Copyright For Sale: What the Sony Docs Say About MPAA Buying Political Influence

An anonymous reader writes: The linkage between political funding and the major copyright lobby groups is not a new issue as for years there have been stories about how groups like the MPAA and RIAA fund politicians that advance their interests. Michael Geist digs into the Sony document leak to see how the MPAA coordinates widespread buying of politicians with political funding campaigns led by former Senator Christopher Dodd to federal and state politicians. The campaigns include efforts to circumvent donation limits by encouraging executives to spend thousands on influential politicians, leading to meetings with Barack Obama, the head of the USTR and world leaders.

Comments

We can learn from this

[RoknrolZombie]

Seems to me like this is a pretty solid way to identify most of what's wrong with our political structure so that we can fix it.

Unfortunately it will probably just be used as a "how to" manual.

Re:We can learn from this

[gstoddart]

Yup, essentially the politicians have set it up so they can be openly bribed/bought off to give corporations more consideration than the rest of us.

If this doesn't show how corrupt and broken the system is, I have no idea what will.

There's no way the politicians will change the law so they can no longer get paid ... it's simply too lucrative.

They're all crooks, and should be thrown in jail.

Re:We can learn from this

[AmiMoJo]

Yeah, but... but... Assange! Look at that guy, a fugitive from the law, hosting these documents to boost his own ego! Forget the corruption, look at THAT guy!

Re:We can learn from this

[geogob]

People like the folks at MPAA do not need a "how to" manual. That's what they do as a business. They are like leeches which are perfectly adapted to the political ecosystem. The only hope you can have, is to have judicial system independent enough to tackle the issue.

I've read here on /. a lot of critique to the leaking of the Sony dataset and how it was further spread by Wikileak. Taken aside the peculiar personalities linked to Wikileaks and problems one might have with them, THIS is exactly why it is good to have this information out in the world. I can only hope judicial instances will pick up this dataset and start their own investigations, for the little it may help.

It will only help a little, because those leeches are also expert in finding loopholes through regulations. Remember, this is what they do... which is quite ironic for anti-piracy lobbyists. Some countries/regions are fast in finding and closing loopholes, but not in the reign of the MPAA and especially not when it is linked to political corruption / financing of political parties and/or figures.

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

When was the last time you saw a politician do jail time?

Voting don't work. Justice don't either. We need the Batman; A dark night that will sneak into their house at night and kill them in their sleep.

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

How about we not say Sony (or other corporations) did it, but actually name those individuals orchestrating these bribes and those cutting the checks?

Re:We can learn from this

[nine-times]

But is the problem that we can't identify what's wrong, or is the problem that we're powerless to do anything about it?

My understanding is that you could find plenty of people with enough expertise to lay out exactly what the problem is, but the problem is essentially, "There are a bunch of legal loopholes that effectively make bribery legal, thereby handing control of our government over to those who can pay the most."

You might ask, "Well if we know what the problem is, we can fix it! Why not close the loopholes?" The fundamental problem there is that the people in position to close the loopholes are the ones receiving the bribes, and they want the bribes to keep coming. The only thing that could get them to change the law would be if their corporate overlords, i.e. those providing the bribes, bribed them to make it illegal. The problem with that is that the corporate overlords also want the bribes to remain legal, so that they can influence public officials.

Finally, you might say, "Well why not just vote those bribe-takers out of office?" The problem there is that the bribes are used to buy elections. Without that money, you can't run ads, you can't get on TV, and you can't even participate in the public debate.

It's just a catch-22 situation. The only solution would be for voters to somehow elect someone who they've never heard of, who basically can't campaign, and just hope that that new elected official is both honest and effective. And then that has to happen in a couple hundred other elections at roughly the same time.

Re:We can learn from this

[Tablizer]

They're all crooks, and should be thrown in jail.

They are just playing by the rules of the system, as is. Not sure you can fault them for that. We are mostly a plutocracy. If you don't want the players to play by the rules, then end the damned plutocracy.

Unfortunately, they've used their well-honed corporate marketing skills to dupe most of the population into thinking the fat cat plutocrats are blessed by God to be fat cat plutocrats. Thus, the sheep population won't vote to fix it. I'm not suggesting at all we make a 180-degree U-turn the other way, but Karl Marx did warn about this slippery slope: the rich are getting richer, and thus have more money to buy laws that keep allowing them to get yet richer to buy even more laws...

Slippery slope claims are usually considered a fallacy in debates, but for the past 35 years we've been "sloping" that way. Slippery slopes are generally considered a fallacy if they haven't actually happened yet, but they are no longer a fallacy if they're actually happening or have happened.

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

When was the last time you saw a politician do jail time?

The first one that comes to mind is Rod Blagojevich, but I expect I could find more recent examples.

Re:We can learn from this

[Jason Levine]

And if they aren't outright bought out, then they are offered cushy jobs post-retirement, often lobbying the very people they used to work with. The revolving door goes round and round.

Re:We can learn from this

[poetmatt]

Considering they used their money to make this into the system, I see absolutely no reason to simply say "it's okay, they're using the rules they created".

That's 100% wrong and dishonest.

Re:We can learn from this

[Sarius64]

How else do we get multi-lifetime copyrights supposedly established to support the artists? Crooks, stealing the public's legacy one MPAA bribe at a time.

Re:We can learn from this

[gstoddart]

They are just playing by the rules of the system, as is. Not sure you can fault them for that.

Oh, horseshit.

Corporations bought and fucking paid for those rules. That doesn't make them good.

It means the politicians have been corrupt long enough that idiots think that a broken and corrupt system is just "the rules of the system".

Eat the rich, and shoot the politicians if this is the fucking status quo.

Re:We can learn from this

[TheRaven64]

The US political funding rules allow any organisation to buy 'issue' adverts that aren't specifically pushing a single candidate, with no limits. Why not use this in the next election to run prime-time ads listing exactly which corporate interests each candidate has taken bribes from and their amounts, and the legislation that it bought. If taking money from certain organisations starts costing more votes than it buys, then politicians will be a bit less eager to take it...

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

They are just playing by the rules of the system, as is. Not sure you can fault them for that.

And who created the rules? Who can change them, but doesn't?

Re:We can learn from this

[Jason Levine]

Finally, you might say, "Well why not just vote those bribe-takers out of office?" The problem there is that the bribes are used to buy elections. Without that money, you can't run ads, you can't get on TV, and you can't even participate in the public debate.

Not only that, but those in power can change the district lines to make sure they remain in power. Congressional re-election rates are over 80 percent. You have to go back to 1980 for the lowest rate and that was 55% in the Senate. So even at the worst, a Congressman had a better-than-a-coin-flip chance of staying in office. In some elections, you would have better luck betting on 4 numbers on a Roulette wheel than you would betting against a random incumbent.

Re:We can learn from this

[pastafazou]

Good luck fixing it...all those that are in the game, don't want the game to change, and will do everything they can to prevent someone who wants to change it from getting in. Read this to see how far they'll go: District Attorney, Judge, and Police force persecuting political foes. Fascism is alive and well.

Re:We can learn from this

[hey!]

And what's more trying to restrict the flow of money has the perverse but economically predictable effect of making influence cheap to buy. The typical congressman spends five hours a day in fundraising related activities, and two hours a day doing constituent services. That alone should tell you who they really work for.

If you banned political contributions outright, then congressmen would just spend *more* time trying to drum up support for people to spend on their behalf. There's really only one way to eliminate the corrupting influence of money in politics: public financing. I don't particularly like that option, but it's the only one that is guaranteed to work, the only way to restore the status quo ante, before the rise of mass media campaigning, where elections were entirely a matter between the politicians running and the voters.

Re: We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

You picked the wrong guy. Batman does not assassinate people in their sleep. Call Ra's Al Ghoul.

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

And look how the Republicans fight against the Democrats. That must mean one of them is corrupt and the other is not!

