Some Good Questions Answered About the Curtis/Feeney Case!
Unfortunately, over the last few days since breaking the "WHISTLEBLOWER AFFIDAVIT" story, I've been stuck doing more answering to folks (media, etc.) than reporting on the story.
Many questions have appropriately been raised out in the net and beyond about the entire Clint Curtis / Tom Feeney / Yang Enterprises story, and -- occassionally -- my role in it.
Rather than answer the same questions so many times, I'll attempt to answer here some of the most frequently asked... And I'd encourage you folks out in Blogistan, who may see such questions or charges raised, to point folks to this document and/or any of the specific answers you may find germane to questions being asked.
As more arise, I'll try to answer them as the story moves along. Feel free to ask any you may have in comments here, and I'll do my best to speak to them. I'd echo the comments I reported earlier from Clint Curtis himself yesterday morning when I told him about all the questions coming up about his case: "Good! We want them to debunk as much possible, since that means they'll research the claims and find out how much is out there about it all...including stuff that I don't even know yet!"
In that spirit and in no particular order, but for the easiest (and most annoying one!) first...
Q1. What's up with the fourth page of Curtis' affidavit [PDF]? The fonts and colors and pixellation were totally different than the first three pages! It must be a fake!
A. Full answer to this question, previously posted in this BRAD BLOG item.
Q2. I can't find any information on Raymond Lemme. The inspector for FDOT who Curtis claims in his affidavit had died just before -- Curtis says -- he told him that "he had tracked the corruption 'all the way to the top' and that the story would break in the next few weeks."
A. His full name was "Raymond Camillo Lemme", which was used on the police reports from Valdosta, GA. That may have been why people had difficulty finding info on him at first. I've posted an obituary notice for him here. RAW STORY has presented further information on the death here.
Q3. Was Lemme's death a suicide or was it murder?
A. The police reports from Valdosta, GA classify the case as as suicide. Curtis has suggest to me that he believes there may have been foul play. But it's just a suspicion he has based on various elements in the story and in the police reports. Another source I've spoken to who has been involved with the case for years and who has expressed "100% confidence" in Curtis, disagrees with him on this particular fact and feels there is reason to believe that it was a suicide.
Though there are some troubling points in the police reports on this, The BRAD BLOG for now has taken no position on the matter until we can further review the police records and additional investigation has been done by ourselves and/or others.
Q4. Does Curtis have any hard evidence to prove that he created a vote-rigging software prototype as an employee at Yang Enterprises, Inc. (YEI) as requested by Tom Feeney?
A. If he does, I have not seen it and he has not told me about any. That said, I have found his allegations -- which are wholly unproven at this time -- about the vote-rigging software to be very troubling considering that the virtually everything else in his affidavit has been largely confirmed as true and verifiable by a years-long paper trail of evidence, public records and newspaper articles on the matters.
There were others, beside Feeney, that Curtis has named in his affidavit as being present in the meeting were he claimed that he was asked to create a "vote-rigging software prototype" program. Those people, named by Curtis, are his boss at YEI, Mrs. Li Woan Yang, and her executive secretary, Mike Cohen. As well, there were at least two others that Curtis claimed may have come in and out of the meeting, but as he has told me he wasn't sure if those two people were in the room during the issue in question, he did not wish to name them in his affidavit.
Q5. How do you know this story isn't just a devious trap, setup perhaps by Karl Rove to discredit the Democrats or the Internet?
A. I don't. But I've seen absolutely no evidence of it.
Q6. Ah! But that's why it's so brilliant and devious!
A. Could be. Though it would seem to have been so brillant and devious that it was begun at least three years ago, disguised by Curtis getting fired from a job after exposing alleged corruption and possible espionage at a state contractor, facing legal challenge after legal challenge over many years because of it, writing a self-published book about it all, and swearing his name to a legally binding document which makes extraordinary charges against both public officials and private individuals who are all named and accused of wrong-doing.
And yet, I suppose it could be true that it's a brilliant and devious hoax. I have just seen no evidence of it.
Q7. Of course you haven't! You, Brad, could be a Karl Rove plant yourself!
A. I could be. But I've seen no evidence of it.
Furthermore, considering some of the things I've reported and said and made videos about in regards to the Bush Administration, as documented on The BRAD BLOG for the better part of the last year, it seems unlikely.
