10 ms·

Show HN: A Political Non-Profit to End Mass Surveillance

74 points by r3trohack3r 6y ago

r3trohack3r 6y ago
Founder/treasurer here. This is my first sharing of the project. Really interested in feedback and happy to answer questions <3
- whycombagator 6y ago
  Maybe I just missed it on your site. I see your mission, but how are you going to go about achieving it?
  - r3trohack3r 6y ago
    This is really good feedback. I tried to sum it up with "vote them out" but I don't think that really captures what this PAC positions us to do. We are a 527, which allows us to attempt to directly influence elections. 501(c)(3)s can't do this. My goal is to use the donations we gather to fund analysis of the voting records, legislation, comments on the floor, etc. of our representatives, and then actively campaign against them when they are up for re-election. We will prioritize based on election cycles (who is coming up for re-election), how much they've undermined these three measurements, and how close they are to the committees that are supposed to oversee these domains. As a 527, we aren't stuck lobbying and paying lawyers to try to go through the court system. The key is that, as a 527, we can actively campaign against these representatives in their districts. We can directly fund political ads that put their record on mass surveillance _directly in front of their voters_. By collecting email addresses, we can send out our analysis ahead of election day. By collecting donations, we can run ads in their district.
    - whycombagator 6y ago
      You may want to add stuff like this to the site, if you expect donations. Being open and transparent about donations and where the money is going etc would also go a long way. So would open sourcing all the analysis etc.
      - r3trohack3r 6y ago
        Thanks <3 Agreed. We are open source from day one: https://github.com/every-two-years https://github.com/every-two-years. The only piece that isn't open source at the moment is our donations page and I'm working to fix that. We don't have any formal analysis yet, being a bit more transparent about why everyone has an X right now (it's the default) might help too?
        whycombagator 6y ago
        > being a bit more transparent about why everyone has an X right now (it's the default) might help too? I think that would be helpful. Also maybe add a sort functionality for the data. Just a simple asc/desc. Scrolling the entire House to see if there was anything but a red X was tiring :) Edit: adding a link to Github on the site would be a good idea too IMO.
        r3trohack3r 6y ago
        Thank you for engaging so much <3 I've dropped the Senate and House pages from our website for now until we have concrete data. Once we start building out our analysis, it will be transparent and open. I've added a link to our GitHub organization in the footer of the website under "Open By Design".
      - r3trohack3r 6y ago
        I added it to the faq page, thank you for the feedback! https://everytwoyears.org/faq.html https://everytwoyears.org/faq.html
    - schoen 6y ago
      I don't know much about this area, but I understand that some single-issue PACs have had to actively think about how to convince campaigns that they are genuinely single-issue and non-partisan (for example because the PAC's staff or donors might primarily support or be perceived as supporting one party—and because many PACs do exclusively support one party even they don't advertise themselves that way!). It might be helpful to talk to other single-issue PACs, consultants, or lobbyists to about how they manage this issue. This is important because single-issue PACs don't want campaigns or legislative offices to dismiss them as someone who would never want to support them or work with them, or prospective donors who otherwise identify with a party to fear that their donations will only harm that party. > We will prioritize based on election cycles (who is coming up for re-election), how much they've undermined these three measurements, and how close they are to the committees that are supposed to oversee these domains. In this polarized and super-partisan world, people will instinctively find it hard to believe that you really did that whenever you end up on "the other side" from them in a race they care about. So again, I think you'll end up having to consider what you'll tell those people about why your strategy is the best strategy for your issue and how they can be confident that you really followed it.
      - r3trohack3r 6y ago
        This is super insightful. I wish I could give you more of a response, but your feedback really cuts to the core of something I need to reflect on and I don't have much to add beyond that. Thank you for calling it out <3
    - joe-collins 6y ago
      I am jaded when it comes to promises of change. If you want to reach others like myself, that explanation of what you're doing needs to be up front. What are you doing that's new? Will you show your work, share those analyses? Rattling off "501(c)(3)" and "527" is technical detail. Keep it somewhere, but not the first thing on the "friendly" pages. I need to know that you'll spend my money on campaigning, not the laws that allow it.