Re:We can learn from this

[GerardAtJob]

ahahah

OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE RESPONSE TO
Use the State of the Union to call for a constitutional amendment to get big money out of politics.
You're right. Let's continue this conversation.
In this year's State of the Union address, President chose to prioritize an economic agenda to create jobs and invest in infrastructure, clean energy, and education. He also called for a National Commission to address the long lines and other chronic problems at the polls every election.

But that doesn't mean fighting the influence of money in politics isn't important. In fact, President Obama agrees with you.

That's a point he made clear last fall, saying: "Over the longer term, I think we need to seriously consider mobilizing a constitutional amendment process to overturn Citizens United (assuming the Supreme Court doesn't revisit it). Even if the amendment process falls short, it can shine a spotlight of the super-PAC phenomenon and help apply pressure for change."

Now, it's going to take more than a response to this petition or a paragraph in a future State of the Union to get this done. Our founders quite consciously made amending the U.S. Constitution a difficult piece of business.

That's where you come in. If this is a fight that motivates you, you need to work for it. Keep making your voice heard and encourage others to take a stand against limitless corporate spending in our elections. And speak out in favor of changes that will reduce the influence of special interests.

There's a reason that this President has worked to make his administration the most open and accountable in history. He's trying to lead by example, and change Washington from the ground up.

That's why he banned lobbyists or lobbying organizations from giving gifts to appointees in the executive branch. That's why he directed agencies to stop appointing lobbyists to federal boards and commissions. That's why lobbyists aren't allowed to work in the Administration on matters or agencies they had lobbied in the preceding two years. And that's why appointees aren't allowed to lobby the Administration once they leave.

It's why our visitor logs, daily public schedules, staff salaries, and ethics waivers are all posted on the White House website. And it's why we've created a program like We the People -- to allow citizens like you to write to us directly and build support to compel our response.

If we want to get this done, we all have plenty of work to do in the months and years ahead. So let's keep at it.

Re:We can learn from this

[rs79]

It's more than just them, look up the word "ICANN".

Re:We can learn from this

[Crashmarik]

If you take money out of the campaigns what are you left with ? The media just directly picking the winners ?

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always said we should make our politicians wear their sponsors' logos on their suits, just like the nascar drivers.

Re:We can learn from this

[SrLnclt]

Indeed... I believe the count is 4 our of the last 8 Illinois Governors (dating back to the '60's) ended up in federal prison. I'm amazed they found anyone to run for the office last year - it's like a 50/50 chance if you are elected that you will end up incarcerated. And that's just counting the ones doing stuff openly enough to get caught...

Re:We can learn from this

[nine-times]

Good point. And then someone is going to say, "Well why don't we just change the laws that allow incumbants to redraw district lines to improve their reelection prospects?" It's the same catch-22 problem. The people who have the power to make it illegal are the same people redrawing the lines.

And note that this kind of thing isn't new. The Ancient Greeks complained about the same kinds of catch-22 problems regarding politics.

Re: We can learn from this

[Grishnakh]

Here again, we have the whole "lesser of two evils" problem, or in Batman's case, "do we choose not-evil but ineffectual, or evil and over-effectual?" Batman won't do anything to the politicians because he doesn't believe in killing people, just delivering them to justice, and other than knocking some heads, he's completely powerless when the justice system itself is too corrupt or powerless to act. Ras Al Ghul would be effective, but too effective, since he'd simply poison the entire city and destroy everything. RAG doesn't believe in any kind of surgical strike, he believes in completely destroying a civilization when it's too corrupt.

Re:We can learn from this

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

You might ask, "Well if we know what the problem is, we can fix it! Why not close the loopholes?" The fundamental problem there is that the people in position to close the loopholes are the ones receiving the bribes, and they want the bribes to keep coming. The only thing that could get them to change the law would be if their corporate overlords, i.e. those providing the bribes, bribed them to make it illegal. The problem with that is that the corporate overlords also want the bribes to remain legal, so that they can influence public officials.

I don't remember the exact wording, but I read somewhere where I think a lawyer said something like this - "You pass a law. I use a hole in your law. You plug the hole. I drill a hole in your plug." This is the real reason why the loopholes can't ever be closed. Lawyers, which is what most politicians are, are simply too good at finding ways around everything.

Finally, you might say, "Well why not just vote those bribe-takers out of office?" The problem there is that the bribes are used to buy elections. Without that money, you can't run ads, you can't get on TV, and you can't even participate in the public debate.

I think the real problem is that probably about 70-75% of the US electorate votes only on party affiliation and nothing else in a general election and they simply won't ever vote for a candidate of the other party. This is the reason why people keep getting re-elected to Congress once they get in as long as they don't commit outright crimes. The money does help in primaries and in rare general elections that are up for grabs. I've never voted in an election for the US House that was actually competitive. I've lived in both solid Democrat and Republican districts at various times and none of those elections ever had a candidate from the less popular political party have a real chance to win.

Re: We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

[..] he believes in completely destroying a civilization when it's too corrupt.

That the one we need. #KillThemAll

Re:We can learn from this

[davester666]

1/2 of them said "no" to the wrong guy.

Re:We can learn from this

[CrimsonAvenger]

There's really only one way to eliminate the corrupting influence of money in politics: public financing.

So, you would repeal the First Amendment?

The only way "public financing" will eliminate the corrupting influence of money in politics is if you forbid ALL political advertising not paid for by public funding. Which pretty much puts paid to the First Amendment, since as long as it exists *I* (or you) could buy an ad for my (your) favorite politician. As could Bill Gates, Elon Musk, [Hollywood actor of your choice], etc.

For that matter, news organizations would have to be forbidden from covering politics, since just mentioning a pol's name gives him name recognition for his campaign (the incumbency advantage).

So, your proposal is that we eliminate the First Amendment, then give Congress control over the formerly Free Press (how else are you going to handle public financing other than laws (passed by politicians) describing in great and insulting detail exactly what is legal and what isn't). Yeah, nothing could possibly go wrong there...

Re:We can learn from this

[MitchDev]

Too bad both parties are equally corrupt and bribe-taking scum.

Re:We can learn from this

[lorinc]

Why is it broken? These rules are the consequence of human behavior at a global scale. As long as the global human behavior is to increase the maximum individual achievable wealth, instead of increasing some sort of minimum collective value, I bet you will see these kind of rules emerging. Which means they are not broken, but rather a good solution to the problem.

I was born in East-Germany, where people did a pacific revolution to free themselves from a dictatorship. That's what your history book says. The truth is, people wanted to have the opportunity to get rich which is not possible in a socialist country. Some of them did eventually, but the vast majority is now poorer than they were before, having a high unemployment rate, mini-jobs with low income, etc. Are people happier by now? Frankly, I'm not sure. But as soon as basic needs are fulfilled (home, food, day activity), people tend to be very sad if they don't see any opportunity of growth. So maybe they are indeed happier by now, even if basic needs are less achieved.

You have to accept that we are a competitive species, not a collaborative one. We may do things together, but only in the perspective of self-fulfillment. It's as if individual growth is hard-coded in our genes. Maybe not you, certainly not me, but in average, yes.

Re:We can learn from this

[frost_knight]

I worked as a *nix administrator for the House of Representatives for a number of years. The saying on the hill was "as long as you're not caught in bed with a live boy or a dead girl".

Re:We can learn from this

[Spy Handler]

I was born in East-Germany, where people did a pacific revolution to free themselves from a dictatorship.

Small vocabulary lesson: although in theory the word pacific and peaceful mean the same thing, in reality English speakers would not use the word pacific in that way. Because if you say pacific, people think you're talking about the big ocean. So you'd wanna say peaceful revolution or bloodless revolution. Hope this helped ;)

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey look it's Rei.

Oh sorry, you had me convinced there for a second.

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

ICOULD but IWONT

Re:We can learn from this

[hey!]

