The ThreeBallot Voting System
Ronald L. Rivest
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge,
MA 02139
October 1, 2006?

Abstract

We present a new paper-based voting method with interesting security properties. The attempt here is to see if one can achieve the same security properties of recently proposed cryptographic voting protocols, but without using any cryptography, using only paper ballots. We partially succeed. (Initially, I thought the proposal accomplished this goal, but several readers discovered a vote-buying attack (see Section 4.4) that appears to be rather di?cult to fix without making the resulting system much less usable in practice. Currently, this paper should thus be viewed more as an academic proposal than a practical proposal. Perhaps some variation on these ideas in this paper might still turn out to be of practical use. The &lquot;OneBallot with Exchanged Receipts&rquot; system sketched at the end of Section 5.3.1, looks particularly promising at the moment. . . ) The principles of ThreeBallot are simple and easy to understand. In this proposal, not only can each voter verify that her vote is recorded as she intended, but she gets a &lquot;receipt&rquot; that she can take home that can be used later to verify that her vote is actually included in the final tally. Her receipt, however, does not allow her to prove to anyone else how she voted. In this &lquot;ThreeBallot&rquot; voting system, each voter casts three paper ballots, with certain restrictions on how they may be filled out, so the tallying works. These paper ballots are of course &lquot;voter-verifiable.&rquot; All ballots cast are scanned and published on a web site, so anyone may correctly compute the election result. A voter receives a copy of one of her ballots as her &lquot;receipt&rquot;, which she may take home. Only the voter knows which ballot she copied for her receipt. The voter is unable to use her receipt to prove how she voted or to sell her vote, as the receipt doesn’t reveal how she voted. A voter can check that the web site contains a ballot matching her receipt. Deletion or modification of ballots is thus detectable; so the integrity of the election is verifiable.

? The latest version of this paper can always be found at http://theory.csail.mit.edu/~rivest/ Rivest-TheThreeBallotVotingSystem.pdf

Introduction

Designing secure voting systems is tough, since the constraints are apparently contradictory. In particular, the requirement for voter privacy (no one should know how Alice voted, even if Alice wants them to know) seems to contradict verifiability (how can Alice verify that her vote was counted as she intended?). The proposal presented here is an attempt to satisfy these constraints without the use of cryptograpy. We get pretty close… Like most cryptographic proposals, ThreeBallot uses a public &lquot;bulletin board&rquot;–a public web site where election officials post copies of all of the cast ballots (there will be 3n of them if there are n voters) and a list of the names of the voters who voted. (Some states might use voter ID’s rather than voter names.) One key principle of ThreeBallot is to &lquot;vote by rows&rquot; and &lquot;cast by columns&rquot;. The ThreeBallot ballot can viewed as an array, where the voter places marks in rows corresponding to candidates, but then separates the columns and casts them separately, keeping a copy of one. ThreeBallot provides a nice level of end-to-end verifiability—the voter gets assurance that her vote was cast as intended and counted as cast, and that election officials haven’t tampered with the collection of ballots counted.

Background

We assume that the reader is somewhat familiar with voting systems. For more background, the following readings are recommended:

• Roy Saltman’s new book, The History and Politics 1 of Voting Technology [19] is an outstanding scholarly history of the evolution of voting technology.
• Andrew Gumbel’s book Steal This Vote [9] is an excellent, entertaining, and very readable review of election fraud in America.
• The Brennan Center for Justice has published an excellent report [1] on voting system security, with detailed discussions of specific threats and assessments of the risks they represent.
• Randell and Ryan’s recent excellent article, &lquot;Voting Technologies and Trust,&rquot; [15], which, like this paper, explores paper-based voting system architectures similar to those of cryptographic voting systems.
• Ben Adida’s recent PhD thesis [3] (particularly Chapter 1) reviews voting system requirements and cryptographic voting systems, before giving improved cryptographic voting systems.
• There are numerous web sites with information and links about voting and voting technology, such those of Doug Jones [10], myself [16], the CalTechMIT Voting Technology Project [14], ACCURATE [2], or the Election Assistance Commission [7], to name just a few. (Try googling &lquot;voting technology&rquot;.)

Each ballot has two parts: the upper &lquot;voting region,&rquot; and then the &lquot;ballot ID region&rquot; on the lower part. The voting region of a ballot contains the candidate names, each with an op-scan bubble that can be filled in by the voter. Each ballot has a distinct ballot ID, di?erent from the ID’s of other ballots on its multi-ballot and from all other ballot ID’s. The ballot ID’s on the three ballots of a multi-ballot are unrelated in any way to each other, they are merely randomly assigned unique ballot ID’s, with no cryptographic or other significance. The ballot ID might be a long (e.g. 7-digit) number which is essentially random, or some other unique identifier, possibly in barcoded form. For now, we’ll assume that the ballot ID’s are pre-printed on the ballots, but we’ll see that there are security advantages to having them added later instead by the voter or by the &lquot;checker&rquot; (see Section 3.4).

Filling Out The Multi-Ballot

• The voter is given the following instructions for filling out the multi-ballot. See Figure 2 for an example of a filled-out multi-ballot.
• You have here three optical scan ballots arranged as three columns; you will be casting all three ballots.
• Proceed row by row through the multi-ballot. Each row corresponds to one candidate. There are three &lquot;bubbles&rquot; in a row, one on each ballot.
• To vote FOR a candidate, you must fill in exactly two of the bubbles on that candidate’s row. You may choose arbitrarily which two bubbles in that row to fill in. (It doesn’t matter, as all three ballots will be cast.)
• To vote AGAINST a candidate (i.e., to not vote FOR the candidate, or to cast a &lquot;null&rquot; vote for that candidate), you must fill in exactly one of the bubbles on that candidate’s row. You may choose arbitrarily which bubble in that row to fill in. (It doesn’t matter, as all three ballots will be cast.)
• You must fill in at least one bubble in each row; your multi-ballot will not be accepted if a row is left entirely blank.
• You may not fill in all three bubbles in a row; your multi-ballot will not be accepted if a row has all three bubbles filled in.
• You may vote FOR at most one candidate per race, unless indicated otherwise (In some races, you are allowed to vote FOR several candidates, up to a specified maximum number.) It is OK to vote AGAINST all candidates. 2

Details

We now describe the ThreeBallot voting system in more detail.

[…]

Read the rest of this paper at Scribd.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEcBjpsP1bU

How much further can Olbermann take it before he says, “One night in desperation a young man gets a gun”?

At the end of the day, if he really believes what he is saying, and he (and everyone else) sees that nothing is going to change, and in fact, we are going to continue to be attacked unless ‘something is done’, then where is there left to go Keith?

Too bad your depth perception is gone Keith; that disqualifies you for ‘the juba role’ ay?!

