WHISTLEBLOWER AFFIDAVIT: Programmer Built Vote Rigging Prototype at Republican Congressman's Request!

CLAIM: Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) Asked Company to Create E-Vote Fraud Software!

BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

Due to an overwhelming amount of visitors, many of our readers have been unable to read the article posted on BradBlog. Brad gave us permission to post it for our readers.

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WHISTLEBLOWER AFFIDAVIT: Programmer Built Vote Rigging Prototype at Republican Congressman's Request!
CLAIM: Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) Asked Company to Create E-Vote Fraud Software!

*** A BRAD BLOG EXCLUSIVE! PLEASE CREDIT! ***

In stunning revelations set to rock the vote from Tallahassee to Capitol Hill -- and perhaps even a bit further up Pennsylvania Avenue -- a Florida computer programmer has now made remarkable claims in a detailed sworn affidavit, signed this morning and obtained exclusively by The BRAD BLOG!

- Affidavit in .PDF format

The programmer claims that he designed and built a "vote rigging" software program at the behest of then Florida Congressman, now U.S. Congressman, Republican Tom Feeney of Florida's 24th Congressional District.

Clint Curtis, 46, claims that he built the software for Feeney in 2000 while working at a sofware design and engineering company in Oviedo, Florida (Feeney's home district).

Curtis, in his affidavit, says that as technical advisor and programmer at Yang Enterprises, Inc. (YEI) he was present at company meetings where Feeney was present "on at least a dozen occasions".

Feeney, who had run in 1994 as Jeb Bush's running-mate in his initial unsuccessful bid for Florida Governor, was serving as both corporate counsel and registered lobbyist for YEI during the period that Curtis worked at the company. Feeney was also concurrently serving as a Florida state congressman while performing those services for YEI. Feeney would eventually become Speaker of the Florida House before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2002. He is now a member of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.

At an October 2000 meeting with Feeney, according to the affidavit and BRAD BLOG interviews with Curtis over the past three days, Feeney inquired whether the company could build a "vote fraud software prototype".

At least three YEI employees are said to have been present at that meeting; Curtis, company owner, Mrs. Li Woan Yang, and her executive secretary, Mike Cohen. Two other YEI employees may have come in and out at different points of the meeting according to Curtis.

Curtis says that Feeney "was very specific in the design and specifications required for this program."

" He detailed, in his own words, that; (a) the program needed to be touch-screen capable ( b ) the user should be able to trigger the program without any additional equipment © the programming to accomplish this needed to stay hidden even if the source code was inspected."

Though there was no problem with the first two requirements, Curtis explained to the Congressman that it would be "virtually impossible to hide such code written to change the voting results if anyone is able to review the uncompiled source code"

Nonetheless, he was asked at the meeting by Mrs. Yang to build the prototype anyway.

Curtis, "a life-long Republican" at the time, claims that it was his initial belief that Feeney's interest was in trying to stop Democrats from using "such a program to steal an election". Curtis had assumed that Feeney, "wanted to be able to detect and prevent that if it occurred."

Upon delivery of the software design and documentation on CD to Mrs. Yang, Curtis again explained to her that it would be impossible to hide routines created to manipulate the vote if anybody would be able to inspect the precompiled source code.

Mrs. Yang then told him, "You don’t understand, in order to get the contract we have to hide the manipulation in the source code. This program is needed to control the vote in South Florida." [emphasis in affidavit]

Mrs. Yang then took the CD containing the software from Curtis, reportedly for later delivery to Feeney.

In other meetings with Feeny prior to the 2000 elections, it became clear to Curtis that Feeney had plans to suppress the vote in strong Democratic precincts. In the affidavit, Curtis claims that in those meetings Feeney had "bragged that he had already implemented 'exclusion lists' to reduce the 'black vote'." Feeney also mentioned that "proper placement of police patrols could further reduce the black vote by as much as 25%."

Curtis says that he submitted his resignation to YEI effective December 2000, but stayed on until they had found someone to replace him in February of 2001. He eventually became employed by the Florida Dept. of Transportation (FDOT) after leaving YEI.