The only way "public financing" will eliminate the corrupting influence of money in politics is if you forbid ALL political advertising not paid for by public funding. Which pretty much puts paid to the First Amendment, since as long as it exists *I* (or you) could buy an ad for my (your) favorite politician

Under my proposal you'd still be free to do anything with your money that you now do. You can give money to your favorite politician, although that would trigger a matching grant. You could take out a totally independent ad which would not trigger a matching grant, but experience has shown that such ads tend to reflect the political positions of the purchaser rather than the marketing message of the candidate.

Would rich people still be more influential under my proposal? Sure. I am not proposing the establishment of an egalitarian paradise; I am proposing throwing up roadblocks to government by cronyism.

Could the system be gamed in certain ways? Probably. The idea is not to make the purchasing of influence impossible, any more than safes make theft impossible. But as with a safe, the idea is to make misconduct more expensive, cumbersome, and risky.

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

Easier solution: anyone can donate any amount of money to any politician, provided the donation is and remains completely anonymous. How could a politician award favors if they have no idea where their money is coming from? If a candidate is saying things people (or corporations) like to hear, they'll get money. If not, then not. Furthermore, a politician would be unable to differentiate a million $10 donations or one $10 million donation. Steep penalty for exposure of anonymity - say 10X fines for both the funder and the fundee. Problem solved.

Re:We can learn from this

[lorinc]

Thanks! I'll try to remember that.

Re:We can learn from this

[Fire_Wraith]

Money isn't speech. It's a fallacy to think that it is.

Money is a surrogate for production and economic value associated with that production. It is used to represent that value, in lieu of bartering the goods themselves directly. It is not speech, nor is the spending of it on something 'speech.' Buying an ad is not 'speech' any more than buying a megaphone so you can shout over the rest of the people around you is 'speech.'

And that's the problem. Money isn't used to express someone's opinion, it's used to drown out the opinions of others. We need to stop enshrining protections for that in law.

Re:We can learn from this

[hey!]

That works great for really small donations, but those aren't the problem. If I had a ten million dollar donation chances are I know damn well where it came from.

Re:We can learn from this

[g0bshiTe]

The Constitution does give the people the right to remove power from the gov, of course history tells when those that have that power will not give it up freely.

Re:We can learn from this

[CrimsonAvenger]

And that's the problem. Money isn't used to express someone's opinion, it's used to drown out the opinions of others. We need to stop enshrining protections for that in law.

Yeah, that's what I said - repeal the First Amendment.

How else are you going to prevent me from talking about MY favorite candidate? How about David Muir? How are you going to prevent, say, President Obama from mentioning a candidate he likes in a speech?

Any of those things raises name recognition of a candidate, and thus his chances of being elected. Preventing any of those things requires the First Amendment to vanish.

For that matter, a pol can just pass a big important bill in Congress to get his name in the news. But his challenger doesn't have that option, so you increase the incumbency advantage while removing the First Amendment.

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

The first thing you learn when working for a corporation, even on the lowest step of the ladder, is how to cover your ass.

Re:We can learn from this

[CrimsonAvenger]

Under my proposal you'd still be free to do anything with your money that you now do. You can give money to your favorite politician, although that would trigger a matching grant.

Does a challenger get a matching grant every time a politician gets his name on a new law? If Dianne Sawyer (yeah, I know she's history, but she used to be an anchor for one of the big three) mentions a politician in a news story, do any and all of his opponents get handed some money?

How about if I put together a really bad ad for my opponent, do I get a matching grant to put together good ads for myself then? If not, why not?

How do you decide who to give matching funds to? Major political Parties only, anyone who announces a campaign, what? Can I announce my campaign, then collect a check every time the incumbent makes a speech? That would be a pretty cool way to make a living, don't you think?

If you really want to reduce the influence of money in politics, the thing to do is reduce the power of political office. If a politician controls trillions of dollars every year, there's a vast incentive to get a piece of that by bribing him. And there's no way to remove that incentive other than to remove the power that makes the bribe the best way of getting something done.

Re:We can learn from this

[jd2112]

Indeed... I believe the count is 4 our of the last 8 Illinois Governors (dating back to the '60's) ended up in federal prison. I'm amazed they found anyone to run for the office last year - it's like a 50/50 chance if you are elected that you will end up incarcerated. And that's just counting the ones doing stuff openly enough to get caught...

No, Illinois has just implemented the term limits that everyone wants: 2 terms: 1 in office, 1 in prison.

Re:We can learn from this

[Enry]

Federal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
State and Local: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....

Re:We can learn from this

[RoknrolZombie]

If fascism is alive and well, it is because WE allow it to be so.

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes that power is called an election. We have one at least every two years at the federal level.

Re:We can learn from this

[RoknrolZombie]

This, and the respective Logo's should be appropriately sized compared to the size of the donation.

Re:We can learn from this

[hey!]

You're quibbling irrelevant or implementation details. A lawmaker sponsoring legislation is part of his record; it has nothing to do with influence peddling.

The kind of dirty tricks advertising you warn about is possible today, so I don't see this as a point of objection. The solution is an orthogonal approach to combatting influence peddling --transparency.

As foe the matching fund criteria, the need to set them is not an objection to the scheme either. You can set them however you like. You could do it on number of signatures (X% of the registered voters); or number of distinct donors (Y% of registered voters). Whatever your goal is for the candidate pool, you can set the criteria accordingly. As long as the candidates of the two major parties always qualify it won't be worse than the status quo.

If you really want to reduce the influence of money in politics, the thing to do is reduce the power of political office. If a politician controls trillions of dollars every year, there's a vast incentive to get a piece of that by bribing him. And there's no way to remove that incentive other than to remove the power that makes the bribe the best way of getting something done.

I actually respect the principles behind this sentiment, but the only way to reduce the power of political office is by getting the politicians to vote to do that. As long as political power remains a valuable, readily purchased commodity then more power will accumulate in the government.

Of course I realize that my proposal *also* requires politicians to vote out the status quo. At least it's marginally more likely that they will vote out an aspect of the status quo that is miserable and degrading to them than they are to vote to marginalize themselves. After willingness to deliver favorable legislation to monied interest is no longer a qualifier for holding office, then there is a possibility of reducing the power of political office if that's what voters want.

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

Then maybe the problem is there is that the politicians have to be salesmen to do their job.

In the real world we hire (or we should) the appropriate person to the task at hand. If the task is "selling yourself for money" then is it any wonder why DC is full of whores?

Personally I think they should get paid minimum wage, you know, as servants of the citizenry and all.

Re:We can learn from this

[HornWumpus]

You might want to check your theory against the history of the 20th century.

Politicians get _worse_ when they stop having to hustle for contributions. Take money out of the picture and all they have left is power to suck up to.

You dismiss as 'implantation details' the fact that your plan would set they current two parties in concrete.

Plan rejected. Will make things worse, not better.

Re:We can learn from this

[HornWumpus]

If people are free to volunteer their time then you can't object to volunteering money as a surrogate. Time==money.

Re:We can learn from this

[cjb658]

Not the artists, but the labels and owners.

Re:We can learn from this

[Accordion Noir]

In Communist Canada we have rules about media coverage of elections within certain days of the voting. We don't have "the 1st Amendment," but the elections don't seem less free than the terribly broken examples in the US. (I'm going for duel citizenship so I criticize both.)

There are so many examples from around the world that could improve the American electoral process. If we had a system that reflected the majority in a sane way, we might easily implement some of them. Oh, wait...

Re:We can learn from this

[Accordion Noir]

Anybody remember "Randomocracy?" Back in the 1980s William Brown's http://www.wmlbrown.com/index.... comic "President Bill" presented a candidate who was elected by random draw from the total voting population. He seemed to do about as good as the guys we pay billions to elect now.

I'm still waiting for his proposed, "Vast Inland Sea" environmental restoration project.

Re:We can learn from this

[DrJimbo]

Great post! But I take exception to this statement especially in the current context where people think it is wrong that we have the best government money can buy:

You have to accept that we are a competitive species, not a collaborative one. We may do things together, but only in the perspective of self-fulfillment. It's as if individual growth is hard-coded in our genes. Maybe not you, certainly not me, but in average, yes.