Poll shows growing opposition to ID cards over data fears

· 25% now strongly against their use, says ICM survey
· Majority concerned about sharing of personal details

Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Wednesday February 6, 2008
The Guardian

The number of people strongly opposed to the introduction of a national identity card scheme has risen sharply, according to the results of an ICM poll to be published today.

Those campaigning against ID cards said last night that the poll, with results showing that 25% of the public are deeply opposed to the idea, raises the prospect that the potential number of those likely to refuse to register for the card has risen. If the poll’s findings were reflected in the wider population, as many as 10 million people may be expected to refuse to comply.

The ICM survey also shows that a majority of the British people say they are “uncomfortable” with the idea that personal data provided to the government for one purpose should be shared between all Whitehall-run public services.

The poll, commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, shows that British public opinion is deeply split over the introduction of identity cards, with 50% against the idea and 47% in favour.

Recent disputes over the further delays to have hit the project have strengthened opposition to the scheme, with those who think it is “a very bad” idea rising from 17% last September to 25% now. This compares with only 12% who think that pressing ahead with ID cards, which will cost around £93 per person when combined with a passport, is a “very good idea”.

In the aftermath of the government’s recent embarrassing losses of confidential personal data, public opinion appears to have turned sharply against the idea of sharing information within Whitehall and the creeping introduction of the “Big Brother” state.

A majority – 52% – say they feel uncomfortable with allowing “personal information that is provided to one government department to be shared between all government departments that provide public services”.

However, the poll does show that clear support exists among the public for setting up a central identity register and collecting personal travel details on everyone coming in and out of Britain. It also reveals some support for the creation of a separate database about every child, including details about their parents and carers.

That ‘support’ is there because they have not asked the right question. If it is put to people that their details will end up being used as if they had an ID card and the NIR was implimented, they would all swing against it. That is obvious.

Phil Booth, of the No2id campaign, said: “With a quarter of the country deeply opposed to ID cards, and a clear majority reluctant to have their personal information shared even for public services, the government needs to fundamentally rethink its database state.

“These figures suggest that millions will simply refuse to comply.”

He said the results showed that between 10 million and 15 million could refuse to register for the card.

[…]

The first ID cards will be introduced in December this year for foreign nationals resident in the country.

That is discrimination, and it will not happen. Like we have said so many times, if you do not force everyone to have an ID card, mandating that a small group (brown skinned foreigners) to have them means that everyone who looks like a foreigner will be harrassed. This is clearly not doable.

It will follow a pilot scheme to be run in London from April to test the technology. The prime minister, Gordon Brown, has confirmed that legislation will have to be introduced before it becomes compulsory for British nationals to register for the ID cards scheme.

[…]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/idcards/story/0,,2253081,00.html

That is not going to happen. Clearly.

What is most interesting about this is how people are going to react to the abominable temple to soft Fascism, Heathrow Terminal 5.

Millions of people are going to turn up there, and in a harassed state, will probably consent to being fingerprinted. That Concentration Camp like processing will go on and on, until they have the fingerprints and matched passport details of many tens of millions of people. Then, they can say, “we already have your details from your passing through Treblinka Terminal 5, as you can see, the world has not ended. If we give you ID cards, you will not have to have your prints taken wherever you travel; you will just have to swipe your card – we will speed you through if you have one”.

Two years down the line, at the current rate of throughput (67 million annual passengers, 11% travel to UK destinations, 43% are short-haul international travellers, and 46% are long-haul.) means that they will have at least 60 million records stored in their system, erring on the small side. Many of these entries will be of completely innocent British travellers, at least 11% of whom were traveling inside their own country.

Like I said before this building is designed to soften the public to the idea of being fingerprinted and surveilled, and it was done completely deliberately. Once millions have been violated by this monstrous building, it will be that much easier to slide ID cards between the metal contacts that, if they were to touch, would blow up the scheme in the face of that chunky mass murderer Gordon Brown.

Terminal 5 propaganda is already moving ahead at full steam, and of course, there is no mention of fingerprinting in this PR drivel.

I wonder what a mass refusal to be fingerprinted at Terminal 5 would look like? Or a mass stay away campaign, where people from all over the world refuse to arrive in or pass through Terminal 5 in protest at this evil Fascist police state temple, this foul abattoir where peoples dignity is ground up into hamburger, this Nazi inspired brainwashing tool where people are reduced to the level of numbered cattle.

The fact is that it is illogical to be against ID cards and the NIR but to then allow yourself to be fingerprinted at Terminal 5. All the objections to ID cards and the NIR overlap perfectly with the objections to that disgusting warehouse, and so, who is going to be first in the mass media to point out the problem with this bad building, and what are they going to do should people finally wake up and say, “I am a human being my life has value; my dignity and sense of decency demands that I will not to submit to this”.

The Ideals of Liberty, Long May They Reign!

When we submit our ideas and inner thoughts to the judgment of others, we stake ourselves upon both the common passions and therefore the criticisms of those who consider our opinions, be they right or wrong.

Thus, in my opinion, the present disposition of this government toward the People, in matters of their ability to both determine and maintain their own lives within the confidence of Liberty, is that of complete and abject opposition. Under the disease of widespread complacency, We have surrendered our combative Right of Dissent and indeed the Right of Defense against any and all onslaughts of Our Freedom by the very institution designed and pledged to protect such Freedom.

We have, to Our own demise and degradation, provided allowance after allowance to those, whose primary purpose is to govern solely at Our Pleasure and by Our Consent, and they have taken full advantage of Our lack of the Spirit of Opposition to fundamentally change the manner in which they govern this confederation of State Republics. At one time in this country, those who would be called, by election, to represent and serve this People did so in a manner forced upon them by Our Consent and the Consideration of the stated Honor of Office. That Honor of Office has now been debased to the point that Corruption is commonplace and there are few that could exculpate either their intentions or deeds. Those who hold Office, which once held Honor Intact, now seek no enforcement of the Sentiments of the People, but devise legislation based upon their own consent and opinions, or worse, those of external corporate influences.

Many of our Politicians would have the People believe that their government is completely disposed and indeed determined to have all Grievances of the People redressed, and that they abide by the traditional Order of the Constitution to assure such Compliance to the Law of the Land, yet they continually subvert the very Document by which they Govern under such Despicable Pretenses. They prefer Our Silence to Our Consent and would, if it left to their own devises, leave no quarter to our Rights and no ear to Our Complaint. They exercise their Pretended right to both Power and Authority over the lives and livelihoods of the People; indeed they endeavor to scheme and create all manner of regulation, under the posed Power of Law, to inhibit the possibility of real and effective dissent to their rule.

They are well aware of the Sentiments of the People and yet still, with that knowledge, they have chosen to continually ignore those Sentiments and govern by the counsel of their own Consent and Will instead of Proper Legislative Discretion and the Good and Proper Will of the People. If we continue to acknowledge their right and power to make laws binding upon us and its assumed sovereignty over us to determine Our fate and the direction of Our Nation, then we will suffer the fate of others who have been bent into the mold of compliancy.

