stories filed under: "maryland"
Maryland Suing Diebold/Premier For Money It Spent To Fix Its Voting Machines
from the pay-up dept
Things just keep getting worse for Diebold's e-voting subsidiary, that was laughably renamed Premier Election Solutions to avoid all of the baggage associated with the Diebold name. It seems that the state of Maryland is suing the company and demanding $8.5 million to cover the money the state had to pay to fix its faulty e-voting machines. You may recall that Maryland has been at the forefront in fighting Diebold/Premier over its machines. Back in 2006, following some rather damning info and significant problems, Maryland's governor wanted to get rid of all of Diebold's machines.Diebold did its usual thing, responding to different problems, insisting there was no real problem and if there were, that it would all be fixed in time for the election in November of that year. Of course, Diebold didn't actually do much to help -- so the state of Maryland took matters into their own hands to try to fix the flaws in the machines, and now wants Diebold/Premier to pay for the costs of having done so. In rather typical fashion, Diebold/Premier has put out its usual response to pretty much any criticism: claiming it has no clue what anyone is talking about, saying that it is "puzzled by the timing and vagueness" of the lawsuit, while also saying it is: "inaccurate and unfounded." The company also says its about events that occurred "five or more years ago" (apparently, they weren't paying attention in 2006) and that "Maryland just completed one of the smoothest elections in the state's history," though the company fails to note that's more in spite of Diebold/Premier than because of it.
Filed Under: e-voting, maryland
Companies: diebold, premier voting
Yet Another State Court Explores Right To Anonymity In Online Posting
from the you-can't-go-back... dept
We've seen an awful lot of lawsuits over the years concerning the "right to anonymity" for online commenters. While other countries tend to be pretty quick to take away anonymity, rulings in the US have pretty consistently allowed anonymous posting. However, the issue keeps coming up -- with the latest battle taking place in Maryland's Court of Appeals, where a business owner is demanding the identity of two anonymous posters on an online message board, who complained that the owner's Dunkin' Donuts location was "one of the most dirty and unsanitary-looking food-service places I have seen" on the site NewsZap, owned by the company Independent Newspapers.Recently, in a similar case, a court ruled that a newspaper can keep its comments anonymous under the same rules that allow it to keep any sources anonymous. It doesn't sound like this argument came up in this case, but it might be worth considering.
But, more to the point, this seems like it could also be a SLAPP suit. The complaint was clearly a statement of opinion. And, of course, in bringing this lawsuit, it seems like all Zebulon J. Brodie has really done is draw an awful lot more attention to the fact that people think the Dunkin' Donuts he owns in Centreville, Maryland isn't particularly clean. Maybe he would have been a lot better off just making sure that it was clean. And, if he really felt that the message was unfair, why not just post a message pointing out that it wasn't true (hell, put up a photo) and invite anyone to come in and check it out. Wouldn't that have been a lot easier, cheaper and more effective?
Either way, Brodie chose a different route for whatever reason -- but as Public Citizen's Paul Levy argued in court, the issue with anonymity is that once it's removed, you can't go back. A court should be quite cautious and convinced that defamation has actually happened before removing that important right.
Filed Under: anonymity, defamation, maryland
A Public Official Actually Shows Common Sense in Wireless 'Piggybacking' Debate
from the we're-shocked dept
A state legislature has apparently introduced legislation that would make it a crime punishable by up to three years in jail to "steal" a neighbor's open wireless connection (found via Slashdot). The legislator claims that his goal in passing this legislation is to "clarify intentional theft vs. accidental use." Amazingly, someone in the Maryland government actually has some common sense. The state's public defender's office filed a statement making the same point that we've been making for years: "A more effective way to prevent unauthorized access would be for owners' (sic) to secure their wireless networks with assistance where necessary from Internet service providers or Vendors." Aside from the typo, we couldn't have put it better ourselves. They also point out that it won't always be easy to know if a particular user's usage of a wireless network is "intentional" or not because many non-technical users have no idea which network their computers are contacting. And, of course, some people leave their WiFi connections open on purpose. It seems better to err on the side of caution and not threaten people with multi-year jail terms for something that's basically harmless. The police certainly have more important things to be worrying about.Filed Under: freeloaders, maryland, open access, piggybacking, wifi
E-Voting Undermines Public Confidence In Elections Even Without Evidence of Wrongdoing
from the conflict-of-interest dept
Are Republican operatives scheming to steal the election in Maryland this fall? Threat Level is reporting that the contract for transporting e-voting machines in the state has been contracted to a company whose president was the head of the state Republican party until 2006. I think the answer is almost certainly "no": while this certainly looks like a conflict of interest, I suspect it's no more than an honest oversight that will be quickly corrected. Still, it's troubling that we even have to worry about who transports voting machines. With ordinary paper ballots, it doesn't matter who transports them because there's nothing a moving company can do to undermine the election. But with e-voting machines, a moving company really could install malicious software that would undermine the election. And once an e-voting machines has been tampered with, there's no reliable mechanism for detecting the problem. Again, there's no evidence anything untoward has occurred in Maryland. But no matter who transports those e-voting machines, the public is being asked to take it on faith that they won't be tampered with. In a well-designed voting system, voters shouldn't have to take anyone's actions on faith. The entire process should be simple and transparent, so that anyone can observe it and verify that it was carried out correctly. The complexity and opacity of e-voting machines makes effective public scrutiny impossible, and so it's a bad idea even in the absence of specific evidence of wrongdoing.
