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Lawmakers Who Upheld NSA Phone Spying Received Double the Defense Industry Cash
An anonymous reader writes "The numbers tell the story — in votes and dollars. On Wednesday, the House voted 217 to 205 not to rein in the NSA's phone-spying dragnet. It turns out that those 217 'no' voters received twice as much campaign financing from the defense and intelligence industry as the 205 'yes' voters."
Seriously. Did anyone expect any other result? Money talks everywhere.
And why is it, this type of bribery continues? And where are the Republicans standing up saying how they are out for your rights, while they cut unnecessary government? And the Dems, who continued with the path that the Rep, put into place, that are acting as if they had no idea that surveillance was taking place on non-terrorist citizens..
It is time for term limits, and prison time for lobbyists, and politicians that take bribes.
Our congress isn't free. Our congress isn't in the best interests of the people. Our congress is bought, and until the people take a stand nothing will ever change.
Truly you have achieved the best government that money can buy...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
good to see free market applied to governments - you go land of the free(market)
Isn't it exactly how congress works in America, the country that legalized bribery?
From a purely political perspective, the surveillance-against-citizens promises to be an important wedge issue in the next election cycle. Voters are divided on it, even the politicians are divided on it. We'll just have to wait and see, as unsatisfying as that sounds: in a representative democracy that's how these things are "corrected"... or not.
I hope they just pound the hell out of the people who voted against this bill, be they R or D. I fear that it will all be forgotten one year from now.
This is how the world ends not with a bang, but with a whimper.
The Defense Industry lobbyists were smart enough to know which candidates actually liked them, therefore they gave twice the money to those candidates. It's almost like the articles is saying they actually ask candidates what they think BEFORE they cut a bunch of checks.
If you look at the actual numbers the ridiculousness of the "campaign contributions as bribes" theory gets even clearer. A House race costs at least $500k. In extreme cases (ie: Bachman) they cost millions. That's $700 a day for a cheap race. You'd rather have $40k from defense contractors then $18k, but the difference is only 32 days of fundraising for the guy with the cheap $500k race. Somebody like Bachman brings in $22k in under a week. Note that by international standards $500k is a really cheap election for the 750,000-person districts we have. Canadian pols spend in the $50k-$100k range, but a) there are generally three serious candidates in every riding so that works out to $150k-$300k per riding, and each riding only has 100,000 people in it.
In other words if you're a Congressman you pick a side. If you pick the anti-NSA side you get geek donations, grassroots buzz from Civil Libertarians, and a little defense industry cash (Honeywell et al. want to maintain a relationship with you, so you do get that $18k). If you pick the pro-NSA-side you get to be tough on bad guys on TV, and you get a little more defense industry cash. You do not change a side just because somebody offers you a lot of money, because that would look terrible on TV ("He's an EVIL FLIP-FLOPPER"), the new voters you were appealing to wouldn't actually vote for you because they wouldn't trust you, and the ones you stabbed in the back are gonna hate your guts.
Since the GOP won the last go-round tough-on-bad-guys got more votes then Civil Libertarians.
Dear americans, your empire is going to fall. Not today or tomorrow. But - younger of you may live to see it. Those of you who visited history lessons about not-america (also called "rest of the world") may notice the pattern: Roman Empire, British Empire, Russian Empire and so on.
Yes, your country have lot of weapons. Guess what - romans had it too, russians still have. And yes, there are still many scientists live in US. Guess what - it may not matter that match.
It may end in bloody conflict (see fall of Rome) or as peaceful dismount (see fall of Soviet Union) or as something in-between (British Empire). But - it will end. If history teaches us something, it's "too big army is bad for you".
You guessed right - US military (and NSA is also considered military by us in "rest of the world") is way too big for US economy to support. Since US have not a single border with enemy states, it's army supposed to be about 1/1000 of current size. Yep, you read right: one hundredth. No, you don't need carriers. And no, you don't need that many nuclear submarines. And no, you probably don't need tanks AT ALL, nobody going to invade you any time soon.
And finally - no, world don't need you as policemen.
We were warned about the dangers of the military industrial complex by one of our best presidents. Eisenhower kept this nation out of trouble (pointless wars and political suicide pacts) and allowed us to enjoy our peace dividends. We should have listened and remembered.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
....that still doesn't make it a democracy.
