GEORGIA GOV RACE UPDATE - FED JUDGE ORDERS STATE TO PROTECT PROVISIONAL BALLOTS

GEORGIA GOV RACE UPDATE - FED JUDGE ORDERS STATE TO PROTECT PROVISIONAL BALLOTS:

EVERY VOTE SHOULD COUNT (VOTING RIGHTS).

MOST STATES (MARYLAND -PG COUNTY) HOLD PROVISIONAL BALLOTS UNTIL 13 DAYS AFTER ELECTION SO THEY CAN THROW AWAY CERTAIN BALLOTS.

STACEY ABRAMS IS A 21st CENTURY CHANGE AGENT.

I’M PROUD OF HER.


Post Sources AP, NBC News, Youtube


***** Judge orders Georgia to protect provisional ballots in Abrams-Kemp race

A federal judge has ordered Georgia take steps to ensure provisional ballots aren't improperly rejected and to wait until Friday to certify the results of the midterm elections that include an unsettled race for governor.

In a ruling late Monday, U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg ordered the secretary of state's office to establish and publicize a hotline or website where voters can check whether their provisional ballots were counted and, if not, the reason why.

And, for counties with 100 or more provisional ballots, she ordered the secretary of state's office to review, or have county election officials review, the eligibility of voters who had to cast a provisional ballot because of registration issues.

Totenberg also ruled that Georgia must not certify the election results before Friday at 5 p.m., which falls before the Nov. 20 deadline set by state law.

State elections director Chris Harvey testified at a hearing last week that the state had planned to certify the election results on Wednesday, a day after the deadline for counties to certify their results. He said that would allow preparations to begin for any necessary runoff contests, including one already projected in the race for the next secretary of state.

Current unofficial returns show Republican Brian Kemp leading by a margin that would make him the governor-elect. But Democrat Stacey Abrams insists that enough outstanding votes remain to be counted that could pull Kemp below the majority threshold and force a Dec. 4 runoff.

Totenberg acted in response to a lawsuit filed Nov. 5 by Common Cause Georgia. The suit accuses Kemp, the state's top elections official until he resigned as secretary of state last week, of acting recklessly after a vulnerability in Georgia's voter registration database was exposed shortly before the election.

Kemp's actions increased the risk that eligible voters could be illegally removed from the voter registration database or have registration information illegally altered, the lawsuit says.

Sara Henderson, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, said in an emailed statement that the ruling helps increase voter confidence in elections.

The secretary of state's office was reviewing the order and considering its options, spokeswoman Candice Broce said in an email.

Totenberg's order doesn't change the Tuesday deadline for counties to certify their results. But Abrams' campaign filed a lawsuit Sunday asking a federal court to push that deadline to Wednesday, while also requiring that elections authorities count certain provisional and absentee ballots that have been or would be rejected for "arbitrary reasons."

"I am fighting to make sure our democracy works for and represents everyone who has ever put their faith in it. I am fighting for every Georgian who cast a ballot with the promise that their vote would count," Abrams said in a statement explaining her refusal to end her bid to become the first black woman elected governor in American history.

Kemp's campaign retorted that Abrams' latest effort is "a disgrace to democracy" and ignores mathematical realities.

"Clearly, Stacey Abrams isn't ready for her 15 minutes of fame to end," said Kemp spokesman Ryan Mahoney.

As of Monday evening, a hearing had not been scheduled for arguments in the case, but Abrams' campaign was expecting a federal court in Atlanta to set a Tuesday hearing, given the time sensitivity.

Unofficial returns show Kemp with a lead of about 60,000 votes out of more than 3.9 million cast; Abrams would need a net gain of about 21,000 votes to force a Dec. 4 runoff. NBC has rated the race too close to call at this time.

The Georgia race, along with Florida's gubernatorial and Senate matchups that are requiring recounts, are among the final measures of a midterm election cycle that already has allowed Democrats to deal serious blows to President Donald Trump.

Democrats already have won the House, flipped seven governor's seats and reclaimed more than 300 state legislative seats in statehouses around the country. The GOP maintained its Senate majority, and could still expand it. But it's looking to hold the governor's mansions in Florida and Georgia to deny Democrats important gains in presidential battlegrounds ahead of the 2020 election.

Republicans have been governor in Georgia since 2003 and in Florida since 1999, and Trump has put a premium on the two states, endorsing both Kemp and Florida's GOP nominee Ron DeSantis when they were in competitive GOP primaries and then campaigning in person for them ahead of the Nov. 6 election.

Georgia's interim Secretary of State Robyn Crittenden on Monday directed county officials to count some provisional ballots that had been rejected because of voters' failure to provide their year of birth, provided the voter's identity and eligibility was still established.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the State Election Board asked Crittenden to send a letter instructing county election officials how to handle absentee ballots.

Republican Gov. Nathan Deal appointed Crittenden to replace Kemp, who resigned last week after declaring victory in the governor's race. He called his margin — 50.3 percent of the vote — "clear and convincing," but said he wanted Georgians to have confidence in the certification process.

Crittenden's directive was in line with one form of relief sought by the Abrams campaign lawsuit but rejected another.

When casting absentee ballots, voters have to sign an oath and have to write their address and year of birth. The lawsuit asked the judge to order that county election officials accept any absentee ballots on which there was missing or insufficient oath information as long as that doesn't "substantially obstruct" officials from verifying the absentee voter's identity.

The lawsuit says that at least 1,095 qualified voters who cast absentee ballots in Gwinnett County had them "arbitrarily and unlawfully rejected" because of missing or insufficient information.

Under Georgia law, any issues causing a voter to cast a provisional ballot must be remedied within three days of the election — Nov. 9 for this election. The lawsuit asks that county election officials be required to consider evidence proving eligibility through Wednesday at 5 p.m.

Crittenden's guidance to the counties noted that the Nov. 9 deadline for verifying the eligibility of provisional ballots was set by state law.

The lawsuit also asked that provisional ballots cast by a voter registered in another county be counted as if the voter had shown up at the wrong precinct. The lawsuit says that of the 1,556 provisional ballots Fulton County reported having rejected by Nov. 9, nearly 1,000 were disqualified because they were cast by voters whose registration records showed them registered in another county.

Further, the Abrams' campaign is asking that any of the court's orders in the case be applied retroactively to counties that already have certified their returns, meaning those counties would have to reopen their counting process using any new standards and then submit updated returns to the state.

MARYLAND’S GERRYMANDERING ORDERED UNCONSTITUTIONAL BY FED JUDGES (PG COUNTY)

MARYLAND’S GERRYMANDERING ORDERED UNCONSTITUTIONAL BY FEDERAL JUDGES (PG COUNTY):

VOTERS WHO DID NOT SUPPORT DEMOCRAT CANDIDATES WERE OFTEN PUNISHED POLITICALLY AFTER ELECTIONS.

