If you want your iPod or satellite radio to work in your car
radio, you plug in an FM modulator. These little devices put out a
signal on the low end of the FM band (88 MHz and 90 MHz). But when they
are too powerful, they can interfere with radio signals outside your
car. If you and I were driving near each other and you were using a
powerful modulator for your iPod, it might interfere with my listening
to NPR, for example.
So, National Public Radio is asking the Federal Communications
Commission to order a recall of millions of those little FM modulators.
The National Association of Broadcasters tested FM modulators [PDF]
and found three-fourths of them were more powerful than they should be.
Some were up to 2,000 percent more powerful than the FCC allows!
An NPR test found one-third were too powerful. Even Sirius Satellite Radio admitted in an FCC filing that some of its modulators were too powerful. Tech sites have been talking about this for some time.
The (Baltimore) Sun reports:
The interference has spurred complaints from listeners whose
favorite public radio and Christian broadcasts have been briefly
interrupted by satellite radio shock-jock Howard Stern and other
offensive fare.
The illegal FM modulators "have contributed to ... unacceptable
degradation of the audio quality of public radio stations," NPR's chief
executive officer, Ken Stern, said in an Oct. 12 letter to FCC Chairman
Kevin J. Martin. A copy of the letter was obtained by The Sun.
"Left unaddressed," he continued, "these modulators post a
significant threat to the provision of public radio's free,
over-the-air public and community service."
He urged the FCC to look beyond satellite radio sets and conduct a
"thorough technical review" of the most popular FM modulators on the
market, and to pursue a recall of all those found in violation of FCC
rules.
The violations are so widespread, he said, that they raise "fundamental issues of misrepresentation" in the paperwork that
manufacturers submit to the FCC to gain certification for their "low-power" products, he said.
CED (Communications Engineering & Design) magazine in Colorado reports:
One 88.1 MHz FM broadcaster, WYPR (Baltimore), is telling its listeners, "If you
are listening to WYPR, but begin hearing something else, you may be
within range of a car utilizing the Sirius transmitter and receiving a
Sirius broadcast. You can remedy the problem by simply moving away from
the adjacent car. We thought you should be aware and thank you for
listening to 88.1 WYPR."
North Country Public Radio in New York just moved its WXLU-FM station
transmitter frequency to 88.1 MHz, long after many FM modulator users
set their devices to 88.1 MHz because it was a vacant channel. They now
have to tell their listeners, "If you're driving around listening
happily to 'The Eight O'clock Hour' on NCPR, you might find yourself
listening to Howard Stern instead, because of interference from another
vehicle's FM modulator."
Voting Problems Nationwide
With the election a week away, I am very interested in the number of
stories I am seeing nationwide about problems with balloting.
Just look at this collection from the last week.
Electionline.org says 10 states, and possibly others, could
encounter trouble on Election Day. The report names Arizona, Colorado,
Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania
and Washington, detailing what to watch for in each. (Click here to read the report [PDF].)
In case you think this is boring stuff that folks won't read or watch, HBO is betting that you are wrong. Nov. 2, HBO will air a documentary called "Hacking Democracy,"
which takes a look at the computer systems that now record and report
80 percent of America's votes in county, state and federal elections.
Electionline says the troubles are being caused by new and untested
voting-machine technology, confusion and legal fights over voting
procedures, and the usual problems caused when races are so tight. The Washington Post has more on the report. The Los Angeles Times has a nice piece on problems nationwide. CBSNews.com has an in-depth opinion piece that looks at the problems with new electronic-voting methods.
Every Polling Place Must Serve People With Disabilities
Especially interesting is that this is the first nationwide election
in which every polling place must have at least one voting booth that
is available to people with disabilities. Electionline explains the
problems in the report:
The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA)
required that every polling place in America have at least one voting
system available for people with disabilities in time for the first
federal election of 2006. With primary season now complete,
jurisdictions around the country tested new voting technology for the
first time, with mixed results. The electronic-voting systems most
commonly employed to meet the federal mandate -- termed direct-recording electronic or DRE systems -- were troubled by both machine and human errors in many of their early roll-outs.
Even though turnout was generally low in the primaries, new
procedures and new equipment troubled poll workers from coast to coast.
While there were some success stories -- Florida no longer makes
headlines during elections -- problems were reported in dozens of other
states, such as poll workers having trouble booting up or shutting down
machines, transmitting results, feeding voter-verified
paper-audit-trail printers or other reasons. There were also reports of
voting
machines freezing up, having alignment problems, unexpectedly shutting
down or other issues.
The Electionline report also says there are increasing challenges with electronic-voting machines:
Machine Challenges Grow
Concern over DRE security and reliability has peaked in many parts
of the country. Lawsuits seeking to prohibit the use of
electronic-voting machines have been filed in Colorado, Arizona,
California,
Pennsylvania and Georgia.
In Maryland, a disastrous September primary
saw nearly an entire county unable to open polls on time after an
election worker forgot to include activator cards to start up
touchscreen machines. Other problems, including frozen screens and
missing ballots plagued the election in places where the machines were
able to function. Problems were so severe that Maryland's governor
suggested all voters cast paper absentee ballots rather than use
electronic-voting machines -- one year after he vetoed legislation that
allowed no-excuse absentee voting (The legislature overrode the veto.).
The academic community has continued to challenge the security of voting machines as well.
