Saturday, Dec 06th
Last update10:33:53 AM GMT
Domestic Glance
The FBI, the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., and postal inspectors did not convince everyone last month when they laid out their case against the late Army microbiologist Dr. Bruce Ivins.
Mueller had announced Tuesday that, partly owing to pressure from members of Congress, he will ask the National Academy of Sciences to conduct the review. To help prevent doubt from lingering forever, the public — and Congress — must be assured the review panel is indeed independent.
A new Government Accountability Office report on voting system testing finds that the Election Assistance Commission has not notified election officials across the country about electronic voting machine failures.
And a new study by Common Cause and the Century Foundation finds that 10 very vital swing states have significant voting problems that have not been addressed since the last election.
Those 10 states, according to Common Cause, are Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.
In Colorado, 20,000 left polling places without voting in 2006 because of crashed computer registration machines and long lines. And this election day, Colorado will have another new registration system.
TVNL Comment: In a real democracy this would be unnaceptable. And in a real democracy with a real press this would be the most important story of the day until it was resolved.
Some council members and candidates say the delay by the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics in offering a detailed analysis of how thousands of phantom votes appeared in early election results raises doubts about whether the board is prepared to handle November's general election, which is expected to draw a record number of voters to the polls. The primary brought out 13 percent of registered voters, or 42,421.
The wiki has three broad goals
Educate people about voter suppression. The term encompasses a wide range of tactics designed to limit voter participation. We want the wiki to offer an explanation of what these tactics are, places to learn more about them and the laws involved.
Collect incidents of voter suppression activity. Based on a standard template, wiki users will be able to add reports of voter suppression to the wiki. Each incident has its own page with a standard form to fill in plus discussion area.
Mobilize action to combat and prevent voter suppression. Knowledge is powerful, but only to the extent that you use it to inform decisions. We don't just want to create a group of pissed off people. We want to create a group of pissed off people who are going to write letters, make phone calls and file lawsuits to protect citizens' votes.
TVNL Comment: Make sure your vote counts so that you can select a president from the rigged menu presented by the two ruling criminal parties.
A new policy lets airport screeners at Denver International Airport bypass security screening checkpoints that passengers have to go through
"Lunch or a bomb, you can walk right through with it," said Mike Boyd, an aviation consultant in Evergreen. "This is a major security issue."
The new, blue uniforms have metal badges that set off alarms when screeners go through the checkpoints. Sources say the TSA is worried that the screeners will remove the badges while going through security and that they'll get lost or stolen.
The TSA says that is not the reason for the policy change.
In the five years since it was created, the Department of Homeland Security has overseen roughly $15 billion worth of failed contracts for projects ranging from airport baggage-screening to trailers for Hurricane Katrina evacuees, according to congressional data to be released today.
The New York Police Department is happy to talk about its plans to ring lower Manhattan with thousands of security cameras. But the Department won't say exactly where the cameras are, or what will be done with the data. So now the New York City Liberties Union is suing the NYPD, to force 'em to fess up on the spycams.
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