CONGRESSIONAL MAPS MUST NOW BE REDRAWN PRIOR TO 2020 ELECTION.

FAIR ELECTIONS ARE WHAT DEFINES AMERICAN DEMOCRACY.

LEGAL CITIZENS OF ALL RACES SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO VOTE FOR CANDIDATES OF THEIR CHOICE WITHOUT FEAR.


Post Sources: Washington Post


**** Federal judges in gerrymandering case toss Maryland’s congressional voting map


Federal judges in Maryland on Wednesday blocked the state from using its congressional voting map in future elections, ordering political leaders to draw new electoral lines for contests in 2020.

The three-judge panel unanimously threw out the congressional map in a long-running partisan gerrymandering case. The decision gives Maryland officials until March to submit a new redistricting plan.

The judges acknowledged the inherently political redistricting process but declared the boundaries unconstitutional and intentionally designed to target Republican voters in the 6th Congressional District because of their political affiliation.

“When political considerations are taken into account to an extreme, the public perceives an abuse of the democratic process,” wrote Judge Paul V. Niemeyer of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. He was joined by U.S. District Judge George L. Russell III.

Chief U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar wrote a separate opinion agreeing with the overall judgment and declaring partisan gerrymandering “noxious, a cancer on our democracy.”

If the state is unable to meet the deadline for creating a new map, the court’s order establishes a commission that will create a map of its own.

The Wednesday ruling can be appealed directly to the Supreme Court, which in June avoided answering the question of when extreme partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional in the Maryland case and in another map case from Wisconsin.

The office of Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D), which defended the map, said Wednesday that it is reviewing its options. Legislative leaders declined to comment on the court’s order.

Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, who won reelection Tuesday, called the decision “a victory for the vast majority of Marylanders who want free and fair elections.”

“We remain steadfastly committed to moving forward in an open and transparent manner that is free of the partisan influence that has dominated the redistricting process in Maryland for far too long,” said Hogan, who has pushed for a constitutional amendment that would have an independent redistricting commission redraw boundaries.

At the core of the issue is the 6th District in Western Maryland, which was ­redrawn in 2011 to include parts of heavily Democratic Montgomery County. Democratic mapmakers moved hundreds of thousands of voters from Western Maryland out of the 6th District and added Democrats from Montgomery.

The lawsuit was brought by seven Republican voters who lived in the 6th District before the boundaries were reset.

In its ruling Wednesday, the three-judge panel declared the district unconstitutional and found that the state intended to lessen the influence of GOP voters by replacing them with Democrats in violation of the First Amendment right to political association.

“The massive and unnecessary reshuffling of the Sixth District, involving one-half of its population and dictated by party affiliation and voting history, had no other cause than the intended actions of the controlling Democratic officials to burden Republican voters by converting the District” into a Democratic one, Niemeyer wrote in his 59-page opinion.

The court ruling came a day after Democrat David Trone defeated Republican Amie Hoeber by a wide margin in that district, in what was considered the most competitive of Maryland’s House contests.

In a deposition in the case, former governor Martin O’Malley, a Democrat, was blunt about the partisan mapmaking he oversaw, saying Democratic leaders intentionally redrew the districts to try to give their party an advantage.

“Yesterday’s results confirm what we’ve been saying all along. The 6th District isn’t really competitive for Republicans,” said attorney Michael B. Kimberly, who represents the group of Maryland Republicans.

The ruling rejected the argument from the attorney general’s office that Democratic leaders intended only to make the 6th District more competitive.

“It is impossible to flip a seat to the Democrats without flipping it away from the Republicans,” Niemeyer wrote. “There can be no doubt that at every stage of the process, the State’s Democratic officials who put the 2011 redistricting plan in place specifically intended to flip control of the Sixth District from Republicans to Democrats and then acted on that intent.”

The ruling applies to the entire Maryland congressional map as drawn in 2011, but the challengers have proposed a modification at the border between the 6th and 8th districts that could address the court’s concerns without affecting the shape of the other districts.

Before the ruling Wednesday, state Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) cast doubt on the possibility of an independent commission without a sign-on from other states — Virginia, Pennsylvania and North Carolina — to ensure Maryland Democrats are not at a political disadvantage on Capitol Hill.

“To put that in play without all of those states having to abide by the same rules is not going to happen,” Miller said.

VICTOR SANTOS-OCHOA,45, MEXICAN IMMIGRANT FELON ILLEGALLY ENTERED USA BORDERS 4 TIMES

VICTOR SANTOS-OCHOA,45, MEXICAN IMMIGRANT FELON ILLEGALLY ENTERED USA BORDERS 4 TIMES:

OCHOA HAS BEEN ARRESTED AT LEAST 20 TIMES, INCLUDING SEVERAL SERIOUS DUI OFFENSES.

HE WAS FINALLY SENTENCED TO 8 YRS IN PRISON.

AFTER SERVING HIS SENTENCED, OCHOA WILL BE DEPORTED AGAIN.

FEDERAL JUDGE HAS ORDERED OCHOA NOT TO RETURN.


Post Sources: AP, Richmond Dispatch, Justice.gov, Youtube


****** Mexican Repeat offender who illegally entered U.S. four times sentenced to 8 years


A Mexican citizen who illegally entered the U.S. four times and racked up a long criminal history was sentenced to eight years in prison Thursday, more than twice the term suggested under federal sentencing guidelines.

Victor Santos-Ochoa, 45, convicted of more than 20 other crimes in the U.S. since 1992, pleaded guilty Feb. 14 to illegal re-entry following a conviction of an aggravated felony and was facing a prison term of 37 to 46 months under the sentencing guidelines.

“Quite frankly, you are the type of individual U.S. immigration policy is intended to keep out of the United States,” U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson told Santos-Ochoa shortly before imposing the term.

Earlier, Hudson told Nia Vidal, Santos-Ochoa’s lawyer, that he has handled 200 immigration cases as a federal judge.

“I believe this is the worst,” Hudson said.

S. David Schiller, an assistant U.S. attorney, told Hudson, “I have done in excess of 500 of these ... cases. I haven’t seen many that come close to this.”

According to court records, the U.S. attorney’s office said that between 1992 and 2007, Santos-Ochoa was convicted of 18 misdemeanors in California, Georgia and Virginia and spent eight of those 25 years in state and federal prisons.

He was deported, apparently in 2007, and then re-entered the U.S., showing up in Chesterfield County, where in 2008 he was convicted of malicious wounding. Deported again, he was caught re-entering the U.S. in Arizona in 2010, sentenced to 57 months and deported again.

