I recently slogged through the Senate Armed Services Committee report: "Inquiry Into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody". One of the big difficulties I had was the thing kept doing time warps.  Suddenly, it jumped from 2005 back to 2002 on a totally different subject.  It makes it kind of hard to get a whole feeling for what happened when.

So I started keeping some notes, and one thing led to another and it has expanded into a bit of a time line.  Most of the key events mentioned in the report (and a bunch of minutiae) are listed in basically chronological order.

Notes:

• The time line is primarily based on the SASC report. Just for fun, I've been rolling in additional information over the last week; so that's where the other stuff came from.
  
  
• This evolved from personal notes, so some may still be in a bit of shorthand - especially the use of names without titles.
   
• Some of the unknown dates [??] have likely been nailed down by other sources, the dates here are gleaned directly from the reports.
  
  
• Mostly the list has been cleaned up to the point of being sensical, but is still kind of rough there are likely typos and a few unfathomable entries. Also, some of the notes were taken before I started keeping track of page numbers and not all those entries have been nailed back down (usually have a ?? page number). If any major cleanup issues pop up, I'll try to update.
  
  
• Links to the reports used in the time line are at the bottom of the post.

I use it sort of as a reader's companion and it makes the report a bit more useful (and is a pretty good frame of reference for other reports as well).  And I even figured out how to put the insanely long part after a jump! :-)

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Recently, the Associated Press announced that they were going to war against "misappropriation" of their content.  AP Chairman Dean Singleton made the drama-queenish declaration: ""We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under misguided legal theories".  And they are apparently moving forward with software to help track down the work-stealing miscreants responsible.

Ars Technica recently explored what the AP has up it's sleeve in an interview with AP news editor Ted Bridis - published in an article yesterday that gives a great update on an issue that may have a significant impact on the blogging community.  Depending on who you listen to, either bloggers have nothing to worry about .... or can expect a RIAA vs. Napster battle over fair use. (be sure to check out the whole article - my summary doesn't really do the topic justice)

Bridis explained that the news company is going to update its staff about its mysterious new misappropriation heat-seeking system soon via an internal webcast.

"The guidelines are coming," Bridis promised. "AP's main concern are not the bloggers that excerpt a relevant passage, and then derive some commentary. What happens an awful lot is just wholesale theft. So those are the ones that will find the cease and desist letters arriving."

Now, that doesn't sound so bad.  But a lawyer on the receiving end of a recent AP smackdown isn't as convinced of AP's good intent:

Cadenhead was less sanguine about the future, even after he settled with AP. "If AP's guidelines end up like the ones they shared with me, we're headed for a Napster-style battle on the issue of fair use," he warned.

The final conclusion is that we'll know more in 2 weeks.

"We're going to be learning more ourselves about exactly how the technology is going to work" in about two weeks, Bridis said. But about this he is sure. "You can't just taken an entire AP wire feed or even an entire AP story, or even half of an AP story, necessarily, and republish it or repurpose it," he said. "We need the money. The industry is falling apart."

Honestly, I don't think this will have much impact on the posters here at TPM.  Rarely do any posts go beyond what I consider fair use.  That said, there is an awful lot of wiggle room in their statements to be pretty aggressive against commentary based on AP content.  This is certainly an issue to watch.


Quick Site Plug: Ars Techinca is by far my favorite source for information on tech policy.  They cover energy legislation, privacy issues, electronic policy, and provide the most consistent tech-related stimulus spending coverage around.  If these topics are of interest, the Ars "law and disorder" section is a very solid addition to a news-junkie's virtual rounds.

When abuse in Iraq is discussed, it has become almost standard practice to call it "Abu Ghraib abuse" and seldom (if ever) is it referred to as what it often was: torture.  Based on conventional wisdom, torture is something that happened at Gitmo while a couple of bad apples at Abu Ghraib went buck-wild on a few detainees in Iraq.  I think embracing this point of view is both dangerous and wrong.

