As the worldwide drone program ramps up, there have been increasing calls for the president to reveal the basis for his claimed authority.  Only a few weeks ago, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen McMahon denied both the ACLU’s and New York Times‘ requests under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain any and all legal documents prepared in support of the president’s claim of unilateral powers.  While Judge McMahon was concerned that the documents “implicate serious issues about the limits on the power of the Executive Branch under the Constitution and laws of the United States, and about whether we are indeed a nation of laws not of men,” she felt constrained by precedent to withhold them.  Now, a bipartisan group of 11 senators has written a letter to president Obama asking for “any and all legal opinions” that describe the basis for his claimed authority to “deliberately kill American citizens.”

However, not until the Senate began gathering information for hearings on John Brennan’s confirmation as CIA director, to begin February 7, has public attention finally been focused on this remarkable presidential usurpation of power.

On the night of February 4, the walls of secrecy were breached when NBC News released a leaked U.S. Justice Department White Paper entitled “Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen Who is a Senior Operational Leader of Al-Qa’ida or An Associated Force.”  Now we can see why the Department of Justice has been so reluctant to share the basis for its legal analysis.  It is deeply flawed — based on a perverse view of the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause.  Additionally, the white paper completely ignores the procedural protections expressly provided in the Constitution’s Third Article — those specifically designed to prohibit the president from serving as prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner.

The white paper does not seek to delimit the federal power to kill citizens, but simply sets out a category of “targeted killing” of American citizens off the battlefield on foreign soil which it deems to be clearly authorized.  Moreover, this power is not vested exclusively in the president, or even the secretary of defense, or even officials within the Department of Defense — rather, it can be relied on by other senior officials of unspecified rank elsewhere in government.

According to the white paper, there are only three requirements to order a killing.  First, “an informed high-level official of the U.S. government has determined that the targeted individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States.”  Second, capture is “infeasible.”  And third, the ” operation would be conducted in a manner consistent with the applicable law of war principles.”  Indeed, from the white paper, it is not clear why killings of U.S. citizens on American soil would be judged by a different standard.

Mimicking a judicial opinion, the White Paper employs pragmatic tests developed by the courts to supplant the plain meaning of the Fifth Amendment Due Process and Fourth Amendment Search and Seizure texts.  Balancing away the constitutionally protected interests of the citizen in life, liberty, and property against the more important “‘realities’ of the conflict and the weight of the government’s interest in protecting its citizens from an imminent attack,” the Justice Department lawyers have produced a document worthy of the King Council’s Court of Star Chamber — concluding that the U.S. Constitution would not require the government to provide notice of charges, or a right to be heard, “before using lethal force” on a U.S. citizen suspected of terrorist activity against his country.  How very convenient.  The Obama administration lawyers appear to have forgotten that the Star Chamber was abolished by the English Parliament in 1641 in order to restore the rule of law adjudicated by an independent judiciary, terminating the rule of men administered by the king’s courtiers. 

Also, conspicuously missing from the Justice Department’s constitutional analysis is any recognition that the Founders already balanced the life, liberty, and property interests of an American citizen suspected of “levying war against [the United States], or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort,” and provided them the specific procedural protections in Article III of  the Constitution.  When a U.S. citizen is suspected of treason, the constitutional remedy is not to invent new crimes subject to the summary execution at the pleasure of the president and his attorneys.  In Federalist No. 43, James Madison proclaimed that the Treason Clause would protect citizens “from new-fangled and artificial treasons … by inserting a constitutional definition of the crime, fixing the proof necessary for conviction of it[.]“  To that end, the Constitution does not permit the Obama lawyers to invent an elastically defined offense of “an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States,” in substitution for the constitutionally concrete definition of “levying war against [the United States], or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.”

Moreover, Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution requires trial in “open court” — not in some secret “war room” in an undisclosed location.  That same section of Article III requires proof by “the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession” — not by a unilateral “determin[ation] that the targeted individual poses an imminent threat of an attack against the United States.”  Finally, as is true of “all crimes,” Article III, Section 2 requires “trial … by jury” on a charge of treason, not trial by some unidentified “high-level official of the U.S. government[,]” no matter how well-”informed” he may be.  In short, the Constitution provides that an American citizen must be tried and punished according to the judicial process provided for the crime of treason, not according to some newfangled and artificial executive “process” fashioned by nameless collection of lawyers.

These nameless lawyers have also ignored the Justice Department’s own venerable precedents.  The White Paper relies on the “laws of war” — but laws of war do not control here.  On August 21, 1798, U.S. Attorney General Charles Lee — serving under President John Adams — directed to the U.S. secretary of state an official opinion in which he determined that in the undeclared state of war between France and the United States, “France is our enemy; and to aid, assist, and abet that nation in her maritime warfare, will be treason in a citizen[, who] may be tried and punished according to our laws[, not like a French subject, who must be] treated according to the laws of war.”