A Princeton University computer-science professor released a report [PDF]
that described how a Diebold TS machine -- the same kind used in
Maryland -- could be compromised by loading a malicious program that can
be spread from machine to machine.
(See a video of how to steal votes and infect machines.) Diebold Election Systems responded to the critique [PDF]. Diebold called the Princeton study "unrealistic and inaccurate." ABC News reported on the controversy. A Web site called BlackBoxVoting has been banging on Diebold for some time.
The Electionline report continues:
John Hopkins University professor Avi Rubin,
also a poll worker, said tamper-resistance seals on the machines could
be easily removed and replaced, unnoticed by election officials. A
company spokesman said the accusations of security flaws were
"exaggerated" and that the kind of tampering that was successful in the
lab at Princeton could not be replicated in a polling place because of
newer software and security procedures.
Supply problems
A number of states have had other sorts of problems with machines --
getting them to the polls on time in the first place. West Virginia,
Indiana, Arkansas and Tennessee reported difficulty receiving the
election equipment they purchased from vendor ES&S
(Election Systems & Software). In some cases, the company has been
compelled to refund money to localities for failing to meet contractual
obligations for machine delivery, ballot programming and maintenance.
Paper trail/vote-by-phone use increases
The most common solution to the challenges posed by using electronic machines has been the addition of voter-verified paper-audit trails
(VVPATs), slips of paper that voters can see showing their vote choices
before casting an electronic ballot. The paper is then saved and can be
used to conduct an independent
audit of electronic vote totals. As of November, 22 states will require
the use of VVPATs, while five more will require that every vote be cast
on paper.
Human Errors, Too
Stateline.org also has a collection of human errors that have already surfaced in this election. For example:
... In Tennessee, the last two paragraphs of a constitutional amendment
to allow local property-tax freezes for citizens 65 or older were not
included in the electronic version that voters will see on Election
Day. Instead voters will have to read printed copies of the complete
amendment at polling stations.
In Kansas, some simple language omissions could invalidate Hispanic
voter registrations. A comparison of Spanish-language voter-registration forms with English ones by The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle revealed that the Spanish version failed to warn voters that an incomplete form could be rejected.
About 5,000 absentee ballots are being replaced in Cuyahoga County,
Ohio, because of even simpler typographical errors. Those problems were
discovered after officials realized that the party affiliations for two
candidates in a state House race had been switched.
The Torture Question
There has been a good bit written this week that Vice President Dick Cheney had confirmed that U.S. interrogators used a controversial technique called "waterboarding"
on prisoners suspected of being al-Qaida leaders. The Vice President's
office now says Cheney did not confirm that waterboarding was used in
Iraq. I want to point you to a transcript of that interview with Scott Hennen, WDAY, in Fargo, N.D.:
Q.) I've heard from a lot of listeners -- that's what we do for a
living, talk to good folks in the Heartland every day -- and I've
talked to as many who want an increased military presence in Iraq as
want us out, which seems to be the larger debate, at least coming from
the left -- cut and run, get out of there. One fax said, when you talk
to the Vice President, ask him when shock and awe is coming back to
Iraq. Let's finish the job once and for all.
And terrorist interrogations and that debate is another example. And
I've had people call and say, please, let the Vice President know that
if it takes dunking a terrorist in water, we're all for it, if it saves
American lives. Again, this debate seems a little silly given the
threat we face, would you agree?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I do agree. And I think the terrorist threat,
for example, with respect to our ability to interrogate high-value
detainees like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, that's been a very important
tool that we've had to be able to secure the nation. Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed provided us with enormously valuable information about how
many there are, about how they plan, what their training processes are,
and so forth, we've learned a lot. We need to be able to continue that.
The Congress recently voted on this question of military commissions
and our authority to continue the interrogation program. It passed both
Houses, fortunately. The President signed it into law, but the fact is
177 Democrats in the House -- or excuse me, 162 Democrats in the House
voted against it, and 32 out of 44 senators -- Democratic senators
voted against it. We wouldn't have that authority today if they were in
charge. That's a very important issue in this campaign.
Are we going to allow the executive branch to have the authority
granted and authorized by the Congress to be able to continue to
collect the intelligence we need to defend the nation.
Q.) Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's a no-brainer for me, but for a while there,
I was criticized as being the Vice President "for torture." We don't
torture. That's not what we're involved in. We live up to our
obligations in international treaties that we're party to and so forth.
But the fact is, you can have a fairly robust interrogation program
without torture, and we need to be able to do that.
The Veep may have no trouble with water torture, but a revised U.S. Army Field Manual published last month bans waterboarding as "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment."
A story in The Miami Herald points out:
"There is a disconnect between the president and the vice president
and on the other side leading proponents from their own party and
leading experts on the laws of war," said Neal Sonnett, the chairman
of the American Bar Association's Task Force on Enemy Combatants.
The (London) Guardian recently published photographs of a waterboard.
ABC News and Newsweek have reported on waterboarding and other interrogation techniques used in Iraq.
For a deeper understanding about the use of torture to extract information from Iraqi prisoners, watch this PBS Frontline documentary.
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting
is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials
from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis.
When the information comes directly from another source, it will be
attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is
fact-checked, but depends upon the accuracy and integrity of the
original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be corrected.
As the editor of Bev Harris and David Allen's book...