My initial thought was to have a nice weekend project tracking down the "half dozen" facilities where abuse reportedly occurred. Maybe give a couple of narratives for each site to try and establish a more complete picture of what happened beyond Abu Ghraib.

It didn't take long to find out that "half-dozen" is a euphemism for "boat-load".  In very short order the list had ballooned to around twenty sites of alleged or confirmed systemic abuse - without scratching the surface of the reports.  It became pretty clear this was a bigger job than first imagined.  Certainly not a weekend affair.   A big problem was the occasional use of pseudonyms (especially to the Red Cross) making disambiguation a part of the task.

One detail that keeps popping up in the facilities explored so far is that abusive interrogations most frequently track back to JSOC (SMU-TF in the Levin report) or a team behaving exactly as JSOC task forces are described in other reports (plain clothes, lax grooming rules, murky command, etc.). Fun fact: the commander of these JSOC units, Stanley McChrystal, is facing a half-hearing to confirm his promotion as commander of military forces in Afghanistan tomorrow.  I am not very confident that he will get a thorough questioning.

Another consistent aspect is that most specific information seems to emerge from situations where JSOC personnel and regular troops operate in close contact.  In almost every instance where a detailed account of abusive actions is given, it comes from a regular army source (MIs or MPs assigned from regular forces) .  The JSOC itself rarely seems to leak - even when compelled in classified briefings they often simply refuse to provide information.

After the jump, I've listed the locations identified thus far - with some supporting links and occasional notes.  If anyone has additional facilities they know of (or resources documenting abuse at a facility on the list, or information about what troops were assigned to a facility), please toss it in a comment.

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An interesting dynamic is emerging in the torture photo debate that deserves a mention.  Last week when Obama decided to abandon his pledges of accountability and transparency in favor of state secrets and concessions democrats were unwilling to make with Bush in office, he made a pretty explicit statement:

"I want to emphasise that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib."

Of course, this explanation seemed a bit odd.  We've known since 2004 that General Taguba's report found instances of sexual abuse and rape (although the assertion of "child rape" thus far exists only in the warped fantasies of some TPM posters).  Now the good general has come out with additional statements that would seem to directly refute what the president said:

"These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency. ... The mere description of these pictures is horrendous enough, take my word for it."

It is impossible to reconcile the two statements.  They simply can't both be true.  So I guess the question becomes: who's lying here?  Some immediately have jumped to the conclusion that Obama is the one making inaccurate statements.  Based on the public records, they are probably right.  Either Obama is completely clueless and hasn't actually reviewed all the pictures, or he knows what's in the pictures and is misrepresenting them.

In either event, at the time of withholding the photos Obama also made some other assertions:

Obama, explaining his change of heart on releasing the other photos, said they already had served their purpose in investigations of "a small number of individuals." Those cases were all concluded by 2004, and the president said "the individuals who were involved have been identified, and appropriate actions have been taken."

So, riddle me this.  If Obama isn't being forthcomming about the existence of "rape photos" - how can we possibly trust him that those who ordered and committed the abuses have actually been punished? Can we assume "appropriate action" even means punishment?

If indeed, as Obama asserts, it was just a "small number of individuals" and "appropriate action" has already been taken; the victims deserve to know what punishment their abusers were given.  The only way this would be a danger to our troops is if, after a full accounting, major of abuses had simply been swept under the carpet with a few soldiers handed up for show trials tied in a pretty bow. Considering the selection of McChrystal to lead our forces in Afghanistan, I think it's safe to say the ringleaders of Iraqi abuse have not been properly addressed.

America no longer has the benefit of the doubt in the eyes of the world. Nor do we deserve it. Those suspicious of our actions will imagine the worst abuses were commonplace and assume the abusers are still walking free - while America offers nothing to refute this view.  Until this issue is resolved once and for all, it will continue to put our troops at increased risk every day and undermine the credibility of this administration.

So what is it Mr. President?  Is Taguba lying, or are you?

A nation fights war. What a nation wins is peace.

Americans should not lose sight of what we seek to win as we determine how to conduct the fight.

