I protest.

Son of the return of TIA.

I'll bet you thought that "Total Information Awareness" was dead, after Congress killed it by refusing to fund the program. Well, it has just changed appearance and is now back as, believe it or not, "The Matrix:" What Is The Matrix? ACLU Seeks Answers on New State-Run Surveillance Program.

It appears that the bastards are still trying to spy on American citizens, now using something that they call the "Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange." (Which if you ask me really spells out "MATIE," but they insist that it's called "Matrix.") This thing is TIA on a state level. It started in Florida, which reminds me that I heard something about it a few weeks ago. The ACLU is now filing a Freedom of Information Act request at the federal level as well as in seven different states, demanding that they own up about this thing. As ACLU Technology and Liberty Program Director Barry Steinhardt says,

"Congress killed the Pentagon's 'Total Information Awareness' data mining program, but now the federal government is trying to build up a state-run equivalent," … "In essence, the government is replacing an unpopular Big Brother initiative with a lot of Little Brothers," he added, noting that the program is receiving $12 million from the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security.

The ACLU wants to find out

what information sources the system is drawing on — information program officials have refused to disclose — as well as who has access to the database and how it is being used.

Should you care about this? Well, consider that if you have a credit history, a driver's license, if you've been married or divorced, if you have a Social Security number, they almost certainly have a dossier with your name on it. That dossier can be searched by the FBI and state police, among others, but, worse, it is being used along with millions of others for fishing expeditions by bureaucrats looking for "terrorist" or "criminal" activity.

I don't know about you, but that idea gives me a cold chill.

But that's not even the worst of it.

Raising even more issues, the Matrix is operated by a private company, Seisint Inc. of Boca Raton, Florida. Ironically, the company's founder was forced to resign after information about his own past came to light: according to Florida police, he was formerly a drug smuggler who had piloted multiple planeloads of cocaine from Colombia to the U.S.

Doesn't that give you a warm fuzzy feeling?

Nope, me neither.

Electronic voting done right?

Before I go to bed so I can get up early in the morning for my commute from hell, this very quick note via Ceej regarding a Wired article about Australia's voting electronic voting mechanism, "Aussies Do It Right: E-Voting."

I haven't had a chance to read the whole article, but from my quick skim, it looks like Australia has the right idea. The process is entirely open and the software itself is open-source, running on Linux.

I'll have more after I have a chance to read the article more thoroughly. I just wanted to point folks at it (all three of you) until I have the time to do a real article about it.

A right way to do it.

I have had a chance to read that Wired article, "Aussies Do It Right: E-Voting," and it appears that my initial impression was correct. While there are some shortcomings in the details of the software and hardware, the methods the Australian Capital Territory Electoral Commission and Software Improvements followed in the design and implementation of the system were, it appears, good ones.

For one thing, their software is open-source. Not only has this exposed the software itself to the scrutiny of outside observers, it has resulted in a better and more secure product overall:

The commission posted drafts as well as the finished software code on the Internet for the public to review.

The reaction was very positive.

"The fact that the source code had been published really deflected criticism," [Software Improvements' lead engineer on the product Matt] Quinn said.

A few people wrote in to report bugs, including an academic at the Australian National University who found the most serious problem.

"It wasn't a functional or a security issue but was a mistake nonetheless, and one that we were glad to have flagged for us," said Quinn.

Further, the election commission had the software audited for security problems by an independent verification and validation company. As it happens, the audit found no problems, but having the word of an independent company that specializes in software validation is worth any number of glib reassurances from the company that wrote the software in the first place.

The methods that the Australian commission and Software Improvements used are pretty much the diametric opposite of those followed by Diebold and Riverside County, as well as the other companies and districts that use those machines. Instead of strict secrecy, which is well known in software security circles as being worse than useless (useless in that it provides no security, worse than useless in that it provides a false sense that all is well), design and development of the Software Improvements system was entirely open, from beginning to end. Anyone, from an expert to an ordinary voter, can with some effort satisfy themselves that the system works as those responsible for it say it does.

Here, we only have the word of a few foolish officials such as Mischelle Townsend and of the representatives of Diebold and the other electronic voting companies. Personally, I trust those people about as far as I could comfortably spit out a rat. (Apologies to Douglas Adams.)

Matt Quinn, though, beautifully sums up both this issue and another issue about which I am very concerned:

Quinn, however, thinks all e-voting systems should offer a receipt. "There's no reason voters should trust a system that doesn't have it, and they shouldn't be asked to," he said.

