The Center for Public Integrity: FEC hamstrung by political bickering, case backlogs, staff departures — even Chinese hackers <read>
Just after the federal government shut down Oct. 1, and one of the government’s more dysfunctional agencies stopped functioning altogether, Chinese hackers picked their moment to attack.
They waylaid the Federal Election Commission’s networks. They crashed computer systems that publicly disclose how billions of dollars are raised and spent each election cycle by candidates, parties and political action committees.
As minutes turned to hours, the FEC found itself largely defenseless against what may be the worst act of sabotage in its 38-year history…
Just more to contemplate as we in Connecticut head into supporting Internet voting via mandate that the Secretary of the State and the Military Department (of CT) figure out how to make it secure.
I also note an interesting comment on the article:
The take away lesson from this article should be that computer driven American elections can be as easily hijacked as FEC computers. And the powers that be, be they Democrat or Republican don’t really give a damn. I offer my experience as prima fascia evidence of my comment: I am a weapons systems analyst wholly knowledgeable in the failings of the so-called high tech weapon system and therefore cognizant of the inherent weakness of the average electronic voting system. In 2004 I was a registered voter in the State of Nevada. Concerned that my vote had not been counted I challenged the 2004 election of George Bush by bringing suit against the State of Nevada and Sequoia Voting Systems with a demand for independent testing of Nevada’s Sequoia computerized voting system. Ironically, just prior to the 2008 Presidential primary the Court ruled that I, a fully franchised registered voter, had no standing in this matter and dismissed my lawsuit thereby securing the way to electronic treason. Many thanks to this fine reporter for exposing the truth about the FEC and our holey ‘free and fair’ elections.
Patricia Axelrod, Director, The Desert Storm Think Tank and All Veterans’ Advocate (seeded by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation).
