SAIU Corp botches Iraq media project...will certify Voting Machines!?!

[farmbo]

Mysterious Pentagon contractor SUIA Corporation, who's board consists of a Rogue's Gallery of revolving-door-insiders, has created a "Media Mess" in post-war Iraq, according to the Asia Times:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EH16Ak02.html

<snip>
"SAIC didn't have any suitable qualification to run a media network," according to Rohan Jayasekera, who has kept an eye on media developments in Iraq for London-based Index on Censorship. "The whole thing was so incredibly badly planned by them that no one could make sense of what they were doing," he said.

Jayasekera noted, for example, that SAIC ordered equipment that was incompatible with existing systems in Iraq and that it had made no plans for TV programming. When it asked for help from VOA, which considers itself a professional news organization, it was forced to rely on hastily patched together and dubbed network news programs, much of which would appeal only to a domestic audience.

"Increasingly, the newscasts became irrelevant for Iraqis," one source told The Washington Post in May. "They're not really interested in the Laci Peterson case."

A page reserved for the project on the website of the US provisional authority in Iraq said Wednesday, "There is no information available at this time."

Three months into the project, Ahmad Rikabi, a highly-regarded Iraqi expatriate brought in to help manage the operation, abruptly quit, apparently frustrated at the lack of planning, resources and investment that SAIC put in the project and the hemorrhaging of his professional staff, some of whom had not been paid for weeks.

"Saddam Hussein is doing better at marketing himself, through al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya Gulf channels," Rikabi told reporters.
<snip>

Here's the kicker, Folks.

These are the same Ya-hoos who have been hand-picked by Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell (R) to "review" (read: "Green light") the Diebold touch-screen voting machines (Paperless...for your convenience!) for deployment in Ohio's 88 counties.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=184297&mesg_id=184297

(Thanks to Bev Harris, as always)

[RedEagle]

1. That's SAIC- voting whitewash in the making

Kick

[Eloriel]

2. More links

There are massive SAIC links and info in this thread:

Black Box: Military contractor to whitewash Diebold?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=131243&mesg_id=131243



Also a thread in Late Breaking News http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=54201&mesg_id=54201)

Eloriel

[farmbo]

4. The fun never stops with these guys...SAIC insiders looking for WMDs

Thanks for the threads Eloriel!

Prominent among the SAIC revolving-door-insiders: WMD "expert" David Kay.

<snip>
Another prominent SAIC executive and former vice president also has a long-standing connection with Iraq: David Kay, the former UN weapons inspector who was hired by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in June to head the effort to track down Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

A former senior science official in the Reagan administration, Kay argued forcefully last fall against relying on UN weapons inspections to "contain" Iraq and for removing Saddam Hussein from power.

These connections may account for some of SAIC's success in landing Iraqi-related contracts.
<snip>

Maybe they'll do for voting machine certification, what they did for Iraq's WMDs.

[TinfoilHatProgrammer]

3. foregone conclusions

It's pretty funny that all the conspiracy theorists assume SAIC is going to "whitewash" the whole thing. More than likely they're going to report the same issues that Rubin did, because it's easy... the only difference is that Rubin's unstated motivation is to sell his VoteHere machines by slamming a competitor's product. Maybe they'll whitewash the problems. Maybe Diebold's bought them off.

You really need to take what Bev Harris says with a (huge) grain of salt, especially when it pertains to anything remotely technical. For example, in the thread to which you referred she reports that Diebold is switching from a modem to wireless networking for transmitting the results to the central computer. That's one of her most idiotic assertions ever... if wireless networking's being used for something (which it apparently is), it's certainly not being used for transmitting data to anything more than maybe 100 feet away (for what should be fairly obvious reasons) and it's almost a certainty that results will still be uploaded to the central computer via modem.

Speaking of which, Ms. Harris' claim that they're apparently getting rid of the modem used to upload results to the central computer is funny in its own right. One questions why they need a modem to dial up to that computer in the first place when the whole shebang is allegedly connected to the internet the entire time (as pre-supposed by Rubin et al and oft-repeated by Ms. Harris).

Moreover I'm wondering where Ms. Harris' claim that "a hacker could hit both (the memory card and the GEMS database) at the same time, during the upload" comes from. Certainly Rubin never suggested it. Maybe it's based on her own 1337 4aX0r skillz. :D

edited to correct a wrong html tag -- I suck

JC

[LearnedHand]

6. So...

...you must work for SAIC, also.

[shirlden]

7. Think maybe you have your tinfoil hat

just a smidgin too tight. Loosen up a bit so the blood will start flowing to the brain again. I notice you have been on the DU board for only a month, so you have probably missed a lot of the discussion on the BBV project. Back up and take a closer look.

:bounce:

[TahitiNut]

5. Typical of government contractors, I'm afraid.

The relationship between government bureaucrats and contractors is, at best, codependent. Contractors focus their attention on creating a shadow show -- a constant barrage of reports, presentations, proposals, and schmoozing. Always funded are the "program offices" whose only function is to play with work breakdown structures (disintegration), project tracking (mythology), and funding throttles (the whip). Almost nowhere will you find any integration of "deliverables" ... even when all the projects are supposedly complete. Cost overruns are ubiquitous. When, in the unusual event the overruns aren't approved, the government is left with a hodge-podge of 'deliverables' -- many of which are merely intellectual masturbation. Individual contributors (those who actually DO something) are the first to be detached from any project and are often called upon to work "off the clock" while, at the same time, some politically connected "manager" is sucking up expenses on travel and entertainment (boondoggles) and the "program office" keeps sucking at the teat.