აღნიშნული სტატია დაიგზავნა პრესაში, თუ გამოქვეყნდა, ლინკს დავაგდებ. აქ კარგად არის ახსნილი ყველაფერი:
"Computer mistake - Or mistake of the government? - What is DOS covering behind a computer glitch?"
As the world knows, the U.S.A diversity visa lottery, or as it is otherwise called "the greencard lottery" is a visa granting program that U.S. government has been running since 1994. Each year 55 000 green cards are given to different people from around the world, chosen by a random computer program, giving them the opportunity to live, work and study in U.S.A.
As U.S. Department of State Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Visa Services, Mr. David Donahue has recently stated in a video posted on the official diversity visa lottery web-site "Every year, the Diversity Visa Lottery generates excitement around the world, as entrants hope to be selected for the chance to apply for an immigrant visa to the United States." The reasons for this video appearing on the DOS website however were quite contrary to causing the exitement Mr. Donahue mentioned. On may 13th 2011 the Department of state announced that the results of the Diversity visa lottery 2012 were "not valid. They were posted in error." Even though the results seemed to have been posted on the official DOS website for 5 full days, enough time to "falsly" notify 22 000 people that they have actually won, causing "exitement arround the world" and the selectees to continue on with their application as it was stated on the entry status check website. Those instructions included filling out certain forms for the department of state and sending them by mail as the instructions stated on the official DOS website - "It is important for you to complete the next steps as quickly as possible. " It is only fair to question, what exactly was happening in the Department Of state as well as the Kentucky Consular Center, while the selectees rushed to mail off their forms, paying extra for express delivery.
It is important to mention, that untill now, Kentucky Consular center would mail the selectee notification letters all over the world sometimes causing them to be lost and with them, the unprecendented opportunity to become a U.S. permanent resident, however in 2010 The department of state announced that they will no longer be sending out any e-mails or letters - instead a person will be able to check their status online, using the confirmation number that they recieved during the registration period. As stated before, on may 5th the entry status check website, now the only means to check whether they won or not, was shut down due to "technical difficulties" causing a lot of distress among those who weren't yet able to see the results. The website has been down for 8 days, during which there have been several calls made to the Kentucky Consular Center both by selectees and by those who haven't checked their status, asking for their case status. "I have called the Kentucky Consular Center asking for information on my case status, they asked me for my case number and my name and family name, the year I was born and what my question was. I explained that I had already mailed the forms to them and that the fedex tracking showed they recieved the letters, so I wanted to know what my case status was. They told me that it would take two to four weeks untill the forms got into their system and advised me to call back in a week and ask again, literally hours before they announced that the results were voided on their website" says one of the selectees. So what was happening in the Kentucky Consular center at that time?
In his video message Mr. David Donahue explains very little of the nature of the computer glitch that caused the results to come out as not random. "Although we received large numbers of entries every day during the 30-day registration period, a computer programming error caused more than 90% of the selectees to come from the first two days of the registration period." Though it seems at first as a very rational explanation, there is a simple question born from it - was the diversity visa lottery really not random?
To get a different point of view we asked Zihni Cretean, an Electronics Engineer whose occupation is Software Consultancy to explain it to us and recieved an answer that puzzled us even more:
"Why was the decision inaccurate?
1. Mathematically speaking, these results certainly could have occurred naturally. As such, the results are random.
2. Even if the results did not occur naturally because of a “computer glitch”, the results are still random because no one in advance knew how to increase one’s chances. Thus there was a level playing field. Example: Lotto – 6 numbers drawn 1-40. Computer glitch causes a drawing in which the 6 numbers drawn are 1-6. But no one knew about it in advance. It would seem to be a strange result, but it is still random because no one knew about the glitch in advance, thus they were unable to modify behavior accordingly (buy tickets with those 6 numbers).
3. Therefore, this proves that the selection was still random, and voiding the results based on an alleged glitch in the system makes the decision incorrect. Furthermore, anyone with a PhD. in mathematics can prove these results were random."
Another Mathematician, Raevski, also gave an explanation that confirmed this theory, stating:
"It was quite obvious DV-2012 program was going to use a different random selection algorithm than previous DV programs. The first time the instructions contain reference to more “than 50,000 entries will be selected” instead of 100,000 –
http://travel.state.gov/pdf/DV-2012%20instructions.pdf Why is that? That is because DOS prepared to use a different way of selecting entries than before. Instead of selecting entries independently from the pool as before, this time DOS decided to select randomly an interval of dates. Those dates were the dates when applicants submitted their entries during submission period. The whole submission period was divided to approximately 6 intervals (the data is provided by the forum
http://www.govorimpro.us/showthread.php?t=28753&page=5 – 102 (won) + 75 (not won) entries were submitted on 5-6 of October out of 1000 submitted overall, 102 + 75 is approximately 1/6th of 1000) and the random algorithm chose one of the intervals, and those from that time interval were selected as winners. That is perfectly random from all points of view. Nothing wrong is in what is selection from certain time periods if the periods themselves are selected randomly. If you repeat this process many times again and again, you will see that each entry is selected approximately the same amount of times – that is a statistical test for randomness. That is what DOS promised and what it did, from my point of view. I have PhD in Math and I am a specialist in Monte-Carlo simulation and in computer programming myself. I could easily write an algorithm like that and make sure it provides random results and statistical tests for randomness are fully satisfied."