As long as our "representational" government is hijacked to represent the majority of dollars instead of people and of free speech, then we've completely strayed away from any sort of democracy at all. I don't know what you call it, but it ain't democracy.
Clearly our voices no longer equate to a level democratic process. Though we may be born equal, our influence under the law extends with our wealth, regardless of its source or of the massive disparity among the citizens.
Whats the point of voting in an auction that always goes to the highest bidder? Nostalgia or denial? We might as well still have royalty because it sure works like a nobility.
What's the surprise?
The surprise is that "Campaign financing" is legal in a democracy. There are parts of the world where this sort of thing is outlawed. Politicians are paid - and paid well - from the tax money. They are not allowed to take money from others - that makes them criminals.
Less campaign financing is not a problem, because that works the same way for all politicians. And we get less 'campaigning' to put up with too. :-)
I'm just going to repeat this until either it starts or someone makes a valid argument against it. The states need to call a constitutional convention and fix problems like these. Imagine term limits for Congress - the state reps would pass that because it would mean more churn and a chance for them to get there. Problem one solved. That's just for starters. Fixing problems like what this post is about would be on the table too.
In this day and age of social media and groups who have nothing better to do this should be easy to push right to the front. Just have to work hard to not have it be subverted. Just imagine how pissed off this would make Congress & the President. The founding fathers would be cheering! The world would see how it's really done right.
yes it is fascism, the defense industry is out of control, it is exactly the result of ignoring Dwight Eisenhower's farewell speech that included a warning of the Military/Industrial complex, the private sector that stands to make HUGE profits from the contracts of this defense & intelligence industry has bribed these politicians to vote in their favor,
they should all be hanging from lamp-posts like Benito Mussolini was
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
thank you for showing how deep the corruption goes.
I don't think the corruption here is any deeper than anywhere else on average. The problem is that the dollar amounts and resulting influence are so much larger, and thats because fucking idiots keep finding excuses to forgive politicians that make the government bigger (hell, some even see a larger government as something to strive for.. fucking retards)
When you allow a bigger government, you get corruption on a larger scale. Every. Single. Fucking. Time. Ever. In. All. Of. History.
"His name was James Damore."
It's not just 'secret NSA spying'.
Tort reform? You'll find the naysayers got at LEAST 2x from the legal community PACs and lobbyists.
More loans and grants for education, or student loan forgiveness? You'll find that the ones in favor got piles of money from Teacher Unions.
Minimum wage? Unionization? Defense spending?
As the old saying goes: Follow the Money.
opensecrets.org.
-Styopa
What's so shocking here is that the corruption is so blatant. There's no attempt to hide it. It is, apparently, completely ok in America for politicians to vote based on financial support so why hide it?
There are downsides to 'big government' but to some extent strong government can control or limit corruption. It was recently a big story in the UK that a strategy advisor for the government had worked with a tobacco firm and thus might be behind the governments decision not to push for plain packaging. There was no evidence of anything improper but the possibility was a story. In the US you'd have, actually you have, tobacco firms etc funnelling large sums to your elected representatives directly to stop that kind of thing. The UK definitely isn't close to perfect but businesses appear to have considerably less influence here than in the US and we have far stronger government.
The media has done their job well, that is they have actively assisted in the dumbing down of america.
You are correct, but lets be clear: "The Media" is overwhelmingly dominated by corporations, and it is not just Americas problem. Those corporations are overwhelmingly interconnected with the interests of a vast array of other unrelated businesses, be it just advertising revenue or outright arms of the same corporation. The mass corporate media is using FUD/muddying the waters/dumbing down just enough to make the majority of voters for political reasons, they are doing so because it is good business for other arms of their corporation and their partners.