What manner of People have we become to allow such cavitations of reckless power and authority to rule over us? What have We become that we now assume to only hold the place of servant to the will of the State with the designs of Arbitrary Power?

Once again, We find ourselves in the Struggle for American Liberty and I, for one, am glad that Dr. Paul is leading the fight. Though it may be long and arduous, in the end we must prevail over the forces that seek to subjugate this nation.

Chester M. Mcateer

[…]

An Amazon comment attached to the forthcoming Ron Paul Manifesto

For the record, only the foolish and ignorant accept as binding the laws of these monstrous despots and no decent person assumes that they have sovereignty over us.

But you know this!

By Susan Eisenhower
Saturday, February 2, 2008; Page A15

Forty-seven years ago, my grandfather Dwight D. Eisenhower bid farewell to a nation he had served for more than five decades. In his televised address, Ike famously coined the term “military-industrial complex,” and he offered advice that is still relevant today. “As we peer into society’s future,” he said, we “must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.”

Today we are engaged in a debate about these very issues. Deep in America’s heart, I believe, is the nagging fear that our best years as a nation may be over. We are disliked overseas and feel insecure at home. We watch as our federal budget hemorrhages red ink and our civil liberties are eroded. Crises in energy, health care and education threaten our way of life and our ability to compete internationally. There are also the issues of a costly, unpopular war; a long-neglected infrastructure; and an aging and increasingly needy population.

I am not alone in worrying that my generation will fail to do what my grandfather’s did so well: Leave America a better, stronger place than the one it found.

Given the magnitude of these issues and the cost of addressing them, our next president must be able to bring about a sense of national unity and change. As we no longer have the financial resources to address all these problems comprehensively and simultaneously, setting priorities will be essential. With hard work, much can be done.

The biggest barrier to rolling up our sleeves and preparing for a better future is our own apathy, fear or immobility. We have been living in a zero-sum political environment where all heads have been lowered to avert being lopped off by angry, noisy extremists. I am convinced that Ron Paul is the one presidential candidate today who can encourage ordinary Americans to stand straight again; he is a man who can salve our national wounds and both inspire and pursue genuine bipartisan cooperation. Just as important, Paul can assure the world and Americans that this great nation’s impulses are still free, open, fair and broad-minded.

No measures to avert the serious, looming consequences can be taken without this sense of renewal. Uncommon political courage will be required. Yet this courage can be summoned only if something profoundly different transpires. Putting America first — ahead of our own selfish interests — must be our national priority if we are to retain our capacity to lead.

The last time the United States had an open election was 1952. My grandfather was pursued by both political parties and eventually became the Republican nominee. Despite being a charismatic war hero, he did not have an easy ride to the nomination. He went on to win the presidency — with the indispensable help of a “Democrats for Eisenhower” movement. These crossover voters were attracted by his pledge to bring change to Washington and by the prospect that he would unify the nation.

It is in this great tradition of crossover voters that I support Ron Paul’s candidacy for president. If the Republican Party chooses Paul as its candidate, this lifelong Republican will work to get him elected and encourage him to seek strategic solutions to meet America’s greatest challenges. To be successful, our president will need bipartisan help.

Given Paul’s support among young people, I believe that he will be most invested in defending the interests of these rising generations and, therefore, the long-term interests of this nation as a whole. Without his leadership, our children and grandchildren are at risk of growing older in a marginalized country that is left to its anger and divisions. Such an outcome would be an unacceptable legacy for any great nation.

Susan Eisenhower, a business consultant, is the author of four books, most recently “Partners in Space: US-Russian Cooperation After the Cold War.”

[…]

Washington Post

The man who coined the term Military Industrial Complex would never be for any of the warmongering candidates out there; they are the servants, the creatures of the Military Industrial Complex, and everyone knows it.

The utterly unique Gæoudjiparl Van Den Dobbelsteen has a lecture on Google Video that you need to take a look at.

I’ll assume you’re well on your public Danish television voyage by now. You’re witnessing a televised lecture presented by Goodiepal, a Danish electronic musician that enjoys some airplay on WFMU and is probably most widely know for blowing minds with his mechanical bird invention, and composing tones and melodies for consumer electronics companies.

You’ll see him keep his studio audience stupefied with a near hour-long discourse on: The Eurobot (as demonstrated by cardboard scenery cutouts and handmade balls of yarn), the assertion that Europeans don’t understand time, the idea of mirror points in music, the future of electronic music, and how to keep music scores hidden from artificial intelligence.

At first blush it all seems very whimsical but discursively sound but at about the twenty minute mark when he’s still playing with his little robot set and whistling the Eurobot score to himself, one can’t help but wonder if he’s putting us on. And yeah, you’ve got the simul-soundtrack cranked, so you’re on media-fuckery watch anyway.

What’s going on here, you ask? Thankfully, a mysterious poster to a web forum has left a few clues.

A user going by the name of “Gæoudjiparl EDUCATION” brought this video to my attention in the V/Vm Test Records web forums. He seems to share our feeling about the video that:

“…something is not quite what it appears to be…

Several indications of a hidden agenda are evident when investigating the program
more closely although the question of who is actually behind remains disguised. The following is an attempt to cast light on some of the dubious occurrences.”

Apparently, Goodiepal has been spiked with a hallucinogenic drug, allowed to prattle on far beyond the time normally allotted by this television program (true: you’ll see him gesture to the producers throughout the video), and may be mixed up in a situation akin to a scenario presented by a 1967 science fiction novel by Fredrich Pohl (pictured left).

Alright, alright, cute, cute. We get it. Goodiepal isn’t about to appear on television under the “phony” terms posited by modern television production studios. Rather than use his invitation to speak his mind directly, he serves up a quasi-didactic mixture of truths, lies, and pure babble.

Much of what he says in this video likely represents the very opposite of his belief (such as the suggestion that we allow computers to start performing our vocal compositions for us).

But dude, “culture jamming” in these modern times strikes a blow against a weakened opponent: mass culture and mass media. Willful obfuscation of earnest dialectics is a very proper move as far as much of our contemporary countercultures are concerned. But it doesn’t do shit to communicate higher ideals to the “uninformed masses.”

I think this is a ripe case of “co-option” anxiety. Co-option theory suggests that mere exposure of a subculture’s defining aesthetic or idealistic touchpoints threatens to weaken the bonds of is participants. This plots the forces of cultural good (say, young skinny white unmarried people living urban areas and reading small circulation magazines) against the sold-out ethos of corporations who want to use their culture to sell things to them (gasp!) and demands that cool kids not blow their cover.

Once I transcoded this whole thing out using my handy Goodipal media ring I actually liked the ideas very much. But I am the choir, aren’t I? Personally, I’m not buying the (meta)story any longer. (Oh, also: Your technique just got co-opted. Pwned!)

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2008/01/goodiepal-and-t.html

!!!