But the scandals didn't stop there.

In May of 2001, while at FDOT, Curtis and another FDOT employee, Mavis Georgalis, discovered and then reported several allegations to the Inspector General at FDOT concerning over-billing by YEI -- who had been an FDOT contractor -- and software that was never delivered by the company. Allegations also included the employment of a suspected illegal alien, Mr. Hai Lin Nee, who worked as YEI's "quality control" manager.

Both Curtis and Georgalis were reportedly harassed after filing their complaints about malfeasance at YEI and pressure mounted on the FDOT -- purportedly from the powerful Feeney who was still working with YEI -- to have them both fired.

In November 2001, after Curtis filed his complaints at FDOT, both he and Georgalis' were subsequently sued by YEI "in retaliation" for their complaints against the company. The charge was "theft of intellectual property", which Curtis has catagorized as "ridiculous" in interviews, because the "intellectual property" in question was, in fact, software that FDOT had long ago paid YEI to develop for them.

YEI was represented in the lawsuit by Congressman Feeney's law firm.

When the two had sought help from FDOT in fighting YEI's suit against them, they were told that FDOT couldn't help them because FDOT had not been named in the suit.

After several rounds of court battles, Georgalis was finally successful in having FDOT added to the suit as a third co-defendant. The suit was originally filed in Seminole County, but moved to Leon County upon the addition of FDOT.

In April of 2002 -- on the very same day -- Curtis and Georgalis were both fired by FDOT without explanation.

The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported extensively in 2002 on the case. They reported at the time that Curtis had written to the Inspector General at FDOT to inquire why no investigation had yet been made into YEI. As well, Curtis had contacted the Florida Bar, since Feeney was a member, to inform them that "Feeney has used his position to promote the profits of Yang Enterprises, from whom he received compensation under the guise of lobbyist and attorney."

According to The Orlando Sentinel in 2001, of 160 Florida congressmen, Feeney was the only known registered lobbyist. He would later be cleared of all ethics violations brought against him in the Florida house on these matters by the Ethics Committee which included four Republicans appointed to the committee by Feeney. Curtis was never interviewed by the Ethics Committee concerning his allegations.

After Curtis and Georgalis were fired by FDOT, each attempted to file "Whistleblower Suits" in the state of Florida. Georgalis' suit was successful and FDOT was eventually ordered, after lengthy court battles, to reinstate her with full back-pay by the circuit court. Curtis' suit was not successful due to having missed the filing deadline for the suit.

That suit, filed over three years ago, is still pending. The reason, explained Curtis, is that YEI has since avoided all defendants attempts to depose company employees in the case.

By May of 2002, the FDOT had finally taken up the investigation into malfeasance by YEI.

In one particularly chilling paragraph in the affidavit, Curtis explains what became of Raymond Lemme, the inspector at FDOT who was said to be pursing the allegations against YEI, Tom Feeney and the other reported matters:

" [I]n June of 2003, he told me that he had tracked the corruption 'all the way to the top' and that the story would break in the next few weeks and I would be satisfied with the results. A few weeks later, on July 1st, Mr. Lemme was found dead with his arm slashed in a hotel room in Valdosta, Georgia."

The death was ruled a suicide by the Valdosta Police. The BRAD BLOG has obtained and is currently reviewing many official documents related to Mr. Lemme's death.

Mr. Hai Lin Nee, "the ilegal alien" who had worked at YEI and was reported by Curtis, was arrested in March of 2004 on espionage charges which included "shipping radar guidance system chips for Hellfire Anti-Tank Missiles to a company in Communist China."

Curtis discussed in detail, during our interviews, Mr. Nee having placed "wiretapping modules" into software code created by the company. The secret "wiretapping modules", Curtis claims, were to download information from programs built by YEI for contractors, and then either copy or send that information via Email back to YEI. Such software, Curtis claims, was created for companies such as NASA with whom YEI held substantial contracts.