I agree that in general we all want to improve our lot in life. I disagree that it is built into our genes for us to screw over our fellow humans in the process. It has been documented in books such as Mutual Aid: a factor of Evolution that cooperation within a species is a much more effective (and prevalent) strategy than competition within a species.

In addition, even if some mild forms of competition within a species are beneficial, I totally reject the carte-blanche you offer to even the most sadistic and psychopathic behavior in the name of "my genes made me do it".

If your assumption that we are for the most part all psychopaths is true then we as a species are completely and totally fucked. The overwhelming evidence is the vast majority of humans are not psychopaths. The problem is that almost literally by hook and by crook we have developed a system where psychopaths tend to rise to positions of leadership in corporations and they have used their power to almost totally subvert the government to their antisocial whims.

If you look up the definition of "psychopath":

a personality disorder characterized by enduring antisocial behavior, diminished empathy and remorse, and disinhibited or bold behavior.

you will see that what you described is psychopathic behavior. While this aberration may have a genetic component, that doesn't make it right; it doesn't mean it is widespread; and it certainly doesn't mean we should develop a system that puts psychopaths in positions of great power.

Re:We can learn from this

[dinfinity]

You have to accept that we are a competitive species, not a collaborative one. We may do things together, but only in the perspective of self-fulfillment. It's as if individual growth is hard-coded in our genes. Maybe not you, certainly not me, but in average, yes.

We have to accept that it is in our biology, but civilization is impossible without trying to curb it.

It is also in our nature to kill, steal, and maim. Should we then say: "Well, apparently we should allow that or even cater for it."?
The answer is no.

Many things that enable civilization are based on preventing our selfish and animalistic biological nature from manifesting itself. Laws and customs we introduced because we rationally analysed a current situation and said: "Fuck, this shit isn't working. In fact, it's terrible and it is hurting the effectiveness of our society. We need to change it."

Don't get me wrong, I'm a firm believer in motivating people to be constructive members of society. Harnessing our inherent selfishness is a necessary part of that. But to elevate it to some holy and untouchable status is just folly. If anything, it's quite plain to see that in it's unbridled form it leads to simple tragedy of the commons, with those vying for money, power and influence collectively hurting society for their personal gains (you might remember a banking crisis not that long ago, which is a prime example).

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed... I believe the count is 4 our of the last 8 Illinois Governors (dating back to the '60's) ended up in federal prison. I'm amazed they found anyone to run for the office last year - it's like a 50/50 chance if you are elected that you will end up incarcerated. And that's just counting the ones doing stuff openly enough to get caught...

And this, children, is a perfect example of how to misuse statistics...

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

"looking to get rich" and "opportunity of growth" are not the same. People don't want to be rich by having lots of money, they want recognition, they want love, they want personal achievement. Just look at John Rawls to see that we barely want a world with inequality! Once basic needs are fulfilled people are not looking to get rich, they are looking to grow, and that doesn't require wealth but time and opportunity. I don't spend most of my free time programming simply in the hope I will strike it rich, I do it for the enjoyment of building something and the desire to challenge myself in the process. Wealth is never the actual goal, it is what money represents to that person that is the real drive and they are incapable or unwilling to investigate further to admit their true desire.

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

Not in Australia, at least we are far better than the USA for now. We have some pretty pathetic politicians, we are rapidly declining, but it isn't at a level like the USA. Our political pay packets are some of the largest in the world. Maybe come back in 5 years and we'll be worse though, we already torture innocent people seeking freedom ( one up from the USA torturing alleged bad guys there! ) and our racism is growing nicely.

Re: We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, I bet if I did any of that stuff I would receive massive penalties. "Oh you got some cocaine? Well, a little probation will do you fine!" "You misused 750k dollars for your own gain? No problem, just two years in minimum security prison. It's fine."

Re:We can learn from this

[jbo5112]

We already have some public financing of elections. The republicans and democrats have ensured that no one else can have it, and they keep pushing a remarkably similar agenda for all the disagreement they show us.

Re:We can learn from this

[Tablizer]

Humans will go where the carrots and sticks lead them. That's just human nature. I believe it would be better to focus on fixing the system to reduce the chance of carrots and sticks pushing human leaders to act a certain way.

For example, a constitutional amendment stripping companies of most person-like legal "rights", directly limiting campaigning contributions to small amounts, and strong anti-trust enforcement.

"Bad human; stop acting like a talking ape!" -- Uh, but we ARE talking apes.

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

Precisely. People naturally yearn to grow but they also naturally desire to cooperate with those around them. The problem is not with wealth and power per se, but with the system which affords power to the few that most lack a natural compassion for their fellow man.

The problem I see is that so many people believe the system as it is now to be better than any conceivable alternative. Even otherwise very intelligent people can be guilty of a bias which overlooks the weaknesses of the current system (or attributes them to mankind directly) while weedling out the potential faults of alternative forms of social order, no matter how far-fetched. I can empathise here because I used to be the same way: "Democracy isn't perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than every conceivable alternative". I no longer believe this though and consider a number of alternatives to have significant advantages.

These proponents of "Democracy is the best possible" apply social pressure to others to cast votes in general elections. They too readily equate "criminal" with "wrongdoer" and socially reject such people (they may not agree with a particular law, but they do agree that they should submit themselves to that law because it was created in a Democracy). A few might even report an aquaintance's tax evasion to the state! In general, very many people independently and voluntarily give the psycopaths that rule them far more power than they would have otherwise.

They say: "All that is necessary for evil to triumphy is for good men to do nothing". I claim that were good men to do nothing, "evil" would not triumph at all. Good men must actively and voluntarily support evil for evil to have any chance of coming to rule the world (as it does today).

Re:We can learn from this

[lorinc]

We have to accept that it is in our biology, but civilization is impossible without trying to curb it.

It is also in our nature to kill, steal, and maim. Should we then say: "Well, apparently we should allow that or even cater for it."?
The answer is no.

That's exactly the reply I was hoping to get, and you should be moded up.

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

How about we not say Sony (or other corporations) did it, but actually name those individuals orchestrating these bribes and those cutting the checks?

If someone have done something like that,they would have removed one of the powers of corporations.

Re:We can learn from this

[skegg]

There's no way the politicians will change the law so they can no longer get paid

They may fight us, but I refuse to roll-over and play dead.

I'm moderately active in trying to raise awareness of such practices:
    - I contact politicians and express my dissatisfaction
    - I contact advocacy groups / unions / etc and show my support
    - I add comments on popular Australian newspaper forums, aiming to raise awareness and expose the hypocrisy and moral corruption of our politicians
        (if nothing else, I can at least sow disdain with the current parties)
    - I contact journalists and give them suggestions for stories that will also raise awareness of corrupt practices
    - I share facts with family, friends and colleagues -- again, to sow disdain with the current setup (conscious not to become overbearing)

And I always make it clear that I loathe both major parties in Australia. It pains me when I see my fellow Australians blindly support one party and vilify the other: both parties are horrible! I believe we need to weaken the major parties (which necessarily means more smaller parties) so that they adjust their stance and truly serve the public.

In the future, I'm hoping to mobilise my neighbours into getting active and seeking to participate in our local (municipal) politics. So many local seats are so darn marginal, one only needs to influence a couple of hundred people to change the outcome.

Yes, I'm very hopeful (naive? deluded?) but I've made some waves, and will continue to.

Please don't lose hope. Become a thorn in their side!

Re:We can learn from this

[sjames]

It's broken because it subverts democratic representation and allows the already fantastically wealthy to get a bit more wealthy at the expense of moving everyone else closer to a situation like East Germany before the fall.

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to accept that we are a competitive species, not a collaborative one

We are both. You have friends and colleagues don't you?