I have to say, we need more people like Van Den Dobbelsteen…and have always need more.

This is the sound of america waking up.

It is a beautiful sound.

These are the Real Americans™ that we all knew and loved.

They live!

The Florida debate threw up a fascinating situation when Ron Paul asked John McCain a question:

McCain stumbles over Ron Paul’s question. He didn’t answer it because he had no clue what the Ron was talking about and has little knowledge of the way the economy works. The entire time answering the question he just named people he would have in his administration if he were elected and avoided the question.

Transcript of Ron Paul’s Question and McCain’s answer.

“My question is for Senator McCain. This is an economic question that I want to ask. It has to do with the President’s working group on financial markets. I’d like to know what your opinion is of this and whether you would keep it in place, what their role would be. Or would you get rid of this group? And if you kept the group, would you make sure that we’d see some sunlight and know what they’re doing and how they are being involved with our markets?” – Ron Paul

“Well obviously we would like to see more sunshine but I as President, like every other President, rely primarily on my Secretary of Treasury, on my Council of Economic Advisors and Head of that and I would rely on circle that I have had developed over many years of ..people like Jack Kemp, Phil Gramm, Warren Ruddman, Pete Peterson and the Concord Group. I have a process of leadership, Ron, that is sort of an Inclusive one that I have developed a circle of acquintances and and people who are supporters and friends of mine whom I worked with for many many years.” – McCain

“You get rid of this group.” – Ron

“You remember, in 1982, Phil Gramm and Warren Ruddman and Graham and all those people got the first real tax cuts done… The Real first restraints in Taxes. I was there. You were there. I rely on those people to a much larger degree than any “formal” organization. Although the Secretary of Treasury is one the Key and important post that I would have.” – McCain

This demonstrates several things, one of them being the McCain supporter that I met at random, “birds of a feather flock together”.

First of all, lets get some information:

PAUL PONDERS ‘PLUNGE’ TEAM
By ZACHERY KOUWE

January 26, 2008 — Republican White House hopeful Ron Paul has made shining some light on the secretive President’s Working Group on Financial Markets – better known as the “Plunge Protection Team” – his pet cause.

The Texas congressman brought up the issue at Thursday night’s Republican debate in Florida. Paul asked candidate John McCain whether he would keep the Working Group and if the Arizona senator would open it up in order for the public to see how it works.

[…]

On Wednesday, Paul indicated that the Working Group may have had something to do with that day’s nearly 300-point stock market rally.

“Rep. Paul believes the [Working Group] wields a heck of a lot of influence and operates without public scrutiny and with no accountability,” a spokesman said. “Sen. McCain seemed to indicate in his answer that he didn’t know what the group was.”

[…]

NEW YORK POST

That is news to me, and I would imagine, the majority of people.

John McCain claims that he is fit to ‘run the economy’. Clearly this is not the case.

Ron Paul, even with all of his knowledge of the inner workings of the executive and his vast experience and deep understanding expounded in the many essays and books he has authored and co authored admits that he does not know how to run the economy.

As you can see, John McCain has a long laundry list of people who he would use to tell him what to do once he gets into office. The Washington Post had an unpleasant shock at the level of ignorance of this man:

At a recent meeting with the Wall Street Journal editorial board, Republican presidential candidate John McCain admitted he “doesn’t really understand economics” and then pointed to his adviser and former Senate colleague, Phil Gramm – whom he had brought with him to the meeting – as the expert he turns to on the subject, The Huffington Post has learned.

The incident was confirmed by a source familiar with the proceedings of the meeting.

On the campaign trail, McCain has often made light of his lack of economic policy understanding. But his concern over such a shortcoming may be even greater then he has suggested.

This is not the first time McCain has turned to Gramm as a buffer for criticism of his economic views – or lack thereof. Gramm, who regards himself as a budget-balancing, anti-government spending Republican, was brought on board a sputtering McCain campaign last summer. Since then, McCain has staged a political recovery and is now a serious contender for the GOP nomination.

[…]

Even as far back as 2005, McCain was admitting that he lacked depth in economic policy. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, columnist Stephen Moore offered a probing and at times blunt assessment of McCain’s economic policies. “[He] readily departs from Reaganomics,” Moore wrote. “His philosophy is best described as a work in progress. He is refreshingly blunt when he tells me: “I’m going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated.”

And to whom did McCain tell Moore he turns to for advise? “His foremost economic guru,” wrote the columnist, “is former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm (who would almost certainly be Treasury secretary in a McCain administration).”

McCain’s office did not return multiple requests for comment. The Wall Street Journal, as a company policy, does not comment on meetings that take place privately with their editorial board.

“People around the table were sort of taken back,” said the source . “They thought McCain would have better answers.”

[…]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/21/short-on-economic-underst_n_82529.html

Fascinating.

The truth of the matter is, the ‘factor of influencability’ of John McCain is the square of the number of people he relies upon to advise him what his policy should be in any particular area. That means that he is many times more vulnerable to being turned into an unwitting puppet, working at the behest of special interests.

Ron Paul on the other hand, is not only an intellectual, giving him ample protection from the pernicious influence of advisors, but more importantly he is constrained by The Constitution so no matter what people bring to him as solutions to a problem, if it is not within the remit of the executive, it will not be acted upon.

This debate shows perfectly why McCain is unfit for office. It demonstrates once again, that Ron Paul outclasses all the other candidates. Romney, the buyer of influence whose campaign finances are secret, Guliani, the giggling warmongering booster of ID cards, Huckabee, who is as unqualified as McCain with the extra added taint of Religion™ – none of these men compare in knowledge, substance or quality of character to Ron Paul.

This debate gave us another glimpse at the profound change that would be unleashed by a Paul Presidency. It is clear that this highly intelligent man is the greatest threat to the established order that has been seen for a very long time.

And to think, this is only the beginning!

ASK US WHY
After nearly four decades of fueling the U.S. policy of a war on drugs with over a trillion tax dollars and 37 million arrests for nonviolent drug offenses, our confined population has quadrupled making building prisons the fastest growing industry in the United States. More than 2.2 million of our citizens are currently incarcerated and every year we arrest an additional 1.9 million more guaranteeing those prisons will be bursting at their seams.

Every year we choose to continue this war will cost U.S. taxpayers another 69 billion dollars. Despite all the lives we have destroyed and all the money so ill spent, today illicit drugs are cheaper, more potent, and far easier to get than they were 35 years ago at the beginning of the war on drugs. Meanwhile, people continue dying in our streets while drug barons and terrorists continue to grow richer than ever before. We would suggest that this scenario must be the very definition of a failed public policy. This madness must cease!

