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Harper's black ops (RoboCon Robocalls) #7
April 17, 2012 - 12:24pm
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From the last post of this thread:
-robocalls-6
.canada.com..
They did "get to the bottom" and the result was the predictable (and predicted) destruction of logged evidence of CIMS.
The fact that Election Canada did not speak up publicly early on, saying this was a potential criminal investigation and NOT a matter for "internal investigation" by the potential perps, and demanding immediate access, tells volumes about Elections Canada.
Instead it was: "I'm counting to 10 million, and then I'm coming, ready or not".
See:
http://drdawgsblawg.ca/2012/04/robocalls-i-told-you-so.shtml
If this massive, disseminated destruction of the democratic process in Canada is not a justification for an independent Public Inquiry, what is?
An independent Public Inquiry is the only chance for the survival of a fair electoral process in Canada. The opposition parties must present a united front and loudly demand one.
Oh yeah there was a heads up given to the Cons and sure enough they followed thru with evidence tampering and obstructuion of justice..Elections canada is looking to be part of the problem, like was pointed out on many discussions even on the CBC comments they predicted this bullshit..they are really humiliating Canadians no doubt,taunting them...bullying them....laughing like a Norwegian right wing fanatic..I hope Canadians get a good hard look at what kind of scum right wing conservatives represent and attract.
War room , political super weapon, and that confounded name again makes the rounds...
Patriotic Canadians are going to have to make some tough decisions ..cower and whimp out or fight for democracy...a united front might delay things for a while but I can't see this all ending with a whimper there is just too much politcal abuse of power going on right now by the conservatives.
Where is the stinking media in all this? They should be ripping the conservatives to pieces!
New http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zky2bn0Gtyg New
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-QvXax88J8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0eQgUpkJ1Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns8LD5Q8ecc
In almost all databases, each row in a table has an ID number, which is assigned sequentially on creation. Therefore, even if the rows showing the accesses used for the Guelph robocalls have been deleted, the fact that a certain number of rows did exist and were deleted should be evident from the ID numbers of the remaining rows.
In a carefully audited system like this, actual deletion of rows should never happen. In the ones I have written (all for business, not political) deletion of rows by the application is impossible. When the user thinks he has deleted something, he has really only marked it as "deleted" so that it won't appear on his display any longer. Only direct access to the database by SQL queries can actually delete a row. To me, the very fact that deletions happened is extremely incriminating. There is no innocent explanation whatsoever for it. Destroying evidence is the only possible motivation for it.
Also, there may well be off site backup archives that still contain the deleted rows. The fact that someone was willing to do such an easily detectable hack job leads me to think that panic has set in at some level of the Con hierarchy. The fear must go pretty high up, if people are being authorized to take these steps.
Thanks for that, Michael.
===
Hmmm, this is interesting. It look like we can drop that highlighted bit in my previous post down the memory hole. After months, I think, of the contrary story being reported, this is now in the news:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/04/17/pol-robocalls-guelph-in...
ETA
Here for instance from February:
http://www.globalnews.ca/harper+denies+party+was+involved+in+fraudulent+election+robocalls/6442587645/story.html
Spounds to me like the party lawyer Hamilton saying he is not investigating is so that that when something inevitably shows up definitely linking CPC central, that they can be more plausible with the "we had no idea."
Officially or not, they did their internal research. If they found nothing, they would say so.
"We arent even bothering to look into it" does not sound good. But not many people pay that kind of attention. If a smoking gun is found at CPC central, as seems increasingly likely, then they will have even more explianing if they had told people that we are looking into it.
By the way, I dont think that the foolish deletion business indicates a desperation directed from on high. Individuals will often take their own actions to cover tracks of something they participated in. Many will take evasive action at their own initiative- often stupid- even if their participation in the wrong-doing was directed by someone up the food chain.
