California’s 2014 Green Party nominee for Sec. of State David Curtis has pretty blatantly lied about both me and this blog in a recent defamatory statement sent to a Monterey radio station, charging us with, among other things, having “post[ed] fabrications masquerading as journalism.”
The demonstrably inaccurate allegations made by Curtis were included in a statement he posted on his campaign website “to KRXA/MontereyRadio.com,” presumably in response to a discussion on the station about Curtis, following one or more of several articles we recently published here about the candidate.
Curtis, who in 2010 ran as the Green Party candidate for Governor in Nevada, is one of several Sec. of State candidates on California’s June 3rd primary ballot, where the two highest vote-getters, from any political party, will then go on to compete in the general election this November.
The BRAD BLOG has run several different stories on Curtis of late, and he appeared live as my guest on KPFK/Pacifica Radio‘s The BradCast in April…
Here’s Curtis’ rather remarkable full statement, posted by Curtis on his own campaign website on May 16th. My response follows below it…
implying that I “strongly support” online voting.
He then did an apology story regarding my exclusion from the
Sacramento Press Club forum.
I have said repeatedly that I support multiple modes of voting.
The state of CA already supports multiple (more than one) modes of voting.
The state of journalism seems to be very weakened by the disruptive
influence of the internet. (Some) Blog owners like Mr Friedman,
(sometimes) post fabrications masquerading as journalism.
The best way to get information about my campaign is to follow me on
Twitter at dc_us or one can go to my website
http://www.votedavidcurtis.org
my cell phone # is 415 317 4002
Calnewsroom.org did an excellent piece RE: the Sac Press Club exclusion.
http://bit.ly/1sBAQmV
David Curtis via email from the Lucas Valley
I’m unsure if Curtis is mentally unbalanced or not, but given the lack of veracity of his claims — which is all fairly easily and independently demonstrated here and elsewhere — it’s difficult to know what he is thinking.
KRXA recently stopped broadcasting over the air, and is now RadioMonterey.com. The station’s owner, general manager and morning show host Hal Ginsberg told me that he hadn’t heard of Curtis’ statement until I asked him about it moments ago. He said that Curtis did come up in conversation on air, that he’d had concerns about his position on hand-counted paper ballots (Ginsberg told me he believed Curtis opposed them), and that he’d cited our reporting during some of the on-air discussion. He knew nothing about Curtis’ posted statement, however.
As to the content of that statement, first, Curtis’ charge that I have “invented a position” for him regarding online voting is demonstrably false.
The BRAD BLOG’s March 3, 2014 article about Curtis, our first about him and his candidacy, followed a conversation he and I had on Twitter, in response to his assertion that he was a supporter of online voting. The entire Twitter conversation, a fairly lengthy one, in which he asserted that Internet voting could be made “secure and verifiable”, was posted in full with that article, including links to each actual tweet. The Twitter “conservation” went on for some time, in response to his initial Tweet on the matter:
I support multiple modes of voting. I would support an (optional) online method of voting that is secure and verifiable.
— David Curtis (@dc_us) February 22, 2014
Curtis then went on, at some length, explaining that he thinks Internet Voting “can be done”; that it could be secured “with PINs. Just like a credit union account”; that “the transaction would generate a PDF (or other paper-like substance)”; and that he had “facilitated an e-vote for the Green Party of Nevada.”
As mentioned, the entire conversation was very well-documented here, so it’s somewhat bizarre that Curtis would even try to suggest otherwise, much less aver that I “invented a position” for him or “fabricated” anything.
When he joined me on my Pacifica Radio show in April, he similarly defended his interest in Internet Voting, reiterating that he supports “people trying to get there”, to the point where online voting was possible, while making his position clear that we are “not there” right now. He also lauded, once again, the Green Party for using online voting for their internal elections, asserting that “it works very well”. (You can listen to the cordial and friendly interview here. The part of the discussion on Internet Voting begins just after the 21:45 mark.)
Again, you can read the entire story I did on Curtis’ documented advocacy for Internet Voting, as well as listen to the interview in which we subsequently discussed it, if only briefly, on Pacifica Radio. Decide for yourself who is “fabricating” what here.
Curtis’ next bizarre claim in his “statement to KRXA” was that I “then did an apology story regarding [his] exclusion from the Sacramento Press Club forum.” If by “apology story” he means, somehow, that the subsequent story I wrote was some form of an “apology” for having “invented” or “fabricated” his position on online voting in an earlier story, then that too is absurd.
