<strong>Tuesday News Roundup</strong>

Black-Box Voting reports a gaping security hole which would allow an enterprising hacker to falsify vote counts on Diebold machines. According to BBV, "by entering a 2-digit code in a hidden location, a second set of votes is created. This set of votes can be changed, so that it no longer matches the correct votes. The voting system will then read the totals from the bogus vote set. It takes only seconds to change the votes, and to date not a single location in the U.S. has implemented security measures to fully mitigate the risks."
Congressman Ed Schrock (R-VA) has resigned his seat after a gay rights blog reported that he is a homosexual. The blog claims that Schrock, a co-sponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment, "made a habit of rendezvousing with gay men via the MegaMates/ MegaPhone Line, an interactive telephone service on which men place ads and respond to those ads to meet each other." Schrock did not confirm or deny the blog's claims, but did give them as the reason for his resignation, saying "I have come to the realization that these allegations will not allow my campaign to focus on the real issues facing our nation and region."
In an 8-1 decision, the Texas Supreme Court held that a fetus is not a person under Texas law.
As Lyle Denniston writes in SCOTUS blog, In the Yaser Esam Hamdi enemy combatant case, The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered the District Court judge to take no further action for at least a month, delaying any relief for Hamdi from his Supreme Court verdict last June. According to an order issued by Judge Robert Doumar yesterday, his court had not yet regained jurisdiction of the case. Last Friday, he had issued a series of orders to force the Pentagon to release information related to the case. In a previous article on the case, Michael Dorf argues "if the government's view prevails, and it alone decides who is an enemy combatant, then there is nothing to stop it from declaring anyone--you, me, or Tom Daschle--an enemy combatant who can be detained indefinitely without trial."
The New York Times reports that Golan Cipel, the former aide whose allegations of sexual harrassment prompted the resignation of New Jersey governor James McGreevey, will not file a lawsuit against the governor.
The ACLU is warning of a change in tone by police against protesters at the Republican National Convention in New York. According to the press release, while the weekend was marked by cooperation between protesters and police, Monday's Poor People's Economic Human Rights demonstration "disintegrated into a chaotic scene."