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Watch Your Neighbors Political Contribution

Posted by Hemos on from the the-joy-of-open-records dept.

arrianus writes "Fundrace.org gives a fascinating perspective on campaign donation laws. You can look up people's political donations to the current presidential campaign based on name (type in a friend's name, and see how much money he donated, and to whom), location (see which of your neighbors are politically active). I leave the privacy implications of this as an exercise to the reader. How long before this is tied into marketing databases? What happens if an employer were to prescreen employees based on political leanings?" Well, it is illegal to screen like that - and frankly, for a healthy democracy, it's probably better to have this in the open. Still, disturbing to see.

1 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Absolutely stupid. by bjackrian · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Why? Could somebody please give me a solid reason as to why this is of benefit to a democracy? (though, of course, the US is a federal republic - not a pure democracy).

    It helps us to know what is motivating our elected officials to do things. For example, on the PIRATE Act threat, it's been pointed out that Senator Hatch received a lot of money from the entertainment industry. This might suggest to some of his voters that he cares more about the people he gets money from than about the voters he's supposed to represent. You can argue whether it is undue influence, but the more information that voters have to make that decision, the better their decisions are likely to be.

    Another example. Suppose, hypothetically, that Bush had received contributions from every president of an oil company (as well as their spouses, children, etc.). Some voters (myself included) might use that information in deciding whether or not to vote for him. I might decide that those contributions are what motivated his decision to invade Iraq and not any real fear of Iraq as a threat. If that's the case, I might decide to vote for someone else who I feel is more willing to represent my intersts, rather than the interests of rich people. Again, not everyone would have the same interpretation as I would, but I think it's important that voters be given the information so that they can decide.

    After all, our federal republic is all about giving people as much information as possible and allowing them to elected representatives based on that information.