoked not to protect sensitive diplomatic relations but criminal activities involving US officials who were endangering US national security.”

Crooked Cheap Mortgage System

Here comes the fall

American Scofflaw

A recession is for sure and a depression not so likely but not impossible. What’s doing all the damage is the utter and complete collapse of the crooked cheap mortgage system. This is based on outright swindles. It is not an accident. Huge hordes of shyster-like mortgage brokers deliberately let mortgages out to anybody who was above room temperature, even though they new for a certainty that when the banks and big lending agencies they sold them to, raised the rates, the mortgage holders would simply walk away.

The institutions also knew these were fake but they readily bundled them and jammed them into anyone with money. Now, the small fry crooks have fled the country and the big banks and lending people are screwed right into the walls of their offices. It’s been all over the papers so there is no point in rehashing this but all the major banks, and I mean all of them, are taking it in the shorts and a number of the most prestigious ones are right on the edge of total bankruptcy.

The government will cover all deposits up to $100,000 but not over that. And the hedge funds are another area about to cave in. They did a Ponzi with their suckers and when many try to cash out, they can’t because their ain’t no money, honey. They’ve been paying off the new customers with money from the old and once this one starts to cave in, there will be planes full of frantic former billionaires heading for Aruba or a safer Israel to join the mortgage brokers. This is a huge, terrible problem.Perhaps if an investor looks for security for their funds, they might consider a Russian or Irish bank.

Is this you, Barack?

My Man Mumbles

Click on Mumbles for the hilarious sounds of Boston's mayor

Oh, let me hack the ways

Vote Machine, how Might I Hack Thee?

American Sofflaw

So, where would Mr. Loki Nefarious start?
Actually the easiest way, and one that has to be mentioned is to own the machines, allowing you to install malicious software right at the factory.
This is not an idle speculation. All three of the top voting machine companies have strong ties to the Republican Party. And the CEO of Diebold vowed to “deliver” Ohio to Bush well before the votes were cast. It’s pretty easy to do if you own the machines.
Here is data on the ties to the Republican Party. The dollar contributions of the corporate devils that own these machines are at the bottom:
http://cronus.com/electionfraud/
In addition, the voting machine companies claim that the programming they use is “proprietary”, and that they do not have to show us the voters how they work. As the Daily Show described it, you vote, your vote goes into the machine where “things happen”. And that is all we get to know as taxpayers and citizens. We are not allowed to see how our votes are counted.
http://www.slate.com/id/2086455/
Even slot machines are regulated more than our vote machines. There, the government inspects the internal code, unlike the voting machines.
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Mar-27-Mon-2006/news/6527933.html

And, after you have sold the machines, and they have been ostensibly inspected, you can go by and install a “patch” to help your Republican buddies. And is it not by accident that felon Senator Bob Ney made sure there was no paper trail like there was in 2000. With a paper trail, we could prove the vote was hacked by actually counting the paper votes. No way, Jose! That would look too much like an actual democracy.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/11717105/robert_f_kennedy_jr__will_the_next_election_be_hacked/1

So, assume that Mr. Nefarious has access to the vote machine, but only for a very short time.

Here, they show you that not only can you hack the machine if left alone for 1 minute, but you can upload a VIRUS that will infect all the other vote machines in similar nefarious ways. Oh, and don’t worry about that key you need to open the machine. Any mini-bar key from a hotel room will open the lock:

http://www.brennancenter.org/programs/downloads/SecurityExecSum7-3.pdf
And the easiest way of all to steal the election, just change the vote totals on the central machine. We also know that the software for all of this is based on the Microsoft Windows operating system, and by simply altering an ACESS database, you can change voter totals at will.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm
And here is a fun demonstration with a serious discussion of the issues involved after.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00198.htm
http://www.dcnet2000.com/~neural/Voting/VotingFraudExample.html
Blackbox voting has shown it can be hacked by inserting a pre-loaded memory card. About security, one expert exclaims: "It's not that they left the door open. There is no door. This system is 'open for business.'"
http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/1954/5921.html
Also, Open Voting consortium has found that the entire operating system of the Dieblod machines can be change with a simple switch on the motherboard.
http://openvotingfoundation.org/tiki-index.php?page_ref_id=1
Then they talk about the voting machines that have wi-fi cards installed. Yep, think about that. Here you have a voting machine with a wi-fi card which connects it to the Internet. And this guy confirms my fears as to what that means.
All you need do to hack these machines is cruise down the street with a laptop that has wi-fi, and find the IP address of the machine. That’s right. Any computer science major with said laptop can hack the election, and then install a virus if he wanted to infect all of the machines like that one.
This guy also gives a real good overview of the myriad of vulnerabilities from a theoretical level.
http://www.arstechnica.com/articles/culture/evoting.ars
Oh, and did I tell you that these machines run a primitive version of WINDOWS that is vulnerable to all 75,000 known WINDOWS vulnerabilities. (Bless you BradBLog!) That’s right, 75,000 ways to hack the machines.
Not only does BradBlog have that, he has posted the 200 page report on Diebold security problems in its entirety to his site. Mr Nefarious is getting happier all the time.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3731
Security? We don’t need no stinking security! Here are step by step instructions on how to get past the security.
http://www.equalccw.com/dieboldtestnotes.html
A few keystrokes in ACCESS software, and you get to change election. Here are step by step instructions on how to change the vote totals using ACCESS. Remember, Diebold has two sets of access files (like two sets of books in accounting), so Mr. Nefarious has to change both sets of books.
http://www.chuckherrin.com/hackthevotedemo.htm
Here is a description of the Diebold internal vote tally systems, complete with another set of instructions on hacking the access databases.
http://www.equalccw.com/dieboldtestnotes.html
Here is a research project where the intent was to simulate the hacking of the vote. This is interesting from the theoretical standpoint.