"Why on earth should (voters) have to trust me -- someone with a vested interest in the project's success?" he said. "A voter-verified audit trail is the only way to 'prove' the system's integrity to the vast majority of electors, who after all, own the democracy."

As for the costs of securing and storing such receipts, Quinn said, "Did anyone ever say that democracy was meant to be cheap?"

Quinn also believes that voting systems must use open-source software.

"The keystone of democracy is information," he said. "You have a big problem when people don't have enough information to make up their minds or, even worse, they have misleading information and make up their minds in a way that would be contrary to what they would decide if they had the full story.

(Emphasis mine.) This is emphatically true, and it doesn't stop with the lies from Diebold, Townsend and the rest. Quinn is speaking of electronic voting systems, but this is just as true of democracy as a whole. Where do the majority of voters in the United States get the bulk of their information?

Fox News.

Greed.

Via Jeanne at Body and Soul: "White House fights POWs for Iraq fund." As Julia says in her post on this article,

If'n I was one of those psychological-type girl bloggers, I might suggest that maybe Mr. Bush has a little hostility thing going on with military pilots who were shot down by the enemy.

Yeah, there's some of that, but mostly I think it's just plain old everyday greed. From the article:

In a court challenge that the administration is winning so far but is not eager to publicize, administration lawyers have argued that Iraqi assets frozen in bank accounts in the United States are needed for Iraqi reconstruction and that the judgment won by the 17 former U.S. prisoners should be overturned in its entirety.

See, they want to use that money for "Iraqi reconstruction." And just who is doing this "reconstruction?" Why, Halliburton, Bechtel and company, that's who! If those hundreds of millions of dollars go to compensate those former soldiers for their torture at the hands of Saddam Hussein, it won't end up in the hands of Bush's friends.

That's all that really matters.

Naturally, according to White House asswipe Scott McClellan,

"No amount of money can truly compensate these brave men and women for the suffering that they went through."

And "no amount of money" is exactly what they are going to get.

Support Harry Reid!

John McRory at the Daily Kos urges us to support Harry Reid. Senator Reid is singlehandedly standing up to Frist and the Republican attack on Democrat opposition to the worst of Bush's judicial nominees. I've written my Senators to urge them to support him. You should, too. Here's a copy of my letter:

I'm writing to urge you to support Senator Reid for his 30 hours on the Senate floor. As you know most of the judges who he opposes are very conservative, and are among other things opposed to a woman's right to choose. The Bush administration has stonewalled your colleagues and yourself and the Republicans in the Senate not only support that stonewalling, they seem to think that Democrat opposition to unacceptable nominees is somehow "unfair" and "wrong." Senator Reid is facing them down as I write this.

I strongly urge you to give this man your full and complete support.

Thank you.

You can contact your Senators at the link below. If you have the money (which I do, now that I am again employed), you can also have your message hand-delivered.

Go.

Folly.

According to CNN online, a boycott stopped an abortion clinic project in Austin, Texas. It appears that a bunch of anti-abortion people got together and intimidated local building contractors and material suppliers into refusing to take part in the Planned Parenthood project.

Naturally, the leader of the boycott is a person who will never be forced to make a decision regarding abortion, a 48-year-old man named Chris Danze, whose picture shows him to be looking all too smug. I'm sure that at the moment he is happy that this "abortion clinic" is not being built. Of course, the clinic will not solely provide abortions. From the article,

The clinic also would provide health care for women and men, including gynecological services, AIDS testing, vasectomies, cancer screening and contraceptives, Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Danielle Tierney said.

So Danze is also preventing people from receiving those services as well. His justification? Claiming to speak for his diety, he claims that

"God does not want this thing built."

Well, I don't know what God, if such a being exists, is doing these days, but I seriously doubt that He, She or It is having long talks with a 48-year-old construction industry executive. As for me, whether or not I support or oppose abortions in the specific, in general I strongly support every woman's right to choose what happens to her body. On top of that, Planned Parenthood does a lot of good for a lot of people, the ravings of religious nuts notwithstanding. Those people do their work in the face of protests, violence, even death threats and bombings. If there is any organization that could possibly be said to be doing work out of compassion and concern for their fellow human beings, it is this one. (Not, of course, to exclude others that do as well in similar circumstances.)

I just donated to that organization. Maybe that will, in some small way, help counter the efforts of small-minded bigots like Danze. If you want to donate as well, and I urge you to do so, even if it's only a little, here is the donation link. They accept online contributions and they do indeed deserve the money. They use it well. And it doesn't hurt that the contribution is tax deductible as well.