Well, Ken, you have to understand the motivations of the people who commission these systems. Their main fear is not that their own actions will incriminate them. They think of themselves as good, moral people. Their main fear is that underlings will betray them. The Cons, for instance, would be more concerned that a disloyal employee could get information and sell it to the Liberals, or the gutter press. Therefore they have their systems designed to make it very difficult for those below the highest level to subvert the audit trails. Workers in the party apparatus are most unlikely to be able to subvert audit trails. Low level techies are surely smart enough to do this sort of thing, but it is difficult for me to imagine why they would do so without instructions from senior management.
This doesnt really matter- why anyone would do it...
But I'm confused whether you are saying no mid-level manager COULD be able to delete, or WOULD. If its unlikely they would be unable, then it is unlikely it could be done on their inititiatve. But if you are saying you cannot see someone like that taking their own initiative to cover up...
Now someone around here is bound to say that I'm some kind of apologist. All that is at issue here is whether the Conservatives are stupid enough to do something desperate to cover up. I have a problem with not only portraying your opponents as Machievellian beyond belief, but as desperate and stupid Machiavelians.
I've watched a couple of these cover-ups in great details, and I've never seen the Cons once do anything deperate. Nor anything that fits the left's for inexplicably comforting Keystone cops image of the Big Man picking up the phone and telling the Heat to take a nive stroll in the park.
Yes our corrupt stooges are calculating and careful to avoid making direct statements. The Harper stooges prefer to speak in vague generalities when they stand up in Canada's Parliament and lie to the NDP and the public.
What I'm saying is that it depends on the level of paranoia of the very top people. I don't know how they act in political parties, but in most of the small to medium sized businesses I've seen details on (admittedly a pretty small sample, and not directly applicable to the CPC) no changes to audit trails were allowed without signoff from the boss.
The design is for such things never to happen, no matter what, and such a decision would most likely never be required in the life of the system. If it were necessary, the very top people always want to make it themselves. The audit trails are in fact aimed squarely at preventing managers or any other users from making any changes to the database without an audit trail which preserves a copy of the data as it was before the change was made, so that all changes are reversible.
Subverting such a system is not a regular occurrence, and should never be necessary, so there is no need for anyone but the most trusted to have that ability. You would know better than I how this general dynamic would apply to a political party, but if I were the guy in charge of a system like this, I wouldn't allow anyone but myself to have the password necessary for making such changes, and I would expect to never use that password.
Often arrogance doesn't feel desperation until it is too late.
I think the real problem is Elections canada gave the CPC a heads up and warning that it was coming to examine the computers.....and sure enough the cons deleted certain entry's.....now the warning has pretty well been issued that servers or backup databases should delete entry's also...those are probably off shore but you would have to be pretty dumb not to see the warning and heads up...so expect them to have deleted entry's also..
Muddying the waters with who has the power to delete is really a secondary issue ..any body who owns a computer knows who has the ultimate power and that is the NUMBER 1 USER dah..so go to the top of the pyramid and there lies the REAL culprit...especially in the Harper regime...War Rooms?
Like they are going to give the ultimate power of manipulating there high tech computer system to a low level hack in the organization..no way...that power will only be entrusted to the most high level people in the orgainization . There entire computer system should of been seized and analyzed by experts yesterday.. That it wasn't shows the lack of judgement on Elections canada side and the true criminal nature and respect the CPC has for our election process..that elections canada even let them examine and delete entrys before examination says to much already...
All the public really has to know is that 200 ridings wre affected, and it seems it's taking time to sink in that the Harper government is an illegal government. Just watch them go mad introducing there crazy off the top bills like there is no tomorrow to see how desperate they are...they know ther days are numbered...there expecting a big reaction , but the funny thing is they aren't getting it..Could it be true ..Canadians don't really care if they are illegal or not? Quite willing to wait for them to introduce a computerized election process that will make it even easier for them to cheat?
It's true the most abundant element in the universe is stupidity!
Oh Oh looks like 6 out of the 7 ridings the council of Canadians are questioning DID NOT have poll location changes...The cons said they did.
"The Council of Canadians, which is supporting nine people in an application in federal court, provided an email Wednesday to reporters that shows only one polling station moved in the seven ridings in which Conservative wins are being challenged."