      - r3trohack3r 6y ago
        I agree, it's technical jargon.. Do you have a better way of wording it? The core is that a 501(c)(3) legally _can not_ spend money on campaigning without losing their non-profit status. They are stuck in courts, lobbying, and talking about their causes. A 527 is allowed to actively campaign. If you donate to a 501(c)(3) you're money can't be used to campaign. If we want to vote them out, we need to do it on the same ground they do, a 527 puts us on equal footing.
        joe-collins 6y ago
        Just state that there is a difference, and leave the details to be dug up later. "The laws governing non-profits mean that many popular organizations cannot campaign. However, we can, and we intend to call out yada yada yada."
      - r3trohack3r 6y ago
        I took another pass at the copy on the website. Does it help? (you may need a force refresh)
    - rbecker 6y ago
      > We will prioritize based on election cycles (who is coming up for re-election), how much they've undermined these three measurements, and how close they are to the committees that are supposed to oversee these domains. If I may offer a suggestion, optimize also on how close an election is expected to be. It may take a lot of ads to swing some elections, but only few to swing others, and you want the most bang for your buck.
- qchris 6y ago
  Are you considering any options to allow donations to choose certain pools? For example, I think I'd be really interested in donating towards maintaining a thorough breakdown of politicians' records on mass surveillance or their stance on options like ranked-choice voting, but not as stoked about directly having my donation used for boots-on-the-ground campaigning in a district across the country. An option to ask for a donation to support different initiatives might be attractive, even if there were only three or four options.
  - r3trohack3r 6y ago
    We hadn't considered this, but certainly will. At this stage (we just launched today) I don't think we have the resources to effectively manage donations that way. As we grow, I'll fit this into the roadmap. Also, if you feel passionately about a specific area and want to provide help/feedback, donations of time are always welcome and we are always here to listen.
- specialist 6y ago
  Okay. Question: What laws, policies have you passed? Who's on your board of directors? Who's advising? What's your fund raising experience? Suggestions: #1: Focus on one issue. Or create one org per issue. You can't assume allies will support your entire platform, so remove deal breakers. #2: Pace yourself for a marathon. For example, a friend of mine worked EIGHTEEN years to get the first statewide family leave act law passed. Had to build the coalition one vote at a time. #3: What are you for? Where's your model legislation? Be specific. Offense beats defense, have an affirmative agenda, etc. #4: Start locally. It's easier to move the needle, one jurisdiction at a time. #5: Why not partner with existing orgs, create a local chapter? Is there something wrong with the current public financing advocates? The people fighting for RCV? Bonus #6: Pick a strategy for privacy. Like extend property rights to personal data. Like new accounting rules to make data aggregation a financial liability. Something, anything that people can wrap their heads around.
  - r3trohack3r 6y ago
    This is super valid, and something I spend a lot of time thinking about. The task ahead is monumental, but these are sub-goals. This spawned from an observation that our representative democracy isn't representative. We worked backwards from what caused that. The mission is cultivated from identifying and attempting to disrupt the viscous cycle of power imbalance. The strongest branch of the U.S. government is supposed to be the voters, not the few but the many, we aim to make that happen. I don't think any of these three points can succeed without the other two. Mass surveillance, if you click through, isn't about mass surveillance. It's about a government not being held accountable to it's own laws, which are meant to be governed by civilian oversight. Our government must follow it's own laws, it must pass laws that are foremost in line with our founding documents and then inline with their constituent's desires. The mechanism for civilian oversight is broken. While reading the ACLU FOIA requests and court documents, it was clear to me that the government wasn't playing by the rules. When you read the reasons the government kept these programs secret on write-ups from leaked documents, it was for fear of being subject to civilian oversight. This isn't how our government was designed to operate.