Oh, I forgot to mention that, as usual, the CNN headline is misleading in the extreme. Planned Parenthood is planning to act as their own contractor and build the clinic anyway. That is why I sent them money.

If I were cynical...

… I might think that the headline "Louisiana Elects First Female Governor" reflected the fact that voters in Louisiana preferred a conservative white woman to a nonwhite (Indian, in this case) of any sex or political leaning.

That's if I were cynical. The problem is that, this being Louisiana, the truth is probably worse.

Regardless,

[Winner Kathleen Babineaux Blanco's] voice hoarse and her eyes brimming with tears, she thanked Jindal for his "devotion to Louisiana," and said she saw her victory as a rejection of the caustic and often corrupt history of state politics.

"We have sent a message out to the nation that this is a new Louisiana," she said. "You have demanded change. We will deliver. We are going to do this by working together."

Um, no. It didn't matter, since no matter who won, it would have been a big change for a state that has historically only elected white men as Governor. All this proves is that it's better to be a white woman than a nonwhite anything in Louisiana. Of course, best of all is to be a white man.

I'll believe Louisiana has "rejected their corrupt history" and has "demanded change" when they toss people like David Duke out on their ears, get rid of their long list of privacy-invading laws and start electing nonwhites to positions of influence.

I'm not holding my breath.

More about the Austin Planned Parenthood clinic.

I'm at work and don't have time to write at the moment, but "The Gunther Concept" has some interesting and informative posts. He gives us some background on Chris Danze, the primary idiot behind the "boycott," as well as contact information for Danze and other of the ringleaders.

One at least mildly interesting note: From what I could tell, they're all male. I'm sure there are some women involved somewhere (because certainly men don't have a monopoly on folly), but it figures that those who are screaming the loudest also have the least to lose by stopping the clinic.

Hop on over to The Gunther Concept, then let those idiots know just how you feel about their activities.

Busy is me.

With my new job and the project I'm on having a, shall we say, somewhat "aggressive" deadline, I've been much too busy to post. I see stuff going on, but I'm too busy coding to write about it.

Hopefully this will clear up a bit after the beginning of the month. In the meantime, not only is it nice to actually get paid, it also feels good just to have something reasonably important to do.

Falling stars.

There's a really excellent article at The Atlantic Online by William Langewiesche, "Columbia's Last Flight." Langewiesche follows the flight from beginning to end. He shows us not only what caused the tragedy, but how the Columbia Accident Investigation Board and in particular Hal Gehman uncovered the facts against NASA resistance. He is very fair and evenhanded and certainly singles no one out as deserving of blame. In a sense, those who took part were almost as much victims of the NASA bureacracy as the crew.

The Columbia accident struck close to home for me in a nearly literal sense, as I spent altogether too much of my life in East Texas and in Nacogdoches in particular. When I turned on the television that day in February and saw the radar return of the debris, I noticed that the southeastern edge was very close indeed to where my Mom lives, in a house out in the woods east and south of Nacogdoches. Two or three years ago, I was there for Christmas when the shuttle was landing in Florida. Having lived in Los Angeles when the shuttle still landed at Edwards, I recognized the double bang of the dual sonic booms. When I called my Mom that day, she said that she didn't hear any sonic booms, but had heard what was almost a roaring noise and the trees around her house had been shaking violently. Instead of a big dual boom, I guess that there were thousands of much smaller booms.

Weeks later, she told me that the searchers had crossed her property. I know all of the places in Nacogdoches where debris fell, and in fact a piece or two landed on a cousin's house a bit north of the town. The forests and swamps of East Texas are such that I'm sure that bits of debris will continue to be found for decades, if not longer.

East Texas is not a good place to live. I'm sorry that it had to be the place where seven astronauts died. Langewiesche concludes his article by describing the progress of the Columbia breakup, as the left wing broke off, then

… the tail, the right wing, and the main body came apart in what investigators later called a controlled sequence "right down the track." As had happened with the Challenger in 1986, the crew cabin broke off intact. It assumed a stable flying position, apparently nose high, and later disintegrated like a falling star across the East Texas sky.

SCO snicker.

I rarely if ever find a comic worth passing on, but if you are familiar with both the old BBC "Doctor Who" series and with the current insanity in which SCO is engaged with respect to Linux, then you may fine today's User Friendly as amusing as I did.

Snicker.