He returned to Chesterfield, where he was convicted of possession of marijuana in 2016. Deported again, he returned and was most recently arrested in Chesterfield in September for assault and battery of a family member — a 5-year-old child — and another drug charge.

Vidal told Hudson on Thursday that the guideline range of 37 to 46 months already took into account his prior illegal entries and relevant criminal history. She asked the judge to sentence him within the guideline range, which was not binding on Hudson.

But Hudson cited the defendant’s long criminal history and disrespect for the law in going over the guidelines.

Presuming he will be deported again after his eight-year prison term, Hudson told Santos-Ochoa, “Needless to say, do not return to the United States without proper authorization, sir.”

FED JUDGE BLOCKS OBAMA ADMIN FROM JAILBREAKING ALL IPHONES (1st-5th AMENDMENTS)

FED JUDGE BLOCKS OBAMA ADMIN FROM JAILBREAKING ALL IPHONES (1st-5th AMENDMENTS):

APPLE WILL ASSIST GOVT TO KEEP AMERICA SAFE WITHOUT VIOLATING PRIVACY.

Sources:  ABC News, Youtube

**** NY Judge: US Cannot Make Apple Provide iPhone Data

The U.S. Justice Department cannot force Apple to provide the FBI with access to locked iPhonedata in a routine Brooklyn drug case, a federal judge ruled Monday.

U.S. Magistrate Judge James Orenstein's written decision gives support to the company's position in its fight against a California judge's order that it create specialized software to help the FBI hack into an iPhone linked to the San Bernardino terrorism investigation. Apple on Thursday formally objected to the order in a brief filed with the court.

The San Bernardino County-owned iPhone 5C was used by Syed Farook, who was a health inspector. He and his wife Tashfeen Malik killed 14 people during a Dec. 2 attack that was at least partly inspired by the Islamic State group.

Apple's opposition to the government's tactics has evoked a national debate over digital privacy rights and national security.

Orenstein concluded that Apple is not obligated to assist government investigators against its will and noted that Congress has not adopted legislation that would achieve the result sought by the government.

Orenstein said he was offering no opinion on whether in the instance of this case or others, "the government's legitimate interest in ensuring that no door is too strong to resist lawful entry should prevail against the equally legitimate societal interests arrayed against it here."

He said the interests at stake go beyond expectations of privacy and include the commercial interest in conducting business free of potentially harmful government intrusion and the "far more fundamental and universal interest ... in shielding sensitive electronically stored data from the myriad harms, great and small, that unauthorized access and misuse can cause."

"How best to balance those interests is a matter of critical importance to our society, and the need for an answer becomes more pressing daily, as the tide of technological advance flows ever farther past the boundaries of what seemed possible even a few decades ago," Orenstein wrote. "But that debate must happen today, and it must take place among legislators who are equipped to consider the technological and cultural realities of a world their predecessors could not begin to conceive."

The Justice Department said in a statement that it's disappointed in the ruling and plans to appeal in coming days. It said Apple had previously agreed many times prior to assist the government and "only changed course when the government's application for assistance was made public by the court."

Apple and their attorneys said they were reading the opinion and will comment later.

In October, Orenstein invited Apple to challenge the government's use of a 227-year-old law to compel Apple to help it recover iPhone data in criminal cases, noting that another law on the books already covered the issue.

The Cupertino, California-based computer maker did, saying in court papers that extracting information from an iPhone "could threaten the trust between Apple and its customers and substantially tarnish the Apple brand."

It followed up by declining to cooperate in a dozen more instances in four states involving government requests to aid criminal probes by retrieving data from individual iPhones.

In ruling, Orenstein wrote: "I believe Apple has the better argument" because the other law covering wiretaps for telecom companies "explicitly absolves a company like Apple of any responsibility to provide the assistance the government seeks here."

Federal prosecutors say Apple has stopped short of challenging court orders judicially, except in the cases before Orenstein and the California jurist who ruled about the San Bernardino shooter's phone.

"Ultimately, the question to be answered in this matter, and in others like it across the country, is not whether the government should be able to force Apple to help it unlock a specific device; it is instead whether the All Writs Act resolves that issue and many others like it yet to come," Orenstein wrote. "For the reasons set forth above, I conclude that it does not."

OBAMA LOSES FAST & FURIOUS EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE (BRIAN TERRY)

OBAMA LOSES FAST & FURIOUS EXEC PRIVILEGE (BRIAN TERRY):

FED JUDGE REJECTS OBAMA ADMIN CLAIM TO CONCEAL GUNRUNNING PROGRAM RECORDS.

~ Federal Judge Rules Against Obama On Executive Privilege For "Fast and Furious"

A Federal judge ruled Tuesday that President Obama cannot use executive privilege to prevent Congress from viewing records on Operation Fast and Furious, a gunrunning program that let thousands of firearms cross the border into Mexico.

U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who was nominated by President Obama to the bench, said the administration had to release the documents that it was withholding by citing executive privilege.

The judge wrote in her decision that the relevant information already made public by the Justice Department has mitigated the impact of any further disclosures because any damage resulting from deliberations “has already been self-inflicted.”

Jackson was not questioning Obama’s executive privilege claim in itself but that it is rendered invalid by what the Justice Department has previously released.

The administration also has to hand over to Congress “attorney-client privileged material, attorney work product, private information, law enforcement sensitive material, or foreign policy sensitive material.”

The lawsuit dates back to a June 2012 vote in the House of Representatives to hold then-Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for not handing over the records.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives launched Operation Fast and Furious in 2009, and it lasted until 2011.

The ATF lost thousands of firearms as a result, two of which were linked to the 2010 murder of a Border Patrol agent in Arizona.

The Obama administration can appeal the ruling, but it is unclear if it will do so.

Sources: Politico, Washington Free Beacon, Fox News, Youtube

NSA: New Ruling Claims NSA Overreach Does Not Violate 4th Amendment Rights (It Does!)

#NSARuling

ANOTHER NSA RULING:

WHO SHOULD MANAGE THE NSA??

U.S. MILITARY vs U.S. FEDERAL GOV'T:

Friday a New York Federal Judge ruled NSA Data Mining & Mass Phone Surveillance of American Citizens is LEGAL.

Can someone please explain how can a procedure be LEGAL if it Violates the U.S. Constitution?? (4th Amendment)

I thought that Federal Judges were supposed to use LEGAL Precedent to Interpret & Enforce Laws, Not use the Judicial Bench to Legislate NEW Laws,
Or use the Judicial Bench to Destroy the U.S. Constitution!!

Now let's be clear.

If the U.S. Military manages the NSA Program, it Is LEGAL & I concur.

Why??

Because the U.S. Military will use ONLY use the Collected Metadata & Collected Personal Citizen Info to Target Real TERRORISTS.....