When I learned that Curtis was denied a seat at the Sacramento Press Club’s Secretary of State debate, despite placing 3rd in a Field Poll released just days earlier, and despite the fact that the other SoS candidates who placed 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th in that very same poll were invited, I reported as much on The BRAD BLOG. We have, over the years, published many stories about candidates, from all sorts of parties, who were inappropriately excluded from debates. My story on Curtis’ exclusion was posted on Monday, April 21 and the debate from which he was excluded was held on Wednesday, April 23, the same day I then had him on my radio show to discuss what I had described as an “outrageous” exclusion.
As I wrote, in part, in the April 21 article about the SPC’s snub:
The BRAD BLOG has long been on record documenting the many dangers of Internet elections. As we noted when posting our conversation with Curtis: “While the ease of hacking such elections is certainly a major concern (among many others), the over-arching problem with Internet Voting is that, after voting is complete, it is 100% impossible for citizens to oversee their own election results in order to determine that any vote has been tallied as per any voter’s intent.”
So, while we do not necessarily agree with all of Curtis’ positions … we are more than happy to participate in spirited debate with the candidate, along with the others also in the running this year (even as some have proven less than interested in debating, or even responding to us). Unfortunately, the Sacramento Press Club doesn’t appear to share that spirit of free and open debate, at least based on their exclusion of Curtis and their subsequent responses to the call to include him in this week’s luncheon debate.
When posting the audio archive from The BradCast on April 23, when he was my guest from Sacramento just after that debate had finished, I similarly wrote:
Again. You can decide for yourself whether any of that coverage was an “apology” for having “invented a position” for him on Internet Voting, or for having “fabricated” anything.
As to the rest of the remarks from his “statement to KRXA”, where he charges that “(Some) Blog owners like Mr Friedman, (sometimes) post fabrications masquerading as journalism,” well, that’s just out and out defamatory. If David Curtis has evidence of “fabrications” posted by The BRAD BLOG, ever, he would do well to offer it. If not, adding a correction and apology to the top of that same page where his defamatory statement is currently posted would be the appropriate thing to do right now. I hope he’ll consider this a friendly, if official request for him to do so immediately, and that he will do the right thing in very short order.
As an independent blogger and journalist, credibility is a very important commodity. I take defamatory claims about that credibility, and the harm that can be done to it, particularly from otherwise legitimate folks, like a candidate for Sec. or State, very seriously.
After learning about his statement today, I noted on Twitter how bizarre it was that he had “found it necs. to blatantly lie abt me to media.”
His tweeted response: “my article is accurate”
The BRAD BLOG doesn’t currently have a dog in the CA Sec. of State’s race. While we have only endorsed one candidate in any election, during our entire 10+ year history (Debra Bowen, during her first successful run for CA Sec. of State in 2006), we’ve been working hard to find someone among the current batch running for the job that we can support, even on a personal level as a CA voter, if not with an official endorsement. So far, we’ve not had a lot of luck on that score. (Here are articles highlighting concerns about state Sen. Alex Padilla and Derek Cressman, the two Democratic candidates currently running. We hope to have another soon about the leading Republican candidate, Pete Peterson.)
While we tend to have a soft spot for many of the progressive policies frequently put forward by the Green Party (both nationally as well as in the various states), there are many skill sets needed for a competent Secretary of State, in any state. One of them is certainly the ability to tell the truth and/or the willingness to make good when they’ve failed to do so. It’s fairly plain, at least as of now, that David Curtis, the Green Party’s 2014 candidate for Sec. of State in CA, is shamefully lacking in those skills. I hope he’ll do the right thing, very quickly, to prove me wrong.
In responding to your original article, Curtis wrote:
I responded:
I would strongly urge that you take the time to read the articles that Brad Friedman linked to in this piece. I would also highly recommend watching Dr. David Jefferson’s scientific presentation Electronic and Internet Voting: The Threat of Internet Voting in Public Elections.
Frankly, the degree of ignorance about electronic voting (touchscreen, op scans and Internet), displayed by those who have the integrity to stand with ordinary citizens in the midst of our global class war is both disappointing and frightening.
It appears that: (a) Curtis has failed to avail himself of vital information that anyone running for the CA Secretary of State should know?
(b) Despite his credentials as a Green Party candidate, Curtis typifies a slippery politician, seeking to duck the ramifications of his profound ignorance on this topic by (1) denying that Internet Voting was part of his “platform” and (2) by his chiseling effort to distance himself from his own words.
You cannot say that you “support an (optional) on line method of voting” and then claim that you are not an “advocate” for Internet Voting.
