Wednesday, October 22, 2003

by Evelyn Khoo
Living and Arts Editor

In typical Swarthmore style, the new student group SCDC (Swarthmore Coalition
for the Digital Commons) and veteran group Why-War? have taken a stand against
Diebold Inc, a company that produced the electronic voting machines that were
used in the Gore-Bush presidential race of 2000 and the recent California recall
election.

According to Nelson Pavlosky’ 06, a founding member of SCDC, the roots of this
complicated electronic battle began with a leak of Diebold’s internal memos.
The memos apparently claimed that the Diebold machines were faulty, that anyone
with access to these machines could change the nature of the votes without leaving
evidence that they had been tampered with. Why-War? found out about these memos
and posted them on their website. On Oct 3rd, Diebold contacted Why-War?’s ISP
(Internet Service Provider), NEIT Solutions to take it down. Why-War? took the
documents off the website and put it on to a personal computer in Swarthmore
College.

On Oct 10th, when fall break began, Why-War? was contacted by ITS. Apparently
Diebold had contacted the College ISP and insisted that the personal websites
that were hosting these memos be taken down, since they were in violation of
copyright law.

According to Pavlosky, this is where SCDC got involved. “This is a prime
example of the expansion of intellectual property law to the point where it
gets harmful. What could possibly be more important to the public good than
knowing how your votes are counted?”

Pavlosky further asserts that Diebold had been shutting down websites that
were merely linked to websites that were hosting the memos. According to Pavlosky,
Diebold had shut down most of the websites that had been hosting the memos and
for a brief time, the Why-War? website was the sole remaining copy of the memos
in the United States. Says Pavlosky: ” if they simply shut down websites
linked to other websites, where will it end?”

Despite the legal threat from Diebold, both SCDC and Why-War? have said that
they will continue to host the memos on a string of personal computers. Says
Pavlosky: “Even if they try to shut us down, we have a bunch of people
who’ve agreed to continue hosting the memos on their personal computers, and
basically every time one personal computer is shut down, we’ll move it to another
one, so the memos will always be available.”

Dean of the College Bob Gross will be holding a meeting regarding this issue
tomorrow at his office in Parrish at 4:00 p.m. and all students who are interested
are invited to attend.

by Alex Glick
Gazette Reporter

Student Council has arranged for an open mic this Thursday, October 23 from
12 – 2 PM. It will be held outside of Kohlberg Coffee Bar.

The open mic is being organized in a response to the incidents that targeted
Swarthmore Queer Union this September. These actions ranged from the removal
of flyers and posters to SQU’s logo being ripped from the sign outside of the
Intercultural Center. Open mic will give members of the Swarthmore community
a chance to raise and discuss many important issues facing the campus. Each
speaker will get 5 minutes to address listeners, with a brief question and answer
period following each speaker.

According to Student Council co-president Anna Morgan ’04, one of the original
ideas was to create a “free speech wall” on which students could voice
their opinions, but this may have allowed for little accountability in cases
of anonymous and offensive remarks, for example. Darryl Smaw, Associate Dean
for Multicultural Affairs, soon came up with the idea for an open mic.

Student Council urges everyone to come to speak his or her mind and listen
to what others have to say this Thursday. Thursday’s open mic will be a test
run; if successful, one may be held every week.

*****

* The Senate on Tuesday voted to ban the practice that critics call partial
birth abortion, sending President Bush a measure that supporters and foes alike
said could alter the future of U.S. abortion rights. Years in the making, the
bill imposes the most far-reaching limits on abortion since the Supreme Court
in 1973 confirmed a woman’s right to end a pregnancy. The 64-34 vote came three
weeks after the House passed the same measure by 281-142. But opponents said
the first federal ban on abortion since the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade
decision was unconstitutional and, like similar state laws, would be struck
down. Several groups, including the National Abortion Federation and the Center
for Reproductive Rights, plan to challenge the measure in court as soon as it
is signed into law. A key focus will be the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling in 2000
that a similar Nebraska law was unconstitutional because the definition of the
practice was too vague — making it unclear to doctors what procedures were
illegal — and didn’t have an exception concerning risks to the health of the
mother to go along with an exception for when the life of the mother was in
danger.

* Asia Pacific leaders yesterday sent a strong signal in support of continuing
multilateral trade talks. Closing their summit, they also welded the issue of
terrorism to trade and investment, endorsing United States President George
W. Bush’s plans to fight terror. They agreed to help boost global security by
controlling trade in shoulder-fired missiles, tightening port security, choking
terrorist finance and increasing cooperation. Shrugging off North Korea’s latest
missile test, they also called for a resumption of six-nation talks to end the
year-old nuclear standoff with Pyongyang. The Bangkok Declaration wound up week-long
deliberations of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic forum. This year’s host,
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, said Apec was sending a signal “clearly
and loudly” to revive the global trade talks that collapsed in Cancun,
Mexico. The leaders declared yesterday they would work to abolish all forms
of agricultural export subsidies, and unjustifiable export prohibitions and
restrictions and also called for “specific domestic actions” to combat
corruption and promote transparency. Prominent measures pledged were the restrictions
on the manufacture, sale and distribution of portable surface-to-air missiles
that could be used by terrorists to shoot down civilian aircraft. Also endorsed
was a region-wide movement alert system and a coordinated approach to the threat
of diseases and bio-terrorism.

* Despite a barrage of international criticism over his allegedly anti-Semitic
remarks, an unrepentant Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has maintained
that Jews are arrogant and insists they do control the world. He criticized
the Western media for taking his comments that Jews “do control the world”,
made at last week’s summit of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC),
out of context. He noted that he had urged Israelis and Arabs to stop killing
one another. He said he believed his comments at the OIC summit were reported
only partially by the Western media because “many newspapers are owned
by Jews”. Dr Mahathir has been accused of anti-Semitism for last week’s
remarks, but said the Americans and Europeans were out to condemn him. The European
Union had done nothing when Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi made a
statement calling Muslims terrorists, he noted. He added that his comments about
Israel and Jews were true. “Israel is a small country. There are not many
Jews in the world. But they are so arrogant that they defy the whole world,”
the Malaysian Prime Minister said. His controversial remarks trailed him to
the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, where leaders of countries ranging
from Australia to the US continued to criticize him.

*****

Talk by Joshua Scheier: “Gender and the Civilizing Mission: Muslims and
Jews in the French Colonial Imagination”
Kohlberg 115, 4:00 p.m.

UMBC Info Session
Bond, 6:30 p.m.

Wilcox Lecture: Mike Scherer
Science Center 101, 7:30 p.m.

Film Society Screening: “Hiroshima, Mon Amour”
Science Center 101, 10:00 p.m.

*****

SPORTS UPDATE

Today
Volleyball at Bryn Mawr, 7:00 p.m.

Tomorrow
No contests are scheduled.

*****

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; in practice,
there is.”
–Chuck Reid

*****

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