There are many who applaud Obama for his decision to block the release of Iraqi abuse photographs. I am not one. I know people have loved ones in the line of fire, I can't judge any opinion, partly because I too was very afraid when the first Abu Ghraib photos were published and someone I loved was deployed.  But I still strongly disagree with Obama's decision.

These are not normal times.  We are in the shadow of great betrayal. Many of those who betrayed us are still very much walking the corridors of power, often in positions of high authority.  This is true in finance as well as the military. It is the double-edged sword of Obama's bipartisan gamble. It's pointless to debate if the strategy was worth it, it's the course we are on. So it is not a foregone conclusion that everyone holding a position of authority in Obama's administration buys into, or is even necessarily working toward, his objectives.

Many people have created strawmen of media fetish and torture-porn that disrespect the strength of conviction in those who feel it is important to disclose the photos for the purposes of justice. The official explanation of torture employed by our military in Iraq is unsustainable in face of the facts already exposed. There are holes in the explanations and obvious gaps in accountability. The belief this issue is being addressed by the democratic leadership is largely defined by speculation over what has not been ruled out completely, or simple blind faith.

Congress responds based on public questions and popular demand for accountability - usually shouted to get over the din of special interest lobbyists. The only reason anybody has been held accountable to date is because Americans have fought to expose the abuses and officials have been forced to acknowledge and respond. If the questions had not been forced, those who now argue "we know it happened ... isn't that enough?" wouldn't even know it happened.  A handful of low-ranking foot soldiers have been convicted, and no officer has officially been acknowledged as having participated. The official statement from Obama is that the Iraqi abuses were carried out by a mere few individuals.  A couple of scapegoats rotting in a military prison is not justice in this instance.

Soldiers have risked everything to come forward - and some paid a high price of ostracization and fear of violence.  FBI and CIA agents faced legal sanction and the disdain of their peers, often effectively ending their careers to come forward. Still others have risked exposure providing crucial details to organizations like Human Rights Watch and even the oft maligned New York Times. The ACLU has fought tirelessly to free crucial memos and reports through FOIA requests - and they will burn countless additional resources seeing through the process that Obama had promised them, just last week, would be curtailed.

Through the entire journey there has been an endless drumbeat: "By exposing the wrongdoing you are putting the troops in danger.  You are putting fellow Americans at risk".

The people who put themselves on the line to expose what little we know so far weren't democrats.  They weren't republicans.  They didn't stand up, speak out, dig deeper, for partisan gain.  They did it for America. They took the accusations of working against America and putting their colleagues at risk and did the right thing. Despite the drumbeat. Many have no more reason to trust a democratic administration than the democrats had to trust the republicans.  Now everyone is supposed to just toss up their hands and say "Oh well ... the democratic faithful have someone they trust. Battle won!".

Why didn't we stop when the generals said the troops would be in danger back in 2004?  Why did we push forward when the press secretary said exposing more information would just stir up anger and put the troops in harm's way in 2006?  Why were we pushing, in the face of the military saying yet again we were putting the troops at risk, right up to the inauguration to get the torture memos released?  What makes this time so different from all the other times we have been willing face that fear in the quest to correct the horrible detour from justice that still has America in a ditch arguing "if torture works, is it really wrong?". 

It makes me want to scream "How can you watch the torture debate going on today and even question if the American public needs to again confront the reality of abuse at their own hand?"

I guess my point is, don't forget there are two sides to every story.  I genuinely believe having the photos released is of importance to justice and the American soul.  Obama may have very sound policy reasons - be it wanting his big "Islamic World" speech to go unmarred, not wanting to politically defend going against his generals, genuine concern for the troops, or a combination of reasons.  But he needs to know that the American people are unwavering in our demand for accountability.

ProPublica/Salon published a really good article on the role of psychologists in crafting the Bush administration torture policy.  This article is well worth the read and provides tons of information on many of the players and issues popping up in congressional reports and memos.  It also adds a few people and facts I was previously unaware of.  There is just too much in the article to properly quote highlights ... read it!!!