Tory's caught misleading yet again
It's getting quite ridiculous now ..lie after lie after lie...Yep it should be quite something when the list of 200 comes out....
New http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zky2bn0Gtyg New
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-QvXax88J8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0eQgUpkJ1Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns8LD5Q8ecc
Former phone-bank worker files affidavit over election calls
Deny, deny, deny. Lie, lie, lie. Tories deny deleting robo-call records after NDP invokes Watergate
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/tories-deny...
Fixing Elections Through Fraud - by Anthony J Hall
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/04/05/fixing-elections-through-fraud/
"The declining credibility of elections in many countries is creating a crisis of legitimacy severing bonds of trust that once linked citizens to the institutions that govern us. Without credible proof that those governing on our behalf really have earned our supportive consent in free and fair elections, one of humanity's greatest innovations is rendered null and void.."
Is this the portway to the Conservative database?
http://cpccims.ca/cims.html
Also, looks like the Council of Canadians has released an Ekos survey suggesting the robocalls deliberately targeted non-conservative voters.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/non-tory-voters-targeted-in...
Is there any way people could make a privacy complaint against their information being in this database?
That is where you get the forms you'll need to get to the actual portal. Now all you need is a key.
I've heard they have a few manual steps in the document review process, before you are approved. But they do approve literally thousands of riding volunteers and very casual staff. Pierre Poutine was one of those.
Privacy complaints: you can complain. But good luck on that.
Because although the Cons have vastly more information, it isnt in principle any different than what the NDP has, and tons of companies.
Let alone Google and Facebook... etc.
For that matter, the Cons buy and integrate a lot of individual data from marketing databases. Try making the case you did not volunteer at least some ofd that.
CBC Newsworld is reporting that the electoral results in seven (7) ridings are being contested in court this morning over the Robocalls.
ETA: My mistake - these court appearances have been ongoing for some time, simply are continuing today.
Sean, party databases are the foundation of all electoral campaigns. Keeping good support lists from past elections is critical especially in the opening week of any campaign. That also includes knowing who many of your 3's and 4's are immediately so that little time and energy is wasted on them.
The only difference is the Conservatives used their non support lists to generate disinformation. It's not the database that is unethical but rather what use it is put to.
I don't think the Cons give half a shit about FIPPA, or for that matter any legislation designed to protect people from the worst of government excess.
but that is the point of the legislation--
the legislation governs what people's personal information is used for. It is supposed to be only used for the purpose collected. So if you tell a party you are not a supporter then the only use they are allowed to make of the information is to know that -- for the purpose of not contacting you again etc. Using it to campaign would not be permitted. Arguably the centralizing of the information has no purpose. all parties have the information locally for campaigns but as I understand it other parties do not maintain national lists of non supporters.
Your impression is wrong.
Its not as seamless, nor access quite so rigorously controlled, but we and the Liberals also have national databases that include non-supporters whose data is kept and aggregated from election to election. [The Greens too, for that matter, altho GRIMES may be de facto dead by now.] And those are the platforms that the locals use, not vice versa.
We have riding campaigns that opt out. But even the Conservatives have those.
If you think about it, a database that does not keep track of who non-supporters are is going to be handicapped in keeping track of supporters to contact them.
I think that maybe we have been talking about tow different things. As a riding association we collect a lot of data on voters. That is perfectly ethical and it is ethical to use the data produced by our phone banks. The Conservatives are being accused of giving MP's records to the party for use by the party. I agree that is wrong and should be stopped. The NDP might want to raise the issue in the proper context of MP's versus riding associations.
There seems to be a lot of slippage these days from what used to be more of a firewall model between the two organizations. I agree that information obtained by an MP because you contacted their office as a citizen should not be used for partisan politicking. Having said that a lot of our best volunteers have come from people that felt the MP's staff has gone the extra mile for them.
Now we're getting somewhere maybe:
Robocalls linked to Guelph Tory campaign worker's computer
This is huge. Hopefully NDP will do something about it.
So, Pierre Poutine = Andrew Prescott?