David Curtis should apologize to Brad Friedman or he should fade into obscurity.
Or maybe both.
Sue him.
I stand by my statements, it is Mr Friedman who should be sued for defamation
What are your grounds for defamation against BradBlog.com and Brad Friedman, David Curtis? Thank you.
Right now, you look to me like a fighter who steps into the ring and punches out his corner man. You seem to lack the ability to discern your enemies from your friends and people who are actually protecting your interests (eg Brad Friedman).
My attorney will make it clear for all interested parties
The GOP should send David Curtis a thank-you card because he’s proven that the Republicans don’t have a lock on bat-shit crazy lunatic politicians.
Brad Friedman is a highly educated, experienced, professional journalist. I have never heard of David Curtis, so I assume he is currently trying to climb out of obscurity. Due to his lack of intelligence, proven by his need to bloviate and threaten everyone who says anything against him, I think he is running in the wrong party. He needs to knock on the door of the Republican party to gain the power he needs to win an election. They have a whole field of voters that vote for dummies.
By the way, Mr. Politician Curtis; it is not defamatory to talk about your lack of intelligence because by law, you have brought yourself forward to the public, volunteering for scrutiny. This shields anyone from remarking about you.
Mr. Curtis is clearly uninformed about how defamation actually works under the law. That does not inspire confidence in his ability to understand the law as it applies to the duties of the office he seeks.
As I have said, my attorney will make the case for everyone to see. Best regards, David Curtis
I am willing to include more names in the suit, by all means. David Curtis
David Curtis wrote @4
Which statements do you stand by, David?
The one were you said you “would support an (optional) online method of voting”?
Or the one where you proclaimed that you have expressed “no position on online voting?”
Oh, in fairness, you actually said that you “would support an (optional) online method of voting that is secure and verifiable.”
That portion of your statement only served to expose that you are utterly clueless. As observed by Dr. Ronald L. Rivest, an MIT Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, “Secure Internet voting is a bit like the phrase ‘safe cigarettes’.”
While it is unfortunate that someone, like yourself, could stake out a position without being remotely aware of how ridiculous that position is in the eyes of computer scientists, it is flat out unacceptable that, when called on it, you would (a) lie, and say you “have no position online voting,” and (b) threaten one of this nation’s finest citizen-journalists with a frivolous defamation lawsuit because he dared to accurately reveal the content of your earlier communication with him.
I’d offer you some friendly advice about the need to stop digging when you find yourself in a hole, but your latest comment reveals that you lack the integrity to admit your prior error, let alone offer a full apology to Brad Friedman for your on-air smear.
again, please wait for the letter from said attorney. Respectfully, David Curtis
I found the portion of the audio file containing Mr. Curtis’s comments most interesting.
I also find it interesting that Mr. Curtis used the “A” word here on the Brad Blog, just as he admitted to using it with the Sacramento Press Club. I assume his use of the “Attorney” word here was to be helpful to Brad, just as he said he was trying to be helpful to the Press Club.
As to whether he said he was in favor of Internet voting or not:
Mr. Curtis did not answer “no” to Brad’s direct question: “are you still in favor of internet voting?” He didn’t say, I was never in favor of it, I don’t know what you’re talking about. He didn’t say, I’m not in favor of it now.
Instead, he repeated how the Green Party uses internet voting without any problem. He stated that he did not say it was safe, but went on in a rather incomprehensible fashion, something about supporting people working on a tech platform as a mode of voting so that eventually we can live in a Star Trek world but we’re not there yet.
So, the long and short of it is, I’d say, technically he did not say he was in favor of internet voting. But. Everything he said implied he was in favor of developing internet voting to the point where it would be safe to use, and he never denied he was in favor of it, even after Brad asked him directly.
So, Mr. Curtis: Fail.
It would seem incumbent upon anyone who seeks high political office to understand and respect the law (in particular, Sec State, responsible for the running of elections among other tasks). It’s a shame Mr. Curtis doesn’t seem up to the task – I had the impression from the previous BradBlog articles that Mr. Friedman wanted to pull for Curtis, but for his notable lack of knowledge concerning the perils of online voting – which Mr. Curtis’ previous, publicly posted comments show him to be open to, and in fact seem to suggest at least some favour for. Curtis did add the caveat that he would support online voting “that is secure and reliable,â€, which is all very well, save for the problem a large number of elections and computer security experts say that isn’t possible. Rather than recognize Mr. Friedman was trying to help him fill a notable gap in his knowledge, Mr. Curtis has (seemingly bizarrely) mistaken helpful critique and questioning for defamation.
