Intimidation and the art of terrorism

Humanist, July-August, 2004 by Rachel Gillett

if you've visited www.blackboxvoting.org, your identity (or at least that of your computer) may become known to federal law enforcement authorities. The government has requested information about web surfers who have visited the website run by computer-voting watchdog Bev Harris. Although she has resisted the government's investigation, she may face large fines or jail time if she continues not to cooperate.

VoteHere, a Bellevue, Washington based electronic voting software company, claimed last October that its computer network had been hacked, and the FBI and Secret Service have been investigating the matter. According to Jim Adler, founder and CEO of VoteHere, there is evidence that the hack was politically motivated and may be linked to last year's leak of internal documents from another voting software company, Diebold.

The Diebold memos, which were publicly posted by Harris on the Internet last September, contained various internal e-mails that embarrassed the company. One of the results of this posting, in addition to just bad publicity, was California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley's decision on April 30, 2004, to ban voting machines in four California counties manufactured by Diebold. Shelley also called for a state attorney general's investigation into Diebold for misleading public officials about federal certification and testing of its products.

According to Harris, an e-mail that was sent to her in October after the Diebold postings contained a link that it said would take her to VoteHere software that had been stolen. However, since VoteHere had announced that it would release the software to the public for examination, "Why," she wrote, "would anyone in their right mind grab the stuff in some clandestine manner when it was being released into the open momentarily?" So, thinking that someone was trying to entrap her, Harris didn't click on the link.

Harris did, however, interview via telephone a person who claimed to be the VoteHere hacker, but "did not find him to be credible" she said. "It appeared to be an entrapment scheme." She is also "dead certain" that the person who leaked the Diebold information and the VoteHere hacker are different people.

Harris is also frustrated with her meetings with Secret Service agents who, she claims, say they are investigating the VoteHere hack but don't spend a lot of time on it in their interviews with her. "Most of the time is spent on the Diebold memos, which they claim they are not investigating," she stated.

According to Harris, the government wants her to turn over "the logs of my website with all the forum messages and the IP [Internet Protocol] addresses," which make it possible to identify computers that have visited the website. She has been warned that she will be subpoenaed and put before a grand jury. "They still aren't getting the list of members of blackboxvoting.org," she said, "unless they seize my computer--which my attorney tells me might be what they had in mind."

On the morning of May 11, 2004, Steve Kurtz, an art professor at the University of New York at Buffalo, called 911 to report that his wife, Hope Kurtz, had died in her sleep of cardiac arrest. He didn't think the day could possibly be worse.

When the police arrived, however, they became suspicious of Kurtz's art supplies and, deciding that they may actually be bioterrorist weapons, called the FBI.

The FBI arrived at Kurtz's home and abducted him without charges. Then, not only did they confiscate his art supplies, manuscripts, and computers, they also denied him access to his deceased wife's body. The FBI sealed off the entire block around his house and "detained" the "suspected bioterrorist" who, under the advice of his lawyer, walked away the next day because his "detention" was illegal.

In the days following, agents in hazmat suits from various law enforcement agencies scoured Kurtz's home and impounded his computers, books and related materials, and his wife's body for further analysis. The Buffalo Health Department condemned his residence as a health risk.

Kurtz had developed artwork as a member of the Critical Art Ensemble (CAE), which is, according to its website, "a group of five artists of various specializations, dedicated to exploring the intersections between art, technology, radical politics and critical theory." Kurtz had equipment for a CAE project on "Free Range Grains," which included a mobile laboratory for DNA extraction that was used to test for possible transgenic contamination in food products.

The field and laboratory test conducted by the FBI soon showed that it wasn't possible for Kurtz to use the equipment to produce dangerous germs and that anyone in the United States could legally obtain and possess the same equipment. Although Kurtz was finally allowed to return to his home and regain his wife's body, the FBI didn't return his possessions and the U.S. Attorney's Office has subpoenaed two of his CAE colleagues to appear before a federal grand jury.

Carla Mendes, the spokesperson for Kurtz's defense fund said of the events, "Today, there is no legal way to stop huge corporations from putting genetically altered material in our food. Yet owning the equipment required to test for the presence of 'Frankenfood' will get you accused of terrorism".