http://www.cs.rice.edu/~dwallach/pub/hackavote2004.pdf

And you definitely want to read the historic Hursti reports From BlackBox Voting on hacking the machines. I liked it when he had the vote machine ask “Are we having fun yet?”
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBVreport.pdf
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBVtsxstudy-supp.pdf
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBVtsxstudy.pdf
Ok, until 11/3/2006, when blackboxvoting.org published this, my favorite hack was driving around with a wi-fi laptop. But this is just too sweat! All you have to do to hack the Sequoia vote machine is push a yellow button in the back , touch the screen in a certain place, and you can vote as many times as you want.
http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/1954/44823.html
And, Diebold has installed three different sets of “books” and has installed backdoors in the software to allow machines to be hacked:
http://whatreallyhappened.com/biggerthanwatergate.html
The Diebold machine is the poster child of insecure voting systems because they have been shown to be hackable in a number of different ways.
Here are some words that we should all bear in mind from Newsweek.

"If Diebold had set out to build a system as insecure as they possibly could, this would be it," says Avi Rubin, a Johns Hopkins University computer-science professor and elections-security expert.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12888600/site/newsweek

But, of course, building an inherently hackable machine was exactly what Diebold intended to do.

Consider that Diebold makes ATM’s that track every penny and are totally secure. These methods to hack the machines were put there purposely, so as to allow for some excuse other than factory installed malicious software to explain what happened to the machine vote counting software. These machines were designed to be hacked.

And Diebold is not alone. All of the machines have severe security flaws as described in the above references.
Yet the voting machines that they built can be hacked at least a dozen ways from sideways. These machines are less secure than slot machines. AND, there is no way that a company that makes ATM’s can say they don’t know any better.
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Mar-27-Mon-2006/news/6527933.html
Conclusion: It is not only possible, but actually easy to hack these voting machines in a variety of ways and steal the election.

Mitt photo op Scam

Unemployed single mom at the center of this photo was the mother of a Romney staffer.

YOU GO, GIRL

Bush bash takes new turn
American Scofflaw

We were watching the news coverage of President Bush's trip to the Mideast with Condoleezza Rice and wondering where Laura Bush was, and then a trip to the supermarket answered the question. She's on the cover of the Globe."


Laura's Claw Marks!" the cover screams, as the block letters separate a murderous looking first lady from a president with two nasty red scratches on his left cheek.

Well.

Looks like the season of good cheer is over in the tabloid business.

The Globe says the president was photographed with the scratches on January 1, 2008, after "furious First Lady Laura raked his face with her nails during a bitter blow-up over the president's drinking."

You can see the scratches in this Reuters photo from the same day:

According to the tabloid, Laura caught the president drinking whiskey at the ranch in Crawford just before the New Year."

Laura just lost it," the Globe reports, quoting "one top White House source." "She can't stand it when he drinks."

The tabloid says Mrs. Bush demanded that the president put the glass down, whereupon he "hurled a string of obscenities at her," and she "lunged at him

screaming and slapped him -- hard."

Mrs. Bush's nails apparently tore into her husband's face during the brief scuffle, leaving the president bloodied and the marriage "in tatters.""

It was ugly!" the source says.

The Globe says it has another source to confirm the incident. The president is drinking again, the source said, and when Mrs. Bush confronted him about it, "he turned on her, and let loose with a verbal barrage that included curse words."

So she decked him.

Now he's in the Middle East, where people get along a lot better.

It must be very restful for him.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Bush can take pride in the fact that Fight Night at the Western White House knocked the "Paul McCartney Dying" story (it was angioplasty, he's fine) into a tiny corner of the Globe's front page.

That's a star.

Scofflaw par excellence

whatreallyhappened.com/IMAGES/shopliftseagull.gif

What? You thought only humans were scofflaws?

Yo...Trap ahead

speedtrap.org/speedtraps/stetlist.asp

If you're traveling anywhere in North America.
this is you're one stop sight to avoid speed trap hassels.
Afterall, you've got other scofflaw business to
attend to, haven't you??