It is a measure of how far we have fallen as a nation — not only that President Obama asserts and exercises such a terrible power, but that only 11 U.S. senators would be willing to affix their names to a letter to ask the Obama administration to provide its legal reasoning.  If John Brennan is confirmed as CIA director, and the killings of U.S. citizens continue based on this whitewash of a white paper, then the U.S. Senate will have yielded up to the president without even a fight the power to kill citizens without judicial due process — a power that has been unknown in the English-speaking world for at least 370 years. 

Herb Titus taught constitutional law for 26 years, concluding his academic career as founding dean of Regent Law School.  Bill Olson served in three positions in the Reagan administration.  They now practice constitutional law together, defending against government excess, at William J. Olson, P.C.  They filed an amicus curiae brief supporting a preliminary injunction in the Chris Hedges challenge to the detention provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (“NDAA”), addressing the Treason Clause, and also filed an amicus curiae brief in that case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.  They can be reached at wjo@mindspring.com or twitter.com/OlsonLaw.

Work makes us Free!  Let us work for Equality, Fairness and Liberty!

(click on image to view video)

Let me ask you a question: does it really matter whether a free man is enslaved by a socialist state or a fascist state? Are the prisons any more accommodating? Are the lashes from the whip any less painful? Is the agony of losing a loved one any less grievous? Is the persecution any less revolting? What difference does it make to a free man if his liberties are stolen by an Adolf Hitler or by a Joseph Stalin?

Do you want a quick reference to the difference between how the Democrats and Republicans in Washington, D.C., are stealing our liberties? When the Democrats control things, America gets more socialism; when the Republicans control things, America gets more corporatism, which is a polite word for fascism. Socialism requires government to own everything, while fascism requires government to control everything. And remember, too, fascists and socialists have always hated each other. Big deal! Fascists and socialists alike hate freedomists, which is why inside-the-beltway Repubs and Dems can’t stand people like Ron Paul, Bob Barr, and yours truly. (Remember the MIAC report identifying the three of us, and our supporters, as being potential “dangerous militia” members?) So who cares which of these two parties happens to be in power? Our freedoms continue to be under siege. That’s why the battle in Washington politics has nothing to do with preserving freedom, but everything to do with HOW government will take freedom. Will they take it by ownership or by control? And, unfortunately, what we have right now is the worst of both worlds: government is using a combination of both ownership and control to steal our liberties. Why? Because except for a very precious few elected civil magistrates (like Congressman Ron Paul), there is no one on Capitol Hill or the White House who remotely understands–or fights for–the principles of liberty.

Even worse is that when the Donkeys and the Elephants do agree, it almost always is in an effort to point the bayonets at the American citizenry. What does it matter whether government owns it or controls it? What does it matter whether it more resembles socialism of corporatism? What it doesn’t look anything like, is FREEDOM!

Take the Democrat/Republican debate over Obamacare. Even if Mitt Romney and the GOP prevail in the November elections, Obamacare will be replaced with Romneycare. And Romneycare will be 85% Obamacare, with a slight shift toward government control and a slight shift away from government ownership. Again, I say, BIG DEAL! What neither party is talking about is that the federal government has no business being in health care. Period! Just like the federal government has no business being in over 90% of everything it is involved in today. But who do you hear saying that in Washington, D.C., except Ron Paul?

Take the issue of the burgeoning surveillance society. What does it matter which major party is in power in Washington, D.C.? The TSA gets more and more obnoxiously tyrannical; abuses of civil liberties under the guise of fighting a “war on drugs” continues unabated; abuses of the Bill of Rights under the guise of fighting a “war on terror” continues unabated; the federal police state continues to grow exponentially; unconstitutional foreign entanglements continue to proliferate; ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

In a book that I have recommended numerous times, “Hitler’s Cross,” Erwin Lutzer writes on page 72, “Through surveillance, wiretaps, spying, and rewarding those who betrayed their friends, Hitler tried to control the citizens of Germany.” On page 73, Lutzer continues the thought saying, “But Hitler did not have the technology to bring every subject of his realm into line.” So, given the technology that is available today, what would Hitler do differently if he were running things in Washington, D.C.? I ask readers to think seriously about that question. What would Hitler do differently?

