[Diebold] Court order on Election Day

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (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.

Diebold has delivered dozens of cease-and-desist notices to website publishers and ISPs demanding that they take down corporate documents revealing flaws in the company's electronic voting systems as well as difficulties with certifying the systems for actual elections.

Swarthmore students Nelson Pavlosky and Luke Smith have published an email archive of the Diebold documents, which contain descriptions of these flaws written by the company's own employees.

"Diebold's blanket cease-and-desist notices are a blatant abuse of copyright law," said EFF Staff Attorney Wendy Seltzer. "Publication of the Diebold documents is clear fair use because of their importance to the public debate over the accuracy of electronic voting machines."

Diebold threatened not only the ISPs of direct publishers of the corporate documents, but also the ISPs of those who merely publish links to the documents. In one such instance, the ISP Online Policy Group (OPG) refused to comply with Diebold's demand that it prohibit Independent Media Network (IndyMedia) from linking to Diebold documents. Neither IndyMedia nor any other publisher hosted by OPG has yet published the Diebold documents directly.

"As an ISP committed to free speech, we are defending our users' right to link to information that's critical to the debate on the reliability of electronic voting machines," said OPG's Colocation Director David Weekly. "This case is an important step in defending free speech by helping protect small publishers and ISPs from frivolous legal threats by large corporations."

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), passed by Congress in 1998, provides a "safe harbor" provision as an incentive for ISPs to take down user-posted content when they receive cease-and-desist letters such as the ones sent by Diebold. By removing the content, or forcing the user to do so, for a minimum of 10 days, an ISP can take itself out of the middle of any copyright claim. As a result, few ISPs have tested whether they would face liability for such user activity in a court of law. EFF has been exposing some of the ways that the safe harbor provision can be used to silence legitimate online speech through the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse.

"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 this release: http://www.eff.org/Legal/ISP_liability/OPG_v_Diebold/20031103_eff_pr.php

Online Policy Group v. Diebold case archive: http://www.eff.org/Legal/ISP_liability/OPG_v_Diebold/

Cease-and-desist letter Diebold sent to OPG: http://www.eff.org/Legal/ISP_liability/cease_desist_letter.php

IndyMedia Web page subject to Diebold cease-and-desist letter: http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/09/1649419_comment.php

Security researchers discover huge flaws in e-voting system: http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030723_eff_pr.php

Link to Chilling Effects on DMCA safe harbor provisions: http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/

Media coverage of Diebold threats: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,60927,00.html

About EFF:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil liberties organization working to protect rights in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and challenges industry and government to support free expression and privacy online. EFF is a member-supported organization and maintains one of the most linked-to websites in the world at http://www.eff.org/

About Center for Internet and Society Cyberlaw Clinic at Stanford Law School:

The Center for Internet and Society (CIS) is a public interest technology law and policy program at Stanford Law School and a part of Law, Science and Technology Program at Stanford Law School. The CIS brings together scholars, academics, legislators, students, programmers, security researchers, and scientists to study the interaction of new technologies and the law and to examine how the synergy between the two can either promote or harm public goods like free speech, privacy, public commons, diversity, and scientific inquiry. The CIS Cyberlaw Clinic gives Stanford Law School students an opportunity to work with clients on cases and legal projects that involve questions of technology, law and the public interest.

About OPG:

The Online Policy Group (OPG) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to online policy research, outreach, and action on issues such as access, privacy, the digital divide, and digital defamation. The organization fulfills its motto of "One Internet With Equal Access for All" through programs such as donation-based email, email list hosting, website hosting, domain registrations, colocation services, technical consulting, educational training, and refurbished computer donations. The California Community Colocation Project (CCCP) and QueerNet are OPG projects. OPG focuses on Internet participants' civil liberties and human rights, like access, privacy, safety, and serving schools, libraries, disabled, elderly, youth, women, and sexual, gender, and ethnic minorities. Find out more at http://www.onlinepolicy.org/

About IndyMedia:

IndyMedia is an international network working to build a decentralized, non-commercial media infrastructure to counter an increasingly consolidated corporate media. IndyMedia collectives have spread rapidly since the WTO protests in Seattle 1999, with IMC groups now working throughout North & South America, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania, accessible through http://www.indymedia.org/

-end-

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 3, 2003

Diebold Documents Spark International Campaign

Swarthmore, Pa. -- When American citizens step into the voting booth tomorrow, will their votes be counted? Today, with Diebold Elections Systems operating electronic voting in 37 states, the answer is a resounding "maybe." As a result of widespread security flaws and the lack of any verifiable check on their systems, Diebold cannot guarantee the accuracy of any election in which their machines are present.

An electronic campaign initiated two weeks ago by Why War? has sparked students from fifty universities nationwide to host copies of internal Diebold memoranda which demonstrate the insecurity and unreliability of their voting machines.

Why War's website has been innundated with e-mails and visitors from individuals worldwide pledging their support and offering to defy Diebold's attempts at suppression by hosting mirrors of the provocative documents.

"We've been receiving more hits than ever before," said Why War? member Micah White, who originally found and posted the memos in October. "Our goal when we started this campaign was to provide public access to this information, and we've been so successful that Why War? recently had to purchase higher bandwith to accommodate the sheer number of people who wanted to read the memos."

Why War? has built a coalition of concerned citizens across the nation who will soon be taking charge of the campaign against Diebold. "This is not a partisan issue," said Ivan Boothe, another member. "The people who have taken the initiative to host these documents come from all parts of the political spectrum."

In response to growing national interest, the coalition will soon be moving its center of operations from Why War's website, why-war.com, to a new location devoted specifically to voting issues and resisting Diebold's attempts to keep this information a secret.

Why War? believes that the Diebold documents are akin to the Pentagon Papers in their potential to reveal systemic corruption within the American election process. The task now at hand is to analyze the content of these documents.


More information about the campaign:
http://why-war.com/

List of municipalities that use Diebold machines:
http://why-war.com/features/diebold-campaign.pdf