Look Ma, No Taxes

Taxes Aren't Beautiful: James Blunt Moves to Switzerland to Avoid British Taxes

American Scofflaw

British singer-songwriter James Blunt -- best known for his hit single You're Beautiful -- has decided to establish residence in Switzerland to avoid British taxes. From press reports:

Blunt, who earned £5 million ($9.8 million) from his debut album Back To Bedlam, is the latest in a long line of high-earners to quit their homeland for Switzerland - Phil Collins resides there and French rock legend Johnny Hallyday set up residence in Gstaad only last month.

Patrick Messeiller, director of tourism for Verbier, confirmed a report in the Swiss daily Le Matin that Blunt, who is a frequent visitor to the mountain village, had registered with the tax office there.

Each Swiss canton (state) sets its own tax rates, and can cut special deals with wealthy foreigners that allow them to pay only a fraction of what they would have to pay elsewhere.

Muggers Take Note

Muggers Take Note: T to double bank cash machines in subway

American Scofflaw

The MBTA is nearly doubling the number of cash machines within its subway stations - and the cash-strapped transit agency will pick up an extra $226,400 a year in the process.

The T’s board of directors yesterday OK’d going ahead with leases with Bank of America, TD Banknorth and Select A Branch Inc., to put a total of 19 ATMs in stations, up from 10 that were previously provided by Citizens Bank under a prior contract.

Bank of America won with a $30,000 bid the right to place just one ATM in the busy Park Street station.

TD Banknorth bid a total $132,000 for ATMs at eight sites, including North Station, where it already has promotional bragging rights via its TD Banknorth Garden naming-rights agreement.

Select A Branch Inc. bid $264,400 for 10 sites, including the Government Center, Harvard and Downtown Crossing stations.

MBTA general manager Daniel A. Grabauskas said the contracts were awarded after a “robust competitive bidding process.”

He noted that adding nine new sites also drove up ATM revenue for the T, which previously raised about $200,000 a year via 10 stations.

The five-year contracts with the banks call for annual lease increases tied to the inflation rate, but no less than 2.5 percent per year, the MBTA said.

Toll Ripoffs....YEAAAAH

Illinois: Toll Road Imposes Hefty Bills, No Real Appeals
Motorists in Illinois have little ability to challenge massive fines imposed by the state tolling authority.

American Scofflaw

Motorists wrongly accused of skipping payments on Illinois toll roads face thousands of dollars without a realistic opportunity to challenge the charges before an impartial hearing. In a multi-part expose, the suburban Chicago Daily Herald newspaper detailed the plight of motorists accused by state agencies of cheating the system. Last year, 26,282 vehicle registrations and 8055 driver's licenses were suspended over toll skipping allegations. Toll skipping is big business, generating $46 million in violation bills since July 2006.

Innocent motorists often receive these bills as tollway violation cameras are unable to distinguish various specialty license plates available in the state. There is no penalty for a violation contractor when it guesses the wrong plate number. This same problem has led to false accusations of cheating in other parts of the country as well.

Whether or not the initial accusation is accurate, the system often sends violation notifications to the wrong address because it uses the vehicle registration database instead of the driver's license registry which is considered more up-to-date. A motorist who would have paid up immediately if informed of the problem has no recourse if the notification was never sent or never received.

Leslie Boudreau found this out the hard way. She told the Daily Herald that she was a regular I-PASS user for several years. When her credit card failed to replenish her I-PASS account last year, she unknowingly failed to pay $179.50 for dozens of trips to work. She never knew about the credit card problem because the tollway failed to send notice to any motorists between July 2006 and August 2007 as it switched toll collection contractors. This delay allowed late fees and penalties to grow.

On September 25, the tollway demanded Boudreau make payment in full of $4619.50 within 14 days. Boudreau refused, filing an appeal to the circuit court. The tollway quickly reversed its position and offered a settlement -- she could get off the hook if she paid just $679.50. Had she refused this deal and lost the appeal, the agency could have forced her to pay $15,739.50.

Failure to pay the fines within defined time periods -- regardless of notice -- escalates both the financial penalties and results in license and vehicle registration suspensions. The tollway's appeals process is designed to prevent the overturning of its decisions. The hearings are conducted by an attorney paid $50 an hour by the tollway to decide whether it is "more likely than not" that a motorist is guilty. Under this civil procedure, the tollway prohibits the hearing officer from considering whether the motorist ever received notification of the alleged offense or whether the toll road's violation detection may have malfunctioned.

The only realistic defenses allowed are: "respondent was not the registered owner of the vehicle in question at the time of the violations; or respondent has already paid all of the fines and penalties in full."

Appealing the ruling of a tollway hearing to a circuit court costs $247 in "fees" that are not refunded even if the motorist is found innocent.