I have not hidden who I am, what I've done, nor where I've been over the last decade or two. Much of which is all available on my personal website for your perusal and verification.
Check me out. See what you can find. And let me know if I should concerned about myself possibly being a Karl Rove plant!
Q8. This guy is obviously just a disgruntled former employee!
A. Curtis has told me, and sworn in his affidavit, that he resigned from YEI effective December 2000. He has added that he stayed on at YEI until at least February or March of 2001 until they were able to find a replacement for him.
Additional sources (who I hope to be able to name on the record shortly) have told me that YEI actually threw him a going-away party when he submitted his resignation! And that he was asked to stay on for six more weeks at YEI after the person hired to replace him, had quit on the same day.
I've found no indication that those claims are untrue, aside from sources related to Tom Feeney who have suggested the "disgrunted employee" angle on several occassions, but have presented no evidence to support that charge.
Furthermore, it was not until after Curtis in his next job at the Florida Dept. of Transportation (FDOT), along with another employee, Mavis Georgalis, informed FDOT inspectors about YEI's alleged illegal activities that pressure mounted on FDOT to fire them, and YEI then brought a case against them.
All of that was after Curtis left YEI, and after whistleblowing to FDOT inspectors.
They were both eventually fired by FDOT -- on the exact same day, and without explanation.
Information on all of that is available via public records from Seminole County and Leon County, FL and has been reported in various newspaper accounts of these cases over the years.
Q9. Curtis is a liar who stole software from YEI! And that's why YEI sued him and Georgalis for "intellectual property theft"!
A. As explained to me by Curtis, and confirmed by others close to the case -- and verifiable via public records searches on the case -- the issue in that suit concerns software that FDOT contracted YEI to create. After YEI delivered what FDOT had purchased from then, they then owned it according to Florida state law. It was that software -- which FDOT then owned -- which YEI has charged both Curtis and Mavis with having "stolen". FDOT is now a defendant in that three-year old suit as well.
Curtis, and others, have informed me that in the three years since the case has been pending, YEI has refused to give depositions in the case. And so, the case mostly just sits there at this time. Nothing proved about any of it so far.
That is, of course, my understanding of it based on what Curtis and others have told me, and I'd encourage people to check out the claims. The legal papers on the case are available through public records.
Q10. Has the affidavit been shown to anybody in the U.S. House Judiciary Committee as you suggested in the original story?
A. Yes. (A copy of the unscanned original!) And it has also been given to members of the U.S. Senate for further investigation.
Q11. What about those claims that Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org made about Curtis' story? She says his story doesn't add up!
A. I have responded in great detail to the claims and charges made by Harris in this previous article. It seems she may have been under some incorrect assumptions about a few things, and may have been responding to misinformation in the matter. See my very complete response for more information about each of her charges.
UPDATE 12/10/04: Ms. Harris has now seen and replied to my response. See this post for more details on that and our joint appearance this morning on the Alex Jones radio show.
Q12. Is Curtis just doing this to sell copies of his book? Have you read it?
A. I do not know if it's about selling books. But when I suggested to him early on that people might believe such a thing, he asked if he thought it would make any difference if he made his book available for free on his website? I told him that it might make some difference, but it was up to him, and -- like anybody in America -- he deserved to make a living. Seeing all that he's been through, and that he will likely be continuing to go through now, I imagine he may need that money if he decides to keep selling his book.
I have not read or seen his book, so I can't comment in any way on what is in it.
Q13. Well, then he must be doing it for the $200,000 reward being offered for evidence about fraud in Election 2004!
A. Curtis has made it clear that he does not want the $200,000 reward being offered. He said as much in the very first email I ever received from him.
Furthermore, that reward concerns vote fraud in Election 2004 and Curtis has neither made claims, nor offered any proof that the program he was asked to create was used in the 2004 election.
Q14. How many affidavits are there? Is the one that The BRAD BLOG released the same one mentioned by Wayne Madsen in a story that also referred to Curtis?
A. Madsen did not show or release the affidavit he refers to in his story, but I believe the one he mentions is an older one from Curtis which essentially says, "I swear everything in my book is true". When I was shown the text of that vague and short affidavit, early on in my experience with this story, I informed Curtis that I found it very vague, and would only continue investigating his story if he was willing to swear to a more specific and detailed affidavit.