According to both the Curtis affidavit and email dated November 22, 2004 obtained by The BRAD BLOG, YEI is currently under investigation by the FBI.

That information was sent to Curtis after he had attempted on several occassions to notify law enforcement authorities of his seemingly remarkable story of espionage, possible vote tampering and other ethical concerns.

In July of this year, in an email we've reviewed which purports to be from a current YEI employee whose name we are withholding, Curtis was sent the following message in regard to a book that the employee had learned Curtis was working on:

They know about the book. You should not have sent it to a bush supporter. They are going crazy...like they weren't after you already.

So I get to warn you AGAIN. They will do everything thwey [sic] can to keep it from getting published. They are also going to try to take you out again. Don't be alone. They specifically want to limit casualities to just you. As long as they can't catch you alone they won't touch you. You are such a loser........

Moi

In what he describes as "an attempt to get this story out there", Curtis told part of the tale on a website, www.justaflyonthewall.com where he has changed the names of some of the specific parties involved. (e.g. "Wong" is substituted for "Yang" on the site)

Additional charges by Curtis also include that databases and information were routinely sent by Mrs. Yang to her brother in China who, Yang had told Curtis on one occasion, had previously been deported for "being a spy". The BRAD BLOG has not yet been able to confirm the espionage charges concerning Mrs. Yang's brother.

Curtis' affidavit is being turned over this afternoon to staffers at the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. An investigation into Curtis' story is pending.

While we've been working on this story for several days in order to get it right, we had hoped to hold it a bit longer to confirm a few more of the details. As well, we had hoped to allow the Judiciary Committee and others time to comment before making this story widely available.

However, as of late Sunday night, Curtis' story has been reported elsewhere on the Internet by Wayne Madsen. His detailed account references an older, very short affidavit that Curtis had made in regards to the information contained in a self-published book on some of these matters.

While Madsen's article was independently researched and reported -- and offers some very good detail in relation to Curtis, YEI, FDOT and Feeney, much of which that we can confirm -- he then ties those stories to a much grander CIA/Bush family conspiracy.

While we have looked somewhat cursorily over the last several weeks into some of the larger matters which Madsen discusses, and has been reporting on for some time, we cannot confirm any of those grander details as playing any part in this particular story. While his claims may be true, The BRAD BLOG has seen no evidence to support them as being related to the Curtis story at this time.

Frankly, we find the information related in Curtis' sworn affidavit, and via our interviews with him and others directly related to his story to be rather stunning as is, and we will stand by our reporting of those matters at this time.

Given the importance of the many allegations in his story if they are true -- and we have so far been unable to identify any major holes or discrepancies in his information -- we thought it necessary to release the full details contained in this sworn affidavit immediately so that Curtis' story and the explosive allegations contained therein could be more accurately assessed.

DEVELOPING...HARD...

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

Brad Friedman is a freelance writer, investigative blogger, software designer and all around trouble maker. He broke the story of the "White House Website Scrubbing" and is also a proud member of the "Liberal Hollywood Elite" sharing the great esteem and many rewards that comes with it. He has been closely following the story of "GRAND THEFT AMERICA" since Election Day at his site, The BRAD BLOG, which can be read -- when it's not being overwhelmed by traffic -- at http://www.BradBlog.com

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You can read the original article here (Brad says to keep hitting refresh): http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001024.htm


http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/12/ale04096.html

NOW I'm not 100% certain that this isn't a Rovian trick...but time will tell...

My ultimate respect goes to everyone who contributed to the cause. I am starting to love America now.

this is an honest question because i don't know a thing about the law, filing papers....why did this whistleblower wait so long to blow the whistle? does it take that long? did he want to make sure he is protected before he filed the affidavit??

Probably making sure he had his bodyguards in order....

It would be such a better story if he had some proof........

thanks kitty. Quite a development indeed.

