Pentagon blocks site for voters outside U.S. Jennifer Joan Lee IHT Monday, September 20, 2004 http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?file=539597.html
PARIS In a decision that could affect Americans abroad who are not yet registered to vote in the Nov. 2 presidential election, the Pentagon has begun restricting international access to the official Web site intended to help overseas absentee voters cast ballots. According to overseas-voter advocates who have been monitoring the situation, Internet service providers in at least 25 countries - including Yahoo Broadband in Japan, Wanadoo in France, BT Yahoo Broadband in Britain and Telef�nica in Spain - have been denied access to the site of the Federal Voting Assistance Program, apparently to protect it from hackers. In an e-mail addressed to a person in France who had tried to access the Web site, the Federal Voting Assistance Program's Web manager, Susan Leader, wrote: �We are sorry you cannot access www.fvap.gov. Unfortunately, Wanadoo France has had its access blocked to U.S. government Web sites due to Wanadoo users constantly attempting to hack these sites. We do not expect the block to be lifted." In Washington, a Pentagon spokeswoman reached by telephone confirmed that a number of Internet service providers worldwide had been blacklisted to thwart hackers. The spokeswoman, Lieutenant Colonel Ellen Krenke, declined to comment further. The Federal Voting Assistance Program, which was designed to help both military and civilian voters abroad, is under the authority of the Defense Department. Asked whether any other government Web sites had been blocked, a Pentagon spokesman declined to comment. �The government is probably the most common victim on the Web because it's a political target," said Jimmy Kuo, a research fellow with McAfee, a U.S. company that specializes in computer security. "There are certainly elements outside our country who would want to disrupt our voting procedure, and interfering with a voter registration site would certainly affect that," Kuo said. "It would disenfranchise all those people who would want to vote using this process," he said. Although voter registration forms are available from other sources, being unable to download the forms from the site has frustrated expatriates in many countries. That frustration is growing with the approach of the Oct. 2 deadline for registration in most U.S. states. Brett Rierson, co-founder of OverseasVote.com, a Hong Kong-based, pro-Democratic Web site that provides voting instructions as well as a link to the Federal Voting Assistance Program, said he had been bombarded with complaints from users who cannot enter the government site. �We started receiving e-mails as we launched in February, but they were sporadic and there was no general pattern,� Rierson said. �As of Aug. 23, the numbers of e-mails per day have expanded drastically," he said. "Eighty percent of complaints have come from the past two weeks alone, and they come from countries that have the largest populations of overseas Americans.� Rierson's organization, which has been monitoring the Pentagon restrictions, found that at least 25 Internet service providers had been blocked. Annalee Newitz of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit San Francisco group for protecting people's digital rights, said: �It's extremely ironic that the government is doing nothing to address the security of electronic voting machines" in the United States, "which have been proven to be vulnerable to hacking, yet they block Web sites for expatriate Americans.� Those who cannot access the voting assistance program site can go to a new site, www.overseasvote2004.com, which promises to help absentee voters complete registration "in five minutes." It features state-specific registration forms that voters can print out and fax and mail back to their states. Alternately, voters can go to their U.S. embassies or contact their local representatives of Democrats Abroad or Republicans Abroad for a registration form. Meanwhile, some critics question the effectiveness of the Pentagon's restrictions on the government site. �It's like putting a Band-Aid on a broken dam,� Newitz said. �Good hackers will always find a way into the system. The real concern should be protecting the Web site, not shutting down access to it.� International Herald Tribune -- You are a subscribed member of the infowarrior list. Visit www.infowarrior.org for list information or to unsubscribe. This message may be redistributed freely in its entirety. Any and all copyrights appearing in list messages are maintained by their respective owners.