Not TARGET U. S. Citizens.
(i.e., National Security Purposes)

However.....

If the U.S. Federal Gov't manages the NSA Program, and SPIES on American Citizens,
We could be held HOSTAGE & have Collected Private Info used against Us.

Thus this action is Not LEGAL if the NSA is Managed by the Federal Gov't because it Violates Our 4th Amendment Rights.

I am also concerned if the U.S. Federal Gov't manages the NSA Program, it will use Collected Metadata & Personal Citizen Info for POLITICAL Purposes........

Not for National Security purposes!


Source: USA Today

NSA PHONE SPYING ON U.S. CITIZENS RULED AS UNCONSTITUTIONAL BY A FEDERAL JUDGE

NSA PHONE SPYING ON AMERICAN CITIZENS IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL & MAKES THE INTERNET LESS SAFE.

FEDERAL GOV'T CAN'T USE 1979 SCOTUS CASE TO SPY ON AMERICAN CITIZENS NOR TO CREATE "BIG BROTHER" TYPE SOCIETY.


"Updated: Federal Judge Finds NSA Spying Unconstitutional"

Government can't use 1979 law to justify its "Almost-Orwellian" Technology.

In a stunning decision, a DC-based federal judge has ruled that the National Security Agency spying revealed this summer violates the constitution.

The opinion (PDF) published today by US District Judge Richard Leon is in response to a lawsuit filed by Larry Klayman, a longtime conservative activist.

Klayman was fast on the draw, filing his lawsuit on June 6, one day after widespread NSA surveillance was revealed in June.

Leon's order grants an injunction that will shut down the NSA's Bulk Telephony Metadata Program, and it requires the government to destroy the metadata collected on the plaintiffs' accounts. The shutdown will only happen if an appeals court agrees with Leon, who has stayed the injunction pending appeal, "in light of the significant national security issues at stake in this case and the novelty of the constitutional issues."

A problematic precedent

Today's 71-page order works around a problematic precedent for privacy reformers, Smith v. Maryland. That's the 1979 Supreme Court decision that found there's "no reasonable expectation of privacy" in the actual phone numbers dialed from a telephone, because they are "business records." That's what allows "pen registers" to be installed by police without judicial review, since it's not a "search" in the eyes of courts.

"The question before me is not the same question that the Supreme Court confronted in Smith," wrote Leon. Using a pen register "is a far cry from the issue in this case." We've reached a turning point in the history of technology, in Leon's reading. The government's decades-old reasoning can't hold up in the present day.

He writes:

Indeed, the question in this case can more properly be styled as follows: when do present-day circumstances—the evolutions in the Government's surveillance capabilities, citizens' phone habits, and the relationship between the NSA and telecom companies—become so thoroughly unlike those considered by the Supreme Court 34 years ago that a precedent like Smith simply does not apply?

The answer, unfortunately for the government, is now.

The court of 1979 could not "have ever imagined how the citizens of 2013 would interact with their phones," writes Leon, leaving the Smith precedent with little value.

The pen register the court considered was operational for less than two weeks, in March 1976, and there was "no indication from the Court's opinion that it expected the Government to retain those limited phone records once the case was over." The "almost-Orwellian technology" used by the government to capture phone data "is unlike anything that could have been conceived in 1979."

The NSA is using two weeks of data collected from a single phone to justify "the creation and maintenance of a historical database containing five years' worth of data," writes Leon. "And I might add, there is the very real prospect that the program will go on for as long as America is combatting terrorism, which realistically could be forever!"

Fundamentally, Leon is making the case that the law must be reconsidered in the age of the smartphone. He cites data from CTIA counting more than 326 million mobile subscribers in 2012, including 22 million computers, tablets, and modems.

"Count the phones at the bus stop, in a restaurant, or around the table at a work meeting or any given occasion," writes Leon. "Thirty-four years ago, none of those phones would have been there. Thirty-four years ago, city streets were lined with pay phones. Thirty-four years ago, when people wanted to send 'text messages,' they wrote letters and attached postage stamps."
A new North Star

The Smith case and NSA surveillance are wildly different, so a different analysis must take place. "I cannot possibly navigate these uncharted Fourth Amendment waters using as my North Star a case that predates the rise of cell phones," writes Leon.

No judge outside the secret Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Court has "has ever recognized a special need sufficient to justify continuous, daily searches of virtually every American citizen without any particularized suspicion," writes Leon. "In effect, the Government urges me to be the first non-FISC judge to sanction such a dragnet."

And Leon won't do it. The Verizon subscribers who filed the suit do have an expectation of privacy, and the government has intruded on it, he concludes.

In Leon's reading of the record, the government isn't merely trying to investigate possible terrorists. It's trying to do so as fast as it possibly can. "The affidavits in support of the Government's brief repeatedly emphasize this interest in speed," he notes. But the Government can't cite a single instance where the bulk metadata program "actually stopped an imminent attack."

He notes that the government could have shown more evidence to the judge privately, in chambers, but didn't. "Although the Government has publicly asserted that the NSA's surveillance programs have prevented 54 terrorist attacks, no proof of that has ever been put before me," Leon writes.

That leads him to have "serious doubts about the efficacy of the metadata collection program." While there's a "limited record" at this point in the litigation, the plaintiffs have a "substantial likelihood" of showing their privacy interests outweigh the government's interest in collecting the bulk data.

They are likely to show the bulk data program is an unreasonable search, and violates the Fourth Amendment, Leon finds. The public interest "weighs heavily in favor of granting an injunction" that will bar the government from collecting any metadata in association with their personal Verizon accounts.

Government lawyers also said that removing just the plaintiffs, two Verizon subscribers, from its database will be burdensome. That's not a "burden" Leon takes seriously. "Of course, the public has no interest in saving the government from the burdens of complying with the Constitution!"

A controversial plaintiff

In the coming months, Leon's opinion will be considered by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. That court considers an array of federal agency issues, and until recently it had leaned strongly Republican as the Senate held up confirmation of the candidates put forth by the Obama Administration.

However, the opposition to judicial nominees has eased somewhat following Obama's re-election, and three of the four vacancies have been filled in 2013.

The case against the NSA is not Klayman's first controversial lawsuit. Many of his cases have not ended well. Klayman has been rebuked and sanctioned by several judges, and he has been barred from some courtrooms.

In 2012, Klayman filed a lawsuit in Florida to kick President Barack Obama off the primary ballot in that state, based on the discredited theory that he was not born in the United States. In 2011, he sued Facebook for "negligence" because it didn't remove an anti-Israel page quickly enough. Neither suit was successful.

The Klayman suit is not the only challenge to NSA telephone-data program.