He did so. And that is the one that was released along with the original story I posted on The BRAD BLOG on this case.
Q15. In 2000, when Curtis claims the meeting where Feeney asked him to create vote-rigging software took place, there was no electronic voting machines in use in Florida. So would anyone in 2000 really have been looking for a touch screen capable program? Would it have helped much or at all in Florida?
A. Since the alleged meeting took place just before the 2000 Elections, it doesn't seem as if this program was meant to have been used in 2000, and Curtis has never said anything to me about the matter either way.
However, as RAW STORY reported in another interview with Curtis, the software prototype that Curtis claims to have created could also have been used on optical-scan counting machines, which werein use in Florida in 2000.
Curtis' affidavit, however, never claims that the software he created was used in any electronic voting or optical-scan machine in 2000, or any other election.
Q16. Why didn't Curtis keep a copy of the program he claims to have written for Feeney while at YEI?
A. Curtis has told me, though I have not yet confirmed, that YEI was a secure facility, and that removing software from the premises was not allowed.
Q17. Was his dog really shot just after The BRAD BLOG published the original article on this case? That seems a bit much to believe!
A. Curtis' three-year old German Shepard, Champ -- which had been rescued from a pound -- was found dead the evening that my original story on this was published. A pool of blood was found on the back porch at Curtis' house, and the dog was later found under some sticks in the nearby woods with an entrance wound in his front left leg, and exit wound in his rear. A police report was filed on the incident and should be confirmable via public records.
Q18. Did Curtis tell anybody else about the Feeney / election-rigging software incident at the time he alleges that it happened?
A. He claims that he did, and that those individuals may hopefully come forward to confirm that fact via affidavits. Though, he has told me, he doesn't know yet for sure if they will be willing to do so or not because, as he put it, "they may love their dog".
Q19. [ADDED: 12/9/04] Where the hell has Curtis been for four years? Why is he only coming out now as opposed to before the election, and why didn't he come out during the 2000 crisis?
A. That's a very good question! All I can tell you is what Curtis told me when I asked the same thing. His answer was fairly straight-forward. At the time, he told me, he was more concerned about the various espionage issues he claims to have been seeing at YEI, including "wire-tapping software" added to programs sold to large contracts such as NASA and FDOT, and Mrs. Yang shipping off information wholesale to her brother in China. (As I mentioned in my original story, Mrs. Yang had told Curtis that her brother had been deported for "being a spy".)
Curtis had felt at the time that any plan to rig the voting through such means could never work, since -- as he'd pointed out to Yang and Feeney several times according to his affidavit -- any such tampering would be discovered upon examination of the source code.
It wasn't until the summer of 2004, Curtis told me, when he noticed a story "on CNN or something" (he claims he's not really much of a political junkie) about electronic voting which mentioned that the source code for the voting machines was allowed to have been kept proprietary by the companies which manufactured and sold them to the states. His summer of '04 statement, as I recall he guessed it was July, would at least synch up with discussion about this issue that made it's way into the media during the summer when DeForest Soaries Jr., chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission -- the group created by the "Help America Vote Act of 2001" -- was complaining about precisely this issue. Here's a June 8, 2004 story about it.
At that point when he heard that story, he told me, "that's when I sat up and said...oh, my god, they're actually doing it...they're keeping the source code hidden!"
Since then, he claims, he's been trying to contact "anybody and everybody" he could about the Tom Feeney incident back at YEI in 2000.
===
I will either add to this article, or post another one as further issues develop that may require answers of which I have knowledge. Please feel free to keep digging. It's an important story -- if true -- and a troubling one that clearly deserves very serious further investigation.
After several years of Curtis trying to get folks to do so, it appears that such serious investigations are finally underway. We'll see what may turn up.
STILL DEVELOPING...
Many questions have appropriately been raised out in the net and beyond about the entire Clint Curtis / Tom Feeney / Yang Enterprises story, and -- occassionally -- my role in it.
Rather than answer the same questions so many times, I'll attempt to answer here some of the most frequently asked... And I'd encourage you folks out in Blogistan, who may see such questions or charges raised, to point folks to this document and/or any of the specific answers you may find germane to questions being asked.