Today, the federal government monitors virtually every piece of electronic communication. The federal government monitors virtually every major banking transaction. It has spies infiltrated in even harmless organizations all over the country. It threatens people with the loss of their jobs or freedom (or both) to betray their friends. It spies on us with satellites; it spies on us with drones. On July 6, 2012, President Obama signed an Executive Order authorizing the federal government to take control of America’s entire communications industry. In 2006, under President George W. Bush, the US military began planning armed confrontation against the American citizenry. (I have the document in my possession.) And, of course, we must not overlook the Patriot Act which has been authorized and reauthorized under both Republicans and Democrats; the Military Commission Act which was signed by G.W. Bush; NDAA 2012 and 2013 which was signed by President Barack Obama, and which was passed by both Republicans and Democrats. And let’s not forget the federal attack against the Branch Davidians under Democrats Bill Clinton and Janet Reno, and the assault against the Randy Weaver household under Republican President George Herbert Walker Bush.

So, again, pick your poison. Both the socialist-leaning Democrats and the corporatist-leaning Republicans in Washington, D.C., meet together in pointing the bayonet against the American citizenry. And you really wonder why nothing significant changes in this country?

And in this regard, the platforms of the two major parties are completely meaningless! I dare say that Barack Obama has never read the Democrat platform and doesn’t care one iota what it says. I also guarantee you that Mitt Romney hasn’t read the Republican platform and doesn’t care one iota what it says either. Can anyone remember when Republican Presidential candidate, Bob Dole, in a rare moment of candor, publicly admitted that he had not read his party’s platform and didn’t care what it said? Party platforms are for the benefit of rank and file party members to make them feel like their ideas count for something to the party leadership. They don’t!

So, do the Democrats and Republicans in Washington, D.C., differ? Yes! They differ on how our freedoms will be taken from us. They differ on the degree of government ownership and control. They differ on the nuances of political tyranny. Where they are twins is in their lust and ambition for power, in their approval of stripping more and more freedoms from the American people, and in their absolute and total disregard for constitutional government.

Without some sort of “Great Awakening” both politically and spiritually, whatever is left of our liberties is doomed–and both major parties in Washington, D.C., are equally culpable.

by Chuck Baldwin

It is no wonder that we are now saddled with the micromanagement of health care by the same bureaucratic mindset that mismanages the Post Office and everything else the federal government runs. It should not be surprising to know that presently in America, half of the people actually want the government to take care of their needs. The same was the case under Communist regimes, but here those folks vote.

Hence, we have laws that force us to be charitable to those whom the government designates as worthy of our charity, that limit the amount of salt that restaurants can put into our food, that permit the government to watch us on street corners and subways and in the lobbies of buildings, that let the president fight wars of opportunity, that permit the Federal Reserve to print money with no value and inflate prices and destroy savings, that allow the government to listen to us on our cellphones and use those phones to follow us wherever we go, and, according to CIA Director David Petraeus, that let the government anticipate our movements inside our homes.

And as of the last week in June, the government has a vast new power that was brought to us by the Supreme Court’s latest attack on personal freedom. Congress can now lawfully command any behavior of individuals that it pleases – whether or not the subject of the behavior is a power granted to Congress by the Constitution – and it may punish noncompliance with that command, so long as the punishment is called a tax.

Justice Antonin Scalia’s whimsical query during the Supreme Court oral argument on the health care law about whether Congress could make him eat broccoli suddenly isn’t as funny as it was when he asked it, because the answer is: It can fine him for not eating broccoli, so long as it calls that fine a tax.

Quick: If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? Answer: Four, because calling a tail a leg doesn’t make a tail a leg.

How did we get here?

We got here because voters and the government we elected, and even the courts the popular branches appointed and confirmed, have lost sight of first principles. When Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are a part of our humanity, and when we fought and won the Revolution under that premise, and when the first Congress enacted that language as the first federal law, this became the irrevocable recognition of the Natural Law as the basis for our personal freedom and limited government. Since our rights come from our humanity, they don’t come from the government.

But you would never know that from looking at the government. In New York City, where I work at Fox News Channel, we are all embroiled in two disputes this summer over the constitutional role of the government in our lives. The mayor, a self-made billionaire who likes donuts and has bodyguards but wants to tell others how to live in private and in public, is trying to ban soda pop in containers larger than 16 ounces and wants the police to be able to stop and frisk anyone on a whim – and all in the name of health and safety. He is actually banning freedom.

Imagine Jefferson being told what to eat or stopped and frisked on a whim. And then imagine the Supreme Court telling him that he must pay a tax if he fails to comport his personal private behavior as Congress – which doesn’t believe in privacy or personal freedom – commands.

Here is how you can tell that these are bad days for freedom: Does the government need your permission to violate your rights, or do you need the government’s permission to exercise them? The answer is painfully obvious.

Presently in America, what are we going to do about it?

Reprinted with the author’s permission.

A Real Vote

You’ve heard it before. They just nonchalantly say: “Well, why don’t you just vote them out?” But they don’t understand, as you are about to, that the reason you can’t vote them “out”, is because you probably have never actually voted them “in.”

