He wanted every vote to matter: Athan Gibbs Sr dies in car crash

[thingfish]

After more than 1 million votes went uncounted in the last presidential election, Athan Gibbs Sr. devoted his life to making sure voters in future elections would know their votes mattered.

The enterprising 57-year-old saw his invention of the TruVote vote-casting system as nothing less than the key to social justice and democracy in America.

As family members and business partners gathered at the TruVote office yesterday morning to mourn Mr. Gibbs' death, they vowed that his dream would not die with him.

Mr. Gibbs was killed about 10:30 a.m. Friday in a car crash on Interstate 65 near Eighth Avenue North as he drove from his north Nashville home to his downtown office at Tennessee State University's Business Incubation Center.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

Much more...

http://www.tennessean.com/obits/archives/04/03/48330576.shtml?Element_ID=48330576

[Coventina]

1. I think this smiley says it all

:tinfoilhat:

RIP Mr. Gibbs.

:cry:

[Darth_Kitten]

2. That's very sad news......

RIP :(

[hobbes159]

3. I hate to say it...

But maybe the BFEE decided to try something different than a small aircraft crash?

[Warren Stuart]

4. One less competitor for Diebold

Hmmmmm.

[Soloflecks]

5. I'm beginning to think

nothing is accidental. Many seemingly random events may be engineered. Who knows how really deep the rabbit hole goes? What is the reality behind the reality you think you know?

[progressivebydesign]

18. No.. I don't agree on this one..

I think that he should have been wearing a seatbelt.. which he obviously wasn't. It's extremely, extremely rare to be ejected from a car if you are wearing a seatbelt. I'm amazed daily when I hear of people losing their lives, when all it would have taken was a moment to click that seatbelt. I'm sorry that the Country will be miss out on many more years of this man's wonderful efforts.

[Stephanie]

26. There's a lot of money at stake

Millions

[bearfan454]

33. billions

really.

[Vitruvius]

35. What's at stake is the control of a multi-trillion-dollar economy and the

mightiest military in the world. Which the Bu$hies think they can use to rule the world (tho' it hasn't been enough to subdue Iraq -- there are things military might simply cannot do...)

One of my friends consults for a Fortune 1000 client that was eager to get into the electronic voting machine business. The market is huge, and the profits obscene; the only concern was whether they could make their e-voting machines secure; management recognized that if their machines were used to rig a national election, their good name would be ruined -- forever.

Now then: it is an axiom of computer science that any system can be hacked if somebody commits sufficient resources to doing so; to make a system secure, you engineeer it so that it costs more to crack it than the economic benefits to the cracker. Thus, for example, security on an ATM doesn't have to be that good -- because the maximum cash dispensed is $500.00 per transaction.

Accordingly, my friend advised his client that computer voting cannot be made secure because the benefit to the cracker is control of a multi-trillion-dollar economy. If it took the private-sector equivalent of the entire NSA to crack an e-voting system, it still would be a bargain.

Accordingly, the client wisely chose to stay OUT of the e-voting business; my friend's advice was part of the package presented to the CEO and to the Chairman of the Board for their decision.

[NashVegas]

28. Try Driving in Nashville

before you come to a conclusion like that. People are nuts on the road here. Imagine a Boston driver who doesn't know when he's been beaten and that's pretty much everyone here.

[progressivebydesign]

29. Perfectly put.

I don't ever want to drive in Nashville. yikes.

[Cooley Hurd]

6. Aw damn. That's very sad news...

Let's hope TruVote continues on - I'd like to see a company like this become the industry standard instead of Diebold...

My condolences to Mr Gibbs' family. :(

Note to TNSP investigators - check the brakelines!

[CaptainMidnight]

7. "Captain Tin-Foil Hat" here

Gang,

Look it up, do the research.

It's EITHER a plane crash or a car crash, followed by "suicide" that Black Ops, CIA, The Keebler Elves, whomever, tend to favor when icing somebody that's "bothersome."

Plane crashed have been getting the most play these days. JFK Jr. Wellstone. Carnahan.