This is also the reason the mass worldwide corporate media react so violently, distort the facts as far as to turn them upside down, make unfounded extreme accusations when any country or individual calls out the massive, obviously society destroying conflicts of interest that we have today in corporate media. Imagine what the worlds media combined do when a country starts to pass media and airspace legislation to even up the playing field with more to share the space with social organizations (say 33% government channels, 33% private companies with no other business interests in country, 33% to social groups and organizations)? Well no need to imagine, we have a good example: Ecuador. If your first reaction to naming Ecuador as a shining example is that you start frothing at the mouth, wanting to post AC to educate me on "the human rights abuses", "censorship", "repression"... etc etc of Ecuador - then you are knee-jerk reacting, a product of the pervasive mass media dumbing down we are talking about here. There are even " international press freedom organizations" lining up to condemn the country - all of them with dubious shady origins when you look into the details and all of them making claims that dont add up when you look critically into the facts. If your one of those then you owe it to yourself to read the link provided and do a bit of searching outside of mass media channels on this topic. Ecuador is the only country I know of that is attempting to tackle front on the conflict of interest that dominates mass media today (Apart from some organizations - Wiklleaks Party is trying to make it part of their election campaign in Australia, see "Can we trust the media").
For example Rafael Correa told a well known Spanish interviewer Anita Pastor, and a paraphrase, "How could we reform the banking system when 80% of the countries media was owned by banks". As an aside, Anita Pastor during the course of the interview claimed that the worlds press was free and independent. In a stroke of irony she was fired shortly after by an incoming government due to asking the ministers uncomfortable questions during the election campaign. The same government and the other major party in Spain has now passed decrees in true American style,that all election interviews will be controlled, with controlled questions in a controlled marketing directed act. They have even changed the government controlled media so that all stories pass by them before being published. Just like nearly every other western country now. Free press, indeed.
The industry can't afford to not fund people who's vote they may still need and may still buy if they give enough money. They will receive money as long as those industries have money to spend on buying political friends for their companies, regardless of who gets to be in power or even voted into office. It's not about betting on a single horse, it's about buying hay for all the horses, allowing you all area access into the racing track. The "real bribery" starts when friends and family members of congresspeople get business contracts from the companies that funded the campaigns. To get there, the companies first have to by their way into the political "race track" with campaign funding.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
"One solution would be to place a cap on the donations that one company of individual could make, but then you'd soon see dodgy accounting being used to work around it - things like companies giving a few thousand employees 'bonuses' on the implicit understanding they must donate to a certain candidate, or creating lots of semi-independent front companies who can each make the maximum donation."
There's really no way to enforce such a law effectively across the board. In order to have any deterrent value, the penalties would have to be draconian, and the chance of the law winding up tyrannical (by coming into conflict with the first amendment.)
Individuals should, and must, have a right to express themselves by spending their own money on speech. Some individuals being wealthier than others, that is unequal, and those that worship equality will never quit moaning about it, but those that place liberty higher than equality know that for the greater good (the first amendment, in the US context) that's unavoidable.
BUT that doesnt mean that a corporation gets any rights qua corporation. The free speech rights of each employee and each stockholder and each officer personally can be preserved without inventing a new person here - the corporation is simply a legal fiction created by the state to begin with. This is a big part of the problem I am afraid, but nowhere near all of it - we were well down this road before that ruling.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
So a large, for-profit, private sector is less corrupt then the government?
I believe you need to check a dictionary for the definition of the word "corrupt."
I suppose if we used the same tech they use to paste virtual advertisements during sporting events, that whenever an American politician is speaking in front of cameras, it could help people understand what's going on when the suit the speaker is wearing is emblazoned with the names and/or logos of the corporations who've bribed him or her, like sponsors of a racing team.
Imagine it, the schmuck steps up to a podium, his name appears in front of him, and the phrase "Brought to you by... " and the list of the ten biggest donors. Simultaneously, bumper stickers are digitally edited in on his chest, arms, legs, etc, as long as the cameras are on him and rolling.
Couldn't hurt, dispense a little truth amongst the lies, right?
You have things really backwards.
These guys got financial support because they were pro-NSA from 2010-2012. Nobody should be surprised that they were still pro-NSA in 2013. It's not like you can send a Congressman $50k and buy his vote. He'll take your $50k, vote his heart, and if he voted against you he'll use your money to buy an ad trumpeting how uncorrupt he is.