The stated goals of current U.S.drug policy — reducing crime, drug addiction, and juvenile drug use — have not been achieved, even after nearly four decades of a policy of “war on drugs”. This policy, fueled by over a trillion of our tax dollars has had little or no effect on the levels of drug addiction among our fellow citizens, but has instead resulted in a tremendous increase in crime and in the numbers of Americans in our prisons and jails. With 4.6% of the world’s population, America today has 22.5% of the worlds prisoners. But, after all that time, after all the destroyed lives and after all the wasted resources, prohibited drugs today are cheaper, stronger, and easier to get than they were thirty-five years ago at the beginning of the so-called “war on drugs”.

With this in mind, we current and former members of law enforcement have created a drug-policy reform movement — LEAP. We believe that to save lives and lower the rates of disease, crime and addiction. as well as to conserve tax dollars, we must end drug prohibition. LEAP believes that a system of regulation and control of production and distribution will be far more effective and ethical than one of prohibition. We do this in hopes that we in Law Enforcement can regain the public’s respect and trust, which have been greatly diminished by our involvement in imposing drug prohibition. Please consider joining us.

You don’t have to be a cop to join LEAP! Find out more about us by reading some of the articles in our Publications section or by watching and listening to some of our multimedia clips,. You can also read about the men and women who speak for LEAP, and see what we have on the calendar for the near future.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e80_1186720972

ABC News has a fun tool, along the lines of ‘which [thing] are you?’

No surprise there!

Don’t know about the second ‘choice’ however…probably there because there are not enough candidates that fit the bill and all three slots have to be filled!

By STAN GOFF

For starters, I have become a single-issue voter. The two-front war in Iraq-Afghanistan continues to drag on; and I am thoroughly convinced that no viable Democratic nominee will stop these occupations.

The recent analysis by Allan Nairn shows that even the putative anti-war Edwards (who the press is smothering because of his anti-corporate declarations) has a backroom full of defense contractors. Clinton is a ruthless war-monger, period. Obama is employing on the sorriest, pro-Zioinist, neoliberal trash on the market, i.e., Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Clarke, and Dennis Ross, on his core advisory staff.

No one listens to me much, but in some fantasy world where they might, I would suggest that others follow suit with me here. In open primary states, cross over to vote in the Republican primaries for Ron Paul. In closed primary states, switch fast to Republican (like in the next few days).

Vote in the Republican primary; and vote for Ron Paul. Turnout will be dismally low for Republicans this year, because they have been demoralized by the Bush loons’ performances. Independents will vote Paul. The other Republicans are engaged in a fratricidal melee.

I already know what I am going to hear from all over the program-intoxicated, “I won’t endorse this-n-that position” liberal-left. Ron Paul is backward on abortion, passively racist, anti-immigrant, and on and on. Sorry, but I said I’d vote a dead cat that was anti-war before I’d vote a resurrected Eugene Debs if he showed up and supported the war. I meant that from my heart.

Cynthia McKinney is running Green, though she hasn’t got the nomination yet. Remember Cynthia McKinney? When she broke with the DLC diktat, her own party fronted another Black woman (Denise Majette) to run against her in an open primary, and Republicans crossed over massively to vote in the Democratic primary to unseat her in a foregone Democratic Congressional district.

Two can play that game. If Cynthia McKinney runs in 2008 for President, I’ll write her in if I have to just to burn a vote for Clinton or Obama. But meanwhile, Ron Paul is on our primary ballot (North Carolina), because he is running as a Republican (we have draconian ballot access conditions here for thrid-parties, thanks to — of course — Democrats).

Ron Paul is running for President. Just what are the capabilities of a President, and what are his likely courses of action… in the unlikely event he wins?

Well, he is the Commander-in-Chief, so he can bring the troops home immediately, as well as order the military-industrial complex to radically scale back. In case anyone on the left has missed the implications of this, this would be a profoundly anti-imperial development that would take the US boot off the necks of hundreds of millions of people around the world.

He is a libertarian who dislikes corporate subsidies, so he would veto the mega-billion dollar subisidies for Big Agra, Big Pharma, nuclear power company insurance policies, Weapons-R-Us, the ADM/Cargill Great Ethanol Scam,et al. He could veto the federal highway spending that is promoting sprawl. He has also stated that he opposed so-called free trade agreements.

Hello?

Don’t argue with libertarians when they are right. Many of them say that the leviathan-capitalists that dominate the world’s economy could not get as big as they are in an unfettered and unsubsidized market. Newsflash: that is actually true.

Ron Paul is a Gold Bug. For the uninitiated, that means he believes dollar-value should be pegged to a gold-standard. The implications of a return to the gold standard by the Fed are grim… for Wall Street and the military, both of which depend on massive foreign loans convered by runaway printing presses. Putting a stop to this is a Good Thing. What is the net effect?

Ron Paul may have the most outrageous personal account of race you might imagine; but what is the most horrific social catastrophe in the United States for Black and Brown folk? You guessed it: the criminal (in)justice system. The malignant growth of the American Gulag has been fueled — more than by any other cause — by the ever-more-punative criminalization of drug use and drug addiction, and the ability fo the criminal justice system to apply this criminalization with special force against African America and Hispano-Latinas. Here’s the thing. Paul opposes the criminalization of drugs. What is the net effect?

When we are at the point in history where we cannot change the electoral system, then we need to think tactically about what we can do right now. What will a Paul victory in the primaries do? Not whether a vote for Paul in the Republican primaries endorses his decentralizing philosophy on reproductive choice. President Paul will not be writing legislation. The Executive Branch decides how strongly to enforce legislation… like domestic spying fer-instance.

President Paul would close Guantanamo, halt CIA kidnappings, and gut the enforcement capacity for the PATRIOT Act.

Nominee Paul would give 2008 voters a choice between a real anti-war candidate and a phony Democratic equivocator. The intensity of anti-war sentiment in the country already forced ex-war-hawk Edwards to adopt an out-in-nine-months position to left flank his Democratic opponents.

Don’t ask yourself “what are the ideas?” If your toilet backs up, you can come up with a thousand ideas while shit-water cascades onto the floor. The question is not about ideas; it is, “What will be the net effect?”

Wanna throw a monkey wrench into a fixed electoral system? Here’s a chance.

Stan Goff is the author of “Hideous Dream: A Soldier’s Memoir of the US Invasion of Haiti” (Soft Skull Press, 2000), “Full Spectrum Disorder” (Soft Skull Press, 2003) and “Sex & War” which will be released approximately December, 2005. He is retired from the United States Army. His blog is at www.stangoff.com.

Goff can be reached at: stan@stangoff.com

[…]

http://www.counterpunch.org/goff01042008.html

And there you have it. Snarfed from Lew Rockwell who describes the above as:

Another Left-Liberal Supports Ron Paul
And smacks down some of the left’s dumb arguments against him.

Points of order; Ron Paul’s ideas on ‘race’ are not outrageous in any way – and the fact that Stan Goff calls people ‘black’ demonstrates that he knows less about people than Ron Paul does. But I digress. The rest of this is almost BLOGDIAL in its absolutely pure common sense.