People usually rebut that one with, "It's not just Dems, look at John Tower and John Heinz." Well, Tower and Heinz both happened to be accompanying Bush Sr. when he made his 1980 secret plane trip to negotiate with the Ayatollah's men in Paris, in order to DELAY the release the 52 American hostages. Then Tower and Heinz were both in plane crashes ONE DAY APART from each other. Dead men tell no tales. (Google: OCTOBER SURPRISE)

Some recent "convenient" car accidents include:

• Mr. Gibbs,

• one of the members of Pvt. Lynch's unit (3 or 4 of her unit members, upon returning stateside, have died in "freak accidents or shootings)

• that woman who worked for the DMV in Tennessee - I think - that was found to have provided some of the 9-11 Hijackers with phony drivers licenses. She was literally on her way to provide testimony when her car supposedly "lost control," and she crashed into a utility pole. Her body was completely incinerated. But she was only going 30 miles per hour, and several eyewitnesses said, strangely enough, that the interior of her car was already ablaze BEFORE it struck the utility pole.

• Marvin Bush' babysitter was somehow crushed to death by HER OWN CAR as it somehow "slipped out of gear" while the babysitter somehow had stepped out of the car, and placed herself in front of it, when the car then magcially slipped INTO gear, zoomed forward, and crushed her against the Bush Family garage. The driver-less car also magically, after stopping to pin this woman against the garage, then managed to perform a TURN, and continue down the driveway and crash into a wall across the street.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/members/101003_bush_death.html

I wasn't familiar with this current "accident," nor do I know all the fact, but you can certainly see why this man would be "bothersome" to Diebold or any other "powers that be" that would love to see our votes continue to be "counted" by machines that are manufactured by companies that donate their funds to the GOP candidates and BUSH.

Captain Mike

[loftycity]

8. Wow have to go to Rupperts site again....your bullet points

I haven't heard about those. The Marvin Bush a bit.
Thanks

[TolstoyAndy]

9. Lynch Deaths

:kick: Kicking Capn MikeKnight :kick:

That's a love kick! The Oct. Surprise info was new to me.

Here's my little file on the deaths of soldiers near Jessica Lynch and her "rescue". I think there were more deaths since then. Disclaimer: she is NOT responsible for any of this.
Anything in parens is my note.

Lynch deaths
====
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/dmtapper.htm
1) Petty Officer First Class David M. Tapper (rescue team)
of wounds received August 20, 2003 in action in Afghanistan (shot in the back)
====
http://greenvilleonline.com/news/2003/07/07/200307079664.htm
2) Josh Daniel Speer (rescue team)
Iraq war veteran killed in Highway 11 wreck - Sun 6-Jul-03
Josh Daniel Speer, a 21-year-old Marine who died in a single-vehicle wreck Sunday,
====
http://www.prisonplanet.com/103003lynchrescuers.html
3) Spc. Kyle Edward Williams (same company W 1-Oct-03) Soldier commits suicide after fatally shooting man breaking into his vehicle / Arizona Daily Star
====
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/7121424.htm
4) Marine Lance Cpl. Sok Khak Ung (rescue team)
killed by gunman buried with military honors
(...on 26-Oct-03...)

[CaptainMidnight]

11. thanx bud

for those specific links.

Will bookmark them for further research.

The Captain

[Junkdrawer]

10. From Bev Harris on August of last year...

Just got report of another one, police there now.

All of you:

1) Take precautions.
2) Report any break ins to the police, even if it looks like nothing was taken

Four of us have now had break ins. Scoop, we'll probably take you up on that article shortly, when all photos and police reports are done.

I heard also that Dr. Rebecca Mercuri had a break in attempt to her hotel room while in Denver.

One of the break ins was to a car. The brake line was cut.

Take care and report anything that happens both to the police and to me or to Alastair, who has a well-placed media connection here in the States. It does not advance the issue to be called paranoid. We may have to come forward as a group on this.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=215284#217189

[NewYorkerfromMass]

13. The brake line was cut?

WTF? :tinfoil:

[Stephanie]

25. No tinfoil

Happened to my friend - I corroborate that story

[Vitruvius]

23. Breakins are utterly common in industry -- as part of industrial espionage

and to deal with critics, former employees, etc.