In the US you can't actually get large sums from a tobacco firm. You can get $5k. If they have a PAC you can get another $5k. Per PAC. The reason these NSA guys are up to the $40k range isn't that NSASpySoft cut a $40k check, it's that people working for NSASpySoft cut checks adding up to $40k. The pro-NSA guys got basically a month's fundraising from these folks, so it's not like anybody is worried about losing his next election bid if he pisses the NSA. They're worried that voting against the NSA would look weak on terror, which would piss of a certain segment of voters.
SuperPACs complicate things because their donations are unlimited, but a) they can't co-ordinate with a candidate, b) they tend to be run by ideologues who don't understand how they sound to normal people, and c) they get charged commercial rates for ads (candidates get the lowest rate charged). So SuperPAC money didn't have much practical effect on last cycle's elections. They might fix that in 2014, but who knows.
One solution would be to place a cap on the donations that one company of individual could make, but then you'd soon see dodgy accounting being used to work around it - things like companies giving a few thousand employees 'bonuses' on the implicit understanding they must donate to a certain candidate, or creating lots of semi-independent front companies who can each make the maximum donation.
Here's another thought; place a cap on the amount of campaign contributions a candidate can accept. Something like a total of $50,000 from all sources - personal and contributed - combined. A candidate is not permitted to spend more than that amount on their campaign and they are not permitted to run a profit. Any contributed funds beyond the $50,000 are returned to the contributor at the end of the campaign. Finances for a period of 1 year after running for state or higher office are automatically audited for fraud.
Also, elected officials are not permitted to accept gifts of goods or services. Those found violating this rule (and yes, keep it deliberately vague) must reimburse their constituency equivalent value.
The problem is those who could put accountability rules in place don't want them.
"Oh no... he found the
Final address Jan 1961 as he left office: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together." Some folks apparently weren't listening....
I think GP meant we need US military support in order to maintain our own defences. Small populations and in the case of Australia large land mass mean we don't have the capability to do that ourselves.
It is very unlikely that the US would engage in hostile action against Australia or New Zealand, but if another country decided to their not helping would be just as bad. Also that would require us to rein in our own governments, (which might be slightly better then yours but that doesn't mean much these days). Wikileaks revealed that a number of our politicians were being paid by the US and it hardly got any media attention at all.
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Lobbyist: Listen, I'd like to do more money for you -- I just need to know your positions on a few issues. For instance, where are you on sugar price supports?
Congressman Johnson: Sugar price supports. Where do you think I should be, Tommy?
Lobbyist: Shit -- makes no difference to me. If you're for 'em, I got money for you from my sugar producers in Louisiana and Hawaii. If you're against 'em, I got money for you from the candy manufacturers.
Congressman: You pick.
Lobbyist: Let's put you down as for. Now what about putting limits on malpractice awards?
Congressman: You tell me.
Lobbyist: Well, if you're for 'em, I got money from the doctors and insurance companies. If you're against 'em, I got money from the trial lawyers. Tell you what, let's say against. Now how about pizza?
Congressman (gestures to plate): I'll stick with the salad.
Lobbyist: Not for lunch, shmuck, for PAC money. A lot of the frozen pizzas use phony cheese. There's a law pending requiring them to disclose it on their labels. Where do you stand?
Congressman: If I vote for the labels...then I get money from the dairy industry...
Lobbyist: Good...
Congressman: And if I vote against the labels, I get money from the frozen food guys.
Lobbyist: Excellent! And don't forget the ranchers, because they get hurt if pepperoni sales go down!
Congressman: A pepperoni lobby. I love this town.
Lobbyist: So which is it?
Congressman: Fuck the cheese people. Thanks to them my office smelled like smelt for a week.
Lobbyist: All right. For.
Congressman: So Tommy, tell me -- with all this money on every side, how does anything get done?
Lobbyist: It doesn't! That's the genius of the system!
I am officially gone from
So please, cough up some evidence, or are you just you just another shill with the typical rehtoric and media dumbing down talking points?
LOL talk about a shill. As you so graciously failed to mention in your little story, the media also happened to say that "Correa ordered troops to fire on the hospital killing innocent people" - mass western media repeated this loud and far. Thank you for confirming what the Ecuadorian courts found - that the story was false and the same said Journalists did indeed invent the story about Correa in that event.
So as a private person I want to buy an ad for a cause I believe in.