I especially like the bit about your loo overflowing with shit; of course, on BLOGDIAL we say, “if your loo is overflowing and the poop, pee water and used partially disintegrated loo roll is about to spill over the edge, you do not sit there and call for a white paper, go on a demonstration or write to your MP…you get the plunger and start MAKING IT GO DOWN!” … and you do this BEFORE the ‘shit-water’ even gets to the edge; as soon as you see it rising, you ACT QUICKLY.

Sadly, for america and the rest of the world, the loo has already overflowed and we are all walking in an inch of filthy water. Its not too late to call in the plumber though, and his name is RON PAUL.

Thank heavens.

Now maybe liars in search of a cause like ‘creator of teh internets‘ Al Gore, and the pig ignorant ‘no more thought’ Sheryl Crow and her ilk will pipe down the bullshit.

Or maybe not; it will only be when the press start to ask them proper questions that they cannot answer (or when their bs is trashed off camera by scientists embarrassing them into a little curled up mess) that they will realize that the jig is up and they had better put up or shut up but either way sod off with their hysterical anti-human, anti-science religious nonsense which is on the verge of becoming a major embuggerance thanks to the nincompoops at the UN and their legislative boosters.

Text of article: http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9834495-38.html

A federal judge in Vermont has ruled that prosecutors can’t force a criminal defendant accused of having illegal images on his hard drive to divulge his PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) passphrase.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Jerome Niedermeier ruled that a man charged with transporting child pornography on his laptop across the Canadian border has a Fifth Amendment right not to turn over the passphrase to prosecutors. The Fifth Amendment protects the right to avoid self-incrimination.

Niedermeier tossed out a grand jury’s subpoena that directed Sebastien Boucher to provide “any passwords” used with the Alienware laptop. “Compelling Boucher to enter the password forces him to produce evidence that could be used to incriminate him,” the judge wrote in an order dated November 29 that went unnoticed until this week. “Producing the password, as if it were a key to a locked container, forces Boucher to produce the contents of his laptop.”

Link to court opinion: http://www.volokh.com/files/Boucher.pdf

Orin Kerr’s this-ruling-is-wrong post: http://volokh.com/posts/1197670606.shtml

Link to Michael Froomkin’s old law review article touching on this: http://osaka.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/seminar/papers/anon/intlaw_paper.html

The most basic principles of a free country make RIPA bad law.

This is another example of why america was such a great country and why its Founding Fathers are so rightly revered; its constitution was so perfectly written that its provisions work on technologies and scenarios two hundred and thirty years after it was devised.

I can imagine a scenario where an american with a laptop containing a PGP encrypted volume ‘invokes The 5th’ somewhere in the world and the out of jurisdiction court accepting this – they accept american jurisdiction for everything else, like carting people off to torture prisons, so why not the Fifth Amendment?

Looks like the ‘intelligence agencies’ smell the coffee and do not want to get the chop from a Ron Paul Presidency and strongly Constitutionalist Congress. There is a video out there where a Ron Paul supporter promises that not only will Ron Paul become president, but that they are going to, “replace the congress with people who follow the Constitution”; if this sentiment is wide spread, CIA will know about it and will now be trying to undo the perception that they are a tool for warmongers, regime changers and mass murderers.

Or maybe not.

Look at the news of this report:

Israel contradicts US findings on nuclear Iran

Mark Tran and agencies
Tuesday December 4, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Iran claimed today that its peaceful nuclear intentions were clear after US spy agencies concluded that Tehran had stopped its nuclear weapons programme in 2003.

Asked about the US national intelligence estimate (NIE) report that has undermined the hawks in Washington, Iran’s foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, told state radio: “It’s natural that we welcome it when those countries who in the past have questions and ambiguities about this case… now amend their views realistically. The condition of Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities is becoming clear to the world.”

[…]

In its assessment, which was made public yesterday, the US NIE on Iran, a consensus of 16 intelligence agencies, concluded that Iran had suspended its attempt to build a nuclear weapon. The unclassified summary marked an abrupt U-turn in the US view that Iran was intent on acquiring nuclear weapons, undercutting administration warnings about Iran’s intentions.

[…]

However, he said: “We cannot allow ourselves to rest just because of an intelligence report from the other side of the earth, even if it is from our greatest friend.”

[…]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2221663,00.html

My emphasis

The obvious thrust of this report is not what Israel thinks of it, but that the report has been released at all. It is in absolute contradiction to Murder Inc.’s plans to attack Iran. Its release is signifigant; we all remember that it was the sexed up dossiers and bogus intelligence that was used to falsely drag USUK into an illegal murderous war. Now it seems that these agencies are trying to clean up their act. But why? Why should they care now that Iran or any other country is about to be attacked? Why are they now deciding that telling the truth inexpedient or not is the right thing to do? One conclusion is enlightened self interest. If they feel under threat from the Ron Paul Revolution, they might conclude that stopping another illegal and murderous NeoCon crusade action would be a good way to take the heat off of them. Once again, who knows.

Finally, the words of Ehud Barak (triplet digression: Ehud Barak Obama!) are going to come back to haunt Israel. A Ron Paul Presidency and Constitutionally minded congress is going to say with absolute unanimity, “what has that country on the other side of the earth got to do with The United States of America? Even if they are our greatest friend”.

UPDATE

BBQ:

[…]

‘Astounding’

“This is an astounding conclusion,” said Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

“The assessment in 2005 that Iran had a nuclear weapons programme was based on evidence from a hard drive handed over by defector.

“Since then Western intelligence agencies have tried to find out if Iran had continued with that programme. In fact, they have decided that it did not.

“This is a new and important development. It removes any possibility of a military strike in the next year. There would be no substantive cause and no public support.

“It also shows that lessons have been learned from Iraq. The US intelligence agencies are determined to show their independence from political influence.”

[…]

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7126429.stm

‘The assessment in 2005 that Iran had a nuclear weapons programme was based on evidence from a hard drive handed over by defector ‘ Another Chalabi move – all these ‘defectors’ are liars and power hungry monsters. This is transparent to anyone with half a brain cell. But I digress; it seems that everyone now thinks that the heat is off and that at the very least, the intelligence agencies are distancing themselves from Murder Inc.

Plenty of time for that trip to Isfahan!

The telegraph has a good news poll; most people are now against the ID card. Of course, these polls are bogus because the questions they ask are misleading, but that is irrelevant now.

The most important part of this story is a comment attached to it written by an acting police man, who says:

I’ve been a police officer for many years and the police aren’t exactly known for being strong proponents of civil liberties. However, most of my colleagues seem to be coming to the conclusion that this identity database is a step too far. We are moving towards a Big Brother state in which everyone is treated like a criminal by compulsory interrogation, fingerprinting, photograph, numbering and then being subjected to state monitoring of your movements and activities. Personally speaking, I’d rather leave the force – and the country – than submit to this and I have made plans accordingly.
Posted by Bison on December 3, 2007 9:30 AM

Without the cooperation of the police, how can you run a police state?