As a part of the report, ProPublica has posted an entire mailing list archive from the "Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security" (PENS) group in the APA.  These discussions led up to a much disputed report that many APA members found to be soft on torture.  The raw emails offer an interesting window into the debate.  At 216 pages, there is a lot of fluff - but a brief scan also turns up some very germane discussions as well.

Huffington Post is one of the few outlets to pick up on this.  The Physicians for Human Rights is calling for an independent investigation of the process leading up to the APA report:

"These serious allegations require an independent investigation to determine whether APA leadership engaged in unethical conduct," said Steven Reisner, Ph.D., PHR Advisor for Psychological Ethics.

"The American public deserves to know if there were inappropriate contacts or conflicts of interest between APA officials and the Pentagon," he said.

They seem to be fleshing out closer ties between the APA and Pentagon/military brass than has previously been acknowledged.

The actions of psychologists and the APA seem to be critical on this issue.  The entire premise of the Bybee memo relies on professional assertions made by military psychologists.  Also, the congressional report is clear that from the very beginning the torture idea was concieved and advanced in large part by these mental-health "professionals".

Anyhow, there's another 200+ pages of raw documents that show another little piece of this tragic puzzle.  Have a nice weekend.

(Note: also must give props to ArsTechnica as one of the few to report on this).

It's been a while since the election when last I checked in on my fellow Idahoans.  A couple of interesting things popped out.  Thought maybe some folks might enjoy a change of pace ... so here they are:

Musings of a disillusioned republican ...
One of my favorite Idaho-centric sites, The MountainGoat Report, highlights this enlightening 2 part missive by conservative-leaning blogger Gary Eller:

Death of a Republican (Part I)
Death of a Republican (Part II)

Both parts are fascinating ... the 2nd gets more into the meat of the current political environment.  Seriously - at least skim it. This is one of the best things I've read recently regarding the plight of the GOP.

There are many take-away thoughts ...  one that strikes me is this being the first place I've seen Meghan McCain pointed to as an example of the right direction for the republican party in a truly genuine context.  Watch that girl.

My street has a Bard?
Someone has proclaimed themselves the bard of my little street ... so I thought I'd share their springtime contribution to the world of exceedingly short poetry.  The picture doesn't match the poem, but since a tulip-slug combo is hard to come by .... here's a pic from down at the visitor's center.

In warm April sun

while birds sweetly sing,

look-- on that tulip --

the first slug of spring.

-The Bard of Sherman Ave. (poem & photo via Huckleberrys Online)

The Aryan Nations Re-Emerge?
A couple of recent news  articles regarding Aryan Nations activity here in Coeur d'Alene caused some idaho bloggers to take note.  Apparently teabagging day inspired them to spend the quarters and nickles they usually use on beer to print up some fliers at kinkos - which they used to kick off a "recruitment drive" by papering random homes.

Granted, back in the day, the Aryan Nations was a menace. But comparing this group to the Aryan Nations of a decade ago is laughable.  This is like if Andy Griffith died, the town of Mayberry was burned to the ground, and Barney Fife, Gomer, and Otis decided to reestablish Mayberry from their new perch in a West Memphis crack house (without legal rights to the name "Mayberry").

These ass-clowns rent a house across from the local IGA ... and are best known for purchasing their beer with fists full of coinage (they aren't allowed to use more than $.25 in pennies).  The entire group could be eliminated by donating a $300 POS car to their cause.  They'd all be arrested in 2 days when pulled over in an unregistered vehicle for DUI and possession of meth. 

One good thing about this is that it will probably spur flagging financial support  for the Human Rights Education Institute which has seen donations wane since the decisive blow delivered to the original Aryan Nations movement several years back.  The group is very proactive in reaching out to the community and pursuing civil (and criminal) action.  The only negative to their success has been the community sort of forgetting about them, so this is a good reminder.

Dammit ... I missed a Tutu.
Speaking of the HREI, last month they hosted a fundraiser/banquet/awards thingie.  Ordinarily, even reading about the existence of such a thing would make me run screaming into the woods to hide, appearing otherwise engaged in ANYTHING, until the whole affair is likely to be over.  But this shindig featured Nontombi Naomi Tutu as the keynote speaker ... who apparently gave an excellent speech on race that I would really liked to have heard.

