4 ms·

If the data is openly available I'm not sure how anybody could stop a foreigner from building whatever they wanted on top of it. You could question the decision

by Zikes 11y ago

If the data is openly available I'm not sure how anybody could stop a foreigner from building whatever they wanted on top of it. You could question the decision to link to it in an official manner, but by that point it just becomes a freedom of speech issue, doesn't it?

SilasX 11y ago
Yeah, but then (per sibling subthread) we're right back to Citizen's United: "So I can spend all the time I want promoting a candidate, but if I use that time to generate money to pay others to promote the candidate, that's prohibited?" Prohibiting "contributions" to candidates, has to infringe on a kind of free speech.
- Zikes 11y ago
  I disagree with the Citizen's United comparison, since donating time towards a campaign can't be pocketed the same way money is. You can't commoditize already-spent labor in that way. Regardless, I think the real solution would be campaign laws similar to the UK's. It's my understanding that each candidate is given the same hard cap on campaign spending, which encompasses everything from advertising to the cost of sleeping on a friend's couch while traveling. Every candidate's expenditures are diligently recorded and easily audited if necessary, and it creates a level playing field.
  - SilasX 11y ago
    >I disagree with the Citizen's United comparison, since donating time towards a campaign can't be pocketed the same way money is. You can't commoditize already-spent labor in that way. But if it displaces another expense, it causes them to pocket the monetary savings from that expense. >Every candidate's expenditures are diligently recorded and easily audited if necessary, and it creates a level playing field. Even the independent expenditures? Like, if someone goes around buying ads because they just like Candidate X so much, does that count against X's budget? Probably not, hence why that approach doesn't quite resolve the Citizen's United issues -- the problem was the advocacy of people unrelated to a campaign.
    - Zikes 11y ago
      Since the labor is an independent expenditure built on public data and the only thing Sanders did was link to it, the expense displacement is effectively nil.
      - SilasX 11y ago
        So then the UK system doesn't address this problem, because there is still potentially unlimited money from interested parties who can independently propagandize for a candidate or issue.
  - gozur88 11y ago
    >It's my understanding that each candidate is given the same hard cap on campaign spending, which encompasses everything from advertising to the cost of sleeping on a friend's couch while traveling. And how do you deal with third parties who advocate for issues? If Candidate A and Candidate B have a different position on something, it's pretty clear who you're helping if you blanket the airwaves supporting Candidate A's side of the issue even if you're not explicitly addressing either candidate. Does that come out of his budget? Do we restrict unaffiliated groups? Those sorts of restrictions have been tried in the US, and each time they get circumvented by (officially) unaffiliated groups.
    - Zikes 11y ago
      Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai agree on the issue of backdooring. Does that mean that either of them wants to give their job to the other? If you're campaigning issues, then you'll get candidates on board that support those issues. It shouldn't be the other way around. I don't fully understand how the UK does it, and maybe it's not any better than what we've got, but when you have people flagrantly buying bills and politicians in Washington then we know at the very least that what we have now does not work. If we can't find some way to make it work, then a drastic change is in order.
      - gozur88 11y ago
        I disagree. One of the reasons we're in this position is we keep making drastic changes without thinking them through first. I'd like to see some evidence proposed changes are actually workable before they're enacted. In my life I've seen this cycle maybe five or six times, and each time we fiddle with campaign finance laws they get more complicated, leaving more gray area. When the power brokers act nobody can even tell if they've broken the law.

by Zikes 11y ago

SilasX 11y ago

Yeah, but then (per sibling subthread) we're right back to Citizen's United: "So I can spend all the time I want promoting a candidate, but if I use that time to generate money to pay others to promote the candidate, that's prohibited?" Prohibiting "contributions" to candidates, has to infringe on a kind of free speech.

Zikes 11y ago
I disagree with the Citizen's United comparison, since donating time towards a campaign can't be pocketed the same way money is. You can't commoditize already-spent labor in that way. Regardless, I think the real solution would be campaign laws similar to the UK's. It's my understanding that each candidate is given the same hard cap on campaign spending, which encompasses everything from advertising to the cost of sleeping on a friend's couch while traveling. Every candidate's expenditures are diligently recorded and easily audited if necessary, and it creates a level playing field.
- SilasX 11y ago
  >I disagree with the Citizen's United comparison, since donating time towards a campaign can't be pocketed the same way money is. You can't commoditize already-spent labor in that way. But if it displaces another expense, it causes them to pocket the monetary savings from that expense. >Every candidate's expenditures are diligently recorded and easily audited if necessary, and it creates a level playing field. Even the independent expenditures? Like, if someone goes around buying ads because they just like Candidate X so much, does that count against X's budget? Probably not, hence why that approach doesn't quite resolve the Citizen's United issues -- the problem was the advocacy of people unrelated to a campaign.
  - Zikes 11y ago
    Since the labor is an independent expenditure built on public data and the only thing Sanders did was link to it, the expense displacement is effectively nil.
    - SilasX 11y ago
      So then the UK system doesn't address this problem, because there is still potentially unlimited money from interested parties who can independently propagandize for a candidate or issue.
- gozur88 11y ago
  >It's my understanding that each candidate is given the same hard cap on campaign spending, which encompasses everything from advertising to the cost of sleeping on a friend's couch while traveling. And how do you deal with third parties who advocate for issues? If Candidate A and Candidate B have a different position on something, it's pretty clear who you're helping if you blanket the airwaves supporting Candidate A's side of the issue even if you're not explicitly addressing either candidate. Does that come out of his budget? Do we restrict unaffiliated groups? Those sorts of restrictions have been tried in the US, and each time they get circumvented by (officially) unaffiliated groups.
  - Zikes 11y ago
    Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai agree on the issue of backdooring. Does that mean that either of them wants to give their job to the other? If you're campaigning issues, then you'll get candidates on board that support those issues. It shouldn't be the other way around. I don't fully understand how the UK does it, and maybe it's not any better than what we've got, but when you have people flagrantly buying bills and politicians in Washington then we know at the very least that what we have now does not work. If we can't find some way to make it work, then a drastic change is in order.
    - gozur88 11y ago
      I disagree. One of the reasons we're in this position is we keep making drastic changes without thinking them through first. I'd like to see some evidence proposed changes are actually workable before they're enacted. In my life I've seen this cycle maybe five or six times, and each time we fiddle with campaign finance laws they get more complicated, leaving more gray area. When the power brokers act nobody can even tell if they've broken the law.