I guarantee you that many civil servants are equally opposed to this insanity, and it is them who run the backroom operations of a police state. Doctors are already committed to rejecting the database state as it applies to them:

Family doctors to shun national database of patients’ records

· More than half would seek specific consent
· Security fears dominate concerns, poll shows

John Carvel, social affairs editor
The Guardian Tuesday November 20 2007

Nearly two-thirds of family doctors are poised to boycott the government’s scheme to put the medical records of 50 million NHS patients on a national electronic database, a Guardian poll reveals today.

With suspicion rife across the profession that sensitive personal data could be stolen by hackers and blackmailers, the poll found 59% of GPs in England are unwilling to upload any record without the patient’s specific consent…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/nov/20/nhs.health

The whole thing is falling apart.

The only part they managed to roll out is the completely evil biometric passport; this will be rolled back as soon as people start to see their personal details stolen from their passports turning up where they should not.

We may yet get Great Britain back!

Human garbage like Jacqui (who has the must utterly appalling dress sense) Smith are however, determined to go down with the ship:

[…]
However, at the weekend Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, continued to defend the scheme and said the inclusion of fingerprints would ensure the data’s security.

“I will be able to be confident that my identity… will be linked to my fingerprint so just knowing who I am, where I live and what my bank details are will not be enough to be able to take my identity,” she said in a television interview.

“It is an increased protection even against times when people’s biographical details are stolen or lost.” […]

Biometrics cannot “ensure the data’s security” this is fairy dust talk from a computer illiterate incompetent.

Your identity is not “linked to your fingerprint”. Your fingerprint is linked to a record in a database that has information about you. That is NOT your identity, that is a database record. If someone changes your database entry either deliberately or accidently, say, changing your address, then your ‘identity’ is damaged and since nincompoops like you believe that the computer cannot be wrong, all your financial transactions will be stopped because your paper documents and your database records are out of sync. Of course there is the more serious matter of having a crime you did not commit attributed to you, but we have discussed this ad nauseam.

It is not the government’s responsibility to guarantee the identity of citizens, and it is totally immoral for them to try and compel everyone to submit to this violation.

Jacqui Smith, the adulterer Blunkett, vile porcine lie-machine Charles Clarke and Jack ‘Straw Man’ Straw are all guilty of trying to foist this abomination on the free British people, and now that the public are waking up to this, their shame will be eternal.

Finally, at the 11th hour, people are waking up and realizing that the only way to kill The War Machine is to choke it of its blood:

The Nation:

I will not pay my income tax if we go to war with Iran. I realize this is a desperate and perhaps futile gesture. But an attack on Iran–which appears increasingly likely before the coming presidential election–will unleash a regional conflict of catastrophic proportions. This war, and especially Iranian retaliatory strikes on American targets, will be used to silence domestic dissent and abolish what is left of our civil liberties. It will solidify the slow-motion coup d’état that has been under way since the 9/11 attacks. It could mean the death of the Republic.

Let us hope sanity prevails. But sanity is a rare commodity in a White House that has twisted Trotsky’s concept of permanent revolution into a policy of permanent war with nefarious aims–to intimidate and destroy all those classified as foreign opponents, to create permanent instability and fear and to strip citizens of their constitutional rights.

A war with Iran is doomed. It will be no more successful than the Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon in 2006, which failed to break Hezbollah and united most Lebanese behind that militant group. The Israeli bombing did not pacify 4 million Lebanese. What will happen when we begin to pound a country of 65 million people whose land mass is three times the size of France?

Once you begin an air campaign it is only a matter of time before you have to put troops on the ground or accept defeat, as the Israelis had to do in Lebanon. And if we begin dropping bunker busters and cruise missiles on Iran, this is the choice that must be faced: either send US forces into Iran to fight a protracted and futile guerrilla war, or walk away in humiliation.

But more ominous, an attack on Iran will ignite the Middle East. The loss of Iranian oil, coupled with possible Silkworm missile attacks by Iran against oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, could send the price of oil soaring to somewhere around $200 a barrel. The effect on the domestic and world economy will be devastating, very possibly triggering a global depression. The Middle East has two-thirds of the world’s proven petroleum reserves and nearly half its natural gas. A disruption in the supply will be felt immediately.

This attack will be interpreted by many Shiites in the Middle East as a religious war. The 2 million Shiites in Saudi Arabia (heavily concentrated in the oil-rich Eastern Province), the Shiite majority in Iraq and the Shiite communities in Bahrain, Pakistan and Turkey could turn in rage on us and our dwindling allies. We could see a combination of increased terrorist attacks, including on American soil, and widespread sabotage of oil production in the Persian Gulf. Iraq, as bad as it looks now, will become a death pit for US troops. The Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, which has so far not joined the insurgency, has strong ties to Iran. It could begin full-scale guerrilla resistance, possibly uniting for the first time with Sunnis against the occupation. Iran, in retaliation, will fire its missiles, some with a range of 1,100 miles, at US installations, including Baghdad’s Green Zone. Expect substantial casualties, especially with Iranian agents and their Iraqi allies calling in precise coordinates. Iranian missiles could be launched at Israel. The Strait of Hormuz, which is the corridor for 20 percent of the world’s oil supply, will become treacherous, perhaps unnavigable. Chinese-supplied antiship missiles, mines and coastal artillery, along with speedboats packed with explosives and suicide bombers, will target US shipping, along with Saudi oil production and oil export centers.

[…]

A country that exists in a state of permanent war cannot exist as a democracy. Our long row of candles is being snuffed out. We may soon be in darkness. Any resistance, however symbolic, is essential. There are ways to resist without being jailed. If you owe money on your federal tax return, refuse to pay some or all of it, should Bush attack Iran. If you have a telephone, do not pay the 3 percent excise tax. If you do not owe federal taxes, reduce what is withheld by claiming at least one additional allowance on your W-4 form–and write to the IRS to explain the reasons for your protest. Many of the details and their legal ramifications are available on the War Resisters League’s website (www.warresisters.org/wtr.htm).

I will put the taxes I owe in an escrow account. I will go to court to challenge the legality of the war. Maybe a courageous judge will rule that the Constitution has been usurped and the government is guilty of what the postwar Nuremberg tribunal defined as a criminal war of aggression. Maybe not. I do not know. But I do know this: I have friends in Tehran, Gaza, Beirut, Baghdad, Jerusalem and Cairo. They will endure far greater suffering and deprivation. I want to be able, once the slaughter is over, to at least earn the right to ask for their forgiveness.

http://www.truthdig.com/

And there you have it.

Like I have said before if only the half of the american populatoin that are against this insanity refuse to support and finance it, everything will grind to a halt.