The more widely known case is the one filed in July by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and American Civil Liberties Union.

That case, filed on behalf of First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles, was consolidated with a pre-Snowden anti-NSA lawsuit called Jewel v. NSA.

The government has filed a motion to dismiss, and the case awaits a judge's decision. A DC-based privacy group, EPIC, tried to take the issue straight to the Supreme Court, but that failed.

Dissatisfaction with NSA surveillance has hit Congress, as well.

The USA Freedom Act, which would end NSA spying, has 130 co-sponsors.

NSA leaker Edward Snowden's statement on today's decision has been published in The New York Times. Snowden said:

I acted on my belief that the N.S.A.'s mass surveillance programs would not withstand a constitutional challenge, and that the American public deserved a chance to see these issues determined by open courts.

Today, a secret program authorized by a secret court was, when exposed to the light of day, found to violate Americans’ rights. It is the first of many.


Sources: ARS Technica, CNN, NBC News

Richard Cebull Should Resign Or Be Impeached By Congress; Misuse Of Office & Racist Behavior In Workplace

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Federal Judge Richard Cebull (9th Circuit), a Federal Judge Appointed by George W. Bush in 2001, has Publicly Apologized for sending out an extremely Racist E-mail about Pres. Obama via his Official Judicial E-mail Account.

The E-mail suggests Pres. Obama was Conceived after his Mother had Sex with a Dog.

OMG!
That is so Disgusting!

Such Disrespectful Behavior from a Federal Judge!
A Publicly Apology from Richard Cebull is NOT good enough.

As a Federal Judge Appointed by a U.S. President & Confirmed by Congress, Richard Cebull is expected to Serve & Conduct himself in a Professional, Respectful Manner before the Public.

This is especially so whenever referring to a Sitting U.S. President.

How in the World can Richard Cebull be expected to continue Serving in his role as a Federal Judge and be expected to Treat Everyone Fairly, if he has expressed to the Entire United States via a Racist E-mail that he has a Problem with a BLACK, Elected President?

No a Public Apology isn't good enough!

Judge Richard Cebull Needs to Voluntarily Resign or Congress Should Impeach Him!
Period!






Richard Cebull says he sent Racist Obama e-mail


Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull apologized Wednesday for sending a racist email about President Obama from his office to a few friends.

"To say it's inappropriate and stupid is an extreme understatement," Cebull said Wednesday afternoon in his courthouse chambers in Billings.

"There is no doubt it's racist. It wasn't forwarded for that purpose," Cebull said. "If anything, it was political."

The judge admitted he forwarded the racially charged email he received to seven friends, including his brother, on Feb. 20 from his office computer.

The email eventually was forwarded to the Great Falls Tribune, which published it Wednesday. The Tribune said the email text read as follows:

"Normally I don't send or forward a lot of these, but even by my standards, it was a bit touching. I want all of my friends to feel what I felt when I read this.

Hope it touches your heart like it did mine.

"A little boy said to his mother, 'Mommy, how come I'm black and you're white?'
His mother replied, 'Don't even go there Barack!

From what I can remember about that party, you're lucky you don't bark!'"

Cebull took responsibility, calling it "a hard lesson to learn. I apologize."

The judge said he is not a racist although he acknowledged people will think that because of the email.

"And I don't blame them. The fact is that isn't how I've conducted myself as a federal judge. Never has anybody asserted I was racist," he said.

Cebull was nominated to the bench by former President George W. Bush and confirmed in 2001. He has been Montana's chief judge since 2008. Prior to becoming a district judge, Cebull served as a U.S. magistrate judge in Great Falls and had been in private practice.

Cebull said he does not remember who sent him the email and said he had deleted it before Wednesday. The judge also said he did not write the introduction.

The judge said he was at a loss to explain why he forwarded the message.

Friends send him emails of a political nature, he said.

"It was a private communication. I didn't intend for it to go public," he said.
As a judge, Cebull said, he can't express in public political preferences but was naive to not consider the public consequences of his actions.

The judge has said he is not an Obama supporter.

Cebull said he has emailed the other federal judges in Montana apologizing for his conduct. He said he will never forward or send another email from his office that isn't business related.


View Larger Map


Sources: Billings Gazette, CNN, Current TV, MSNBC, Washington Post, Wikipedia, Youtube, Google Maps

Richard Cebull: Judge Nominated By Bush Sends Racist E-mail Calling Pres. Obama's Father A Dog!

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Federal Judge Richard Cebull Nominated by George W. Bush, admits to Forwarding an extremely Racist e-mail about Pres. Obama.
The e-mail explains a "Joke" which suggests that Pres. Obama's Mother had Sex with a Dog.
OMG!

Can Federal Judge Richard Cebull be forced to Resign for Speaking out & using Incendiary Racist language against a Sitting U.S. President?

Unfortunately Federal Judges can NOT be Fired or Forced to Resign.
They can ONLY be Impeached by Congress.

Federal Judges can't be Fired or asked to Resign even when using Incendiary Racist language against Sitting U.S. Presidents.
A Complaint can be Filed against Federal Judges but its highly unlikely they are ever Impeached.

The subject line of the email, which Cebull sent from his official courthouse email address on Feb. 20 at 3:42 p.m., reads:
"A MOM'S MEMORY":

"Normally I don't send or forward a lot of these, but even by my standards, it was a bit touching. I want all of my friends to feel what I felt when I read this. Hope it touches your heart like it did mine.

"A little boy said to his mother; 'Mommy, how come I'm black and you're white?'" the email joke reads. "His mother replied, 'Don't even go there Barack! From what I can remember about that party, you're lucky you don't bark!'"




Chief U.S. District Judge sends racially charged email about President Obama


Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull on Wednesday admitted to sending a racially charged email about President Barack Obama from his courthouse chambers.

Cebull, of Billings, was nominated by former President George W. Bush and received his commission in 2001 and has served as chief judge for the District of Montana since 2008.

The subject line of the email, which Cebull sent from his official courthouse email address on Feb. 20 at 3:42 p.m., reads: "A MOM'S MEMORY."

The forwarded text reads as follow:

"Normally I don't send or forward a lot of these, but even by my standards, it was a bit touching. I want all of my friends to feel what I felt when I read this. Hope it touches your heart like it did mine.

"A little boy said to his mother; 'Mommy, how come I'm black and you're white?'" the email joke reads. "His mother replied, 'Don't even go there Barack! From what I can remember about that party, you're lucky you don't bark!'"

Cebull admitted Wednesday to sending the email to seven recipients, including his personal email address.

The judge acknowledged that the content of the email was racist, but said he does not consider himself racist. He said the email was intended to be a private communication.

"It was not intended by me in any way to become public," Cebull said. "I apologize to anybody who is offended by it, and I can obviously understand why people would be offended."

