Voting for naught
To the Editor:
In response to your staff editorial on voting ("A responsibility and right to vote," The Daily Pennsylvanian, 11/4/03), it's probably relevant to note that voting isn't all it's cracked up to be.
At the very least, that seems to be the attitude of Diebold, one of the largest providers of electronic voting machines in the country and responsible for eight million votes in eight states nationwide. Professors at Johns Hopkins and Rice universities analyzed the software on Diebold's machines and determined that Diebold took no steps to ensure the security of its ballots, storing the votes in an unencrypted Microsoft Access file that could be edited by anyone with no paper trail. They noted that a poll worker, voter or even janitor with no technical knowledge could change the recorded votes.
Last March, an anonymous hacker broke into one of Diebold's servers (remember, this company claims to develop secure electronic systems) and made off with 11 megabytes of archived company memos that reveal a shocking pattern of incompetence and willful breaking of election laws (one customer asks for an explanation of "why Precinct 216 gave Al Gore a minus 16022 when it was uploaded," while one employee criticizes that he has "never been at any other company that has been so miss [sic] managed").
The memos soon appeared on numerous Web sites, including student pages at more than 50 universities. Diebold's response, rather than fixing problems with its machines, has been to file cease and desist letters with the ISPs and universities hosting the material, claiming that they violate the company's copyright (despite clearly falling under fair use). Diebold even says the memos may not be authentic, even though the law requires they show ownership before claiming copyright infringement.
Moral of the story? Don't bother to vote. It doesn't count anyway.
Dan Margolis Engineering '06
Addressing terrorism
To the Editor:
I am quite disturbed by the religious bigotry expressed and the violence condoned by Yaron Brook in his speech ("Speaker: U.S. not aggressive enough," DP, 11/7/03). In his speech on Wednesday, he said, "our enemy is militant Islam. To stop them, we must kill or capture their leaders -- military and spiritual." Did he use this kind of rhetoric when McVeigh bombed the Federal Building in Oklahoma City? "Our enemy is white Christian men, therefore we must kill or capture their military and spiritual leaders?"
Brook is relying on his audience's ignorance and stereotypes of Islam to justify his incendiary position. Let's be clear: there is no such thing as militaristic Islam, just as there is no militaristic Christianity. He forgets the vast majority of Islamic clergy loudly and publicly condemn terrorism. Unfortunately, there are so-called believers who use sacred texts to declare they have God/Allah/Yahweh's full support to justify murderous terrorism and preemptive war. But such actions are a perversion and violation of the compassionate and justice-seeking core of the major faith religions: Islam, Judaism and Christianity.
Contrary to Brook's view, this is not about liberals or timid politicians using ineffective anti-terrorism strategies or being "insufficiently brutal." Millions of religious and secular people throughout the world believe there are ways to address terrorism that will not leave human carcasses strewn across the desert or fill the rivers with blood. Instead, we believe we must seek just, humane and compassionate ways to address the global problems that ultimately feed terrorism. While the Rev. William Coffin recommends "we wage war on global poverty" thereby making it "hard to recruit new terrorists," Brook proposes more aggression (translated: more body bags and more orphans) and the use of more nuclear weapons (thereby rendering U.N. treaties useless). Thanks to the sponsorship of the Penn/Drexel Objectivist Club, the Penn community can hear the dangerous rhetoric of those who have apparently shut down their hearts and turned off their compassion. God help us!
Beverly Dale Executive Directorbr> Christian Association