    - 6y ago
- jyz 6y ago
  Why pick 527 vs 501(c)(4)? Specifically asking about your thoughts on the disclosure requirements w/ 527
  - r3trohack3r 6y ago
    This is an area I know enough to be dangerous in, so would love to learn more if anyone has resources. From my understanding a 501(c)(4) is a social welfare organization that can engage in political activity as long as it isn't its primary purpose. I didn't want to risk us breaking that restriction. The IRS pages, FEC pages, and wikipedia is where I spent most of my time studying these orgs: https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/other-non-profits/social-welfare-organizations https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/other-non-profits/...
deleted 6y ago
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yummypaint 6y ago
How specifically to you plan to reach voters? Would these be ad buys? You might consider sponsoring youtube videos from prominent creators with audiences likely to be interested. When i went to the site i was expecting to see cleanly presented and organized analyses (538 style). Condensing data into concise, impactful, and shareable content will probably be essential to your success. Personally i expect to see demonstrations of that capability before i would consider donating. Nicely articulating a cause in essay format isn't enough unless you're just trying to sell your skills as an essayist.
- yummypaint 6y ago
  An example might be making baseball card style images for each candidate which also contain some sort of supporting data. Anyone can trivially fire up an image editor and put checkmarks or crosses next to someone's name. The value is in the persuasive capability of the analysis. I just wanted to echo other commenters suggestions to present as much of the data as possible. The content you make should provide people with information that they can use to persuade others. If someone juat tells me that x organization supports y candidate, i generally couldn't care less. That has to be immediately followed by "because"
  - r3trohack3r 6y ago
    Very much agree with this. We have started some early data collection. I tentatively feel there is a very strong "because" for some of our representatives. An example: We strongly oppose candidate X because they permitted the unconstitutional Presidential Surveillance Program while sitting on the Senate Intelligence Committee. You can run ads in their district "Your government is actively breaking the law. Candidate X is allowing it. Vote them out." The November 2013 Senate Intelligence Committee meeting (recording available online) has some pretty good quotes that would line up nicely with the supreme courts ruling on the program.
    - pvg 6y ago
      Candidate X is allowing it. Vote them out Can you actually do that with unregulated money you've raised for issue advocacy?
nardwe 6y ago
Not sure how to do this or if this is really what wikis are for but maybe add some info to a wiki and link it to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/527_organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/527_organization
dantheman 6y ago
Why do you muddle the issue with campaign finance reform? I strongly disagree with your views on that, and even though I agree on stopping mass surveillance I can't support your org. As for money in politics - if bloomberg and hillary clinton don't proved that money doesn't just buy votes, I don't know what will. Lastly, anonymous speech is important - you would think people arguing against mass surveillance would understand that.
- r3trohack3r 6y ago
  This spawned from an observation that our representative democracy isn't representative. We worked backwards from what caused that. We've split the mission out into sub-goals but the primary goal is to make our representatives, well, representative. We identified what, in our opinion, was undermining that and set to work. I don't think it's fair to attach everything to Bloomberg and consider the matter a closed case. Large donors do indeed influence the outcomes of elections, if they didn't we wouldn't have large donors. Conflating money with speech isn't healthy, they can be exchanged for one another. Tracking that exchange as part of campaign financing laws wouldn't constitute a warrantless search while storing the "metadata" of peoples communication very well might. Warrantless searches, and the government organizations wielding them, have been used to systematically disenfranchise and suppress voters. The civil rights movements have been actively undermined by the government wielding this power. I may be operating under an availability heuristic here, but a sweeping majority of the folks I've crossed paths with in my life do not support the government's mass surveillance programs. Yet the persist, being sanctioned and overseen by our "representatives". The mission is cultivated from identifying and disrupting the viscous cycle of power imbalance. The strongest branch of the U.S. government is supposed to be the voters, not the few but the many, we aim to make that happen.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    The problem with campaign finance isn't that there's nothing there, it's that everything is there. "Money is speech" isn't a law of the United States, it's a law of physics. Money buys staff and billboards and newspapers and TV stations. Fox News works for the Republicans and CNN works for the Democrats even if neither of them donate a dollar to anybody's campaign. Google can put a banner on google.com that will be seen by the whole world. Counting influence only when it's in cash and not in kind only makes the asymmetry worse. It transfers influence from millionaires who can "only" afford advertising to billionaires who own the media outlets themselves and gain airtime for themselves by not selling it to someone else. But counting third party speech as a political donation because it benefits a political campaign is intractable. The easier problem to solve is to fix the voting system, because there is an uncontroversial and straight forward solution. Switch to range voting or approval voting, which dismantles the two party system. Then, when there are twelve parties in Congress, it's much harder to buy elections with money or airtime because the election winner's original chance of winning was 8% instead of 50%, which makes it much easier to waste your money on a loser and thereby reduces the payoff from spending it that way.
