“Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.”
- Abraham Lincoln
“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead”
- Benjamin Franklin
A 1990’s Pentagon booklet entitled “Information Warfare for Dummies” detailed cyber-wars sexy new battlefield. The Primer covered Network penetrations (or hacking), manipulation of information, stating – “- The intrusions can be carried out remotely-- transcending the boundaries of time and space. They also offer the prospect of ‘plausible deniability’...” The manual indicated that the U.S. had found it relatively easy to cover its tracks in these intrusions. “—it’s difficult for the adversary to prove that you are the one corrupting their system.” ~snip~ “—(It) can be so subtle and insidious, that the adversary may not even know that their systems have been attacked.”
It goes on to recount a mid ‘90s CIA success story using Information Warfare in which the CIA hacked into a drug lord’s bank records. He was wiring a bribe to a South American government official when the CIA got in by remote and was able to delete the bribe entirely. Purportedly, an innocent bookkeeper was executed for the otherwise inexplicable loss in the aftermath.
Pentagon Cyber Wars http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/2004/110604.html
In February of 1999, then CIA Director George Tenet said “several countries have the capability to attack an adversary’s computer systems-“ and “—developing a computer attack capability can be quite inexpensive and easily concealable.” Per journalist Robert Parry, who broke many of the Iran Contra stories for the AP and Newsweek, the United States has led the pack with the most sophisticated ‘cyber war’ strategies on the offensive side as well as in defensive countermeasures.
Kevin Phillips, author of “American Dynasty” and former key Republican strategist for Richard Nixon, writes, “The Bush’s appear to be a family that approaches a presidential election as something to be won with a CIA manual, not earned with commitment to Lincolnian precepts or popular sovereignty.” He further states that, with their four generational relationship to the intelligence community, and three generational ties to the CIA, the Bushes employ of dirty tricks and espionage are simply standard electioneering processes for them.
As you read about the individuals directly involved in our election equipment and systems today notice how former and present Intelligence and Defense connections manifest repeatedly on the Boards of Voting Machine companies. Time and time again....Defense, Intel, Defense, Intel.
The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) was heavily lobbied for by Defense Contractors. Witness the number of the companies entrenched in the business of war and weapons manufacture that take such keen participatory interest in the business of election systems—from buying them out, to sitting in key influential positions on their Boards.
CIA election involvement is, of course, nothing new on the international scene. It is, in fact, legendary...beginning as early as 1948 when the communists were poised to win the Italian elections. At this same time, they were busy on the propaganda front recruiting various journalists and news organizations; by their own admission--- In Operation Mockingbird, at least 25 organizations and 400 journalists became CIA assets.
CIA documents released during the Clinton administration revealed the CIA’s close involvement in the September 11th, 1973 Chilean coup http://archives.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/americas/11/13/cia.chile.02/ led by General Pinochet that ousted the elected socialist President, Salvador Allende. Portions of the documents had been blacked out or deleted to protect sensitive information, but this is from one memo that mentions elections in Chile: “It may be of interest that in 1964, CIA conducted a (deleted) election operation in Chile—“
1997 was a semi frantic year for election equipment companies and their cohorts in Defense and Intelligence. Carlyle Group http://www.thecarlylegroup.com/eng/company/index.html bought out mega Defense contractor Northrop Grumman’s commercial aerostructure business (a Boeing supplier), while the same year Northrop bought out Carlyle’s Vinell Corporation—a TRW Company. Vinell, one of the top three mercenary corporations worldwide, and a suspected CIA cover, trained the Saudi National Guard and Middle Eastern military and mercenaries to US military standards. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0514-06.htm
That same year, “Diversified Dynamics” election systems company is founded, later to become yet another Northrop Grumman company with software and engineering support from their friends at SAIC, Science Applications International Corporation. SAIC at the time was presided over by Admiral Bill Owens, who had served as Senior Military Assistant to former Secretaries of Defense Frank Carlucci and Dick Cheney. Owens later surfaces for a time as Chairman of Vote Here election systems company. What’s more, Bobby Ray Inman, also a former CIA Director, NSA, and DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency), also surfaced on board at SAIC.
Additionally, on the Boards of two voting machine companies—TRW’s Cogent and VoteHere-- we find Mr. Robert Gates. Gates was former Director of the CIA, spending 27 years there in all and also worked for the NSA. He is a Bush family friend, a “survivor” of the Iran Contra scandal, and presently positioned as Dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A & M University.
In 2002 Northrop Grumman http://www.northropgrumman.com/capabilities/capabilities.html bought TRW election company, Cogent, and IPaper electronic election systems paying a reported $7.8 billion, winning out on the bid over...Carlyle, who backed out at the last minute. Northrop then offered their services to the State of Georgia for their 2002 elections, but lost out in the bid to Diebold... who also happens to be a sizeable Defense contractor. Northrop Grumman by the way is a $25 billion Global Defense enterprise with 120,000 employees in 25 countries.
Dizzying.
The Pentagon itself is involved in election systems for the Military vote. One such fiasco took place in 2000, when they contracted out the absentee Military vote by Internet to private corporation Booz, Allen & Hamilton at a cost of $6.2 million. Problem was, with only 84 service members partaking in the vote over the Internet program, the cost averaged out to a whopping $74,000 per vote!
Oh-- and the current VP of Booz Allen & Hamilton... Mr. James Woolsey.
As in former CIA Director Woolsey. http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/AuthorBiography.aspx?Authorid=62
Along with an extensive and impressive resume of governmental and military appointments and service.
The annual DefCon convention unites an eclectic group of top notch computer hackers mingling alongside governmental adversaries to discuss the risks and security holes in the electronic world. Representatives from the FBI, NSA, Department of Defense, and the Treasury Department participate in the event, scanning the crowd for any potential employee opportunities as well as the latest technical information.
DefCon 13 was recently held in Las Vegas at the end of July, 2005. Take a look at this snip from CNET News.com http://news.com.com/2061-10789_3-5812102.html tech news regarding the event:
July 31, 2005 12:32 AM
Feds look to hire at Defcon
Jim Christy, director of the U.S. Department of Defense's Cyber Crime Center, has been to eight Defcon events. One reason he attends the hacker event every year is to find talent. "I'm hiring 21 people in the next month," Christy said.
The cybercrime center aids in the investigation of cybercrimes by training law enforcement agents, running a forensics lab and developing tools for investigations. Christy is looking for electrical and computer engineers and programmers, among other people.
<snip>
On Saturday Christy and representatives from other federal agencies hosted a "Meet the Fed" session at Defcon. They pulled an old prank. First, all attendees were asked to stand. Then everyone who had not hacked into any system illegitimately- was asked to sit down. The Feds then pulled out cameras and started snapping pictures.
Meet the Fed
Special Agent Jim Christy will have on his panel representatives from:
Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center (DoD)
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS - always a favorite)
General Accounting Office (GAO)
US Postal Service
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
National Security Agency (NSA) (2)
Additionally featured at DefCon 13 was Kevin McCarthy’s workshop presentation entitled "The Six Year Old Hacker.” McCarthy cultivates methods of hacking in 6-12 yr olds at a Montessori school.
Also available in Las Vegas this year, were courses in hacking in Russian, and how to battle the Russian hackers who are hacking us here in America.
“The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be.” - Lao Tzu
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