I rather enjoyed it myself, if I must say... :D

Actually Wayne Madsen has a pretty good reputation as an investigative reporter, as far as I have been able to tell. But some of his stuff is so far out, it's often hard to imagine. Here are links to his stories about this vote rigging thing:

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Repor...2504madsen.html

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Repor...0104madsen.html

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Repor...0604madsen.html

Update, and here's my question...if this were not true, don't you think Feeney's office would be screaming, "We categorically deny this!!!"? So far, not a peep:

http://rawstory.com/exclusives/byrne/vote_...oncept_1207.htm

Programmers weigh in on vote-rigging idea, some details confirmed
By John Byrne| RAW STORY EDITOR

As the dust settles after the first day of a bold claim by Florida programmer Clinton Curtis of alleged vote-rigging software, skeptics and believers alike have flooded Internet sites in earnest analyzing the claims.
Advertisement

In short, technical analysts – though not all in agreement – have found the concept of a rigging program plausible. Most note that without the original source code, such a program would be undetectable.

“From a technical standpoint, it is perfectly plausible,” said a middleware programmer for IBM in North Carolina, Kim Winz. “Whether or not this turns out to be true, it’s a very good reason why we need the source code available for all of these voting machines.”

Some point to the fact that Diebold already employs hidden buttons in their software as an example of how such a program could work.

On other fronts, Curtis’ claims check out. Raymond Camillo Lemme, who was an inspector for the Florida Department of Transportation looking into another of Curtis’ claims was found dead in a Valdosta, Georgia Knights Inn of apparent suicide on July 1, 2003, according to Valdosta police.

Hai Lin Nee, a Chinese national, was arrested for passing sensitive information on U.S. weapons to China. Curtis claims that Nee worked as a Quality Control Inspector for his former employer, Yang Enterprises; RAW STORY has to date only been able to confirm that Nee had worked for a research institute designing software, according to the Georgia Office of Homeland Security. Yang Enterprises is a Florida state contractor which does, among other things, software research for NASA.

Yang Executive Secretary Cohen, who Curtis alleges was present at meetings with Feeney, rebuffed a call from RAW STORY Tuesday morning.

“I will not speak to you,” he said, and took down the site’s number for the third time. The company has not responded to requests for comment.

The man accused of commissioning the software, Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL), who was a Florida state legislator at the time, has remained silent. Three calls placed over the last two days have not been returned.

Nearly all programmers are in agreement that such a program would be hard to detect as it existed on the voting machines. Alan Schlingenbaum, who has an MBA from Harvard and works in the computer industry, says a distinction Curtis made is correct.

“There is a very important distinction between source code and compiled code,” Schlingenbaum said. “It is very hard (virtually impossible, for most practical purposes) to look at compiled code and completely understand every aspect of how it works.”

Winz, who has spent the last 14 years in software programming, notes that the programming language Curtis says he used is often used for prototyping, and that it could be easily adapted for Windows and Unix machines.

“Virtual basic is a program that is used to do prototyping,” she said, noting that the language is designed to give a client the “basic functionality and user experience that you intend” from a final product.

Others are more skeptical. Jeff House, a former Microsoft programmer who works for a prominent dot-com, said he believed the prototype was probably written but wouldn’t go far.

“Without more detail, and based on what I know so far, it's hard to imagine that this could have really been used to change votes,” he said. “It's still embarrassing, to be sure, but it's like he built a nuke out of a cardboard box and some wires...unless there's some plutonium hiding in there somewhere, it might look good, but it isn't going to blow up.”

Winz says that such a program might create a log file that could be detected, but in any case the only way to determine anything conclusively would to have access to the machines.

“If those hard drives could be subpoenaed or examined, they could give [info] on whether or not they’re doing what you’d expect,” she said.

“Legal power (power of Congress, power of subpoena, whatever) must be used to compel Diebold, ESS et al to divulge, to a proper panel of experts, any and all source code and compiled code that was in use on Nov. 2,” Schlingenbaum asserts. “There is no compelling reason for Diebold to object to such an order.

“It's an outrage that independent experts did not examine the code before the election,” he adds. “It must be examined now.”