Next year ... I swear ... I'm going to figure out how to go to this sort of thing without having to deal with the ancillary bullshit.  Leave early ... show up late ... smile, make the donation ... whatever.

Local nonsense:
The big news in Idaho: our Governor is a total douche.  Ok, that's not really the news - we've known it for quite some time - but his douchey move of vetoing 35 bills in 2 days is really quite impressive.  Between the idiots in Boise and our new moron congressman, Walt "Idaho doesn't need your stinking earmarks" Minnick, it seems Idaho is likely to go back to unpaved roads traversed by people with a right fine 3rd grade education.

Gaaa .... I'm walking down to the lake to remind myself what I love about this place.  It sure isn't the politicians!

So that's Idaho this spring ... I promise, next time I'll learn how to make the "read more" feature work ... this got pretty damn long.

So I was browsing the newly released "Inquiry Into The Treatment Of Detainees In US Custody" and I came across this paragraph in the executive summary:

On April 16, 2002, Dr. Bruce Jessen, the senior SERE psychologist at JPRA, circulated a draft exploitation plan to JPRA Commander Colonel Randy Mouhon and other senior officials at the agency. The contents of that plan remain classified but Dr. Jessen's initiative is indicative ofthe interest of JPRA's senior leadership in expanding the agency's role.

I did a quick Google and found out a couple of interesting things about this guy and his partner, James Mitchell.  To make a long story short - they literally reverse engineered the techniques that were used in the SERE program and then started a consulting firm up here in Spokane and charged the government top dollar to train interrogators how best to implement these techniques on detainees.

Anyhow ...  DemocracyNow apparently knew this would be a germane subject and did a broadcast on the guys earlier today (with transcript).  I can't actually make it through the whole thing it's pissing me off so much.  It's is worth the watch/read if you can stomach it.

This bugs me more than Bybee being a judge.  Aren't psychologists bound by some sort of code or something???  How can these people be allowed to call themselves doctors when they used their knowledge to destroy minds?

Update:
OK, as usual I've got it backwards.  I guess psychiatrists are the technical doctors?  Can't keep the Optometrist vs Ophthalmologist  thing correct either.  But here's an interesting tidbit from the DemocracyNow interview regarding the American Psychological Association by Salon's Mark Benjamin(The CIA's Torture Teachers) ,

Reader's Digest version is that I think it's safe to say that the psychologists have been traditionally very, very close to the military. You know, they've been working with the military and the CIA for years and are closer than, say, psychiatrists and other doctors. I think it's fair to say that the APA, the psychologists, as opposed to psychiatrists and doctors, have been much more willing since September 11th to play ball, essentially, to not remove themselves from interrogations as doctors and psychiatrists did, to continue to participate.
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And I think that's reflected in the way Mitchell and Jessen, you know, were so important here. I think the psychologists saw a way to be players at the table, and that was reflected in their association, in the APA. And the APA essentially allowed their--you know, wrote rules, year after year after year, that would allow the continued participation of psychologists in these brutal interrogations. And now that these memos have come out, I think it's really clear how important the government saw those psychologists were, in having them in the room or watching on video or designing the program or carrying it out.  

Someone somewhere has some 'splainin to do dammit.

I think the emerging belief that Harry Reid delivered a "smackdown" to liberal pressure groups is totally off base.  Yeah, I think a smackdown was delivered. But some people have totally misidentified the smackee.

Sure, a statement like "this isn't helping" might seem a bit docile to consider a stinging rebuke. Not usually something that would send the mighty MoveOn cowering into the wings.  But somehow, it has been seemingly brutal in it's effectiveness.  So what makes this a huge smackdown?  Well...

Bayh basically announced he wanted to bypass leadership and engage Obama directly. A coalition assembled to give him the strength to assert this plan (the MDWG or something? What the hell do ya call 'em?).  Never followed these things really close, but I think that's kind of unusual in the senate. I don't get any impression the challenge is welcome - ceremonial acknowledgment as majority leader not withstanding.