Cebull said his brother initially sent him the email, which he forwarded to six of his "old buddies" and acquaintances.

He admitted that he read the email and intended to send it to his friends.

"The only reason I can explain it to you is I am not a fan of our president, but this goes beyond not being a fan," Cebull said. "I didn't send it as racist, although that's what it is. I sent it out because it's anti-Obama."

Travis McAdam, executive director for the Montana Human Rights Network , said the email contained highly racist rhetoric unbecoming of a federal judge.

"It's one thing if the judge is not a fan of President Barack Obama, but you would think someone in his position would articulate that in a way that criticizes his policy decisions or his position on issues," McAdam said. "We have a hard time believing that a legitimate criticism of the president involves distributing a joke that basically compares African Americans with animals."

Cebull said he does not consider himself prejudice against people of other races or ethnic backgrounds, and that his actions in his courtroom have demonstrated that.

"I have never considered myself that way," Cebull said. "All I can emphasize is I've treated people in my courtroom all these years fairly. I don't think I've ever demonstrated racism. Nobody has ever even implied it."

Montana immigration attorney Shahid Haque-Hausrath was on the receiving end of a racially charged email sent by a top Immigrations and Customs Enforcement official last fall. That official was suspended after sending Haque-Hausrath an email implying that Muslim Americans must prove their allegiance to the United State.

Haque-Hausrath, who is in an interracial marriage and recently fathered a child with his wife, said Cebull's e-mail was "deeply troubling."

"Another federal official who is entrusted to do his duties fairly and impartially has yet again sent an email from his work account during work hours that espouses deeply racist and bigoted views," Haque-Hausrath said. "The reason why I think it's so troubling, is it espouses the deeply racist view that interracial sex is equivalent to bestiality. For a federal judge to be equating the two, and say since Barack Obama is of mixed racial background, that his mother was somehow committing acts of bestiality is incredibly racist and troubling.

One of the recipients of the email Cebull sent forwarded it to another person, who in turn forwarded it to another person. The email was eventually pass along to the Great Falls Tribune, who contacted Cebull. Cebull said he was surprised the recipients of the e-mail passed it along with his name on it.

"This is a private thing that was, to say the least, very poor judgment on my part," Cebull said. "I did not forward it because of the racist nature of it. Although it is racist, I'm not that way, never have been."


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Sources: Billings Gazette, Great Falls Tribune, MSNBC, TPM, Wikipedia, Google Maps

Shariah Law Advocates vs British Government Backlash: Islam4UK Group Banned!

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Girls revert to Islam UK
Uploaded by Muslim_Forever. - Explore more family videos.




Islamists Raise Fears Of Violent "Clash Of Cultures" In Europe


It is a Sunday night in London's East End and the self-styled "most hated man in Britain" is holding court, reveling in his vision of a Taliban victory over America and a world under Islamic Shariah law.

The crowd of about 250 listens intently as Anjem Choudary issues a call to arms in the pristine surroundings of the newly refurbished art deco conference center, built to host weddings and business meetings.

"There are many battlefields," he says calmly into a microphone. "There's a battlefield outside 10 Downing Street [home to Britain's prime minister] and in the mountains of the Tora Bora [in Afghanistan]."

Any man who fails to fight, he warns, will face difficulty when the "angel of death" arrives and he is forced to explain to Allah why he did not raise his hand "against the oppressor" out of fear. "Allah will say to him, 'Am I not more worthy to be feared than them?'" Choudary says.

"Allahu Akbar!" the men shout out in unison, as if a war cry, during his speech. "Allahu Akbar." God is great.

A group of women, all heavily veiled and sitting in a screened-off area, remain quiet throughout.

As former leader of the banned Islamist organizations al-Muhajiroun and Islam4UK, Choudary was kept off the bill and appeared as the surprise star speaker at the rally.

His groups may be outlawed but, unlike his female followers, Choudary will not be silenced.

His message is one that echoes across Europe, which experts say is home to thousands of people who would wholeheartedly support Choudary's "ultimate objective" — the "domination of the world by Islam."

The majority of Muslims are not Islamists, who believe in a society based on Islamic law, and not all of the latter are seeking world domination or are willing to use violence.



But fear of another Islamist-inspired atrocity after Madrid in 2004 — 191 dead — and London in 2005 — 53 dead — remains high.

Rightly so, according to Dr. John J. Le Beau, a former CIA officer and now professor of strategy and security studies at Germany's George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies.

"It's a mathematical certainty there will be a successful attack in Europe at some point," he told msnbc.com. "The amount of attempted plots we see is not decreasing. I think what we have seen is a ... strengthening of attempted attacks that in some cases have come pretty close."

Le Beau, who cautioned that putting a figure on the number of Islamists was a "soft science," estimated there were between 5,000 and 10,000 people in Europe "willing to engage in violence."

In 2007, the German Central Institute Islam Archive said there were 53.7 million Muslims living in Europe.

A backlash is growing.

Support for the far-right in normally liberal countries like Sweden and the Netherlands is on the rise. French lawmakers voted for a ban on full face veils. Protest groups, such as the English Defense League which has been linked to soccer hooligans, have made headlines.

Le Beau warned of "an incipient clash of cultures." The consequences of another terrorist spectacular — intelligence reports recently warned an al-Qaida-linked group was planning to hit Western Europe with a commando-style raid like that on Mumbai, India — could be profound, he suggested.

"I could see that leading to a spontaneous violent reaction on the part of others. Could this spin out of control? Sure," he said. "I think that would be very dangerous because ... it runs the risk of sectarianizing or 'Balkanizing' Western Europe."

Europe is home to ancient conflicts. The Balkans, which includes the former Yugoslavia, has been the scene of intermittent religious strife stretching back to the fall of Constantinople, now Istanbul, to the Muslim Ottoman Empire in 1453.

After the fall of Yugoslavian Communism, a resurgence of ethnic tensions led to the 1992-1995 Bosnian War, during which 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were massacred by Bosnian Serb forces in a single act of genocide.

The U.K., far removed from such turmoil, has a long tradition of tolerating other countries' dissidents. In the 19th century, political philosopher Karl Marx took refuge in London after outraging authorities in his native Germany and France.

But that tradition has been frayed by the increasingly vocal presence of Islamists in the U.K.




'Crazies' flock to 'Londonistan'

In the 1990s, the city became so popular for Islamists fleeing authorities in Muslim countries that some commentators dubbed it "Londonistan."

Citing the WikiLeaks cables, the Guardian newspaper last week reported that the future U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron told an American official in April 2009 that the former Labour government had "let in a lot of crazies and did not wake up early enough" to the danger posed by Muslim extremists.