As more arise, I'll try to answer them as the story moves along. Feel free to ask any you may have in comments here, and I'll do my best to speak to them. I'd echo the comments I reported earlier from Clint Curtis himself yesterday morning when I told him about all the questions coming up about his case: "Good! We want them to debunk as much possible, since that means they'll research the claims and find out how much is out there about it all...including stuff that I don't even know yet!"
In that spirit and in no particular order, but for the easiest (and most annoying one!) first...
Q1. What's up with the fourth page of Curtis' affidavit [PDF]? The fonts and colors and pixellation were totally different than the first three pages! It must be a fake!
A. Full answer to this question, previously posted in this BRAD BLOG item.
Q2. I can't find any information on Raymond Lemme. The inspector for FDOT who Curtis claims in his affidavit had died just before -- Curtis says -- he told him that "he had tracked the corruption 'all the way to the top' and that the story would break in the next few weeks."
A. His full name was "Raymond Camillo Lemme", which was used on the police reports from Valdosta, GA. That may have been why people had difficulty finding info on him at first. I've posted an obituary notice for him here. RAW STORY has presented further information on the death here.
Q3. Was Lemme's death a suicide or was it murder?
A. The police reports from Valdosta, GA classify the case as as suicide. Curtis has suggest to me that he believes there may have been foul play. But it's just a suspicion he has based on various elements in the story and in the police reports. Another source I've spoken to who has been involved with the case for years and who has expressed "100% confidence" in Curtis, disagrees with him on this particular fact and feels there is reason to believe that it was a suicide.
Though there are some troubling points in the police reports on this, The BRAD BLOG for now has taken no position on the matter until we can further review the police records and additional investigation has been done by ourselves and/or others.
Q4. Does Curtis have any hard evidence to prove that he created a vote-rigging software prototype as an employee at Yang Enterprises, Inc. (YEI) as requested by Tom Feeney?
A. If he does, I have not seen it and he has not told me about any. That said, I have found his allegations -- which are wholly unproven at this time -- about the vote-rigging software to be very troubling considering that the virtually everything else in his affidavit has been largely confirmed as true and verifiable by a years-long paper trail of evidence, public records and newspaper articles on the matters.
There were others, beside Feeney, that Curtis has named in his affidavit as being present in the meeting were he claimed that he was asked to create a "vote-rigging software prototype" program. Those people, named by Curtis, are his boss at YEI, Mrs. Li Woan Yang, and her executive secretary, Mike Cohen. As well, there were at least two others that Curtis claimed may have come in and out of the meeting, but as he has told me he wasn't sure if those two people were in the room during the issue in question, he did not wish to name them in his affidavit.
Q5. How do you know this story isn't just a devious trap, setup perhaps by Karl Rove to discredit the Democrats or the Internet?
A. I don't. But I've seen absolutely no evidence of it.
Q6. Ah! But that's why it's so brilliant and devious!
A. Could be. Though it would seem to have been so brillant and devious that it was begun at least three years ago, disguised by Curtis getting fired from a job after exposing alleged corruption and possible espionage at a state contractor, facing legal challenge after legal challenge over many years because of it, writing a self-published book about it all, and swearing his name to a legally binding document which makes extraordinary charges against both public officials and private individuals who are all named and accused of wrong-doing.
And yet, I suppose it could be true that it's a brilliant and devious hoax. I have just seen no evidence of it.
Q7. Of course you haven't! You, Brad, could be a Karl Rove plant yourself!
A. I could be. But I've seen no evidence of it.
Furthermore, considering some of the things I've reported and said and made videos about in regards to the Bush Administration, as documented on The BRAD BLOG for the better part of the last year, it seems unlikely.
I have not hidden who I am, what I've done, nor where I've been over the last decade or two. Much of which is all available on my personal website for your perusal and verification.
Check me out. See what you can find. And let me know if I should concerned about myself possibly being a Karl Rove plant!
Q8. This guy is obviously just a disgruntled former employee!
A. Curtis has told me, and sworn in his affidavit, that he resigned from YEI effective December 2000. He has added that he stayed on at YEI until at least February or March of 2001 until they were able to find a replacement for him.
Additional sources (who I hope to be able to name on the record shortly) have told me that YEI actually threw him a going-away party when he submitted his resignation! And that he was asked to stay on for six more weeks at YEI after the person hired to replace him, had quit on the same day.