The following trilogy of articles presents new evidence that the apparatus to steal the U.S. citizen vote not only exists, but has been with us since at least the 1880′s. Part 1 deals with its key element, the introduction of vote secrecy in the mid 1800s. Vote secrecy still remains in place and operative today, over 130 years later.

Wanna’ Know A Secret?

The Vote Hasn’t Always Been “Secret”!

Prior to the secret vote and for the better part of the first 100 years, voting in the U.S. was conducted viva voce, or by “voice vote”. The rolls were called, voters stepped forward and anyone within hearing distance could, in parallel with the registrar, witness and notate an individuals vote. The results were rightfully considered irrefutable, beyond dispute.

Then, before the Civil War, some states began to experiment with various kinds of “ballots”, that brought with them confidentiality at the expense of witness based verification. Later during the 1880s, the confidential vote formally morphed into the “secret ballot”, a ballot of enhanced secrecy which is sometimes called the “Australian ballot” where it first appeared.

The secret ballot is still with us today. I claim and will provide compelling evidence, that it was the subtle though lethal effect of confidentiality (secrecy), that has been the primary enabling characteristic of vote fraud over the last 130 years.

Vote Secrecy Doesn’t Eliminate Vote Fraud

It Enables It

Vote secrecy has been so pervasively sold to the public, that the average person can’t even consider how inane it really is. Vote secrecy is very much like the shell game in which the “sucker” can’t see the pea, because it is covered by an opaque shell. If the shells were made of clear glass so that the pea could be seen, the game would be impossible and the sucker couldn’t be fooled. Vote fraud through vote secrecy operates in the same manner.

At the core of this Orwellian head trick, is that the one term, “vote secrecy”, confusedly identifies two issues: voter secrecy and vote secrecy. This causes the confused voter to demand “the sanctity of the secret vote“, while all that’s actually required is, “the sanctity of the secret voter“

Voter Secrecy, Yes – Vote Secrecy, No

Of course the voters identity should be kept secret, but why their vote? As an example, I am going to show you the actual votes for President in the 2004 election of ten of my neighbors. They have warned me that they will all sue me if I violate their “right” to vote secrecy, but I’m foolish and am going to do it anyway.

Their votes are: Bush, Kerry, Bush, Kerry, Kerry, Bush, Bush, Kerry, Kerry, Bush. Now, which one belongs to neighbor 1, neighbor 2……. neighbor 9, neighbor 10, Do you get it? The votes can’t be linked to the voter because the voters name is secret, not their vote.

Consider that you and everyone else openly broadcasts sensitive personal information to everyone within visual distance. Information that is directly linked to your SSN, your address, your phone number and virtually every piece of private information about you.

Yet no one complains or even cares about it. I’m talking about the license plate on your automobile. An identifier that can be traced to you personally, but no one cares because it is an anonymous identifier that can only be accessed by authorities.

Why should you care if someone else sees your vote, if they can’t tell it’s you that cast it. The importance of this is that the ability to see your vote “as cast”, enables you to verify that the vote you cast is the vote that got counted, something that would halt vote fraud in its tracks.

The process is sometimes called E2E for end-to-end verification and is virtually identical to bankings time honored receipt/statement audit system. It is also at the heart of the proposed “solution” to our problems in Pt. 3.

This article has been drawn from a new eBook by M. J. Sperry entitled: Desiderata of the Citizen Vote – See: www.howtorescueamerica.bravehost.com – Email: voterverifiedaudit@gmail.com

©M. J. Sperry 12/20/07 – All rights to this work are released to the public domain, but only if reprinted in its entirety, including disclaimer.

…

Why You Can’t Vote Them Out

By: mac Sperry

Pt. 2: To Catch A Thief – Use A Spreadsheet!

The Mentality of a Thief

Consider the thinking of a person who rigs an election. Their foremost thought would obviously be, the accomplishment of their task with as little chance of detection as possible. The initial number of votes they would have to swing to the other side would ideally be, as few as absolutely necessary. Too many and the other side might be alerted. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that the hallmark of vote fraud would be, the close election.

In preparation for the eBook: Desiderata of the Citizen Vote, the author obtained the popular vote figures for all Presidential elections from the most recent back to 1824. The source was the archives of the U.S. governments official newspaper, The Federal Register found at: http://www.archives.gov/ federal-register/electoral-college/scores.html. Using the spreadsheet program Excel, he then determined the difference in spread between the two front runners in each election and calculated the average. That average is 11.01%.

In the entire history of Presidential elections, only six times have the popular vote margins of the two front runners come to within 1%. They were the 1880, 1884, 1888, 1960, 1968 and 2000 elections.

We know the 2000 election was the subject of tampering because we saw it on TV. The 1960 election was also because FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had wiretap evidence proving it. That evidence was later forwarded to the new Attorney General Robert Kennedy, with whom it languished and died.