Years ago, after I was fired from the R&D lab of a Fortune 10 company, my apartment was broken into twice. Why? Because management had fired me to promote a flock of their fast-track buddies on one of my breakthrus, but they did so before I told them the last few crucial details on how to manufacture it. They fired me, they turned on the production line, the reject rate was close to 100%, they didn't know how I'd routinely made these gizmos on a lab bench; soon after, two galoots rummaged my apartment; when they didn't find anything interesting, they came back and rummaged it again.

What they didn't know was that I'd bugged my apartment. (Bugging your own place is perfectly legal -- and a trivial exercise for any tech type.) I never could prove who those two galoots were -- or who sent them, but I had a damned good idea... (Apart from the issue of motivation, plus what they looked at, they were dressed according to the dress code of my former employer, except for the masks and gloves.)

And these guys were good. There was no sign of forced entry, only a very few things were out-of-place; if I hadn't bugged the place, I'd have suspicions but nothing more.

If you get in a fight with big business, or if you're involved in a startup and create technology that they want, you can expect break-ins. (Which is one reason why many tech startups have someone with an equity stake in the company on the premises at all times.) Like it or not, them's the rules in this country; it's part of the rigged game we call 'life in America'.

And the Republicans are the party of big business, and they use business methods. Including breakins. As Watergate showed.

The best thing you can do is go about your business, keeping in mind all the possibilities, and taking such normal precautions as possible. And IF nobody's killed, these "Spy vs Spy" games really aren't that significant -- that company gained nothing from those two breakins, I gained nothing from the pix and audiotapes of their galoots pawing thru my things (the local cops in that company town were utterly uninterested, and I couldn't prove who they were or who sent them).

But anybody who says you're paranoid for suspecting the Rethugs of using normal business methods on you doesn't know what they're talking about.

Vitruvius

P.S: Be glad you're not in a fight with the defense or nuclear industry -- they have a verb -- to "Silkwood" somebody...

[NewYorkerfromMass]

24. My. The things you learn here at DU

Sorry to hear you had a run in with the "spooks"... and it's been awhile since I heard the word "galoot". :)

[JackDragna]

14. And here we go again..

..with the tinfoil-hatism. Consider, for one moment, all the people who potentially might know something about the president's policies, screw-ups and so on. Any discrete event alone might have hundreds, possibly thousands of people who could potentially know something that could damage the president were it made public knowledge or leaked to the press. That some of said people are dead now due to accidents isn't some conspiracy: it's merely chance operating as usual. The president isn't a nice person, but until you have hard evidence, mere chance is a far, far better explanation that to make arguments that make leftists look foolish.

[CaptainClark23]

15. Would rather take the chance of appearing foolish

Than to risk the certainty of being played for a fool.

You are of course free to disassociate yourself from these tinhat notions. I do not think anyone offers themselves as speaking for the Left as a whole.

Similarly, do you attach the vagaries of the extreme christian right to the entire conservative base? Wouldn't you agree that to do so would indicate a poor understanding of political dynamics?

Then why should the "leftists" be overly concerned about image? Those who will make such judgements will do so in spite of and despite any amount of evidence. Nor is a penchant for conspiracy the exclusive domain of the left.

We all have our parts to play in this struggle. And the state of affairs now is so dangerous, the issues so critical - that to omit ANY line of examination or query is to do us all a disservice.

I'd rather be a fool looking under rocks, then a noble tripping over them all the time.

[JackDragna]

16. Look under the rocks..

..but always remember to apply Occam's Razor. Until you have evidence to the contrary, assume the explanation that requires the minimum invocation of outside factors. I don't trust the president, either, and I know the Republicans play dirty tricks. It seems strange to me, however, for right-wingers to kill the people mentioned in this thread. Killing people domestically is usually more trouble than it's worth: it gets rid of the problem, but it's equivalent to sending up a flare, inviting people to investigate why the person died mysteriously. I'd believe rightists would help off people to help political allies in other countries, but I have a higher threshold of deniability for skullduggery within U.S. borders.