I've found no indication that those claims are untrue, aside from sources related to Tom Feeney who have suggested the "disgrunted employee" angle on several occassions, but have presented no evidence to support that charge.
Furthermore, it was not until after Curtis in his next job at the Florida Dept. of Transportation (FDOT), along with another employee, Mavis Georgalis, informed FDOT inspectors about YEI's alleged illegal activities that pressure mounted on FDOT to fire them, and YEI then brought a case against them.
All of that was after Curtis left YEI, and after whistleblowing to FDOT inspectors.
They were both eventually fired by FDOT -- on the exact same day, and without explanation.
Information on all of that is available via public records from Seminole County and Leon County, FL and has been reported in various newspaper accounts of these cases over the years.
Q9. Curtis is a liar who stole software from YEI! And that's why YEI sued him and Georgalis for "intellectual property theft"!
A. As explained to me by Curtis, and confirmed by others close to the case -- and verifiable via public records searches on the case -- the issue in that suit concerns software that FDOT contracted YEI to create. After YEI delivered what FDOT had purchased from then, they then owned it according to Florida state law. It was that software -- which FDOT then owned -- which YEI has charged both Curtis and Mavis with having "stolen". FDOT is now a defendant in that three-year old suit as well.
Curtis, and others, have informed me that in the three years since the case has been pending, YEI has refused to give depositions in the case. And so, the case mostly just sits there at this time. Nothing proved about any of it so far.
That is, of course, my understanding of it based on what Curtis and others have told me, and I'd encourage people to check out the claims. The legal papers on the case are available through public records.
Q10. Has the affidavit been shown to anybody in the U.S. House Judiciary Committee as you suggested in the original story?
A. Yes. (A copy of the unscanned original!) And it has also been given to members of the U.S. Senate for further investigation.
Q11. What about those claims that Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org made about Curtis' story? She says his story doesn't add up!
A. I have responded in great detail to the claims and charges made by Harris in this previous article. It seems she may have been under some incorrect assumptions about a few things, and may have been responding to misinformation in the matter. See my very complete response for more information about each of her charges.
UPDATE 12/10/04: Ms. Harris has now seen and replied to my response. See this post for more details on that and our joint appearance this morning on the Alex Jones radio show.
Q12. Is Curtis just doing this to sell copies of his book? Have you read it?
A. I do not know if it's about selling books. But when I suggested to him early on that people might believe such a thing, he asked if he thought it would make any difference if he made his book available for free on his website? I told him that it might make some difference, but it was up to him, and -- like anybody in America -- he deserved to make a living. Seeing all that he's been through, and that he will likely be continuing to go through now, I imagine he may need that money if he decides to keep selling his book.
I have not read or seen his book, so I can't comment in any way on what is in it.
Q13. Well, then he must be doing it for the $200,000 reward being offered for evidence about fraud in Election 2004!
A. Curtis has made it clear that he does not want the $200,000 reward being offered. He said as much in the very first email I ever received from him.
Furthermore, that reward concerns vote fraud in Election 2004 and Curtis has neither made claims, nor offered any proof that the program he was asked to create was used in the 2004 election.
Q14. How many affidavits are there? Is the one that The BRAD BLOG released the same one mentioned by Wayne Madsen in a story that also referred to Curtis?
A. Madsen did not show or release the affidavit he refers to in his story, but I believe the one he mentions is an older one from Curtis which essentially says, "I swear everything in my book is true". When I was shown the text of that vague and short affidavit, early on in my experience with this story, I informed Curtis that I found it very vague, and would only continue investigating his story if he was willing to swear to a more specific and detailed affidavit.
He did so. And that is the one that was released along with the original story I posted on The BRAD BLOG on this case.
Q15. In 2000, when Curtis claims the meeting where Feeney asked him to create vote-rigging software took place, there was no electronic voting machines in use in Florida. So would anyone in 2000 really have been looking for a touch screen capable program? Would it have helped much or at all in Florida?
A. Since the alleged meeting took place just before the 2000 Elections, it doesn't seem as if this program was meant to have been used in 2000, and Curtis has never said anything to me about the matter either way.
However, as RAW STORY reported in another interview with Curtis, the software prototype that Curtis claims to have created could also have been used on optical-scan counting machines, which werein use in Florida in 2000.