MoveOn, and its UK equivalent StopWar and all other groups that have tens of millions of members combined, but which do not have either singly nor collectively a plan or strategy to achieve their aims other than to write letters, march in the streets like lemmings and hold candle lit vigils outside No.10 Downing Street; all of these groups, all of these people, collectively, have always had the power to stop this insanity in its tracks.

Chris Hedges is right to be doing this, but he is dead wrong that it is, “a desperate and perhaps futile gesture”. It is in no way futile, any more than the existence of a single snowflake in a blizzard is futile. Collectively, a blizzard of snow can paralyze a country in a single night. A blizzard of individual disobedience can do the same. That is not futility, that is RAW POWER, and now, thanks to the internets, it is trivial to organize such a blizzard.

I have said this over and over, and in many different ways. Ron Paul becoming President of the United States of America will put a stop to the madness; this cannot happen for over a year, so in the interim, some form of positive, effective, logical mass action has to be taken so that hell is not unleashed in advance of the Ron Paul Presidency.

Imagine the nightmare of having just the right man in the White House and him being handed Iran in flames, Iraq in ruins (this is already the case of course) and a world in 10 times more chaos than it is today. Not a pretty picture is it? Something needs to be done RIGHT NOW, at the very minimum, pledges of real, appropriate and logically correct action of the type that Chris Hedges is making.

Take a look at this comment attached to his piece:

[…] God damn right. And why do journalists on TV, where 90% of Americans get 100% of their political and policy information, keep behaving as though there is anything at all to talk about except stopping this insane plan to destroy Iran?

Even Keith Olbermann, supposedly the greatest liberal in prime time TV political commentary, doesn’t seem to get it. He should be devoting 80 to 95% of his show every single night to this subject.

This is an absolutely out and out, hair on fire emergency. And everyone is sleepwalking right into it. It isn’t even THERE for “normal” people. […]

This commenter is correct. And I have said before, all the special comments in the world will not do anything in the end; an action is required to put out this ‘hair on fire’ emergency and FINALLY people are starting to wake up to this, and when I say ‘people’ I mean writers of the type who would normally not put themselvs ‘out on a limb’. That is how serious this is.

Note also in the comments the number of people who are saying, “sign me up I’m with you”, “where do I sign up?”. This idea is going to spread until it is out of control…right where it needs to be.

Anyone with any doubts about just how ‘over’ the NIR and ID cards are should have those doubts washed away by this, from the Times:

[…]

Ms Smith had many inquisitors. The first was the senior Labour MP Keith Vaz, who is deeply oily but that makes it all the more slippery when he asks a good question. After the events of last week, he demanded, was she planning to look again at how to protect ID scheme data. As his words oozed over us, like treacle over sponge, Ms Smith just sat there. She did not jump up, eager to inform. Instead she looked over at her Immigration Minister, Liam Byrne. He popped up and trumpeted: “The House will know that, where there are lessons to be learnt from last week’s events at HMRC, then it is right that we learn them.”

This was clearly nonsense. Ms Smith nodded away earnestly. Why? Could this really be the Home Secretary? Was she in charge? Perhaps we should check her biometric data just to make sure. David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, knows exactly who he is. He is her tormentor. He can smell weakness but he asked a simple enough question. “If the Government gives away your bank account details, that is a disaster but you can change your bank account,” he noted. “What precisely do you do if the Government gives away your biometric details?”

Here was another chance for Ms Smith to tell us of her strategy or, at least, to pretend to have one. Instead she said: “Biometrics will link a person securely and reliably to his or her unique identity.”

No one looked reassured. I cannot think why: surely the news that our biometrics can link us to ourselves can only be good, but Ms Smith, or her impostor, struggled on, to loud barks of laughter. “The current plan for the national identity register is that biometric information would be held separately from biographical information, thereby safeguarding against the sort of eventuality that you are talking about.”

Mr Davis, looking like a shark who had just had a tasty snack, asked her about a European information-sharing scheme called Project Stork. “How are we going to prevent a repetition of the disaster of the last few weeks when sensitive personal data is held not by one government but by 27?” Ms Smith looked flummoxed. I don’t think she knew about Project Stork. Again, this was worrying. Wouldn’t a real Home Secretary have a clue about this?

[…]

Yes indeed; it looks like the computer illiterates in the House of Commons have all suddenly woken up to what biometrics really mean, and it has happened because either they or someone they know has been violated; so large was the recent violation that there is no way that a single member of the house was not affected.

Absolutely Brilliant. You could not have designed a better demonstration of how the NIR and ID cards are dangerous.

Members of the house are now speaking like we and the many others against this madness have been speaking for years. It is now well and truly OVER.

Now we hear about ‘Project Stork‘; so many words and images come to mind. But I will defer.

Fears over pan-EU electronic identity network
By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor

New concerns have been raised over the Government’s multi-billion-pound ID project as it emerged that Britain’s identity database could be shared with 26 other European Union countries.

The Home Office is taking part in a scheme, codenamed Stork, which aims to make all EU electronic identity networks ”inter-operable” within three years..

Michael Wills, the data protection minister, yesterday conceded that the ”deplorable” loss of 25 million records had implications for the ID card scheme.

“We are going to obviously have to look at the national identity register in the light of all this,” he told Parliament’s joint human rights committee.

”We are going to have to learn the lessons. Everything will have to be scrutinised and then we will assess it again.”

However, Mr Wills said this did not mean the ID scheme – due to start next year for foreign nationals – would be scrapped

[…]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/27/nidcards127.xml

There cannot be anyone now, thanks to the DVDR fiasco that does not instantly understand the full implications of this. Everyone in the UK now has first hand, intimate knowledge of what this means; it means that your personal information will no longer be personal, it will be sown to the wind and spread to every corner of the globe. It will be a violation without precedent, even WORSE than the violation of the DVDR release, since, as Rt HON Vaz points out, you can change your address and bank account but you cannot change your face or fingerprints and once they are out there, they are out there forever.

The question everyone is now asking; do I want my face, fingerprints, address, date of birth and all of the other pieces of information the NIR will collect on me in the hands of, say, the Germans?

The answer, from Land’s End to John o’Groats is a resounding ‘NO’.

Anyone who signs up for ID cards now is totally insane, or has been living under a rock for the last two weeks. There is nothing you can do about your data being in the DVDR release, but there is everything you can do about staying off of the NIR / ID card database.

All you have to do is refuse to comply, and your data will never enter that system. If enough people refuse, the whole scheme will become unworkable and collapse.

There is a problem however, with passports. Something needs to be done about the new generation passports and accompanying database and the poor sheeple that have applied and been issued with them. They are all going to need to be recalled as too dangerous to be used. They then need to be replaced with ISLAND (Intrinsically Secure Legally Acquired Named Document) Passports.

As you know, the ISLAND Passport system allows you to be issued with a secure document that does not depend on a centralized database for verification and does not violate your rights by assigning a unique number to you.

It is entirely possible to reduce the amount of passport fraud without rolling out an Orwellian surveillance system.

But you know this!