“You can’t say this has not been used unless and until corporate control is willing to open this code to evaluation,” adds Roxann Jerkot, who taught programming at Georgia’s Lanier Technical Institute, and who has been in private consulting business since 1985. “We don’t have any way to prove or disprove what this man is saying.

Winz, while skeptical, still believes an legal investigation is paramount.

“I think there’s enough there that it really demands an investigation,” she said. “When police investigated a crime, they’re not saying that it absolutely happened, they’re just saying its suspicious and we need to investigate.”

Corrections: An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of a programmer as Kim Minz. Her last name is Winz. Also, a previous version used "Virtual Basic;" the correct name for the language is Visual Basic.

Until the vote totals were offical confirmed/listed any affadavit would be hearsay, yes? Until they present numbers which do not match the affadavit it would be kind of useless to file it.

Pretty interesting. I noticed that Mr. Curtis' previous employer has
this brief statement on their web site, "Recently there have been several wildly absurd accusations against this corporation by Clinton Eugene Curtis. All of the allegations are 100% FALSE!! An official statement will be forthcoming. Thank you for your concern and God Bless America."

I'm surprise their statement does not state they are pursuing appropriate legal remedies in response to Mr. Curtis claims. Maybe it's coming. I'll keep looking.

If Mr. Curtis is in fact the smoking gun for the elections, he's going to NEED a lot of body guards. The stakes are to high to think people will let him talk and walk.

I am interested in this story. the only problem is the focus on the mystery deaths. Rings of Vince Foster and grassy knolls.
Tell the story without the mystery deaths and many more people will pay attention.

Whistle-blowers often pick an inopportune time to tell their story, because any time is an inopportune time.

It is shooting the messenger to ask why and when and how. The facts will speak for themselves. If any of this is true it will come out sooner or later. Secrets are very rarely kept.

This guy has been deposed and has sworn out affidavits, so it is a little late for others to try and silence him. The evidence is admissible in court without him.
Any attacks directed towards him are probably from some frustrated nincompoop like Jack Ruby or a Joe Citizen type, like the guy who went around beating and setting fire to the homes of convicted molesters. He found their info on the net. He thought everyone would welcome his vigilanteism. Dolt!

So please, this sounds interesting and promising. try not to Michael Moore it, and pile onto an already credible case with speculation and non proven suggestions in order to make it juicier. .........yet.

I hope somebody here stalks this story on the net. this sounds too good to be true, but it is the most believable potential vote rigging story yet.

are we moving towards the computer in 2001...........HAL.?...brrrrrrrrr!

And more....

Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Clint Curtis on Air America...and other tidbits.
Forgot to mention, Curtis interviewed yesterday with Air America Radio though I don't yet know the air date for it. They had originally hoped to schedule him for Marty Kaplan's show which airs on Saturdays, but as things are moving quickly on this story, they may be airing it sooner. Will update as I learn more.

The BRAD BLOG can also confirm that very high level folks have been informed about the Curtis issue (and have, in fact, visited this site).

He's also (as mentioned previously, but you may not have caught it here) been interviewed by several mainstream media folks. With more scheduled.

END OF DAY 2 on this story, and still no major holes in his story. (Or even minor ones yet that I know of!
posted by BradF at 1:42 AM 5 comments

RAW STORY Confirms Several Points of the Curtis Story
RAW STORY, who's editor John Byrne has been doing some terrific reporting since we broke the FeeneyGate story, has another excellent piece confirming quite a few of the key points in Clint Curtis' story. Please give it a read.

While many internet folks have been all over this since yesterday (and on the Election 2004 issue in general for moreone exhausting month now), I can confirm as well that a number of very prominent mainstream media organizations are also currently looking into this. Even several organizations that The BRAD BLOG has been a a tad critical of over the last several weeks for not investigating and reporting on so many issues that have long been well-worthy of it. I am glad to see some folks are sitting up and taking notice finally.