And I want a pony.
It happens to be that there are 2 major candidates, and the cause I believe in is also the main cause championed by one of those candidates. Will I be allowed to run the ad, even though in effect it is an ad for one of the candidates, even if that's not my intention?
I would argue against being able to run such an ad because it appears to be an attempt to influence an election even if that was not the true intent. It is indistinguishable from an attempt to influence an election.
How will you possibly define in law what kinds of ads indirectly benefit one candidate over another? If you can't, this is a huge loophole.
With the duck test. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it's a duck. How about: "Any advertisement that would appear to a reasonable person to be an attempt to influence the outcome of an election shall be punishable by a fine of up to one milliion dollars and up to one year in prison." It's generally pretty obvious what sort of thing an advertisement is intended to sell.
What if I run a news organization and I decide to give more favorable and extensive coverage of my favorite candidate, in effect contributing to him the equivalent of millions of dollars in ads? It's hard for me to see how you can define a law to get around such things without also seriously impacting the freedom of the press to report on political stories.
Coverage is not the same as advertising. I think your example would be acceptable. As you say you cannot realistically get around this sort of thing. I don't think it is all that harmful. The one thing I would do is make it illegal for anyone else to pay the news organization to favor one side over another. If large sums of money are changing hands then that should be investigated as a possible attempt to influence an election.
Suppose I want to volunteer to help one campaign over another.
That's fine. You are free to use your time as you wish.
That's equivalent to giving them my salary,
No it isn't. There is a limit to how much you can influence an election with just your time. Donating money should be limited to a fair amount such that the rich do not have any significant advantage over the poor in terms of influencing the outcome of an election. I think somewhere between $50 and $250 per person would be a reasonable amount.
since my salary is what my labor would normally cost.
Your labor is only worth that in your own field. If you get a job bagging groceries you would not get paid more than anyone else. Besides it is irrelevant what your salary is. That doesn't give you the right to exercise undue influence over an election. One man one vote. That is what a representative democracy stands for. Any attempt to corrupt that voting process or to corrupt the politicians who make the decisions should be illegal.
Is volunteering like that then allowed?
Volunteering your time should be allowed. Contributing more than say $250 to a compaign should not be. The latter can unfairly influence the outcome of an election in a way that the former cannot.
What if I'm a CEO and my salary is $30 million dollars?
Then you will be annoyed when you discover that using your money to attempt to exercise an unfair influence over the outcome of an election is against the law. You will be allowed to contribute up to the per citizen cap however.
Can I use my own car while helping the campaign, in effect giving the campaign a contribution in the form of gas and wear-and-tear?
Yes. And you will also be able to wear your clothes. Neither is realistically able to affect the outcome of an election.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
No, "corrupt" means doing unethical things for personal gain. Businessman frequently get off on the technicality that they are allowed to define the word "ethical" as it relates to their own jobs, therefore anything that be a terrible fireable, never-work-in-the-sector again sin for the government is just how it's done in private industry.
Any manager who manages to figure out a way to fire the pregnant chick before she starts costing the company money due to a) maternity leave, b) expensive health costs of pregnancy, and c) upgrading her health plan from individual to family is gonna get a bonus. And, since businessmen define their own ethics, it's only unethical if some government employee made a point of pushing through a law specifically banning such shenanigans, and the manager can't rationalize the firing enough to get around the law. For example, in quite a few jurisdictions it would be perfectly ethical to wait until the day the woman was about to file for maternity leave, reorganize your business unit so her job doesn't exist, then wait until about the time she would be coming back and re-re-organize her old job back into existence.
Hell, take a look at the corruption that happens in the government. The classic case is some colonel making $120k arranging it so his buddy gets the contract for the new plane, retiring (and getting an $80k pension) and getting a $250k job from his buddy. In the government that is corruption, but spend a month in the actual private sector and you'll meet dozens of people who arranged for their company to buy products from a buddy, and then as soon as that buddy had a job opening jumped ship. It's not corrupt when the businesses do it because they can point out "of course the guy buying our products knows exactly what our customers want, and is therefore a really good hire." Couldn't you say the same about our Air Force Colonel?
Not really, because USAF Colonels don't get to write their own ethical standards.