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

And where is that legislated? Certainly not in the minimum wage acts, and it's provably not for "professionals" such as IT workers.

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

John Banks, a New Zealand politician, was recently convicted for provably breaking up large donations from single donors, so that he didn't have to declare where they came from.

Being the nasty little weasel that he is, he's fighting it, because he's rich and the laws don't apply to him, you see. When he was convicted, he said "Into every life a little rain must fall." Complete dismissal of the fact that he had committed a crime, been caught and punished for it, and shifting of the blame to "bad things happen" type events.

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

You appear to be suggesting that opinion-influencing campaign contributions should be allowed to shape politics in the US.

Re:We can learn from this

[Crashmarik]

LOL "Should"

What makes you think anything you could do would stop it ?
What would you replace it with that's any better ?

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

unless they aren't American, actual English speakers would have no trouble understanding

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

And who the fuck is going to throw them in jail? Think for a second before posting that, please.

Re:We can learn from this

[mrex]

There's no way the politicians will change the law so they can no longer get paid ... it's simply too lucrative.

Lucrative like Enron. Only in the very short term.

Re:We can learn from this

[Visarga]

Politicians always served the money, not the common people. Regular folks are used every 4 years to rubber stamp one of two candidates and legitimize the system for another period.

Re:We can learn from this

[Larryish]

You are beautiful and brilliant.

Re:We can learn from this

[Larryish]

What you aren't seeing in the OP's intent is this:

Even alliances are done with the potential benefit of each certain individual in the mind of each certain individual.

Morons use people as a short-term source of benefit.

Brilliant people realize that there is value in the collective, in the form of burger flippers and shelf stock people and other ubermensch.

All roads lead to Rome.

Re:We can learn from this

[steelfood]

I think you've identified the problem quite well. I don't think the carte blanche "public financing" is a sufficient solution however. If you look at countries with public financing, it's not as if money is any less of a problem in their elections. The biggest wallet is still the strongest competitor. Even without PACs and SuperPACs buying up the airwaves, even if everybody knew everything via the most democratic form of communication, i.e. Internet, there are still numerous ways for money to enter the election (in the latter case, via astroturfing).

Running for office is currently a popularity contest. In fact, the very mechanism is called "popular vote". The best person doesn't necessarily win. Rather, the most popular person does. Popularity comes about in multiple ways, but in the end, it boils down to marketing. Marketing is not necessarily telling the best-sounding lies (though it's likely the case considering these are politicians we're talking about). Marketing also involves raising awareness and manipulating the narrative. Any campaign is dead on arrival without a good marketer with a good marketing strategy, knowing who to say what to when.

A good marketer requires money. Or promises of benefits. We're all intelligent people here. We all are talented. We all command a price (though money is but one type of payment), and understand and implicitly acknowledge that the price of our talent is higher than the price of those with inferior talent, but also lower than those with superior talent. There's no reason to believe that this does not apply to marketers.

The only way to remove money from politics is to remove popularity from the process. There are many ways to blunt the impact of money (public financing being one such, spreading money around more evenly is another), but so long as there is value in talent, money and power will remain correlated.

Now, as for the methods of reducing money's influence in a popular election, those would be public financing, reducing income disparity (the two I previously mentioned), improving education, and democratizing communication. Tying the number of representatives to a fixed population size (rather than fixing the number of representatives and floating the population represented) will also eliminate other corrupt practices like gerrymandering. Going to a ranked voting system would also help, but that's more to eliminate the two-party dominance. These last two reforms would indirectly reduce the amount spent per party though they would not reduce the total spent nor the impact per amount.

Re:We can learn from this

[Vitriol Angst]

This is nothing to be ashamed of,.. for instance, in Georgia, we haven't caught any of ours yet -- and no manhunt seems planned.

I mean; Zell Miller and Nathan Deal -- who left a business with $78 million missing?

Convicting Governors seems like a very enlightened and promising thing. Of course, it could be selective prosecution where if someone doesn't play ball they get nailed. New Jersey got rid of an awesome governor over a sexual affair with another man, and replaced him with King Pin from the Daredevil comics, but with a poorer sense of fashion.

Re:We can learn from this

[HornWumpus]

Far better? You sir are on crack.

You can't even buy uncensored video games, much less decent guns. Tell me how free you all are.

Re:We can learn from this

[Anonymous Coward]

Brilliant people realize that there is value in the collective, in the form of burger flippers and shelf stock people and other ubermensch.

I suspect you meant untermensch (and not ubermensch).

Re:We can learn from this

[lsatenstein]

Seems to me like this is a pretty solid way to identify most of what's wrong with our political structure so that we can fix it.

Unfortunately it will probably just be used as a "how to" manual.

WHY IS IT that other countries have no problems as pronounced by the USA. Why is it only in the USA the 0.1 percent 1/10th of one percent can generate so much corrupted responses.

And what happened to the original For the people, by the people, related to justice for people. There is something rotten in the USA

Re:We can learn from this

[Larryish]

No, I meant uber.

You can never let the subhumans know that they are subhuman.

Celebrate their every achievement with praise.

Hel-lo
De-troit steel mill worker
Let me thank you for your time
You work a 40-hour week for a living
Just a sendin' on down the line

Any law is for sale

[Opportunist]

Politicians are dependent on campaign contributions. And as long as they are, they will be little more than corporate whores.

I think it's time to get a crowdfunding scheme going. Maybe we can at least buy one congressman who's working for "the people".

Re:Any law is for sale

[Anonymous Coward]

... working for "the people" ...

Why are many US politicians against homosexuality, abortion, sex education? There's no profit in homosexuality. There's profit in abortion and it can be a repeat business, just like pregnancy. Education can be a slush fund when it's compulsory and a monopoly. Yet, many politicians refuse to provide these services to their constituents and the marketplace. Why? It is a form of vote-buying. Their constituents are more interested in forcing their moral outrage onto others than on ensuring their tax dollars are used to make their communities better. This outrage can extend further to 'gubermint is evil': Where every problem can be solved by a for-profit activity and any government policy to prevent that only harms those outraged constituents: Supposedly costing jobs and 'freedom'. (Freedom which is then sacrificed for the dogma of 'national security'.)

... buy one congressman ...

Then the corporations will buy two politicians, or worse, buy your 'honest' politician. Money cannot be fought with money: Someone, somewhere, sometime, needs to pick a winner and a loser. At the moment, the voters are picking the politicians with the most money, or with the preferred political ties.

Re:Any law is for sale

[swillden]

I think it's time to get a crowdfunding scheme going. Maybe we can at least buy one congressman who's working for "the people".

This is exactly the idea behind Lawrence Lessig's[*] brainchild: MAYDAY PAC. It's a PAC whose mission is to end all PACs (including itself). It raised some money and tried some things in the last election cycle, but didn't succeed. However, Lessig says they learned some lessons and are gearing up to try again.

Check it out at http://mayday.us./

[*] If you don't recognize that name it's because you haven't been paying attention to these issues. Among other things, Lessig is the founder of Creative Commons.

Re:Any law is for sale

[Opportunist]

Voting always reminds me of Zak McCracken when you switch the lever of the stupidity machine. Especially when people say "Oh, party A was so bad, I'm going B next time!"

Been happening since Tipper Gore

[Anonymous Coward]

and the PMRC. Fuckers think they know what's best for you.

Re:So they petition to protect their hard work

[gstoddart]

Is it a democracy when the outcomes are bought by corporate interests by giving money to greedy politicians to influence the outcomes?

I think not.

This is just a corrupt system masquerading as something else.

This is how banana republics operate, but that seems to be where we're going.

Those skeletons don't like daylight

[jandrese]

I guess we know why Wikileaks is under the smear campaign now. These sort of leaks are bound to make some people uncomfortable, although I doubt they will do much in the grand scheme of things. The people who care already suspected, and the people who don't care still don't care. Having some hard evidence to throw in the face of the naysayers helps, but is not likely to change much since they were mostly shills. Not many regular people believe that big corporations are not complicit with political corruption. They just don't know what they can do to fix it, other than hoping that other people elect better politicians (not theirs though, because they love their Congressman).