Curtis' affidavit, however, never claims that the software he created was used in any electronic voting or optical-scan machine in 2000, or any other election.
Q16. Why didn't Curtis keep a copy of the program he claims to have written for Feeney while at YEI?
A. Curtis has told me, though I have not yet confirmed, that YEI was a secure facility, and that removing software from the premises was not allowed.
Q17. Was his dog really shot just after The BRAD BLOG published the original article on this case? That seems a bit much to believe!
A. Curtis' three-year old German Shepard, Champ -- which had been rescued from a pound -- was found dead the evening that my original story on this was published. A pool of blood was found on the back porch at Curtis' house, and the dog was later found under some sticks in the nearby woods with an entrance wound in his front left leg, and exit wound in his rear. A police report was filed on the incident and should be confirmable via public records.
Q18. Did Curtis tell anybody else about the Feeney / election-rigging software incident at the time he alleges that it happened?
A. He claims that he did, and that those individuals may hopefully come forward to confirm that fact via affidavits. Though, he has told me, he doesn't know yet for sure if they will be willing to do so or not because, as he put it, "they may love their dog".
Q19. [ADDED: 12/9/04] Where the hell has Curtis been for four years? Why is he only coming out now as opposed to before the election, and why didn't he come out during the 2000 crisis?
A. That's a very good question! All I can tell you is what Curtis told me when I asked the same thing. His answer was fairly straight-forward. At the time, he told me, he was more concerned about the various espionage issues he claims to have been seeing at YEI, including "wire-tapping software" added to programs sold to large contracts such as NASA and FDOT, and Mrs. Yang shipping off information wholesale to her brother in China. (As I mentioned in my original story, Mrs. Yang had told Curtis that her brother had been deported for "being a spy".)
Curtis had felt at the time that any plan to rig the voting through such means could never work, since -- as he'd pointed out to Yang and Feeney several times according to his affidavit -- any such tampering would be discovered upon examination of the source code.
It wasn't until the summer of 2004, Curtis told me, when he noticed a story "on CNN or something" (he claims he's not really much of a political junkie) about electronic voting which mentioned that the source code for the voting machines was allowed to have been kept proprietary by the companies which manufactured and sold them to the states. His summer of '04 statement, as I recall he guessed it was July, would at least synch up with discussion about this issue that made it's way into the media during the summer when DeForest Soaries Jr., chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission -- the group created by the "Help America Vote Act of 2001" -- was complaining about precisely this issue. Here's a June 8, 2004 story about it.
At that point when he heard that story, he told me, "that's when I sat up and said...oh, my god, they're actually doing it...they're keeping the source code hidden!"
Since then, he claims, he's been trying to contact "anybody and everybody" he could about the Tom Feeney incident back at YEI in 2000.
===
I will either add to this article, or post another one as further issues develop that may require answers of which I have knowledge. Please feel free to keep digging. It's an important story -- if true -- and a troubling one that clearly deserves very serious further investigation.
After several years of Curtis trying to get folks to do so, it appears that such serious investigations are finally underway. We'll see what may turn up.
STILL DEVELOPING...
17 Comments:
I haven't done a WHOIS on the domain, so for the moment, I'll take your word for it. Long enough to say, I don't know why the domain was established on that day.
As far as "activity", I'm not sure what you mean by not showing anyway. The material on his website has been up for some time as I'd taken a look at some of it in the days prior to posting my story.
Beyond that, not sure what you mean by a "thinly disguised affidavit" -- As far as I know, he has not posted the affidavit we released here on his site as he's been away from all net access for the most part since last Monday.
I hope that helps. Is just about all I know about it at this time.
As to a connection between YEI and any voting machine vendors, I have not yet seen any. Though I also have not looked personally. The connections, however, between the voting machine vendors and the Republican, of course, are well known. As is Mr. Feeney's connection to that party :-)
He has also had some notable things to say about things like Voter-Verifiable Paper Trails as reported in this Orlando Sentinel editorial that Mr. Feeney has posted on his website and which I hope to speak more about shortly. (Thanks Michael M. for that link, by the way!)If a more direct connect between YEI and Voting Vendors come out, of course, I'll try to report it here (and please let *me* know if you find any!)