chiefalchemist 6y ago
Make Democracy Great Again? :) If you had such a t-shirt, I'd buy it. While I side with your missions, that's also the problem. Three missions is two too many. Pick one. Start with a focused product and find a market. Etc. We wish you luck. We need it.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  When was the American form of representative democracy ever great? You do remember from your history classes that initially, only white, male, landowners could vote, right?
  - r3trohack3r 6y ago
    I understand you are taking offense at "again". I've had a hard time grappling with the past. It's dark. The history that brought us to this point violates every aspect of the values I hold as "critical path" for the future of humans. America's past is dark. But we have a legal system and founding documents that allow for peaceful revolutions through civilian oversight. The past is dark. The future doesn't have to be.
    - pmiller2 6y ago
      I'm with you on this. I wasn't taking offense at the word "again," simply stating that trying to claim American democracy was ever "great" was historical revisionism. It didn't become "great" when black people got the vote, either. People in power tried their damnedest to keep them disenfranchised. It didn't become "great" when women got the vote. We've still gone on to commit mass atrocities, some of which took place on our own soil (internment of the Japanese, for instance). It wasn't suddenly "great" after landmark civil rights legislation and Johnson's Great Society programs passed. We still shot peaceful protesters at Kent State, and began a hopeless War on Drugs. And, it's not great now. Public support has essentially zero impact on whether any law or regulation is enacted: https://act.represent.us/sign/the-problem https://act.represent.us/sign/the-problem That's what I was getting at.
tehjoker 6y ago
It might make sense to try to tie this into the ideas of the current defund the police demand that's getting some traction. Who uses mass surveillance? The cops of one sort or another. Take away their money, take away their toys.
easytiger 6y ago
Hmm. > A majority of candidates agree on undermining civilian oversight of our government. Citation? > We aim to fix that by taking away their power every two years. Uh oh. Have you even considered the unintended consequences of such a thing or ever read anything of the philosophy underlying democratic governance? I'd wager you have not. > We decide whether to keep our current elected officials in office with three simple measurements. > We decide > We Oh no > With your donations, we are going to fund analysis of candidates coming up for re-election. As per my previous prediction [1] this is a donation sourced political hit squad. > End Mass Surveillance The above has literally nothing to do with what you "intend" to do. It's a smokescreen to make it seem more reasonable. What is the relationship between this and biennial elections? > Stop Big Money Politics Well, it worked for Trump as mantra. Honestly this is very poor. Furthermore trying to state you are a political entity wanting to influence election outcomes and remaining anonymous is beyond cowardly [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23562226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23562226
- r3trohack3r 6y ago
  Appreciate your feedback. I'll take time reflecting on your takeaway reading our website. Some quick points: > We Your quote is coming from a philosophical block, and the context is lost when you quote it like this. "We" is the collective "us" including you. Our org intends to open source our analysis, be transparent, and take feedback in the process. The homepage is describing a different approach to engaging in the voting process. I've spoken with many disenfranchised voters who chose not to vote because neither candidate on the ballot represents them, and voters who vote but really aren't happy about it for the same reason. Instead of taking the "who do we pick given these options" approach, we ask "do we let the incumbent continue given their track record". This breaks through the points candidates agree on, since voting an incumbent out due to their track record gives a strong incentive to their replacement not to repeat those mistakes less they meet the same fate. It's an election outside of the election, and a (likely not) unique way of wielding our power as voters beyond the partisan options presented. I think there is some super valuable feedback here. Our homepage conflates the philosophical "different approach to voting" block with our organizations metrics. Our set of criteria for evaluating a candidate may not represent yours. Those might be worth separating out. The two ideas are meant to stand on their own, the first leading into the second. > this is a donation sourced political hit squad This is valuable feedback, I hope there aren't many folks walking away from engaging with us feeling this way. I feel this is a negative take on mobilizing potential voters who already exist, already have these views (or at least likely would given access to information), and feel disenfranchised. Our bet is that there are many voters like this. Our goal is to help coordinate that existing sentiment, not drum up a fake movement. It's about reminding representatives that they are supposed to be representative. They _should_ worry when their views significantly break from their constituents; our goal is to organize those constituents. As an aside, I also feel the term "hit squad" describes, at least partially, all 527 Super PACs. If you read the leading Super PACs websites listed on opensecrets, many includes phrases like "take the fight to candidate X". 