Le Beau said while Choudary and others like him were unlikely to fight themselves,

they were helping to recruit people to the cause who would.

"These groups are not the terrorist cells that are going to launch an attack," he said. "These are the groups that radicalize individuals and put them in the frame of mind where they might engage in an attack."

Richard Reid, the so-called "shoe bomber" who attempted to blow up a flight from Paris to Miami in December 2001, was radicalized after meeting extremists at mosques in London, his father Robin tearfully told BBC News.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian dubbed the "underwear bomber" after being accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day last year, studied at University College London. Yemeni officials told the BBC he became an Islamist in the U.K., although the British government has denied this.

And London's Finsbury Park Mosque, now renamed after a takeover by moderates, was once the power-base of radical cleric Abu Hamza, a former nightclub bouncer who organized a conference praising the 9/11 attackers. He was later sentenced to seven years in prison for inciting murder and racial hatred.


A Reformed Islamist

Ghaffar Hussain once counted himself among London's Islamists.

His reaction to the Sept. 11 attacks was "well, so what?"

"I felt it was kind of redressing some of the imbalance," Hussain said. "'They've done this to the Palestinians by supporting the Israelis, this is the price you pay.'"

However, he now battles the Islamist ideology as head of outreach at a British counter-extremism think tank, the Quilliam Foundation.

"London is like the heart of the Arab world," Hussain said. "The political dissidents are all based here."

In the 10 years before 9/11, foreign Arab dissidents "set up shop and carried on doing what they were doing in their own countries: Preaching violent jihad," he explained.

They found a ready-made constituency of young, disaffected, second-generation Muslims who had "experienced racism when they were younger."

"Merge those two together and you have a recipe for disaster," Hussain said. "I was caught up in that ... and became active in my own area, doing speeches, giving out leaflets for about three years.

"I abhor any kind of extremism, anything that takes innocent life. I look back with surprise at the things I used to believe."

His "wild guess" on the number of Islamists in Europe was "less than 5,000 hardcore activists" with a further 20,000 to 30,000 people who are "broadly sympathetic at times."

Al-Qaida's propaganda gives an indication of where they believe support is strongest, Hussain said, as they tend to publish only in English and German, not French, Spanish or Dutch.

Fears of a terrorist attack may have recently gripped Germany , but Hussain said authorities there had not done enough to minimize the risk. Many of the 3 million Muslims there came as "guest-workers" and he said there had been little attempt to integrate them into society.

"Germany is a bit of a basket case. Those communities are very hard to penetrate. Guessing, I'd say it’s probably not as bad as the U.K., but nobody really knows," he said.




Angry Young Men

As for Choudary, "he’s got about 50 followers, all young men — I know some of them personally — very, very ill-informed," Hussain said. "All they know is they are angry about something."

Choudary has achieved infamy in Britain, particularly after announcing an Islamist parade through the town of Wootton Bassett, where local people have taken to lining the streets to pay respects to dead soldiers as they return home through a nearby air force base.

The event, which would have seen the Islamists carrying empty coffins to symbolize Muslims "mercilessly murdered" in Afghanistan, did not take place but still sparked public anger.

Given his rhetoric, some in Britain question Choudary's right to freedom of speech.

And the European Union is taking steps to limit the flow of Islamist propaganda, putting itself at odds with the U.S. and its adherence to the First Amendment.

Gilles de Kerchove, the EU's counterterrorism coordinator, said legislation would soon be implemented which would allow "even 'free speech' member states to shut down websites, to bring people to court when they cross the line."

"That's where we have a problem with the U.S.," he told msnbc.com. "Most of the neo-Nazi and most radical Islamist websites are hosted by U.S. servers."

The EU has invested millions of dollars on research to develop programs capable of monitoring the internet for the "automatic detection of threats and abnormal behavior or violence," the Sunday Telegraph reported.

cargo and using computer programs to analyze this data could prevent terrorist attacks.

The attempt to send bombs hidden in printers from Yemen to Chicago in October was detected by Saudi Arabian intelligence. However, a surveillance program might have red-flagged the shipment as a U.S. synagogue was likely to purchase office equipment closer to home.

"It's stupid to send a printing machine from Yemen to a synagogue in Chicago," de Kerchove said. "That does not make sense."

He insisted the danger to Europe remained real, despite the lack of a major attack since London in 2005.

"That's not because there's no threat. It's because the security services have been very effective," de Kerchove said, highlighting recent arrests in connection with an alleged plot to kill the moderate head of a Paris mosque.

Like Le Beau, he thought it likely that a significant attack would eventually slip through. "Since the threat is becoming more ... diverse and complex, it's not that risky to speak like this and say, 'It's not if, but when,'" he added.

Choudary, who rose to prominence in 1999 when media reports described him as a key figure in the recruitment of fighters for Islamist forces around the world, insists that his beliefs did not mean "I'm going to kill you."



'There will always be Wars'

The mild-mannered Choudary told msnbc.com that some "battlefields" were merely "ideological" ones.

The former lawyer said he "cannot have a friendship" with a non-Muslim but different religions could live side-by-side "peacefully."

"As long as my life and wealth is protected in Britain, I do not target the life and wealth (of people here)," Choudary said, citing a passage from the Quran to that effect.

However, he cautioned this stance was a matter for legitimate religious debate. "There are many Muslims who do not believe that," he said. "(London suicide bomber) Mohammed Siddique Khan didn’t believe that."

And he appeared almost to relish the prospect of ethnic violence.

"There will always be wars. The conflict will continue always. I think it's a matter of time before another 9/11 takes place and another 7/7 (London bombings)," Choudary said.

"I think we are on the brink of many more operations in the West. This is going to be very, very nasty ... The Muslims engaged in jihad are not going to stop. People will declare jihad in Britain and America. I don't think you can stomach something like that."


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Sources: Daily Motion, Fox News, MSNBC, RT, Youtube, Google Maps

Gawker vs Sarah Palin: Left Wing Media Loses!

Gawker Loses Round With Sarah Palin



A Federal Judge on Saturday ordered the website Gawker to pull down unauthorized excerpts from Sarah Palin’s forthcoming book, “America by Heart,” until a hearing scheduled for Nov. 30.

On Saturday evening, the link was broken to Gawker’s scoop, “Sarah Palin’s New Book: Leaked Excerpts,” which included 14 images of partial pages from the book, scheduled for publication Tuesday.

A two-page order signed Saturday by U.S. District Judge Thomas P. Griesa, who sits in Manhattan, says: “Gawker is temporarily retrained and enjoined from continuing to distribute, publish or otherwise transmit pages" of the book.

See the order here.

POLITICO has asked Gawker for a comment about the judge’s order, and will add it.