I am wondering about the specifics of the operation of the prototype software Mr. Curtis devised. How would a fully-functional implementation of the prototype work? In order to rig the votes, would it be necessary to put the code into all (or at least many) of the individual electronic voting machines? If so, would it then be necessary, sometime during election day, to activate each machine with the invisible key sequence? If so, wouldn't this require a rather large number of people involved in the plot, each responsible for a single voting machine?
This may be a basic question, but I don't think I have seen it answered.
My admiration for your spectacular work.
Thanks for the kind words.
To answer your questions...
I don't believe Curtis was asked to provide a full implementation of the program, but rather devise a prototype to the very specifications requested by Feeney. If there was discussion about further implementation, I don't know about it.
Curtis has been speaking to many media outlets, however, and perhaps he's elaborated to them about it if he had any information to that end.
I will note, however, (and I believe RAW STORY discussed this aspect in one of their recent stories on the technical aspects of Curtis' story) that the same simple program structure could have been implemented on tabulating machines (Optical-scan counters, etc.) So it might not have been necessary for such code to be in every voting machine in fact.
That said, from my understanding, such implimentation would have been beyond the scope of Curtis' claimed order to create a prototype to me that specific criteria he spelled out in his affidavit.
So anything beyond that (by me here) would simply be speculation. Not a great idea, especially considering that Curtis has not charged that he has any evidence that his program was ever actually used.
Hope that helps! And thanks again for the nice words.
I may be the last one to notice this, but I thought I'd post it anyway just incase. Anyone seen that they've updated over at Yang? http://www.yangenterprises.com/
They've got a bizarrely abrupt message about a forthcoming statement. Something still doesn't smell right here...
Once again, sorry if this question has already been asked, but why does Mr. Curtis refer to Yang Enterprises as Wong enterprises on his website www.justaflyonthewall.com? Which is it?
Please don't take my comments in anger or contempt but... I smell Karl Rove or someone as insidiously stinky in this story as well. The story resembles just another deviant Rovian amusement at this early point, although I realize many facts are being withheld to protect certain people and integrities.
Sure there are facts contained in the story and verifiable by relating to other notable factual happenings, but there is also a huge cesspool of insidious republican deeds for someone like Karl Rove to manufacture this type of story from as well. We must all remain cautious. We must all speak.
It is a fact that many people are incredibly stupid or we wouldn't be putting up with the Bush regime in the first place. The regime is depending on us all to stupidly follow the herd, so please proceed with extreme caution in this story. But please, please proceed. Don't ever give up the fight.
I commend you on your reporting thus far Brad, it is excellent and professional and should continue until the gallows fall. I'm hoping my s**t-eating grin and gotcha now smile can live on my face for a few more weeks too. :)
Keep your head down my friend... but speak.
The company is referred to as Wong Enterprises because Curtis had not yet decided to 'name any names' at the point he wrote that.
About http://www.yangenterprises.com, I noticed that the message they have posted promising a statement, over the course of the last few days, had the words "God Bless America" removed, then re-added, (as well as the color changed from red to blue). Strange?
As for Curtis' website, you can see some of the pages which were previously available but have been removed by googling his site and clicking on the "Cached" versions of the pages.
Look again.. it seems the old www.justaflyonthewall.com/docs/ sub-dir is still intact. Click on the links from this cached google page of the site: http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:feeQlsJkRvkJ:www.justaflyonthewall.com/Documentation.htm+site:justaflyonthewall.com&hl=en&client=firefox-a
Maybe others? Thanks for pointing this out anonymous!!!
Still on the subject of the Yang Enterprises site - and probably of no significance - the name of 'Mike Cohen', one of the people cited as a witness in Curtis's statement, has been replaced by that of 'Lowell Weaver'. Mr. Cohen's name is still on Google's cached versions of the pages.
Yes, interesting... Using the yangenterprises.com website search box, 'Mike Cohen' returns 2 links to pages not containing the search words, but 'Lowell Weaver' contact links instead. Viewing the source HTML for these pages shows no text for 'Mike' or 'Cohen' in the HTML text. Searching the site for 'Lowell Weaver' returns no records whatsoever, however 'Lowell.Weaver' and 'Lowell Weaver' is clearly viewable on the page and in the source HTML text. Weird..?