I don't apply the vagueries of fundamentalists to the right. I think part of the reason the president is seeing such a backlash against him right now is because "normal" conservatives, mostly business types, are scared of the influence religious types and extremish John-Bircher type Republicans have at the White House.

[BiggJawn]

19. it doesn't "send up a flare"

When you have "cooler heads" (if the shoe fits...)
telling us "Remain CALM! This is just random chance! Pay no attentiuon to the crackpots in the tinfoil hats! Shit happens! You're scaring the Swing voters!"

"Move along, nothing to see here....."

With so many people holding the line of "They wouldn't do that in OUR country", what better place to whack somebody? Conventional wisdom DEMANDS that it be an "accident". Evil shit like government "hits" happen in OTHER countries, right?

[CaptainClark23]

21. agreed

And I feel Occam's Razor is still the best tool in the toolbox. But success is positive reinforcement. If you can believe that strategic assasination has ever been used before in this country, then you can proceed with the understanding that each successful operation leads to a lowering of risk.

Not talking about random acts of violence here, I'm talking about well-planned, well-funded, and well-executed operations staged by trained professionals who due to the very nature and anonymity of their positions are immune to the "risk of discovery" that apply to the rest of us. Too, consider that for every person yelling about conspiracy, there are an equally vocal number illustrating the conspiracist as a nut, a fanatic. It is no secret that governmental agencies have commissioned and paid for such disinformationists to undermine potential embarrassing revelations.

For me, I guess what it comes down to is the following:

1. Are there individuals/agencies theoretically capable of staging such actions?

2. If the answer to No.1 is yes, are these individuals/agencies theoretically capable of executing such actions without detection or without any real official investigation of the circumstances?

3. If the answer to No. 2 is yes, am I personally willing to assume that this ability to successfully execute and conceal such activities will NOT be utilised?

Occam's Razor was never meant to preclude explanations that are beyond the most apparently obvious.

We'll save Occam's Razor for Court. For pre-trial discovery, I'll keep looking under rocks.

ON EDIT: I'm "theoretically" learning how to spell.

[smirkymonkey]

17. Thank you!

Well put. :yourock:

[nomatrix]

31. Who is we?

What does this have to do with the president?

"possibly thousands of people who could potentially know something that could damage the president were it made public knowledge or leaked to the press."

You think powerful people would kill someone "just because" please.
Where do these ideas come from?

Oh, you were looking for some hard evidence.

http://www.hartfordadvocate.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:32556

"Eugenics would have been so much bizarre parlor talk had it not been for massive financing by corporate philanthropies, specifically the Carnegie Institution, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harriman railroad fortune. They were all in league with America's most respected scientists hailing from such prestigious universities as Yale, Harvard, and Princeton. These academicians faked and twisted data to serve eugenics' racist aims. Connecticut was considered both an epicenter for eugenic propaganda and a test case for ethnic cleansing."

"The Harriman railroad fortune paid local charities, such as the New York Bureau of Industries and Immigration, to seek out Jewish, Italian and other immigrants in New York and other crowded cities and subject them to deportation, trumped up confinement or forced sterilization."

The Rockefeller Foundation helped found and fund the German eugenics program and even funded the program that ultimately sent Josef Mengele into Auschwitz."

Who was Harriman's partner?
http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi?user_action=detail&catalogno=NN_Bush_Nazi_2

"Bush's partners in the secret web of Thyssen-controlled ventures included former New York Governor W. Averell Harriman and his younger brother, E. Roland Harriman. Their quarter-century of Nazi financial transactions, from 1924-1951, were conducted by the New York private banking firm, Brown Brothers Harriman."

Read it. It was real. This is about people who were a "threat" because they had "defective genes". Imagine what would happen to someone who could actually threaten their power.

There's more, but forget it. It's all so "tin-foolish."

[bearfan454]

20. You said it all right there.

There is no doubt. Kerry better watch his ass.

[BiggJawn]

12. Wonder what swerved in front of HIM....

...to make him swerve in front of an 18-wheeler?
Ford Explorer with black-out windows and 4 guys with hoses coming out of their ears, maybe?
:tinfoilhat:

[Rex]

34. Maybe it was a cut break line.

Went to hit the breaks...paniced...18 wheeler happened to be there...for some reason the seatbelt buckle came right out of the socket...