Electorally, Reid doesn't want to lose the majority; he wants the majority to enact Obama's platform.  Liberal pressure groups generally want the same.  These groups backing off looks to me like a coordinated smackdown of Bayh's new troopers - who represent a clear and present danger to achieving shared goals (probably more so than the GOP).  I don't think the plan ever was to hammer away at these senators for months.

Ads this early can't be to influence voters ... it's 60 days into the first session.  This campaign perked up the ears of anyone thinking of mounting a primary challenge.  There are some big-dollar groups involved here. Their support could make a serious difference in the decision by a challenger to run.  I can't believe members of Bayh's little coalition haven't at least pondered this.

Now Reid steps up and politely mentions that the ad campaign wasn't helping and the groups back off? That seems like a pretty big message:"Being helpful is a gooood thing.  Align with Bayh maybe Reid won't stick up for you next time."  A statement the democratic leadership and left wing are in alliance.  And the message gets sent without Reid having to scream or provoke a direct confrontation within the caucus - which also wouldn't be helpful.

Maybe I'm too optimistic, but I sort of detect some strategy.  Will it work?  Dunno.  But it's a pretty strong opening response ... if somewhat un-flamboyant.

extra thought: if the left leaning groups really aren't bluffing and will support challenges - the challenger better get to work now if they expect to translate a successful primary into holding the seat ...

Walk with me if you will down memory lane.  Back to a time before everyone had achieved selective amnesia that allowed them to blame everyone's problems on a small group of people working to fix them.

The date is October 16, 2008.  From the office of the Attorney General of New York in a joint statement with AIG.

The meeting in the Attorney General's New York City Offices occurred one day after Attorney General Cuomo informed AIG that it must recover improper bonuses and other payments and perks from its former executives or Cuomo would do so pursuant to New York law....

....Attorney General Cuomo added, "These actions are not intended to jeopardize the hard-earned compensation of the vast majority of AIG's employees, including retention and severance arrangements, who are essential to rebuilding AIG and the economy of New York."

Now fast forward to today.  Considering these retention agreements were in place when this statement was made, what can we infer about the honesty of Mr. Cuomo's recent posturing? Can he really credibly say he didn't know and didn't approve of these agreements?  Shouldn't the AIG guys be angry at his new song?  Are they wrong to be so?

And where are the "journalists" who are supposed to have memories of events that last longer than the passing hysteria?  Like all politicians today, Cuomo is relying on the fact that "the media" can't remember what happened even last Tuesday and will accept whatever meme is handed to them on a silver platter.  And sadly, TPM did not disappoint.

No time for accuracy or nuance ... there's outrage to harnass and strawmen to burn.  New Media's finest moment, this is not.

UPDATE: Yesterday TPM told us about a letter written by an AIG insider.  They chose to excerpt a single sentence highlighting a specific AIG official.  The actual text of the letter is pretty interesting.  It can easily be construed to fit any number of popular mems rolling about; entitlement, extortion, victimization, etc.  Aside from that, there is one key assertion that pertains to Cuomo's amnesia that I found quite interesting:

1) On October 22nd 2008 (one month after bailout) Andrew Cuomo reaffirmed our right to payments under the retention plan.

2) On October 9th Bill Dooley, the head of financial services at AIG, restated that the treasury and AIG were committed to payments under the ERP.
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6) AIG prepaid 30% of the ERP amount in December with their hearty thanks for a job well done. The treasury knew of and had to approve this.

Now one MAJOR caveat: this is an based on an anonymous letter (that TPM and other media outlets have chosen to accept as genuine).  But if this is indeed genuine, it indicates that not only did Cuomo know about AIG retention awards generally, he addressed the awards for AIGFP employees specifically about 2 weeks after the official joint statement.  Apparently at that point he had absolutely no problem with them.

