EFF: Cal­i­for­nia Sec­re­tary of State Kevin Shel­ley today announced new state rules ensur­ing that every Cal­i­for­nia voter will have the option to cast a paper bal­lot in the Novem­ber pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. Respond­ing to wide­spread con­cern about the secu­rity and reli­a­bil­ity of paper­less vot­ing ter­mi­nals, Shel­ley banned Diebold machines used in four coun­ties. In addi­tion, Shel­ley de-certified all other touch-screen vot­ing sys­tems unless or until they are equipped to pro­duce a voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) or meet 23 secu­rity requirements.

The New York Times has the story here.

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Will any­one be blog­ging the Future of Music Coali­tion Pol­icy Sum­mit, which runs Sun­day to Tues­day in DC?

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Con­sole mod chips ruled legal in Spain.

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Scott Matthews’ pro­posal — DRUMS: In search of a file-sharing solu­tion — is get­ting some endorsements.

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Sci­en­tific Amer­i­can mag­a­zine has pub­lished an unusual and remark­able edi­to­r­ial attack on the Bush administration’s use of sci­ence for its polit­i­cal ends: The White House bends sci­ence to its will.

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Some­one on the Inter­est­ing Per­sons mail­ing list described this as the best law money can buy: A bill, titled the Pro­tect­ing Intel­lec­tual Rights Against Theft and Expro­pri­a­tion Act of 2004, that would let the Depart­ment of Jus­tice bring civil suits on behalf of copy­right owners.

The Sen­ate Judi­ciary Com­mit­tee just reported out this bill, unof­fi­cially dubbed the Pirate Act. I’m sur­prised Sen. Patrick Leahy is a party to this.

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Ben Har­ris, the women who almost single-handedly launched the cam­paign to ensure the reli­a­bil­ity of elec­tions now that e-voting black boxes are in place, reports on Blackboxvoting.org about the Sacret Service’s demand that she turn over the names of those involved in the move­ment to guar­an­tee fair elec­tions. Writes Harris:

Under the Patriot Act, “hack­ing” crimes were turned over to a new divi­sion, called the Cyber­Crimes divi­sion, and placed under the aus­pices of the Secret Ser­vice. And let me tell you what they want from me now: They want the logs of my web site with all the forum mes­sages, and the IP addresses. That’s right. All of them. A giant fish­ing expe­di­tion for every com­mu­ni­ca­tion of every­one inter­ested in the vot­ing issue. This has noth­ing to do with a Vote­Here “hack” inves­ti­ga­tion, and I have refused to turn it over.

So, yes­ter­day, they call me up and tell me they are going to sub­pe­ona me and put me in front of a grand jury. Well, let ‘em. They still aren’t get­ting the list of mem­bers of BlackBoxVoting.org unless they seize my com­puter — which my attor­ney tells me might be what they have in mind.

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Study: 18-34s Favor High-Tech. The Web has become the dom­i­nant media for 18– to 34-year-olds because it fits into their unpre­dictable sched­ules, says new research.

And, while we’re at it, another study says the Inter­net is a lead­ing media choice of women, and work­ing women spend an aver­age of 40 min­utes a day online for non-work-related surfing.

Thanks to IWant­Media for the pointers.

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Mag­a­zines as diverse as Vari­ety, Chris­tian­ity Today, Busi­ness 2.0 and The New Repub­lic are spon­sor­ing their own blogs — pri­mar­ily as brand enhance­ments, not as moneymakers.

Thanks to IWant­Media for the pointer.

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The recent jour­nal­ism scan­dals are a threat to democ­racy, says Ken Auletta, media colum­nist for The New Yorker. They hin­der jour­nal­ists’ abil­ity to be “hon­est ref­er­ees” of infor­ma­tion cit­i­zens depend upon. Forbes has a Q&A with Auletta.

Thanks to IWant­Media for the pointer.

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