[I don't mean to pick on Richard Clarke, and will give his office (or, for that matter, Clarke defenders) a right of reply. At the same time, it seems that we should hold government officials to a high standard of accuracy, particularly when there's always the danger of exaggeration and scaremongering to (a) make yourself seem more important and thereby fatten your paycheck at your next (probably private sector) job, (b) increase funding for your own .gov fiefdom and those run by your friends, and (c) argue for new, intrusive, and arguably unwarranted regulations imposed on technology firms. Previous message: http://www.politechbot.com/p-04403.html --Declan] --- From: gabriel <the.angel.gabrielat_private> To: declanat_private Subject: Re: FC: Richard Clarke's resignation message, and final warning Date: Tue, 4 Feb 2003 12:56:56 -0500 On February 4, 2003 09:08 am, Declan McCullagh wrote: > A national election/referendum in Canada was canceled Just for the record, the "national election/referendum in Canada" was the NDP leadership election and it wasn't cancelled, the voting tally was delayed due to high internet traffic. The election however did finish with a full count and a delgate emerged a winner. How very sad it is that the American government thinks so highly of itself and yet can't get simple facts straight. -- an intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows. - dwight d. eisenhower --- Date: Tue, 04 Feb 2003 14:08:22 -0400 To: declanat_private From: Ivan Smith <rustfrogat_private> Subject: Richard Clarke badly misinformed Richard Clarke wrote, about the Sapphire Worm: "A national election/referendum in Canada was canceled." This is wholly untrue. The last national election in Canada was in November 2000, and the next one won't happen until 2004. There has never been a national referendum in Canada, and there is no discussion of any plan to hold one at any future time. There was no such cancellation, or anything that could reasonably be interpreted as one. Ivan Smith 9847 Main Street Canning, Nova Scotia, Canada B0P 1H0 902-582-3783 --- Date: Tue, 4 Feb 2003 09:25:07 -0700 From: "Patrick J. Kobly" <pkoblyat_private> To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> Subject: Re: FC: Richard Clarke's resignation message, and final warning Message-ID: <20030204162507.GA6329at_private> On Tue, Feb 04, 2003 at 09:08:09AM -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote: <SNIP> > A national election/referendum in > Canada was canceled. <SNIP> ??? I'm Canadian, and I'm completely unaware of any "national election / referendum" which was supposed to take part but didn't. The last election listed at www.elections.ca was a by-election December 9, 2002. The New Democratic Party (4th in number of seats in the House) had a leadership convention / vote, and their internet voting was slow, but other than that, the vote went well. Either way, it is highly unlikely that a national election here would be severely affected by computer problems, as counting is done by hand at the polling station, with computers being used solely for tabulation. PK -- Using encryption on the Internet is the equivalent of arranging an armored car to deliver credit-card information from someone living in a cardboard box to someone living on a park bench. -- Eugene Spafford ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ Recent CNET News.com articles: http://news.search.com/search?q=declan -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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