So did the amount of these awards increase between October 2008 and March 2009?  If not, what's the deal?
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Here's a little gem from last week.  Not as important as a total spaz over .001% of the financial industry bailout funds going to people who were *gasp* in the financial industry when it collapsed, but significant none the less.  So, before it is no longer topical, for your corruption tracking pleasure:

via BradBlog:

Five Clay County officials, including the circuit court judge, the county clerk, and election officers were arrested Thursday after they were indicted on federal charges accusing them of using corrupt tactics to obtain political power and personal gain .... According to the indictment, these alleged criminal actions affected the outcome of federal, local, and state primary and general elections in 2002, 2004, and 2006.

This was quite the operation.  It involved two distinct parts.  The first was an early voting scheme where they bought votes outright...

It was part of the conspiracy that the Defendants discussed and agreed to buy votes also during the early voting of absentee voters ...

Voters who sold their votes were given a mark or otherwise told to signal to the Defendant Charles Wayne Jones by Defendants William E. Stivers, William B. Morris, or Debra L. Morris and, based upon the mark andior signal, Defendant Charles Wayne Jones would cast their vote for "the slate."

the Defendants discussed and agreed that in order to implement the method of corrupting the voting process described above, it would be necessary to cause to be appointed as precinct workers for both major parties persons who were in the conspiracy.

They informed these voters to ask for assistance from selected precinct workers who then took them into the voting booth and selected the votes for them.

As if that was not bad enough, they also recruited poll workers to flat out steal people's votes by giving incorrect instructions for using the county's electronic voting machines.

It was part of the conspiracy that WW serve as the Democrat[ic] election judge in the Manchester Precinct. It was further part of the conspiracy that CW serve as the Republican election judge in the Manchester Precinct. Both WW and CW were instructed by Defendants Freddy W. Thompson and Charles Wayne Jones to tell voters that when they had pushed a button labeled "Vote" that their votes had been cast, when, in fact, that function merely provided a review screen of the voter's selections in each race ...

It was part of the conspiracy that when the misled voters left the voting booth after pushing the "Vote" button, WW and/or CW entered the booth, changed their votes to candidates selected in part by Defendant Russell Cletus Maricle and cast the ballot by pushing the "Cast Ballot" button.

Now there is apparently some debate if the electronic voting machines used were a significant factor in helping to facilitate the crimes. ArsTechnica points out:

Remarkably, the vote manipulation technique here was essentially an exploit of a simple UI design flaw, and involved no computer skills at all on the part of the alleged perpetrators. ... Most of the charges outlined in the indictment [PDF] are for old-school, non-electronic crimes like racketeering, extortion, mail fraud, and so on.

But even the e-voting part, believe it or not, was incredibly low-tech and didn't involve any of the well-known exploits documented for the ES&S iVotronic machines that were used.

...Clearly, no audit--mandatory or otherwise--would've caught this fraud, because it relied on the best and most reliable tool in the hacker's arsenal: good, old-fashioned "social engineering."

...This entire incident says less about the perils of e-voting than it does about human nature, but this isn't to say that the e-voting vendor is entirely off the hook. ...Better documentation for the public and better UI design would've probably thwarted this particular fraud.

I think this misses one important point.  Having the step of generating a paper record and providing the voter with a reciept from the machine also would have been a significant deterrent in this case.

But this incident also highlights two other interesting realities with electronic voting.  First, technologists tend to seek out and protect against the esoteric and most high-tech exploits.  It is interesting that in this case a proven exploitable system was employed, but it's documented dangers had no bearing on the fraud the machines were used to accomplish.

The other interesting reality is that we are so focused in on the high-end dangers that "lesser" shortcomings in the systems are not necessarily identified as security risks.  This shows that in addition to hard-core hackability, the security profiles of these machines needs to be examined in terms of the actual human interactions and the flows of the user interfaces.

In any event, I think it is fair to say the vote stealing portion of this would have been more difficult if not impossible were it not for the electronic voting machines. Regardless if the exploit was based on high-tech methods or because the design created a window of opportunity; the fraud simply would not have been possible with a paper ballot.

The original BradBlog posting is well worth a closer look ... especially some of the comments from KY voters who give some really interesting background.

