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Thursday, April 8, 2004
Oregon Daily Emerald
COMMENTARY
Editor in Chief:
Brad Schmidt
Managing Editor:
Jan Tobias Montry
Editorial Editor:
Peter Hockaday
EDITORIAL
Rice's panel
appearance
could harm
privileges
Condoleezza Rice will appear before the Congress' Sept.
11 panel today, and the national security adviser likely
won't place any blame for the attacks on her own govern
ment, as former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke did
two weeks ago.
Good.
We find it slighdy ridiculous that the hearings are taking
place at all, because no amount of courtroom time is go
ing to reverse the terrible terrorist attacks of2001.
But the hearings are absolutely necessary to prevent such
a horrid act of terrorism from happening again. If Rice,
George W. Bush or anybody else in the government has any
information that could lead to the future capture of terror
ists or prevention of terrorist acts, the panel has done its
job, and then some. That's why Rice's questioning should
focus on prevention, not blame.
Underneath the surface of the hearings is another issue,
one that hasn't been broached because of its highly sensi
tive nature. It's the issue of privacy. Rice is only testifying
after much public response and uproar that followed her
announcement that she wouldn't testify.
Really, Rice doesn't have to testify and shouldn't be
forced to do so. It's a similar situation to attorney-client
privilege. If President Bush is forced to divulge every con
versation between himself and his advisers — especially his
national security adviser — then national security itself
could be lost. At a certain level, Bush needs to have privacy
in his actions.
Some people would say that secrecy in the government is
a bad thing. After all, when you allow a certain amount of
secrecy, you produce events like Watergate that, thanks to
the movie "All the President's Men," we know took years
to crack because of the shroud of secrecy around Richard
Nixon's White House.
But secrecy can be a good thing if it helps protect our
country. If Bush and Rice have a conversation about a new
security measure being taken in the war on terrorism, or an
ambush that can take out a terrorist leader, well, they
shouldn't have to hold a press conference about it.
Of course, Sept. 11 is a very, very special circumstance.
So in this case, they're all right in asking Rice to spill her
beans. She still shouldn't be forced to do it, but even she
realizes her testimony will help national security instead
of hurting it.
But it begs the question: Where do we draw the line?
When is an event catastrophic enough to warrant a com
plete loss of privacy? In Watergate, Nixon's closest advisors
were never forced to testify. The highest person in his gov
ernment to testify was presidential counsel John W. Dean.
Of course, Watergate was far more mundane than Sept. 11.
Nobody died.
So where is that line? What if President Bush went on a
killing spree and shot 27 people? It's comical, we know, but
we don't think it will happen. Would Rice, his closest ad
visor in the area of munitions, be forced to testify? Isn't she
essentially his lawyer?
We applaud Rice for taking the stand, so to speak, in
the Sept. 11 hearings. Hopefully, some good will come of
it in the long run. Hopefully her testimony and the testi
mony of the President will help to prevent any further ter
rorist attacks.
Hopefully it won't be a slippery slope of privacy, leading
to an eventual loss of all attorney-client privileges.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Brad Schmidt
Editor in Chief
Jan Tobias Montry
Managing Editor
Jennifer Sudick
Freelance Editor
Ayisha Yahya
News Editor
Peter Hockaday
Editorial Editor
YEAH,
GIVE 'EM THE
FREEDOM TO
PROTEST AMD
THEY PROTEST A
US!
Eric Layton Illustrator
The truth
is out there
I love conspiracy theories. They are like
junk food for journalists. Did you hear the
one last year about the Booth and Bear
Butte fires in Central Oregon? Apparently
they flared up only days before President
Bush was scheduled to deliver a speech at
Camp Sherman about — what else — pre
venting wildfires through forest thinning.
Sweeeeet!
Are we really supposed to believe that
the administration would set major fires
and risk hundreds of lives just to create a
background apropos of a policy speech?