The 1968 election was also a probable victim of vote fraud, as asserted by investigative journalists/brothers James and Kenneth Collier (now deceased), in their widely banned book: Votescam: The Stealing of America. They claimed that during the time after the Kennedy assassination, a shadow government was controlling media, elections and even exit polls. The numbers would seem to support that claim.

As to the 1880s, observe in the chart below the 1880, 1884 and 1888 elections. They were all within 1%. Specifically, the 1880 election was within .02%, the 1884 election .26% and the 1888 election .83%. Note: The 1880 margin is so small that it may be difficult to observe on the chart.

The odds that an election would be within these narrow margins are:

1880 election 11.01% divided by .02%, or 550.5 to 1

1884 election 11.01% divided by .26%, or 42.3 to 1

1888 election 11.01% divided by .83%, or 13.3 to 1

The odds that these three narrow elections could have occurred sequentially are: 550.5 X 42.3 X 13.3 = 309706 to 1. That’s almost a third of a million to 1, that these three elections of narrow margin could have occurred in a row. To lend context to that figure, consider that the “casual association” (odds) between cigarette smoking and lung cancer is only 4.2 to 1.

The odds these narrow elections could have sequentially occurred, coupled with their occurrence shortly after the introduction of the confidential vote and during the introduction of the secret ballot, would have to lead any person of reason to the obvious conclusion; it was at this point orchestrated, grand scale election fraud began in the United States and that vote secrecy played the major role in its occurrence.

Think something like that couldn’t have happened? That things are being stretched here just to make a point? Think again, because it did happen, just 4 years earlier in the election of 1876, but this time it was the documented theft of the electoral vote.

Meet “Devil Dan” Sickles

History would record his being a one-legged Union General of little note and “disreputable”, former U.S. Ambassador. He lost his leg at Gettysburg and found himself in Washington D.C. the night of the 1876 election. On returning late from the theater, he decided to drop in on the vote counting and noticed that though the Democrat Samuel Tilden was far ahead of Republican Rutherford B. Hayes in the popular vote, there were still three states that had not reported in; South Carolina, Louisiana and Florida.

All three states were solidly Tilden in popular vote, but all three (southern) states were also controlled by governors who were all solidly Republican. By itself a curious circumstance, given the fact that the south had just been beaten into subjugation by the north and that the Republican party was considered the north’s political flagship. In any case, together the three possessed the three electoral votes needed for a Hayes win.

Smelling ill-gotten victory, Sickles attempted to confer with the Chairman of the Republican National Committee, one Zachariah Chandler, who had retired in defeat to his hotel room around 6PM. There he proceeded to assuage his loss in collaboration with a bottle of whiskey, to the extent that Sickles best efforts could not rouse him from his drunken stupor.

Sickles then made his way to the telegraph office where on his own volition (and in Chandlers name), sent the following telegram to the three state governors: “With your state sure for Hayes, he is elected. Hold your state” – ‘Hold your state’ was politico-speak of the time for “cheat”, “cook the numbers”, numbers that could not have been cooked had they been in the open and not secret.

Within a few hours South Carolina wired back that it had gone for Hayes and additionally requested with implied urgency, that Washington should send “more troops”. By the next day, with a little help from friends in high places, both Louisiana and Florida were in the Hayes column giving him one more electoral vote than Tilden. What I’ve just related is historically documented, had quite an aftermath and was the subject of Congressional investigation. See: Steal This Vote by: Andrew Gumbel – ISBN 1-56025-676-1.

The point here is that the mechanism of grand scale vote fraud was actually used just prior to the three sequentially “impossible” elections of 1880-1888. Certainly subsequent vote fraud of the 1880s and beyond, was modeled on the 1876 machinations of General “Devil Dan” Sickles. Fraud that could have only occurred within the context of vote secrecy.

The people of the time certainly knew, as voter turnouts began to drop precipitously immediately after the 1892 election, the first election where all states voted under the secret ballot. Turnout immediately dropped from over 90% since the late 1820s to 50% by 1920. It has remained low ever since. Yes, the people knew, but with the coerced silence of media and later generations, vote fraud was eventually relegated to myth and the talk of “wackos”.

With the election of 1876, we now have four elections in a row that we can demonstrate were victims of fraud, all enabled by vote secrecy. In the 131 years since the election of 1876, nothing has changed in regard to vote secrecy. It is still with us just as much today as it was then. And now, the election law called HAVA for Help America Vote Act, actually requires a “secret vote”. The very thing that enables vote fraud, is now a codified legal requirement.

“Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny”
Robert A. Heinlein

Without the vote we become slaves
not metaphorically, but actually.

This article has been drawn from a new eBook by M. J. Sperry entitled: Desiderata of the Citizen Vote.
See: www.howtorescueamerica.bravehost.com

Email: voterverifiedaudit@gmail.com

©M. J. Sperry 12/20/07 – All rights to this work are released to the public domain, but only if reprinted in its entirety, including disclaimer.