Now ... back to your regularly scheduled freakouts.

The thing that gets me about these AIG "bonuses" is that they have been known since well before AIG got the initial $85 bn.  Nobody hid them.  Congress, the press, the Fed, bloggers, everyone knew about it.

I understand why the blog-o-sphere is freaking out: for all the pomp and self congratulation; bloggers really don't drive squat.  They amplify what the MSM wants them to and the MSM wants everyone focusing on this $160 million.

But why is the media going all hysterical now?  What are they trying to distract us from?  There is a level of flat-out media dishonesty creating a distorted picture of what these payments are and how they came about.  The implication is that somehow someone along the way was supposed to breach these contracts ... but yet the media never gave any real pressure to do so at any of the critical points (nor the blogging community or congressional reps - on either side of the political spectrum) despite full knowledge.

It appears this is technically the second in a series of scheduled payments, planned under various agreements that run through 2010.  So, why now?

There's a game afoot and it isn't being played by the folks at AIGFP.  I fear we're gonna look up from this very small group of trees and find someone finished clear cutting the rest of our forest.

Here's an interesting bit that seems to have slipped through the cracks in all this economic panic.  It seems a rather important policy is under bipartisan attack.

The National Institutes of Health, which funds the majority of biomedical research in the US, has encouraged open access to the research it pays for, and Congress eventually mandated an open access policy as part of the NIH's funding. But, for the second year running, a group of Congressmen have introduced a bill that would overturn the effort.

I could go on for a bit about what an important policy this is.  But it seems so obvious - I'll just stick to some basics about the current action.

John Conyers (D-MI), Steve Cohen (D-TN), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Darrell Issa (R-CA), and Robert Wexler (D-FL) have introduced a bill called the "Fair Copyright in Research Works Act"  ending the requirement for public access to results of government-funded research.  While this is targeted at the NIH policy, it is phrased to cover any work subject to government (taxpayer) funding.  Among other issues, there seems to be a turf war because the bill bypassed the Judiciary Committee and they view it as a copyright issue.

Peter Suber from Open Access News has this to say about the bill:

The Fair Copyright Act is to fair copyright what the Patriot Act was to patriotism.  It would repeal the OA policy at the NIH and prevent similar OA policies at any federal agency.

The premise of the bill, urged by the publishing lobby, is that the NIH policy somehow violates copyright law.  The premise is false and cynical.  If the NIH policy violated copyrights, or permitted the violation of copyrights, publishers wouldn't have to back this bill to amend US copyright law.  Instead, they'd be in court where they'd already have a remedy.

Mr. Suber also provides links to an open letter from 46 law professors objecting to "serious misstatements relating to copyright law" in the publisher arguments against the NIH policy and another to an open letter from 33 US Nobel laureates in science defending the NIH policy against the Conyers bill.

They tried this last year and it didn't get out of the committee.  However, as Ars Technica points out, there are reasons to be a bit more concerned this year.

Unfortunately for open access fans, this year's bill seems to present a greater threat to the NIH's policy. For one, Congress is distracted by other issues, which might allow a minor amendment to a funding bill to slip through unnoticed. In addition, Zerhouni gave a strong defense of the open access policy on scientific grounds at last year's hearings; he's since stepped down and, with Tom Daschle withdrawing his nomination, it's not even clear when a new head of Health and Human Services will be named; until that position is filled, there won't be a new NIH chief named.

Ars Technica should be commended for keeping on top of this.  They also gave great coverage of the issue when it came up last year (this provides really good background on the policy and battle to date).  The Library Journal also weighs in on the topic with some good background about Conyer's apparent anger over turf issues.

If anyone lives in one of these sponsors' district - give 'em a shout.  Hell, give 'em a shout anyhow.

A man walks down a sidewalk.  Another man says "Don't walk down that sidewalk, I'll ruin your life".  The first man, says "I've walked on this sidewalk my whole life, and I'm quite successful. You must be mistaken".  The second man takes out a bat and beats the first to a bloody pulp and says "See!  I told you so."