Online voting is nothing like online banking, for example – while that is challenging enough to make secure, ultimately it is one person, dealing with one account, and one bank, so you *know* whether your money was counted correctly – because it’s NOT anonymous. Even there, you may have difficulty proving it wasn’t you who rang up a string of payments from your account.
But no such assurance can exist in electronic voting, unless the names and how they voted are posted publicly, to ensure the vote you cast was counted as cast. Ultimately, your vote doesn’t just end up in a personal account, it has to be aggregated with those of everyone else, which is the point at which it is no longer possible to ensure no form of vote flipping took place. In between voting and posting aggregate results, there is no way for the public to know that their votes were counted as cast – it will always be possible to substitute aggregate results that don’t reflect actual votes cast, for someone who can gain access to the tabulating system, whether a dishonest insider, or an outside hacker.
This is *already* a problem with electronic voting systems, and becomes even more an issue with providing internet access to voters (and thereby, those who might try to gain unauthorized access). There are, for example, statistical analyses that point to possible (in fact, probable) electronic tampering with electronic vote aggregation in both federal votes and Republican primary votes in some states going back to 2004 – statistical fingerprints that aren’t found in analyses of vote results of other countries (such as Canada), or of states or counties that rely on hand-counted paper ballots. Even the best computer security can’t prevent unscrupulous insiders from tampering with the software – or anyone else able to gain access and falsify the credentials needed.
It’s clear that Curtis “supports” online voting in some envisioned “secure” incarnation.
It’s also clear that he is fascinated by, perhaps even delights in, the idea of “secure” online voting.
But it’s not a slam dunk that the above can be unambiguously phrased as “strongly supporting online voting.”
1) This phrase can be interpreted as “recommending” online voting. Yet, in the above citations, Curtis goes only so far as “allowing” or “not ruling out” online voting. These latter stances, too, are encompassed by the notion of “support.”
2) More pointedly, Curtis’s acceptance of internet voting is not unqualified. He’s accepting, not of “online voting” in general, but only of “[sufficiently] secure online voting”. None of the citations above indicate that Curtis believes that “[sufficiently] secure online voting” is a current reality, despite his having “no problems” with some recent online elections. (An individual online election can, in fact, happen to have been free of problems. Believing that an election was problem free doesn’t necessarily imply a belief that it was “[sufficiently] secure.”)
So I feel that Curtis has the edge in believing that his position was misrepresented.
But the distance between Curtis’ actual position (which I hazard to describe as “enthusiasm”) and Brad’s paraphrase of that position is about half a hair’s breadth. A dispute this slim is something that can and should be settled amicably.
Greg J @15 wrote:
I can’t speak for Brad, but that had certainly been my thinking when, in responding to Curtis’ comment to the original article, he said he was willing to “discuss” this topic. That is why I furnished him with an educational link.
As a Californian and a progressive, I would have been delighted to have an open-minded Green Party candidate, who, after acquiring basic, but critical knowledge about e-voting, would come to the realize, as Germany’s high court came to realize, that election integrity can only be assured by application of Democracy’s Gold Standard — hand marked paper ballots, publicly hand counted at each precinct on Election Night.
Unfortunately, the thin-skinned, Mr. Cutis, who became a public figure by running for public office and therefore subject to the standards imposed by New Times v. Sullivan, reveals that he is as clueless about defamation law as he is about Internet Voting. Sadly, Curtis has demonstrated that he lacks either the integrity or temperament to serve as Secretary of State.
Thus, while I would have been delighted to have had the opportunity to vote for a Green Party candidate for Sec. of State, Mr. Curtis’ bizarre response to constructive criticism has deprived me of that opportunity.
Re Roy Lipscom @16:
During the original twitter colloquy, Curtis wrote that he “would support an (optional) online method of voting that is secure and verifiable.” He then wrote: “I think it can be done.”
Therein lies the rub. It can’t be done.
See, e.g., PBS News Hour Report Exposes Madness of Internet Voting, Officials Who Push For It Anyway
Brad Friedman has spent the better part of a decade assembling what is perhaps this nation’s most extensive repository of articles, many written by him but others by election integrity advocates and computer scientists, that document the insecurity of all e-voting systems, none of which can be made secure against an insider threat — although op scan paper ballots at least provide the potential for verifiability provided there is a secure chain-of-custody.