After hearing those two explanations, it is quite hard to believe The Department of state was 100% honest when they posted the explanation of the alleged computer glitch. The interview with a SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL posted on the Barbados U.S. Embassy official web-site was the only press release ever made on the subject, following the explanatory
video with Mr. David Donahue. The answers seemed vague and unsure, as the Department official had to repeat his answers and change the stated figures several times. On being asked, "why - given that this is all computerized, is it going to take until July 15th to announce the results of the new lottery?" the department official replied "The main reason is that as part of the application process, you may only submit one application. So we - during the last six months since the first selection process, we have gone through all of the selectees to ensure that they had applied appropriately and that they had only applied once. We will now do that with the new selection group, but we are going to redouble our efforts to make sure we can do it in a shortened time"
Judging from that answer the question stands, given the six month period to re-check the applications one by one, did it really never occur to anyone in the IT team of the Department of state that there was a mistake in the drawing mechanisms of the lottery?
How did it come to pass that they noticed this computer glitch only after posting the results to their web-site? Why weren't the results re-checked before there were posted, or were they? Were the results really invalid? It can be thought of that the results drawing was a computer mistake but Was the fact that the results were posted to the official web-site also the fault of the computer?
What followed after may 13th was a group of 22 000 people gathering on the internet, outraged and broken hearted over what appeared to be as a broken promise. They started writing letters and making phone calls asking, begging, demanding that their results were not voided.
The Kentucky Consular center had it's own way of dealing with those requests, leaving short e-mail messages that had a reference link to the official DV lottery web-site with the message about the voidance of the results. "I have sent an e-mail to the Kentucky Consular Center asking what would happen to the forms that I had sent to them, this is the answer I had received "Thank you for your inquiry. All submitted documents for the lottery will be destroyed.""
Says one of the former selectees Tervel Nyagolov. The answer seems vague and absolutely not accurate, since according to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a party or opposing party can request for documents, things, emails, electronic documents etc during discovery if relevant to support the claim or defense of a party. Furthermore, a party must not destroy, spoil or alter material evidence which is relevant to support a claim or defense of another party if the party reasonably anticipates litigation in future.
By the above premise, DOS can not destroy the already sent document: either electronic or paper or any electronic communication.
Ever since the voidance of the results, a talk of a class action lawsuit has been in the air. In that regard what is required or what they will is to put "Litigation hold" on every documents, emails or things that is relevant to them or the 22,000.
If the party destroys it then adverse inference will be made by the court--which is sanctioning the party who destroyed the evidence.
Furthermore, following the noise that the former selectees made was a reaction from Mr. Kenneth White of White&Associates Attorneys at law, as he started representing one of the former winners. Mr. White wrote a letter to Mr. David Donahue, stating that "in the interest of correcting one “wrong”, another injustice has been enacted – namely towards the group that received official communication that they had been selected for further processing in the 2012 DV lottery during May 2011." In his correspondence with the DOS Mr. White outlined the reasons as to why the former winners should have their status reinstated and asked Mr. Donahue to answer him by may 24th "so that my client can plan his next steps in this time-critical matter."
You would think The Department of state would answer and explain why their decision was legitimate and wasn't about to change but the answer of Donahue - was silence. This time Mr. White wrote directly to The department of state Office of Inspector general, demanding an investigation of the subject. Concidering all that is said above, the question still remains - What does Mr. Donahues silence really say?
What really happened in the department of state on the fateful DV 2012 drawing?
Please reffer to the following as links and e-mails mentioned in the article:
http://www.uscourts.gov/uscourts/RulesAndP...ules/CV2009.pdfRefer to Rule 34 for information about electronic docuements, emails and other documents
Refer to Rule 37 for the sanctions when a party spoils an evidence.
http://barbados.usembassy.gov/pr05162011a.htmlRefer to link for the press release.
http://blog.visarefusal.com/wp-content/upl...ahuefinal13.docRefer to link for Mr. Whites letter to Mr. Donahue.
http://blog.visarefusal.com/wp-content/upl...inal-signed.docRefer to link for Mr. Whites letter to Office of inspector general.
http://www.visarefusal.com/Refer to link as the official web-page of White&Assosiates.
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Green Card ნაწილი 5, Diversity Visa Program www.dvlottery.state.gov
