From: "Jim Burnes" <jim.burnes@n-o--s-p-a-m.ssds.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 14:26:32 +0800
To: nobody@REPLAY.COM (Anonymous)
Subject: Re: Court proceedings under SAFE (secret voters)
In-Reply-To: <199709170217.EAA17187@basement.replay.com>
Message-ID: <199709171626.KAA10051@denver.ssds.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



> Declan McCullagh wrote:
> > On Thu, 11 Sep 1997, Lucky Green wrote:
>  > > >secret court that has never denied a request for a wiretap)
> jurisdiction;
> > > Is there any way of finding out the names of the judges sitting on the FISA
> > > court?
>  
> > Not that I know of, though I do know that U.S. District Court Judge Joyce
> > Green served on the FISA court for seven years.
> > 
> > Background: The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Survelliance Act established a
> > special, secret court of current Federal district court judges. They
> > approve warrants in secret hearings, with no opposing attorneys present.
> > The judges are required to be available 24 hours a day for emergency
> > hearings. Some happen in the middle of the night in the judge's home.
> 
>   Also, you are not likely to see a FISA judge's name on a warrant.
> Instead, you will see warrants by regular judges which are backdated
> to dates such as, say...March 28 at 9:02 a.m.
>   There are a variety of court systems within which they have the clerks
> regularly 'skip' certain document numbers, leaving them with hard to
> trace back-dated paperwork capabilities.
> 
>   This is a 'Democracy', which is why, in addition to secret police,
> we also have 'secret judges', and 'secret executioners'. (Do we also
> have 'secret voters'?)

Funny you should mention that.  Check out VoteScam by James
Callier (sp?).  This might actually be of some interest to the 
security people out there.  Its a pure system security issue.

The software for the federal electronic vote tabulating equipment is 
produced by several independent vendors.  *None* of the source code 
is available.  The electronic votes are forwarded to a news 
consortium comprised of ABC,NBC,CBS and CNN.  It does *not*
go through an independently audited federal agency of any sort.
(this is what Callier claims -- it should be easy enough to verify)

My wife used to be an election observer in StLouis and the
"validation" test consists of the operator telling the witnesses
what to expect and then running a test deck of cards through
the machine.  *Suprise*   The results are exactly as the operator
predicted.

The news corporations predict the outcomes.
The news corporations collect the votes.
The news corporations report the results.
The news corporations are suprisingly close in their predictions.
(very interesting)

This system is so fraught with security holes I don't think I need
to belabor the point.  What happens when a system is vulnerable
to corruption in such a sensitive position?  Hint: What happens to
unprotected iron in salt water?

Have a better one,

Jim Burnes

PS: I think there is a votescam page on the web out there somewhere.

Jim Burnes
Engineer, Western Security, SSDS Inc
jim.burnes@ssds.com
----
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government
of himself.  Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?
Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him?  Let
history answer this question.  -Thomas Jefferson, 1st Inaugural Addr