I want to know the exact details of every aspect of this accident before I take my tinfoil hat off.

[Tippy]

22. Here is a Link to TruVote

< http://www.truvote.com/ >

[CaptainMidnight]

27. Precisely

Ooooh!

Don't call me a NAME! I CAN'T TAKE IT!!

Jesus, this is WHY the Right Wing, Republicans, the Illuminati, whomever is wiping the floor with us.

We dither about, wringing out hands, "Gee, I don't wanna seem like a Conspiracy Theorist...."

Fine. Dither about, while they continue to Do the Voodoo that They DO SO WELL. Wouldn't wanna be mocked like Hillary was for coining "Vast Right WIng Conspiracy..."

Because WE on the LEFT are a buncha Friggin PUSSIES, they continue to GET AWAY WITH IT BECAUSE WE ARE AFRAID THEY'LL MAKE FUN OF US.

I'm sick of people quoting "Occam's Razor" or The Star Trek Prime Directive while they, from Jack, to Bobby, to Martin, to Wellstone, to John-John, continue to knock us off, one by one.

"gosh, I don't wanna seem paranoid..." Good for you, babe!
WAKE UP AND GROW A SPINE!

Captain Mike

[Moderator]

30. thingfish

Per DU copyright rules
please post only four
paragraphs from the
news source.

Thank you.

DU Moderator

[Zan_of_Texas]

32. Okay. That's four.

There were three previous deaths of people associated with the voting industry that were rather sudden.

Well, three that I know of anyway.

This fourth one was sudden and quite untimely.


1. Dan Rocco -- April 1, 2002 -- ChoicePoint VP

He died on April 1, 2002, in a plane crash in Gainesville, Georgia. He was an executive vice president at ChoicePoint, the firm that gained infamy with their faulty "felons" list supplied to Katherine Harris during the 2000 election in Florida. As a result of this list, thousands of voters (mostly African-American voters) were wrongly identified as felons and purged from the rolls.
<<http://www.bk2k.com/bushbodycount/stolen-election/bodies.shtml>>


2. Wesley Vance -- April 26, 2003 -- Diebold VP

Pilot Killed In Plane Crash Was Top Exec At Diebold

April 28. 2003 10:50AM
<<http://www.wkbn.com/Global/story.asp?S=1253108>>
(Jackson-AP) -- The pilot of a single-engine airplane that crashed in southern Ohio over the weekend was the chief operating officer of Canton-based Diebold Incorporated.
The company says 45-year-old Wesley Vance of Canton was flying a private plane that crashed Saturday near the Jackson County Airport. ...The company says Vance joined Diebold in October, 2000, as president of its North America business unit. He was named chief operating officer in 2001. Chief Executive Walden O'Dell will assume the company's daily operational responsibilities until a successor is found for Vance. An airport spokesman says Vance was practicing takeoffs and landings in a six-seat Beachcraft A-36 when it crashed near the airport.

3. Anthony J. Celebrezze Jr. -- July 4, 2003 -- Diebold consultant

Anthony Celebrezze Dies

<http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1057397985113640.xml>
07/05/03

Former Ohio Attorney General Anthony J. Celebrezze Jr., 61, died yesterday in an Urbana hospital. Champaign County Coroner Joshua Richards confirmed that Celebrezze died about 9 p.m. yesterday, but would not confirm a cause of death.

Celebrezze, a Democrat of Columbus, was a stalwart in Cleveland and Ohio politics.... He was 38 when he was elected secretary of state in 1978.

Wayne Hill, Celebrezze's longtime communications director during the 1978 campaign for secretary of state and then attorney general, was in shock at Celebrezze's death yesterday. ... "It's beyond a shock. Tony had a passion for racing," said Hill in a telephone interview. "It's unbelievable. It's not right."

...After his loss to Voinovich, Celebrezze joined the law firm of Kegler, Brown, Hill & Ritter, and recently was a consultant for Diebold Inc., promoting electronic voting machines. ...