…

Why You Can’t Vote Them Out

By: mac Sperry

Pt. 3: Vva – Voter verified audit

A New Tactic:
Alternate Verification

A case was made in Part 1, that the introduction of the confidential/secret vote in the middle of the 19th century, brought with it the ability to conduct invisible, virtually undetectable vote fraud. It appears reasonable that vote fraud is not only still possible, but certainly occurs and with regularity.

Solving the problem might best begin by identifying the characteristics of an ideal solution: It would be powerful, peaceful, doable by ordinary citizens without permission or license of government and it would be inexpensive in terms of time and money. Such a solution has recently surfaced. It is an audit system called Vva.

The Voter verified audit

Vva would be conducted by ordinary citizens who would gather together in ad hoc fashion for the single purpose of irrefutably verifying the integrity of the vote. It would not require permission or license of government, since it is an independent check of that government. As such it would be independent of the Registrar of Voters. Checking the veracity of the vote should not be the exclusive domain of government. Government checking its own vote count , a count that decides whether that very government retains or relinquiches power, constitutes a clear conflict of interest.

Who Can Best Be Trusted?

Vva’s titanic power stems from its affirmative response to the one big question no vote security system in use today can satisfactorily answer: “Who can best be trusted to incorruptibly verify the vote?” Vva’s resounding answer is; “the voters themselves”.

In this particular case, it must be assumed that if a voter wanted to somehow alter (tamper with) their own vote, they would choose their “alteration” in the voting booth rather than later. If in the process of tampering they make a “different” choice for whatever reason, they aren’t tampering, they’re voting. That is, in the voting booth all a voter can do is either vote or not vote, both of which are acceptable, no matter who they vote for. This makes the voter them self a virtually incorruptible verifier of their own vote.

Consider who verifies your own personal checking account. The bank president? A friend? Your bookkeeper? No, you do. Why? Because there is no one with a greater interest in the correct management of your affairs than yourself. It is the same with your vote. It is quite simply in your singular best interest, to ensure that the vote you cast is the vote that actually gets counted.

An Overview

Vva is conducted using a multi-copy business type form, copies of which are later separated and used for verification. In the voting booth, as the vote is made, it is copied from the previously filled out form to the registrars ballot and is effectively witnessed by the voter them self. The form, which is retained by the voter, thus becomes a documented receipt of the transaction.

After voting, the form is dropped off with the group conducting the Vva. Later, the voter verifies their uniquely numbered copy (called the “receipt”), by comparing it to a copy of the original (called the “statement”) which is placed on the Internet by the Vva group. If anything changes, the voter will see it when comparing their receipt to the statement on verification.

This “end-to-end” verification makes Vva almost irrefutable and is what gives Vva its teeth. As long as a voter votes and checks their vote (provision is made to ensure they do), there is little chance of error and virtually no chance of fraud. Note: By nature Vva is ambivalent in that it cannot be manipulated “for” or “against” any candidate or measure.

Vva is also entirely anonymous. In order to conduct a Vva it isn’t necessary to know the voters name, only that they did indeed vote. Anonymity is thus “built in” to Vva.

A Vva – The Authenticated Vva

Notice the words “almost irrefutable” a couple of paragraphs back. The Vva described in the last few paragraphs is only “verified” by one person, the voter. It is the most basic form of Vva and while simple, it is quite formidable when compared to the systems fielded election day by virtually all U.S. Registrars.

If a Vva were to ever get to court, expect a full court press on the part of opposition attorneys. They will almost certainly attack even the slightest anomaly. If they have nothing else, expect them to blow the least little molehill up to the size of mountains.

One such thing that may be challenged is the voter them self. Did the voter possibly lie? Were they mistaken? Did they forget? Did they change their mind? Could they have altered their own vote to purposely skew and discredit the Vva’s results? These and other questions could be used to sway a judge, a judge that may require very little in the way of ‘sway’.

The ideal would be another person in the voting booth with the voter. A person who could verify, witness and authenticate the selections of the voter. In California a voter may bring another person into the booth to assist them. I assume this is allowed in other states as well and if it isn’t, then it should be. After all, it’s your vote. If those who steal it are possibly seeing it, then why shouldn’t a verifier of known good character be allowed in, with your permission, to prevent that theft. The authenticator would thus authenticate and corroborate (with the voter) each individual vote, eliminating any question as to the veracity of each, individual verified vote.

This type of Vva is the A Vva, or Authenticated Voter verified audit. It is important to understand its vital components and their significance. First, the A Vva is considered to be irrefutable, because it covers all contingencies with human authenticated verification. In an A Vva the authenticator would also later check through the Internet all votes they verified the previous day. This way end-to-end verification of each vote is provided by two human witnesses, the voter and the authenticator, who were actually present at the precise moment and place the vote was cast.