Re:Those skeletons don't like daylight

[MitchDev]

Seeing as the people who are the biggest part of the problem are the only ones with the power to fix it, the only way it will be fixed is the American Revolution 2.0....

Re:Those skeletons don't like daylight

[Virtucon]

The problem is American Revolution 2.0 will be viewed as a terrorist attack in today's political and cultural environment. It would be better if state governments took the lead to reign in the political issues at the Federal level. I'm not saying that States don't have their own corruption problems but their leverage would be more substantial than that of the general population rather than a bunch of crackpots flying gyrocopters onto the capital mall.

Re:Those skeletons don't like daylight

[MitchDev]

If it isn't swift enough it will be stopped before it can go far is the problem.

Re:Those skeletons don't like daylight

[Virtucon]

agreed but again, where does this get labelled as "insurgency" rather than "patriotism." The ninnies in DC see wound up constituents as the former rather than the latter. Ref: IRS E-mails.

Re:Those skeletons don't like daylight

[HornWumpus]

Because before Wikileaks you needed to download a copy of a torrent client?

This has all been out there. Its just wikileaks doing their weekly publicity whoring.

Post an archive of Wikileaks on Cryptome and forget about them.

Re:Those skeletons don't like daylight

[HornWumpus]

The problem would be any government setup by our current population would undoubtedly be worse than the current one.

If America was a pure democracy we would already be completely over.

Re:Those skeletons don't like daylight

[quintessencesluglord]

We've learned a fair bit in the few centuries this country has been around that honestly we could easily create a better system to replace the one we have now. If nothing else, we've identified the problems with the current system.

Oh, and let's not forget pure democracy was choosing people at random to be representatives, and required voters to perform some type of civil service (in Athens case, military service) before they could vote.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

There is no doubt in my mind that would be several orders of magnitude improvement over what we have now.

Re:Those skeletons don't like daylight

[dryeo]

Well American Revolution I was a total failure, I don't think anything changed in the government of Great Britain. It did morph into a successful war of American Secession though with the American people going their own way from the people and government of Great Britain.
The second war of American Secession was a failure, and that was a pretty clear line with the southern states deciding to form their own government and the northern states deciding to make a stronger federal government.
Now, it might work if the States can agree that some of them can go their separate ways, which would mean a constitutional amendment, but plain old revolutions, especially violent ones, hardly ever actually result in improvement for the common person.
Your best bet might be to follow the advice of your founding fathers and have another Constitutional Convention and write a better Constitution.

Re:Those skeletons don't like daylight

[HornWumpus]

Are you kidding me? The biggest problem is that very near 50% of our population is already hooked to the government tit one way or another. No way they would ever vote to decrease their benes. Government power would only grow.

Any new government would be BIGGER and worse. Perhaps some regions could do OK, then take over the failed ones in a generation or two.

Re:So they petition to protect their hard work

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

No.
What you have here is Government for Special-Interest Groups.
The ones who spend the most are ones in danger of being obsolete - owners of coal mines for example. There is no correlation between "working hard" and increasing influence this way.

Re:So they petition to protect their hard work

[alphatel]

Big deal. Everyone does it. You can bet that Google is out there arguing that all of the content should be free so they can sell more ads alongside it. And you can bet that the unions are looking for political influence to protect their hard work too. It's called living in a democracy.

I wouldn't have a problem with the whole thing if our taxes weren't the linchpin in enabling the whole process. Seems anti-democratic..

Say it ain't so!

[Anonymous Coward]

What a shame that such a fine upstanding company like Sony got hacked. LOL

Hypocrites

[Anonymous Coward]

Companies can lawfully bribe political office holders to write legislation to benefit their companies. Yet Federal employees are prohibited from offering time to participate in election activities. There are so many things that are broken about our system of government

Re:Hypocrites

[Akaihiryuu]

It's broken but it's intentional. The people in charge want things the way they are, that's how plutocracies roll.

Re:So they petition to protect their hard work

[JustNiz]

>> Big deal.

Actually I think it IS a big deal that the most powerful country in the world has a political system that literally requires the people running it to be blatantly corrupt.

Re:So they petition to protect their hard work

[MitchDev]

No, it's not a democracy, it's a plutocracy

Sony thinks of the children...

[Anonymous Coward]

On the campaign to force US ISPs to outright block sites from the public, here's part of the strategy:

* Building the record (and telling the story) that the sorts of sites at issue are dangerous. It is not just copyright infringement. Kids are one-click away from identity theft, graphic porn, malware, etc. Parent groups, consumer protection groups and other third parties can be cultivated to speak out against such predatory sites.

Just Hire Politicians for Speeches

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know why anyone gets caught in a bribery scandal these days. It's easiest just to pay a politician an absurd amount of money for a speech. Getting paid $50,000 a couple of times doesn't influence anybody?

(Hiring their relatives is always a safe alternative.)

Criminals all the way down.

[Anonymous Coward]

And the American people seem to only want criminals. No matter what they might protest to the contrary their majority vote speaks louder than words.
And the criminals hear that.
So more criminals.

Political System Works as Designed

[wisnoskij]

Sony Email Hack reveals American Political System works as designed, news at 11.

Cue the mock outrage and political maneuvering designed to invent a scandal.

There is nothing below board with supporting politicians who you agree with, that is representative democracy. Yes there are valid concerns all over the world with now allowing unproportional support. But America allows and embraces people who spend more time campaigning for the politician they support; People who are just more charismatic and better able to sway others to their position; People who have more time or make more time (special interest groups) for supporting their politicians; And finally people who have more money specifically to donate to support their politics. And Corporations as nothing more than groups of individual citizens, are or course allowed to do all of this as well.

Re:Political System Works as Designed

[gstoddart]

And Corporations as nothing more than groups of individual citizens, are or course allowed to do all of this as well.

Of course, my problem with this bullshit statement is it is a complete fucking lie.

This is not groups of individual citizens, this is the CEO and a couple of other executives pushing for what they want.

This has nothing at all to do with the collective will of groups of citizens. This is a handful of people who act as if they're nobly representing the views of groups of citizens.

What they're actually doing it furthering their own interests, at the expense of everybody else, and having it paid for by their shareholders.

Re:Political System Works as Designed

[wisnoskij]

You don't seem to understand. I did not mean that they represent the janitor and the mail lady. I mean they are legal entities that represent the owners of the corporation which is nothing more than a bunch of fancy words around a shared banking account and the grouping of a specific subset of the assets owned by the owners. They are owned either by single individuals, sometimes the CEO, or small groups of individuals. Or in the case of publicly traded companies possibly more with enough shares to matter. The CEO is chosen to represent these owners wishes and if he misrepresents the politics of the owners they have many legal methods to straighten that mess out. "the CEO and a couple of other executives" are 100% accountable to the owners.

Corporations are just legal jargon that simplify a system into a metaphor with personification. This group of individuals who have a shared objective and assets that they own together, get represented together as a single individual under the law for tax/financial/accounting/easy of use reasons. But at the end of the day if you get rid of corporation, while it would making managing one far harder without a separate bank account, etc adnausium. They could still easily donate to political causes because the owner(s) would just take some of the money which is theirs and donate it to the politician directly.

Re:Political System Works as Designed

[Zontar The Mindless]

The classic phrase is "film at 11".

Your reasoning is also highly suspect, as it rests on the completely unwarranted assumption that corporate leaders act on the collective will of their employees, or even of their shareholders.

Re:Political System Works as Designed

[wisnoskij]

I meant of their shareholders/owners. How do they not act as the collective will of their owners? The CEO can be bossed around and fired by the owners. They own him, or at least his work as it pertains to their company. Yes, you have to worry abut the same things any democracy worry about. It is possible for the majority to vote against their wishes for a number of psychological reasons, but cooperations do not seem any more vulnerable to decision making problems than any other democratic based grouping of people.

