After Bank of America (BOA) wrongly tried to foreclose on their home, a Florida couple took their case to court. After the foreclosure was dropped, the judge in the case ordered BOA to pay the couple’s $2,534 legal fees for the mistake. When after more than five months the bank still hadn’t paid up, the homeowners attorney proceeded to legally seize BOA’s assets.

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via Current via CNN

The Netflix Bandit on trial:

Specifically, Weathers admitted stealing Netflix movies — the DVDs in the bright red envelopes — as they were moving on a sorting belt through the postal facility to which he was assigned.

He didn’t steal one movie.

Or two.

Or a hundred.

Weathers admitted stealing more than 3,000 movies.

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Via The Public Record

Diebold Admits Audit Logs in All Versions of Their Software Fail to Record Ballot Deletions

Even the audit log system on current versions of Premier Election Solutions’ (formerly Diebold’s) electronic voting and tabulating systems — used in some 34 states across the nation — fail to record the wholesale deletion of ballots. Even when ballots are deleted on the same day as an election. That’s the shocking admission heard today from Justin Bales, Premier’s Western Region manager, at a State of California public hearing on the possible decertification of Diebold/Premier’s tabulator system, GEMS v. 1.18.19.

An election system’s audit logs are meant to record all activity during the system’s actual counting of ballots, so that later examiners may determine, with certainty, whether any fraudulent or mistaken activity had occurred during the count. Diebold’s software fails to do that, as has recently been discovered by Election Integrity advocates in Humboldt County, CA, and then confirmed by the CA Secretary of State. The flaws, built into the system for more than a decade, are in serious violation of federal voting system certification standards.

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The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative will go into effect June 1, 2009 for land and sea travel into the U.S.

The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative WHTI requires U.S. and Canadian travelers to present a passport or other document that denotes identity and citizenship when entering the U.S. It is a result of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 IRTPA.

The goal of WHTI is to facilitate entry for U.S. citizens and legitimate foreign visitors, while strengthening U.S. border security. Standard documents will enable the Department of Homeland Security to quickly and reliably identify a traveler.

The State Department has designated Saturday, March 28, 2009 as “Passport Day in the USA”:

All Department of State Passport Agencies, and many Passport Acceptance Facilities around the country, will host passport application acceptance events. U.S. citizens without a valid passport book or passport card are encouraged to apply on this day.

More passport info on the State Department travel web site.

More info on the Customs web site.

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