Of all e-voting systems, the most vulnerable are on-line systems, which contrary to Curtis’ misguided assumptions, cannot be made secure. As noted by U.C. Berkley Computer Science Prof. David Wagner, there “is no known way to audit Internet voting.”
Roy also wrote:
Not according to Curtis. He said that he has “no position on online voting.” I’d be delighted if anyone could demonstrate to me how one can “support” secure online voting without having taken any position on online voting.
It’s a shame. I find myself unable to vote for either a Republican or Democratic candidate, due to the lack of integrity running rampant through the major 2 political Partys. I was looking forward to voting for a strong 3rd Party candidate. Unfortunately, it appears that David Curtis suffers from the same malady. The interchange that has occurred here has cost Mr. Curtis my vote– and I *had* been planning to vote for him.
This reminds me of an interview I had “back in the day” for a temp job. My prospective employer during the interview asked me if $7.00 per hour sounded good. I said yes it did. Turns out, when the job got offered, the pay was $6.50. When I brought it to my employer’s attention, he demanded, “Did I promise you $7.00 an hour?” I had to say no, he didn’t promise it. So I got $6.50. What a sleaze. I shouldn’t have caved. He certainly implied it and no one would have taken the meaning any other way.
Well, that’s beyond odd.
I remember trying to give Curtis the benefit of the doubt in a comment after one of those previous articles Brad did on him. Hoping he really was well-intentioned, if misinformed on the potential of e-voting, and that he would take the information offered, really check it out, and come to a reality-based conclusion. Scratch that.
There is magic thinking everywhere. Ignorance, fear, and denial is, in so many ways, the coin of the realm. Here’s some more of it.
Despite how commonly this sort of dysfunction is manifested it still is often unsettling to witness the next manifestation, like here. For me it’s a little extra painful cuz I, perhaps naively, expect more from what are supposed to be progressive alternatives. When a guy representing the Greens appears to be as weird and crazy as anyone from among the usual crazies, it’s a little disheartening. I expect/want better from our side.
I’m also particularly angry that he’s so mindlessly and disingenuously attacking Brad, a truly unsung national treasure of such high integrity.
I wonder what the really story is here with this guy. Something is seriously off the tracks.
Sorry–tired, impatient typo. That shoulda read “real story”.
David Curtis @10 and @ 11 wrote:
What an odd way to run a campaign. Threaten everyone who disagrees with him on this issue with a defamation suit, alienating those, like myself and Scott McLachlan @19, who would have otherwise been supportive of a Green Party candidate for CA Sec. of State.
Then, when readers of The BRAD BLOG continue to exercise their First Amendment rights by offering their individual opinions on the mess that was generated by his stubborn refusal to accept bona fide constructive criticism:
David Curtis added @13:
Did David Curtis really think he could silence criticism from those who disagree with him on the issue of Internet voting or who choose to weigh in on his bizarre response to Mr. Friedman’s criticism by threatening to sue his critics?
Sadly, his efforts to silence criticism with respect to statements he did, in fact, make (“I would support an (optional) online method of voting that is secure and verifiable” and “I think it can be done”) suggest a degree of paranoia tinged by an authoritarian streak — one that is at odds with Green Party positions on the First Amendment rights of the very people his defamation suit threats sought to silence.
Ironically, it appears that Curtis even mistook Brad Friedman’s piece on his exclusion from the Sacramento Press Conference debate — a criticism of the SPC that was grounded upon Brad’s First Amendment views — a criticism that Brad would have been leveled even if the candidate excluded had been a ‘Tea Party’ wingnut — as “an apology.”
I think the problem here is lack of communication
Now I didn’t say communism
Don’t put words in my mouth green tards
GTard@24,
Say what? How ’bout actually communicating?
Online voting is the future.
Thick-Witted Liberal @26 wrote:
Say what? Did you mean that with online voting in the future, we can kiss democracy goodbye?
David Curtis,
Please include me in your lawsuit.
I will really enjoy deposing you.
I love deposing Luddite disciples of Aristotle:
(Columbia). Later radiator brain.
Curtis is a dipshit plant to do damage to the green party.
Curtis is an Oil-Qaeda plant folks.
It will all come out when Curtis beats the crap out of his lawyer with his purse after his deposition.
“We have determined as a matter of law that plaintiffs'[Curtis’ lawyer Dutta] arguments on the merits are untenable.” (Field v Bowen).
This guy is a loose canon who is bringing a bad reputation to the Green Party:
(Cal News Room). Not all politicians with such a disposition are as successful as Curtis (On The Origin of Assholes, quoting the books).