All conspiracy theories contain this
ridiculous element: They involve complex
schemes and extreme acts of evil for rela
tively little gain. We chuckle at the conspir
acy theorists who swear they saw black hel
icopters in the night sky or men in trench
coats on deserted back roads just before
the fires flared up. It's just all too "X-Files."
But after our laughter subsides we
should remember that the term "conspira
cy theorist" has been thrown around in the
past for political purposes to try to silence
important questions and discredit some
body seeking the truth.
Those seeking the truth about former
president Bill Clinton were called conspir
acy theorists until they caught him. Fur
thermore, if the media had cared to look
into it, they would have discovered that
the GOP was inventing most of the con
spiracy theories. Remember Hillary Clin
ton's claim that a "vast right-wing conspir
acy" was attacking herself and her
husband? She was ridiculed until David
Brock exposed the conspiracy in his book
"Blinded by the Right."
Many of the accusations surrounding
Election 2000 were called conspiracy theo
ries until investigative journalist Greg
Palast proved that Jeb Bush and his associ
ates willfully committed election fraud in
Florida (the government's apathy and the
media's silence about this revelation is
now another subject for so-called conspir
acy theorists, a fact that is also being ig
nored).
And do you remember the name Scott
Ritter? He was the former U.N. Iraqi
weapons inspector who said before the
war that there were no weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq and that Bush knew it.
He was laughed off the airwaves back then,
but who's laughing now?
David Jagernauth
Critical mass
We journalists need to take conspiracy
theories more seriously.
Even when they turn out to be wild fab
rications, they can point us to questions
that have not been answered to the pub
lic's satisfaction.
Today, there are two major conspiracy
theories surrounding the Bush White
House. The Sept. 11 conspiracy is getting
more press these days, but there is a sec
ond conspiracy has still not reached the
mainstream. We are about to witness
widespread election fraud just as shocking
as in 2000. In fact, I will go so far as to pre
dict that Election 2004 will be stolen for
President Bush through the use of elec
tronic voting machine tampering unless
something is done to stop it.
When I first heard about this conspira
cy theory I rolled my eyes and scoffed.
Then I studied the issue of electronic vot
ing machines and discovered just how real
this conspiracy is. Here is a very brief sum
mary of the facts so far.
There are three businesses — ES&S,
Diebold and Sequoia — that are responsi
ble for counting 80 percent of the elec
tronic votes in this country. The first two
companies are tied very closely with the
right wing and the Republican Party.
Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold
Inc., went so far as to write in a Republican
fund-raising letter that he is "committed to
helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to
the president next year."
Of course, motive doesn't establish a
conspiracy. And perhaps that was an inno
cent comment. The scary thing is we have
no way of knowing. There are laws on the
books that keep independent observers
from inspecting voting machine code.
Somebody could alter it without fear of
discovery.
Luckily, activist Bev Harris was able to
obtain some of the secret code from
Diebold and discovered that the compa
ny's electronic voting machines have se
vere security flaws that appear to have
been programmed in on purpose. Chang
ing vote tallies was as easy as pressing a
delete key.
Even without tampering, electronic vot
ing machines are notoriously inaccurate
and prone to mistakes. There are hundreds
of examples of "glitches" that changed the
result of elections across the country. I can
list them here but you can access them by
going to http://www.blackboxvoting.com
and clicking on Appendix A.
The only reason we know about these
mistakes is because of paper trails. If some
thing seems suspicious we can consult the
ballots and double-check. It seems obvi
ous: We should be able to audit something
as important as an election.
Not everyone thinks so. These compa
nies are pushing for paper-free elections
where there would be absolutely no way
of auditing elections and discovering
fraud. It makes this journalist want to ask a
question that the mainstream media has
yet to ask: Why?
These are serious concerns that demand
immediate answers. If you still think this
is conspiratorial nonsense, then I implore
you to study the issue in more depth. Start
by reading Bev Harris' free book at
http:/ / www. blackboxvoting, com.
Contact the columnist
at davidjagemauth@dailyemerald.com.
His opinions do not necessarily
represent those of the Emerald.