Diebold Withdraws Legal Threats
The following is a press release from November 28, 2003, by the Kucinich campaign
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Diebold Withdraws Legal Threats
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 28, 2003
Diebold Inc., one of the nation's largest electronic voting machine manufacturers, is withdrawing more than a dozen legal threats against ISPs for hosting users who publish or link to corporate documents suggesting there are flaws in its equipment and irregularities with certifying the systems for elections. Nor will it issue additional cease-and-desist notices concerning these corporate documents, US District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel heard today. Diebold has until this point waged an intimidation campaign to repress circulation of employee e-mails that raise concerns about the security of its electronic voting machines.
This move came after widespread public protest. Congressman Dennis Kucinich sent a letter to Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Sensenbrenner and Ranking Member Conyers requesting that the Committee hold a hearing to investigate abuses of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by Diebold. Kucinich also posted the documents in question on his congressional website.
Today, Kucinich released this statement:
"In a democracy where already half the people don't vote and where the last presidential election was decided by the Supreme Court, we cannot tolerate flawed voting equipment or intimidation of those who point out the flaws. Diebold backing down from its intimidation campaign is a positive step. An open and honest examination of the flaws in electronic voting will lead us to only one possible conclusion: electronic voting machines are dangerous to democracy because there is no way of ensuring their accuracy. We need to have a voter-verified paper trail for every election so that any errors and irregularities caused by the voting machines can be discovered."
Kucinich's letter to Sensenbrenner and Conyers stated, in part:"There is a compelling argument that the fair use doctrine precludes copyright liability for posting the e-mails. The archive is predominantly factual and was reproduced to inform the national public debate on election reform, specifically, on the machines used to count our votes. The e-mails do not harm any market of Diebold's, except in the sense that admitted problems may cause municipal and state purchasers to subject the machines to greater scrutiny.
"Furthermore, numerous letters were sent to ISPs whose users only hyperlinked to other sites where the Diebold employee e-mails were posted. Hyperlinks do not qualify for copyright protection, and their use does not incur copyright liability. In cases where ISPs complied with requests, they have often shut down entire websites for weeks at a time, instead of removing the alleged infringing activity. The safe-harbor driven 10-business-day takedown period can remove non-infringing websites during a critical interval of discussion.
"Diebold's actions abuse the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, using copyright to suppress speech rather than fulfill the Constitution's purpose for copyright, to 'promote progress.' These abuses raise a fundamental conflict with the First Amendment, diminishing the Internet's tremendous value as a most free medium of expression. Diebold's actions are representative of a growing body of abuses through which large and powerful parties unfairly intimidate ISPs to remove information those parties do not like. In other examples, the claims are not really about copyright, but about not showing the parties in a negative light, or not allowing consumers to compare prices, or quieting religious critics. Powerful parties should not be permitted to misuse copyright as a tool for limiting bad press and barring access to legitimate consumer information."
For more information: http://www.kucinich.us
For Rep. Kucinich's Schedule: http://www.kucinich.us/schedule.htm.
Contact: David Swanson 301-772-0210, cell 202-329-7847, fax 301-772-7293, swanson@kucinich.us
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