On Tuesday, the former Alaska governor begins a book tour of 16 heartland cities. The book, "America by Heart : Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag," is described by her publisher, Harper Collins, as "an intimate and personal look at the woman behind the public servant," including "selections from classic and contemporary readings that have moved her — from the nation’s founding documents to great speeches, sermons, letters, literature and poetry, biography and even some of her favorite songs and movies."

Palin's previous book, "Going Rogue: An American Life," was a No. 1 best-seller. Her new book comes as speculation increases about the possibility she will run for president in 2012. She told The New York Times Magazine that she was "engaged in the internal deliberations" about a race. When asked by ABC's Barbara Walters whether she could beat President Barack Obama, Palin replied: "I believe so."

HarperCollins said in a statement after the judge's ruling that on Friday, “HarperCollins sued Gawker for copyright infringement after Gawker posted several pages from Sarah Palin's as-yet unpublished book, 'America by Heart,' on its website. [On Saturday], Judge Thomas Griesa of the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting Gawker from posting pages of the book pending a hearing on HarperCollins' motion for a preliminary injunction, to be held on Nov. 30.”

HarperCollins had announced the litigation in an earlier statement: “We believe that the reprinting of pages from Gov. Palin's book without permission constitutes a blatant infringement of copyright. HarperCollins sent a cease and desist letter to Gawker, which was ignored. Accordingly, HarperCollins has filed a lawsuit in federal court in New York to stop the infringement and to protect our legal rights in the content of the book.”

The disputed Gawker post began: “Well, look what popped up five days early: leaks from Sarah Palin's forthcoming memoir/manifesto, America By Heart, in which the reality TV matriarch rants against ‘talent deprived’ reality TV stars, lauds daughter Bristol's chastity and celebrates not aborting Trig. … The book is currently in distribution centers, awaiting its official release on Tuesday. We got our hands on some of the pages … Here's an annotated guide to our favorite parts, featuring rants against the media and new material about Bristol and Levi.”

Gawker later taunted Palin in a post titled, “Sarah Palin Is Mad at Us for Leaking Pages From Her Book.”

“Did you catch the excerpt we posted yesterday from Sarah Palin's new book? Sarah did. She tweets with rage: ‘The publishing world is LEAKING out-of-context excerpts of my book w/out my permission? Isn't that illegal?’ [Sarah: If you're reading this — and if you are, welcome! — you may want to take a moment to familiarize yourself with the law … ].”

Gawker showed the dedication page, which says “For Trig: I’m glad you’re here.” The page also quotes Thomas Paine, “Founding Father,” as saying: “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.”


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Sources: AP, Facebook, Gawker, MSNBC, Politico, Youtube, Google Maps

North Carolina GOP Wins Voter Fraud Alert Case!

Touch-Screen Voters In North Carolina Will Be Alerted Prior To Casting Ballots


Voters who use ATM-style machines to cast ballots in Tuesday's election will be asked to read a notice instructing them to carefully review their selections and make sure they register correctly, a Federal Judge ordered Saturday.

U.S. District Court Judge Malcolm Howard ordered the North Carolina State Board of Elections and its executive director, Gary Bartlett, to have all Poll Workers tell each voter using the touch screens to read the alert, then ask to be notified of problems.

All precincts using the ATM-style devises must keep logs of complaints and how they're resolved.

Howard's order settles a Republican Lawsuit against the North Carolina State Board of Elections over voting equipment the party contends is unreliable, often erroneously casting votes for Democrats.

State elections officials say the machines work and voters are aware that they should make sure their ballots are correct before they cast them.

Howard held a rare Saturday hearing - he said it was his first in two decades - to resolve the complaint before Election Day. Twenty-three counties will use touch-screen machines for voting Tuesday; none are in the Triangle.

Thomas Farr, the lawyer representing N.C. State GOP Chairman Tom Fetzer and local party officials and voters, said Bartlett knew of the touch-screen machine problems for weeks but did not do enough to remedy them.

The two sides offered vastly different assessments of the touch-screen iVotronic.

Farr said the machines caused widespread problems during the early voting period that ended Saturday.

After the hearing, Johnnie McLean, the state elections board deputy director, said the equipment works well.

"We have every confidence in the voting system that North Carolina has," she said. "I've seen no evidence that we should feel differently."

The GOP Lawsuit gave examples of voters who said they had to correct their ballots three times to cast their votes for Republicans, as they intended, rather than Democrats. The order doesn't get to the root of the problem of unreliable equipment, Farr said, but may result in voters examining their ballots carefully.

Susan Nichols, a special deputy Attorney General representing Bartlett and the elections board, told Howard an order was not necessary because Bartlett had already done, or planned to do, everything it instructed.

Elections board members don't want to imply "there are widespread problems not being addressed by the elections administration," she said.

Farr wanted the public notices to state the extra vigilance was required under a Federal court order. Nichols resisted, saying the board was worried about creating an impression that the elections had been taken over by a federal judge.

The voter alerts will not include information about Howard requiring them.




North Carolina GOP Files Suit Over Touch-Screen Voting Machines


The North Carolina Republican Party on Friday filed a federal lawsuit over concerns about the operation of touch-screen Voting machines.

Party Chairman Tom Fetzer said Thursday that the GOP has received several complaints from voters trying to vote a straight Republican ticket that the touch-screen machines recorded their votes as a straight Democratic ticket.

"These machines have a history of being problematic," he said.

He said he suspects the error occurs when the screen is unsure of what the voter pressed.

"The voter's vote is defaulted to the top line, which in most instances is the Democratic line on the ballot," he said.

Johnnie McLean, deputy director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said there is no default for the machines, which she said are recalibrated every morning to ensure they're working properly.

Thirty-five counties are using touch-screen machines for early voting, including Mecklenburg and Guilford.

Fetzer didn't say how many complaints have been lodged or where the voters lived.

McLean said the elections board has received "isolated" complaints from New Hanover and Craven counties. Some complaints are from Democrats who said the machines recorded their votes incorrectly for Republicans.

"We don't see a widespread issue," she said.

Fetzer said he wants warnings posted at the polls to alert voters of the potential problem. He also wants poll workers to retain daily printouts of vote totals to compare later with the tabulations provided by the touch-screen machines and to retain records of all complaints about the machines.

"We're not satisfied at all with the State Board of Elections' response to date," he said. "It's an incompetence situation at the State Board of Elections."

Andrew Whalen, executive director of the North Carolina Democratic Party, called Fetzer's allegations of voting improprieties "reckless and absurd."

"I can only assume he is trying to lay a groundwork of excuses for his party’s upcoming electoral failures or attempting to suppress turnout by alleging fraud when there is no evidence of it," Whalen said in a statement.


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Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, WRAL, Google Maps