Root Cause

[Tokolosh]

The problem is not that corporations are buying politicians for favors, or that corporations are people, or that politicians are venal.

The problem is that politicians have the power in the first place to hand out favors, to discriminate, to meddle, to obstruct or promote, subsidize or penalize. Remove these powers, and money will evaporate from the influence system and pathological deviants will no longer run for office.

Re:Root Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

The only people who have the power to remove those powers are those who benefit the most from having those powers.

Only a revolution can change anything, and even then, you'll just replace one set of plutocrats with another.

Re:Root Cause

[nine-times]

How would you suggest we create a government without the power to "meddle"? Or are you an anarchist?

Re:Root Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Limit bills in length and number so anyone could read and understand then all.

Re:Root Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem, to begin with, is the flawed idea that voting is the only way to have a republic.

Stop voting. Have a lottery. Choose, by lot, for the electoral period in question, a sub-set of citizens from a larger pool made up of all the citizens considered generally qualified by their fellows to govern for a period of time.

Nobody knows in advance who will be chosen. Everyone knows that if they deal out crap while in office, their fiercest enemy may be in office next term. That's how the lottery works.

It is like jury duty, only for the legislative and executive branches, as well as the judicial branch.

This is not my idea, as some of you may know. The most successful commercial republics in history (Florence, Venice) ran on this basis, and their ideas of freedom ultimately supplied England with many of its own ideas of freedom from the sixteenth century onwards. See Pocock's book, The Machiavellian Moment, for details.

And that is where our founding fathers failed: they chose voting, in the English tradition, rather than lottery, in the Italian tradition, as the best way to choose the people who would hold power.

Term limits won't help--you can still bribe people in advance, and control elections. Only the lottery will actually do the job.

Re:Root Cause

[HornWumpus]

Set a maximum number of laws. Require they repeal one for every new one they want.

Why is Anyone Surprised?

[BCtoo]

Isn't this statism in practice?
After all, a lot of us demand that the gov't have such-n-such power and then we act surprised when they use it and when non-politicians benefit from it.
The more you ask the gov't to do, the more somebody gets screwed. And the more room for corruption.

Think about that next time you yell for gov't to "do something".

Re:Why is Anyone Surprised?

[gstoddart]

Isn't this statism in practice?

Actually, no this isn't statism in practice.

This is what happens when people who like to use the word statism fuck with the system to put power in the hands of corporations at the expense of everybody else.

This is not a natural outcome of having a government.

This is a natural outcome of people who think corporations should be able to do anything they want, and that the "market" will solve all problems.

People who believe corporations should be able to act without regulation have been responsible for making this shit a reality. This has NOTHING to do with the basic premise of having a government, and EVERYTHING to do with greedy bastards subverting the system to tilt it in favor of corporations.

It's the people claiming that corporations and profit seeking are inherently good, and that removing regulations will somehow magically produce good outcomes who caused this mess. Once you set up your system to be beholden to corporate interests, it's pretty much fucked and will descend further into corruption.

Sorry, but the more we pretend that anything corporations do is good, right and proper, the more stupid shit like this happens.

Re: Why is Anyone Surprised?

[jmac_the_man]

The easiest way to keep corporations from buying laws is to keep governments from selling them.

Re: Why is Anyone Surprised?

[dryeo]

Its been tried, the first thing that happens is the corporations or other moneyed interests do is pay the government to expand its power so they can sell laws. In the extreme cases they hire mercenaries to push regime change to get their obedient government.
There has been times in history where the government was weak and the moneyed interests were strong and having private armies fighting for power did not make a better society. At least in a representative democracy the government has to pay some attention to the wants of the people. It's just a shame that propaganda works so well.

Re:Why is Anyone Surprised?

[BCtoo]

Actually, no this isn't statism in practice.

This is what happens when people who like to use the word statism fuck with the system to put power in the hands of corporations at the expense of everybody else.

This is not a natural outcome of having a government.

Power is ALWAYS in the hands of those with money. That is immutable. If it wasn't corporations directly paying for what they want, it would be the company officers and employees.

Greed is part of the human condition, so when you demand that politicians have unlimited power, you end up with unlimited greed. The only solution to this is to limit the power. I suggest starting with a strict interpretation of the Commerce Clause.

Re:So they petition to protect their hard work

[X.25]

Big deal. Everyone does it. You can bet that Google is out there arguing that all of the content should be free so they can sell more ads alongside it. And you can bet that the unions are looking for political influence to protect their hard work too. It's called living in a democracy.

It's called corruption.

Hope it helps.

Re:So they petition to protect their hard work

[BCtoo]

Is it a democracy when the outcomes are bought by corporate interests by giving money to greedy politicians to influence the outcomes?

I think not.

This is just a corrupt system masquerading as something else.

This is how banana republics operate, but that seems to be where we're going.

No, this is how constitutionally unfettered governments act.
Strictly enforcing the Commerce Clause would about the best first step we could take. But of course, that would interfere with someone's gravy train and is why we won't do it.

Against Wikileaks smear campaign on Slashdot

[zedaroca]

I know these leaks didn't come out trough Wikileaks, but since they republished them we are seeing a lot of stuff that nobody was talking about, here are some examples, got from "this day in wikileaks" (bolds are mine):

The US State Department recruited Hollywood to boost “anti-Russian messaging“.
Sony pirated multiple books about hacking, while aggressively campaigning against piracy.
Emails reveal concerns in the US over the secrecy of the TPP talks.
The leaks included a draft of the international VOD and DHE agreement between SONY and Google
Sony received nearly $48 million in tax breaks in 2011 and 2012 after donating to New York Governor Cuomo.
Ben Affleck demanded PBS program “Finding Your Roots” hide his slave-owning ancestor.
Sony changed the Snowden film press release to remove “illegal spying” from the description of NSA’s activities
Sony cameras are used as a part of the guidance system for Israeli rockets bombing Gaza
Sony Chiefs met with David Cameron ahead of the Scottish referendum
Corrupt product placement practices used in Dr. Oz show

I really hope that slashdot doesn't become another place of pro-government propaganda, as that really pisses me off. The information was already out there, but their republishing obviously did us a favor (us that care about government accountability or knowing the truth anyway). We already have enough media outlets against information out there, let's keep this one useful.
I would never know the above facts if it wasn't for them, as 1. I believed the propaganda that it was mostly employee information and didn't feel comfortable downloading it and reading, and 2. it would be too much work for me to look into the e-mails.
Now that I know these stuff I feel like someone more informed than before. I hope the Slashdot community stops being against information.

By the way, since I haven't seen here a link to their press release, with the leaks, here it is.

Re:Against Wikileaks smear campaign on Slashdot

[zedaroca]

I hope the Slashdot community stops being against information.

*fix: "I hope that the part of the slashdot community that is against dissemination of information stops doing so."

I'm very thankful to the slashdot community in overall, there is, still, great stuff here. It would be very hard to find all this stuff on my own.

Re:Against Wikileaks smear campaign on Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Comrade, your red is showing.

What a shock!

[Anonymous Coward]

Politicians can be bought. Who would've believed that?

There is one answer

[neghvar1]

There is one answer that can work. It is a constitutional convention. If 2/3 of the states demand an amendment, then Congress is obligated to open a constitutional convention for the proposed amendment to the Constitution. If 75% of the states approve of the amendment to the Constitution, then that by-passes the US Congress. This is the only way we can create term limits for the US Congress. They will not slit there own throats. Ever since Obamacare, the idea of opening a constitutional convention has been growing among the states to propose a balanced budget amendment. Term limits for US Congress would not be far behind.

Re:There is one answer

[spire3661]

I would really rather prefer we seriously try something else first. Constitutional Conventions can give AND THEY CAN TAKE AWAY.

Re:There is one answer

[suutar]

Next problem (maybe the first problem) is, what is the text of an amendment that would actually fix the problem?