The yangenterprises.com website seems to be running on a Microsoft IIS (version 4.0?) ASP webserver and using standard Windows NT ACL (Access Control List) file level access security scheme along with the user's authorized WinNT domain login.
I'm a Linux user so I'm baffled with the inner workings of Microsoft... I'm confused how this can happen so does anyone know why 'Lowell Weaver' would be returned in a search for 'Mike Cohen' on a Microsoft IIS Active Server Pages webserver? Is it a server-side directory parent issue? Is the anamoly related to the ACL or other security implemented in WinNT?
I'm pleased that everything seems to check out with this story so far. I had my doubts Brad... now the doubts are fewer. I'm off to cross-check several other interesting tidbits gathered while researching the big picture...
Keep up the great reporting!
The yangenterprises.com site has been updated over the last day or so, and all references to Mike Cohen have been changed to Lowell Weaver. This may have been due to the number of enquiries they have had and Mike Cohen just doesn't want to speak to anyone any more....
The search engine on the site has not updated its page index yet, so searching for Mike Cohen returns pages which no longer contain his name.
If you google the website and check the cached versions of the pages in question, you can confirm that Mike Cohen's name has been removed.
First of all, thank you for all the information. At this stage, I have no comment on the trustworthiness of the developer's story.
But referring to Harris comment, I have difficulty in understanding why a few line VB script, as what Harris claimed, was enough to re-engineer all the votes without any trace. Her claim was apparently based on an assumption that there was no database change or software vetting during these two years. But she has already disclosed this VB script problem a long time ago. If there were any parties determined to re-engineering the election, do you think they would re-use the same trick again and again?
I have, in pdf form, the cached verison of the GEMS page at YEI.
Peace.
Could you post a link to your cache copy?
I found the following document which apparently relates to the contract which you mentioned.
http://fcn.state.fl.us/st_contracts/973561042/01_documents/Certification.htm
Unless you have another one, I don't think this document is very useful.
On the other hand, I think another more obvious relevation in blackboxvoting.org's front page would help:
".... As I was checking this out, I got a report from someone completely unrelated, on an entirely different kind of vote-manipulation endeavor, and FXXXXX's name came up in that, too. So the issue of FXXXXX's behavior is about as clear as mud....."
Another hint which might help is the Opinion Suit filed by FXXXXX, which reveals that the whistleblower and his former manager had stolen the YEI's intellectual property and were fired. This opinion suit also rejected the whistleblower suit filed by the whistleblower himself. Afterwards, the court imposed injunction against further disclosure of the software by the whistleblower. However, in another official report, there is a section accusing the then whistleblower's manager of taking bride from YEI before she was fired. This is something difficult to understand.
Brad,
Thanks for posting this FAQs, this surely makes some points clearer. However, you did not address yet a point I made in a previous comment, so I'll repost it here.
I think it has not been stressed enough that what Curtis says he has written was only a quick prototype, written in one day. There is no way it can have been used during the election. What this story would mean if it was true is that Feeney was interested in the possibility of cheating, which should surely mandate further investigation.
I just listened to the Hartman Show interview, and that made me a bit suspicious about Curtis' credibility. Twice he did not rule out that his software was used. First asked specifically about this by the host, he only said he just delivered the product, and doesn't know what happened to it. Then when answering the caller, he said that investigation of the machines would be needed to know if his patch was there, after decompilation. I don't think there is any way this could be the case.
Until we get answers about these concerns, we should be very cautious about this story. One possibility mentioned by Hartman is that this could be akin to the National Guard memos, a fake made up to bring discredit on the whole idea of fraud. Another is that this guy is honestly trying to bring attention to this issue, even if it means distorting facts. His comment about the dangers of black box voting leans in that direction. The goal might justify the means in his view, but even then i'm not sure this would be a good tactic.
Daniel
1. If a programmer implemented a vote stealing program exactly as Curtis describes it, he would take votes from all candidates in a race. This means that Libertarian, Constitutional, Green, and Socialist, party candidates might lose one or more of a very small number of votes in certain precincts. It might be possible to find those cases.
2. The Madsen report makes a big deal of a "Five Star" organization. It is interesting that Yang enterprises proudly displays a legitimate OSHA voluntary program award called "OSHA VPP Five Star"
Harland Harrison
harlandh@concentric.net
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