BBV: Court Hearing on Electronic Voting Company's Threats Against Critics

[lysergik]

Diebold Suppressing Evidence of Voting Machine Flaws

San Jose, CA - Two student activists and an Internet Service Provider (ISP) will
ask a federal district court judge on Monday to put an end to ongoing legal
threats by Diebold Systems, Inc., in a case involving the disclosure of flaws in
the company's electronic voting machines. The nonprofit ISP Online Policy Group
(OPG) and two Swarthmore college students seek to prevent Diebold from issuing
further cease-and-desist letters aimed at squelching public discussion of these
flaws.

The hearing will take place at 9:00 a.m. PST in courtroom 3 on the 5th floor of
the San Jose Federal Courthouse, located on 280 South 1st St. in San Jose,
California. There will be a press conference outside of the courthouse
immediately following the hearing.

Diebold has threatened a dozen or more ISPs that host websites that either
publish or link to a corporate email archive revealing technical problems with
the company's voting machines. The archive includes email messages written by
Diebold employees discussing how to resolve, or in some cases, obfuscate these
problems.

EFF and the Center for Internet and Society Cyberlaw Clinic at Stanford Law
School are providing legal representation in this important case to prevent
abusive copyright claims from silencing public debate about voting, the very
foundation of our democratic process.

"Instead of paying lawyers to threaten its critics, Diebold should invest in
creating electronic voting machines that include voter-verified paper ballots
and other security protections," said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn.

For the full media advisory:
<http://www.eff.org/Legal/ISP_liability/OPG_v_Diebold/20031114_eff_pr.php>

[Eric J in MN]

1. also, support a bill for paper trails

Support a bill for paper trails in voting by going to another EFF webpage and filling in a form (takes 5 minutes).

link in signature:

[lysergik]

2. Head to verifiedvoting.org as well

Sign up to volunteer and call all of the lawmakers who have not yet co-sponsored HR2239 and urge them to do so. So far there are 69 co-sponsors, all Democrats. We really need to work on Rep. Bob Ney who is in charge of the House Committee on House Administration where the bill is currently held up, that bill needs to come to the floor for vote and out of committee.

Keep on spreading the word :thumbsup: