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Hi! I'm the immigrant in the story. For what it's worth I'm permanent resident, not allowed to vote. Furthermore, it's seen as an in-kind contribution, just lik

Hi! I'm the immigrant in the story. For what it's worth I'm permanent resident, not allowed to vote. Furthermore, it's seen as an in-kind contribution, just like when you help building a stage for the campaign, only in online-terms. It's explained more in http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/us/politics/bernie-sanders-presidential-campaign-tech-supporters.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/us/politics/bernie-sanders...

rbanffy 11y ago
I wonder if, as someone who sympathizes with the Sanders campaign, a foreign citizen who is not a US resident, could legally get involved in this. I would, most definitely, not want to create any legal problems to the campaign.
- stephenboyd 11y ago
  I'm not anyone's attorney, but yes, you can legally volunteer. > The Commission has concluded herein that because uncompensated volunteer services are not considered to be a contribution under the Act, any individual, including a foreign national, may volunteer his or her uncompensated services to a candidate without making a contribution to that candidate. From the PDF linked from here: http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/foreign.shtml#Volunteer http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/foreign.shtml#Volunteer Whether the Sanders campaign actually wants foreign volunteers is a different issue.
  - rbanffy 11y ago
    \o/
  - cmdrfred 11y ago
    Could you not in theory start up a corporation as a foreigner and then spread your "free speech"¹ around all as you like? ¹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC
- ild 11y ago
  Permanent residents even allowed to make monetary donation.
SilasX 11y ago
Thanks for joining the discussion! I understand that it's a non-monetary contribution; my confusion is just on why we should treat them differently from monetary and why people think of them differently, even when they accomplish the same thing (deliver $X worth of value to a campaign), especially given that, for a foreigner to contribute money is a serious crime. (Less of an issue in your case since you're not some random Chinese government official but an actual US resident with legal status who can stay.)
- rapicastillo 11y ago
  That's a great thing to think about. IMHO, it's about worth and intent - as with any. And as with any software development, it's all relative. For me - personally - coding the map was a way for me to practice leaflet, which I've always been interested in learning, and at the same time D3. I never really thought about or even expected the campaign reaching out to me. The original map which is in bernie2016events.org used to take events from meetup.com and facebook.com, which I have scraped and manually curated. The campaign's open API for the events happened later. So for me, the map was a practice exercise, which is essentially like a more convoluted Hello World. The value was perceived by others, and the campaign. The value for me was, "Ok, there's cluttered events all around the wild, I'd like to make sense of it and help out while I practice D3 and Leaflet." The value as perceived by others was beyond me, and I was really just happy that it had bigger value that I originally intended. This is different with foreign governments contributing online assets or money to the campaign, because the intent is different, and the worth is different. The intent is influence/leverage, and worth is tools/dollars. And as you have predicated below as well, corporate money is very different if you look deeper, compared to an individual who's just practicing.
  - stephenboyd 11y ago
    Rapi, as a permanent resident, you are legally American enough to donate money to a campaign. http://www.fec.gov/ans/answers_general.shtml#Can_nonUS_citizens_contribute http://www.fec.gov/ans/answers_general.shtml#Can_nonUS_citiz...

rbanffy 11y ago

I wonder if, as someone who sympathizes with the Sanders campaign, a foreign citizen who is not a US resident, could legally get involved in this. I would, most definitely, not want to create any legal problems to the campaign.

stephenboyd 11y ago
I'm not anyone's attorney, but yes, you can legally volunteer. > The Commission has concluded herein that because uncompensated volunteer services are not considered to be a contribution under the Act, any individual, including a foreign national, may volunteer his or her uncompensated services to a candidate without making a contribution to that candidate. From the PDF linked from here: http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/foreign.shtml#Volunteer http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/foreign.shtml#Volunteer Whether the Sanders campaign actually wants foreign volunteers is a different issue.
- rbanffy 11y ago
  \o/
- cmdrfred 11y ago
  Could you not in theory start up a corporation as a foreigner and then spread your "free speech"¹ around all as you like? ¹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC
ild 11y ago
Permanent residents even allowed to make monetary donation.

SilasX 11y ago

Thanks for joining the discussion! I understand that it's a non-monetary contribution; my confusion is just on why we should treat them differently from monetary and why people think of them differently, even when they accomplish the same thing (deliver $X worth of value to a campaign), especially given that, for a foreigner to contribute money is a serious crime. (Less of an issue in your case since you're not some random Chinese government official but an actual US resident with legal status who can stay.)

rapicastillo 11y ago
That's a great thing to think about. IMHO, it's about worth and intent - as with any. And as with any software development, it's all relative. For me - personally - coding the map was a way for me to practice leaflet, which I've always been interested in learning, and at the same time D3. I never really thought about or even expected the campaign reaching out to me. The original map which is in bernie2016events.org used to take events from meetup.com and facebook.com, which I have scraped and manually curated. The campaign's open API for the events happened later. So for me, the map was a practice exercise, which is essentially like a more convoluted Hello World. The value was perceived by others, and the campaign. The value for me was, "Ok, there's cluttered events all around the wild, I'd like to make sense of it and help out while I practice D3 and Leaflet." The value as perceived by others was beyond me, and I was really just happy that it had bigger value that I originally intended. This is different with foreign governments contributing online assets or money to the campaign, because the intent is different, and the worth is different. The intent is influence/leverage, and worth is tools/dollars. And as you have predicated below as well, corporate money is very different if you look deeper, compared to an individual who's just practicing.
- stephenboyd 11y ago
  Rapi, as a permanent resident, you are legally American enough to donate money to a campaign. http://www.fec.gov/ans/answers_general.shtml#Can_nonUS_citizens_contribute http://www.fec.gov/ans/answers_general.shtml#Can_nonUS_citiz...