Re:There is one answer

[neghvar1]

and what do you suggest that something else be? Elections won't get rid of the problem. We would simply be trading one corrupt politician for another.

Hmm not even the start multiply those numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

Who knew politicians were bought so cheaply. This cannot be the full story multiply this across all the interested industry party's. All of them play like Sony.

This seems appropriate

[TheDawgLives]

http://www.thewizardsmanse.com/congress-for-sale/

Congress extends copyright every time Disney throws money at them.

The Senate killed patent reform because trial lawyers threw money at them.

Congress is rushing through a bill to kill Net Neutrality because Comcast et al. threw money at them.

The smartest thing they did was to create lobbying loopholes in the bribery laws so they could accept bribes with impunity. The only way to "fix" the system is to outlaw lobbying and pass an amendment overruling SCOTUS' decision that corporations and PACs can spend as much as they want on reelection campaigns.

Unfortunately, the Senate has to approve both of those and when they figure out it means they can't accept bribes any more, they will kill it faster than patent reform.

Re:This seems appropriate

[neghvar1]

Unfortunately, the Senate has to approve both of those and when they figure out it means they can't accept bribes any more, they will kill it faster than patent reform.

Incorrect. The states can open a constitutional convention to create an amendment to ban financially influencing politicians. If 3/4 of the states approve of the amendment, then it by-passes congress and becomes part of our constitution.

Re:This seems appropriate

[neghvar1]

Congress extends copyright every time Disney throws money at them.

The Mickey Mouse Protection Act will reach its end in 2018. You can bet that Disney will dump millions into another extension. One potential source of influence against Disney and other supporters is software publishers. Present copyright terms for software copyright is pointless because of how quickly the programs become obsolete and unusable due to lack of hardware and OS support. Software publishers have no valid reason to extend copyright. Who will still be using Windows XP in 2096 when the copyright expires? Who will be using it in 2066? 2036? No one! The hardware to run the OS will be long gone with exception to a technology museum.

Re:This seems appropriate

[TheDawgLives]

Very astute. However, None of the 27 amendments to the Constitution have been proposed by constitutional convention. Ok, it's time to change that.

Re:This seems appropriate

[neghvar1]

Just because it has not happen yet does not mean it never will. Because of Obamacare, a constitutional convention has been in the works for a balanced budget amendment http://www.sweetliberty.org/st...

Re:This seems appropriate

[Anonymous Coward]

Information for general consumption. A constitutional convention is a free for all smorgasborg to change anything and everything,,,,,,,,, sooooooo what 'do gooders' will be doing this........ http://americanpolicy.org/2011/10/23/constitutional-convention-can-not-be-controlled/. Oh snap.

Re:This seems appropriate

[neghvar1]

There is no perfect system. Personally I'd go with the con-con since it has potential to fix a problem instead wait idly until we become a totalitarian world like in 1984. It is a damned if you do damned if you don't.

Re:This seems appropriate

[radarskiy]

Why would state legislators be any more favorable than federal legislators? Even if the US Congress chooses state conventions for ratification it still requires state legislators to apply.

Re:This seems appropriate

[radarskiy]

"Because of Obamacare, a constitutional convention has been in the works for a balanced budget amendment"

Obamacare prompted state legislatures to start applying 4 years before Barack Obama was born? That's some foresight you don't often see from elected representatives!

wolf-pac.com is an attempt

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem being partly that so many people are poor but believe they are temporarily inconvenienced, therefore don't want the gravy train to leave the station until after they've boarded.

Others indoctrinated into believing that government MUST ALWAYS be bad, and that private industry WILL ALWAYS end up doing the right thing. They'll fight this too.

And yet more just believe that the rich DESERVE to be rich, otherwise they wouldn't be rich. Some even believing god wouldn't let someone become rich if they didn't deserve it.

Re:wolf-pac.com is an attempt

[Argos]

Bottom line of your classification:

(1) Stupid voters.

(2) Stupid voters.

(3) Stupid voters.

More (or maybe the same) stupid voters: the God guns and gays bunch.

the system is corrupt.

[Anonymous Coward]

No fear, thanks to the "Legal Content" clause in the net neutrality rules the government will do its best to prevent us from seeing stuff like this in the future. Notice that the current release of these is being discussed in mainstream news hardly at all, media companies work together to protect each other and the government (both parties) care more about the media companies than they do about the people. Both of our parties who seem so at odds with one another on the surface are actually almost identical.

The system is corrupt...

[JohnnyDoesLinux]

I used to think the Democrats were evil, and Repubs could do no wrong. Wow, They pretty much all suck now.

It reminds me of "wrassling" (WWE) where they work together to make the fight between them look real, and the "actors" don't get hurt, except we get hurt all of the time when done by Washington.

Politics makes me sad now. Voting is like going to the dump, it stinks to high heaven, but I have to do it.

I need a drink

Sony is a multinational corporation

[Required Snark]

Yes, there is a US corporation that is a part of Sony, but ultimately they only have an economic stake in the well being of the United States. When the MPAA-RIAA collude with Sony to pass legislation whose side are they on?

Has anyone looked for their lobbying efforts on 1H-B visas? If Sony is able to buy access that influences legislation, what about TATA? They surely have an economic interest in the number of 1H-B visa jobs available. Do you think they would want to get more visas, and be willing to spend money to make that happen?

Our current campaign contribution system makes it impossible to tell who is spending money to on elections. Even if Sony is not technically breaking the law, does that mean that everyone else from overseas is being equally careful in following the rules?

Could China take advantage of these loopholes? Even if the Chinese government is not, why would Chinese business interests ignore the advantages?

What's in the secret Trans Pacific Partnership treaty? The bill has been given fast track status, so the only vote that will be taken by congress is to either accept it or reject it. Just like the DMCA, there will be no time to review a very complex document. Just look how that turned out.

The lack of transparency in political funding didn't happen by magic. It was a result of a long process that including having a right wing majority on the Supreme Court. Defending the current situation by saying it's legal is another way of sidestepping the issue of corruption in the political process. When there is no accounting for money in politics, the law will obviously be for sale to the highest bidder. In the current global economy that means anybody in the world. Does that seem like a good idea?

Re:So they petition to protect their hard work

[Dragonslicer]

Petitions to the government aren't supposed to be written on $100 bills.

Solution: You need an engaged electorate

[Immerial]

You need people engaged enough to have someone run that supports closing the loophole, support them, vote them into office, and have them pass laws to close the loophole. I'm not sure how you can create an engaged electorate... you need to educate some of them (most folks already generally know that the system is corrupt... even a gut feeling/ wo knowledge of things like this... but some don't), and something to inspire/drive them into action... a charismatic leader? I think that's the magic sauce. I wish people weren't influenced by personality/appearances as much as we are... but we are social animals. I guess all we are waiting for is a charismatic leader (crosses finger and mutters "Please don't be a psycho, please don't be a psycho.")

To be frank, lobbyists donate corp taxes

[WillAffleckUW]

Sorry, this is all due to SCOTUS and the simple cold hard fact that corporate lobbyists donate more to campaigns than corporations pay taxes.

Period.

Corporations aren't People.

They're your Rulers.

And you're their Serfs.

Strike that ... Serfs had rights. You don't.

Re: So they petition to protect their hard work

[nuckfuts]

Actually, it's an oligarchy.

Re:So they petition to protect their hard work

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, it is a democracy. A democracy is where people come out and vote for things. Don't like the things that are voted for? Think the voters are venal or uneducated? Maybe you should rethink your attachment to democracy. But you're not going to do that, are you - democracy makes you feel powerful, like playing the lottery makes you feel rich.

We need more heros ...

[PPH]

... willing to expose all the influence pedalling, back room deals, corruption and other assorted threats to our ideal of a fair and open market and political system.

Keep it up, Kim Jong-un.

Get money out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

wolf-pac.com Get money out of politics!! If we all do it they cant stop us.