Note: If an A Vva cannot be used for any reason, the ordinary Vva is still available and quite powerful.

Second, Vva’s data source isn’t taken from the vote. Just the opposite. The data source of the vote is taken from Vva. You see, Vva’s source is the “original” form upon which the voter imprints their choices. What the registrar gets is only copied from that original. Therefore, Vva’s data source is created previous to the time and place the vote is actually made. Any one tampering with the vote on the registrars side is only acting “after the fact” so far as time and place is concerned, making it inherently impossible to alter Vva’s data, before that data is sampled and run through another separate and entirely independent system.

These two features are something no vote count of any Registrar of Voters in the United States can presently provide, thus throwing their vote count into serious question should a discrepancy arise. Currently the Registrars final vote tally is accepted without question because, though clearly problematic, it is more robust than any other alternative (primarily because – there is no other alternative). Vva will change that. In a court of law, Vva must be considered the more robust system and thus trump any discrepancy.

This article has been drawn from a new eBook by M. J. Sperry entitled: Desiderata of the Citizen Vote

See: www.howtorescueamerica.bravehost.com

The book details Vva and presents Jefferson, the protocol for conducting Vva, as well as other innovative solutions to world and national problems.

Email: voterverifiedaudit@gmail.com

©M. J. Sperry 12/20/07 – All rights to this work are released to the public domain, but only if reprinted in its entirety, including disclaimer.

Take from Rescue America website

Do you not find it ironic that the entire military might of the United States has guaranteed easy access to every political faction in Iraq and Afghanistan, and yet, with rare exceptions, we can only vote for two parties in the USA? Who is more free in this area? Iraq, or the USA?

The two major socialist parties in Texas (and America) have conspired to keep you from voting from anyone else but them. This is criminal fraud on their behalf, but they get away with it because Americans are so complacent and apathetic (or maybe I should say “pathetic”.) In order to make ballot access in Texas, a party needs over 55,000 signatures on petitions – a hurdle way too high, but then made higher because those signatures must be from people who are: (a) registered to vote, and (b) who did not vote in the primaries or participate in any other party, or sign any other petition. It’s a bureaucrat’s way of saying, “Don’t bother.”

As long as our only choices are “The Welfare Party” or “The Warfare Party”, we are being played like a yoyo, and have no hope of electing candidates who will shake up the political system. The System likes it that way. They are at peace with their “deadly enemies” on the other side of the aisle, because, in reality, they aren’t there to give you honest constitutional government — they are there to keep themselves and their party in power. Period.

There is one thing you can do that would increase the chances for more options next year. Make a serious donation to the alternative party of your choice, today! If you will join a third party, pay your dues, and support them as a member, even while holding your nose and voting for “the lesser of two weevils”, you will begin to pave the road to more choices next time. Of course, if you’ll get ten friends to do the same thing, you’ll strengthen the local party and the state party in Texas, and you’ll have a group who are more motivated to choices in November.

In the meantime, it will be good for everyone if you will find an independent candidate this fall, and give him some money and encourage others to vote for him. Or her, as the case may be. Ask the Independent to pledge to make ballot access easier for parties and candidates. You’ll find a sympathetic ear.

Daniel New
Chairman, ICV-Texas

Keith Swank – US Congress District #8

Take a Poll.  You’re not the only one in your county disgusted with the various shades of socialists and special interest candidates and plain old nincompoops who are on the ballot this year.  In fact, you are in the majority.  I encourage you to take your own poll – ask 100 people if they think they have clear-cut choices between candidates in this election.  Then you tell me – send me an e-mail and tell me your results – I am pretty sure that you’ll find that your fellow citizens are as disgusted right now with politics-as-usual as you are.

Form a Team.  Ask them if they’re interested in forming up a team of concerned voters to find alternative candidates, starting with the very next election at any level.  This is to be a grass-roots effort, not controlled by any political party.

Once you have a team – let us say a minimum of three voters – then you set about building that team up to a point where you have some voting clout.  The three of you can easily recruit ten members each to come to a barbecue or a pot-luck or a restaurant and hear a speaker or a presentation on how they can start picking their own elected officials, instead of this lottery system now where the richest candidate usually wins, without regard to qualifications!

And what does your team do?  The first thing they agree to do is to vote as a bloc, wherever possible, for the best candidates, regardless of party affiliation.  You and your two friends may not feel very powerful today, but next week, when you are looking at 20-30 concerned citizens, each capable of getting ten or more votes for a given candidate, you suddenly realize the power of “me and my ten friends.”  In that first meeting you are looking at an impact on the next election of some 200-400 votes!  Do you have any idea how many elections are decided by 100 or fewer votes?  Many of them are determined by 20 votes.