C-SPAN is covering the Judiciary Committee Ohio Hearings tomorrow at 10am EST (another story which we also broke here on The BRAD BLOG - but please, sir, show some modesty!). I have been told, but cannot confirm, that NBC and MSNBC have announced they will also be carrying them live.

I hope I'll actually get time to watch them! And barring any breaking issues I need to deal with, I hope to have more answers to many of the "Frequently Asked Questions" about the Curtis case tomorrow.

Continued here:
http://bradblogtoo.blogspot.com/

And check this out--Curtis meeting with ethics group, after recommendation from House aides:
http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=481

And even more:

http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=482

In fact, just check into this site every so often to get your updates (although I will try to post them here as well):

http://rawstory.com/

And here, where the original story broke:

http://bradblogtoo.blogspot.com/

This is a mirror site since Brad's Blog is overwhelmed with traffic and HE can't even get in to make updates!

A 6 minute clip of Curtis' interview on Air America yesterday...

http://airamericaradio.com/layout.asp?base.../Unfiltered.wma

If this link doesn't cooperate, you can get it here in about the third paragraph:
http://bradblogtoo.blogspot.com/2004/12/mo...edia-notes.html

Apparently they're working at putting the whole 18-minute interview on either Air America's site or Unfiltered's site.

For the record, the interviewer's comments after the interview about what BBV's Bev Harris had written about this, be sure to also read Brad's comments (she says her "gut" says it's "disinformation" but that it needs to be investigated):

http://bradblogtoo.blogspot.com/2004/12/re...estions-on.html

She seems to be pissing off a lot of people these days. Too bad, since she has done such great work in the black box voting realm. She even pissed off Keith Olbermann!

The White House didn't say anything about the copies of the documents that CBS provided to them and look what happened to Dan Rather and CBS.

yes, and that is the scary part of this.....if it gets some legs, then is totally refuted, all other "conspiracy" and fraud theories go out the window with the media. Remember, with Rathergate, his info was never refuted, only the source. In fact, most of what was contained was verified by the secretary as generally accurate.

unfortunately, Curtis' story needs to be fully vetted before anyone runs with too far.The White House usually has a great "spin and dismiss strategy" for fully vetted but damaging info. Their silence is a little unnerving...I'd prefer some attempts at damge control.

Speaking of damage...how about that Don Rumsfeld?!?

If you go to crooksandliars.com they have the whole interview I believe.

please keep us updated Kitty!!

kitty27

US intelligence and military, for obvious security reasons, don't use Microsoft operating systems...they use Unix or Macintosh (see p159 Crossing the Rubicon by Michael Ruppert). Since this programmer was tasked to allow cross system access to Unix, well, the next obvious question is "is US intelligence involved in this ?"

Don't laugh, the CIA has experience in altering foreign elections, why not try domestically for a change. And they can make life difficult internally for any whistleblowers now that the Bush administration has altered their 'protections'.

Being a Floridian, the name Tom Feeny raise many red flags. Many.

Yeah like: this|there or /.

Isn't this the same affadavit that was discussed here last week? As I recall, there wer some questions raised to the very existance of the "whistleblower" as well as the norary's seal looking fake.

I hope all is true!

The whistle blower testified in Conyers's hearing yesterday.

There's a video and transript at this site.

http://bradblogtoo.blogspot.com/

PITA, farmertom

The CIA successfully messed with Australian elections (see the movie "The Falcon and The Snowman") and for decades supplied monies to Italian politicians for all kinds of swell activities in order to win elections (the communists were about to weaken NATO's southern flank and we did the same in Greece, too).

This is just for you naive enough to think the CIA wouldn't try to influence a domestic election....You don't dispute this do you ?

BTW, the NSA has a backdoor to Windows see "How NSA access was built into Windows" by Duncan Campbell 04.09.1999

Careless mistake reveals subversion of Windows by NSA http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/5/5263/1.html

CIA 1948, Italy listed in timeline...
http://www.serendipity.li/cia/cia_time.htm
also see 1965-67 for Greece...