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Friend --


I'm about to get on a plane, and I've only had a brief chance to look over the decision, but it appears the Supreme Court has struck down restrictions on corporate speech in political campaigns -- overturning 20 years of campaign finance regulations and allowing corporations to wield unprecedented control over our elections.

What we need is a system in which the American people can trust that when Congress acts, it does so based on principle, or reason, or the will of the voters -- but not on the need for campaign funds. This decision erodes that trust down to nothingness.

We need to act now to fix this broken system -- and fortunately, the path forward is clear.

I just recorded a video from the terminal with my initial reaction -- watch the video and please say you'll join this battle for fundamental reform:

Watch my reaction to the Citizens United decision
http://action.change-congress.org/SupremeCourt

Please forward this email to everyone you know who cares about the future of our democracy and ask them to get involved. And please stay tuned to http://change-congress.org/ for more on today's decision.

-- Lawrence Lessig

Friend --


I'm about to get on a plane, and I've only had a brief chance to look over the decision, but it appears the Supreme Court has struck down restrictions on corporate speech in political campaigns -- overturning 20 years of campaign finance regulations and allowing corporations to wield unprecedented control over our elections.

What we need is a system in which the American people can trust that when Congress acts, it does so based on principle, or reason, or the will of the voters -- but not on the need for campaign funds. This decision erodes that trust down to nothingness.

We need to act now to fix this broken system -- and fortunately, the path forward is clear.

I just recorded a video from the terminal with my initial reaction -- watch the video and please say you'll join this battle for fundamental reform:

Watch my reaction to the Citizens United decision
http://action.change-congress.org/SupremeCourt

Please forward this email to everyone you know who cares about the future of our democracy and ask them to get involved. And please stay tuned to http://change-congress.org/ for more on today's decision.

-- Lawrence Lessig

No because our fool politicians granted Comcast a monopoly.

Because our laws are written by corporate interests, not the people.

...which is the inevitable result of "private funding of campaigns"

See Change Congress and Lectures by Lawrence Lessig on Institutional Corruption for more information. Hour Version Half-Hour Version

Against Transparency an article by Lawrence Lessig indicates why increased transparency is probably not enough to make a difference on it's own. A number of people have responded to Lessig's article. Someone was kind enough to provide a walkthrough of the article too.

The question now is: Will Lessig be stupid enough to support Messiah Obama again in 4 years. Only time will tell.

Lessig is not a one-issue voter, despite his strong positions on copyright. His reasons for supporting Obama in 2008 are available to read (and there's a video around, too), and they were not limited to copyright issues. They weren't even principally about copyright.

Lessig was most interested in Obama's foreign policy and how much better he thought it would be than the foreign policy of the people who brought us the Iraq War. Remember, Lessig is somewhat libertarian in his leanings, and a libertarian foreign policy would never have allowed for the Iraq War. The professor also liked Obama's pledge not to take money from corporate lobbyists, which is a major issue that Lessig seems to care about almost as much as copyright reform, if not more. Bad, one-sided policies that favor major industries are more or less guaranteed when those industries are allowed to line the pockets of the legislature, so one could argue that government reform is a precondition of good copyright policy. (Government reform is the goal of his Change Congress movement, which sadly I haven't heard much about lately.)

So even with a poor, one-sided copyright policy (and we certainly seem to be headed toward more of the same with Obama), it's the non-copyright shifts away from Bush era policies that seem to weigh with him more. If Lessig's positions are unchanged in 2012, and if the Republicans are unchanged in 2012, I'd be very surprised if Lessig backed anyone else but Obama.

"And I believe that this Congress is one of the worst."

I agree. If there is hope for Congress it is here. It is a brainchild of Larry Lessig, who needs no introduction on /.

Yep. What is called lobbying in US is called bribery in most parts of the world. While I tend to agree with Google's position, it should not be able to interfere with the legislative process (note that here, they are doing a judicial action, not a legislative initiative). But if you want to forbid corporations influence on congress, support the campaign to change congress and stop voting for candidates according to their party, vote for those who commit at not using private funds for campaigning.

The only REAL solution is to outlaw the practice

That might violate the First Amendment. However, an alternate soution is to vote for people who refuse to take money from lobbyists. See the Change Congress movement, started (??) by our pal Larry Lessig.

The problem is lobbying, or "corruption" as it is called in other parts of the world. It is almost impossible to make disappear but one can at least try to make it illegal.
Support Lawrence Lessig's Change Congress movement.

Well, there is hope: The Change Congress Movement

Here's hoping it's not a false hope.

All of this because corporate money controls US politics. It is called corruption in some places, lobbying in US. If you don't like it, spread the word about Lawrence Lessig's Change Congress movements and ask your representative his/her position on this issue.

Is it really possible that not one person in congress can be asked to not screw us over for self gratification?