What are the criteria we look for in candidates?  Let me assure you, the major parties have NO criteria at all!  Seriously, if you want to run for anything, all you have to do is go put your name on the list and they’ll take you.  Now, if you’re a part of the ruling elite, they’ll throw their support your way, but if not, you can still run for anything.  In fact, all rhetoric aside, both parties will support an enemy in order to prevent a true conservative from winning.  We’ve seen this done over and over.

• You want a Conservative – one who believes in fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, less government intrusion into our lives, etc.
• You want a Constitutionalist.  If they are going to take an oath to support and defend the Constitution, then it might be a good idea if they’ve not only read it, but have studied it!¹
• You want a candidate who is concerned about his/her constitutional duty, more than his/her duty to the political party they run on.  Party means very little these days.  But principles remain the same.
• You want a candidate who will listen to you, instead of Party Bosses and Special Interest.  They should have no special interest beyond the Constitution and protecting the Lives, the Liberties and the Private Property of every person in their jurisdiction.

What Party?  The truth is, it really doesn’t matter!  A party is a machine, a vehicle to get you from point A to point B.  Their platforms are meaningless anyway, so exploit the party most likely to win in your county.

The idea is that you either run your candidates under a party which has ballot access, or you run them as Independents!  There are no alternatives.  As much as you may agree with and love the Libertarian Party or the Constitution Party, the fact is that they offer voters no hope unless they have ballot access.²  Feel free to ork to make them viable, but don’t let it get in the way of finding good candidates now and running them as Independents, Democrats, or Republicans.

Don’t overdo it.  Do NOT try to get 100 or 1,000 people to join you in any action – you don’t have enough hours in the day, and you don’t have that much influence, believe it or not.  But you DO have 10 friends who will vote any way you recommend, either because they are as informed as you, or because they know you are more informed than they are, and they trust your recommendations.  These ten friends are your secret weapon!  And each of them has ten friends.  I’m sure you can see that working with, educating and motivating ten good friends is far easier than doing the same thing with a hundred acquaintances or strangers.

Study.  Do some extensive reading on our website, www.ICVUSA.com, and figure out what this is all about.  Then ask a friend or two to do the same, and invite them to help you create the underground political party that can overturn the applecart of the Ruling Elite.

What does a Candidate want?  You know the answer – he wants votes!  Lots of votes.  So… how do you get a candidate’s attention?  By convincing him that you can deliver ten votes, or a hundred votes, or a thousand votes in the coming election.  You can elect him, or you can prevent his election.

And how do you do that?  By inviting him to dinner, at a local restaurant or in someone’s home, where your members show up committed to vote for conservatives and Independents, and to withhold their votes from socialists and ignoramuses (ignorami) who have no clue about the Constitution they are swearing to uphold and defend.

I guarantee you, when 30-100 concerned voters attend a meeting for the sole purpose of finding conservative candidates, your candidate will “come to Jesus” very quickly.  He will catch your vision, just as soon as he perceives that it’s in his interest to do so.

The endorsement of your leadership, once it reaches even 100 voters, will carry a lot of weight with local candidates.  You invite them to come and listen to the voters, not just make empty political speeches – we’re tired of hearing that garbage!  We want them to listen to us!  If they aren’t interested, we’ll either find a candidate who will be, or we’ll nominate an independent from our own group, and the stronger we grow, the more viable that becomes.

When you have 1,500 members, if you choose to do it, in most counties you can elect one of your own to the local school board and to the county commissioners court.  At that point, you will actually own your own political party, and you won’t need the socialist pimps of the two major parties any more!  How’s that for refreshing?

You don’t have ten friends?  Start with five.  Start with two.

So… what’s stopping you from changing the way politics works in your county?

And remember this – nobody owns you!  We at Independent Conservative Voters hope to influence you, to educate you, and to motivate you, but you can affect the people who run your local government, and you have a duty to do so.

Send me an e-mail in care of info@ICVUSA.com, with your poll results, or with your request to become the first county coordinator in your county.  Then, get ready to make some changes.

Daniel New
Project Manager

PS.  You can see how effective you are at this year’s primary – throw your two, or twenty, or two hundred votes behind the one or two candidates running this year, and forget about all other races.  Make it happen – I’m pretty sure you have one good candidate in your county – please see that he/she has all the support you can give them.

www.IndependentConservativeVoters.com/

www.ICVUSA.com/

It’s about the Constitution, Stupid!

1. Your team should seriously consider sponsoring a Constitutional Study Group to meet weekly from now on.  There will never be an end to the need for informed candidates and voters.

2. Please understand that we don’t disparage the efforts of third parties!  In fact, please join one and support it, as a side effort, so that you might have more choices in the future.  But for now, let’s be realistic.

Judge Roy Moore, Alabama Supreme Court