527s are founded to directly support and oppose candidates, by definition. Our goal is to be a 527 that supports/opposes candidates based on constituent sentiment and federal law, not our own self interest. > What is the relationship between [mass surveillance] and biennial elections? The elected officials who oversaw (sanctioned, approved, understood, etc.) the Presidential Surveillance Program are part of a biennial election cycle. Many of them, still in office, defended its existence and legality in public hearings and continue to oversee its current form today. While 501(c)(3) non-profits and citizens are in courts trying to hold the government accountable to it's own laws, these representatives are actively undermining them [1][2]. We feel part of this is caused by our representatives not feeling they need to be representative, which leads into the other two points in our mission; they don't respect civilian oversight because we haven't given them a reason to. > Furthermore trying to state you are a political entity wanting to influence election outcomes and remaining anonymous is beyond cowardly I am not anonymous. I can't be. This is a 527. If you donate directly you aren't anonymous either; your donation is reported by us to the FEC [3]. I'm personally associated with this org in multiple places many of which are public (FEC). I'm also here, using my public handle, talking to you about it. > Have you ever read I have read quite a lot but if you have some resources you'd recommend I always love reading more. There is always more to learn <3 [1] https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fisa-legislation https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fi... [2] https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fisa-legislation-0 https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fi... [3] If you want to donate anonymously, there are instructions for laundering your donation through a non-profit on the website. Many candidates use this washing of donations to raise money from politically sensitive sources. We think that is wrong but we want to be on equal ground; it's hard to win a game without adopting a lusory attitude.

74 points by r3trohack3r 6y ago

Founder/treasurer here. This is my first sharing of the project. Really interested in feedback and happy to answer questions <3

whycombagator 6y ago
Maybe I just missed it on your site. I see your mission, but how are you going to go about achieving it?
- r3trohack3r 6y ago
  This is really good feedback. I tried to sum it up with "vote them out" but I don't think that really captures what this PAC positions us to do. We are a 527, which allows us to attempt to directly influence elections. 501(c)(3)s can't do this. My goal is to use the donations we gather to fund analysis of the voting records, legislation, comments on the floor, etc. of our representatives, and then actively campaign against them when they are up for re-election. We will prioritize based on election cycles (who is coming up for re-election), how much they've undermined these three measurements, and how close they are to the committees that are supposed to oversee these domains. As a 527, we aren't stuck lobbying and paying lawyers to try to go through the court system. The key is that, as a 527, we can actively campaign against these representatives in their districts. We can directly fund political ads that put their record on mass surveillance _directly in front of their voters_. By collecting email addresses, we can send out our analysis ahead of election day. By collecting donations, we can run ads in their district.
  - whycombagator 6y ago
    You may want to add stuff like this to the site, if you expect donations. Being open and transparent about donations and where the money is going etc would also go a long way. So would open sourcing all the analysis etc.
    - r3trohack3r 6y ago
      Thanks <3 Agreed. We are open source from day one: https://github.com/every-two-years https://github.com/every-two-years. The only piece that isn't open source at the moment is our donations page and I'm working to fix that. We don't have any formal analysis yet, being a bit more transparent about why everyone has an X right now (it's the default) might help too?
      - whycombagator 6y ago
        > being a bit more transparent about why everyone has an X right now (it's the default) might help too? I think that would be helpful. Also maybe add a sort functionality for the data. Just a simple asc/desc. Scrolling the entire House to see if there was anything but a red X was tiring :) Edit: adding a link to Github on the site would be a good idea too IMO.
        r3trohack3r 6y ago
        Thank you for engaging so much <3 I've dropped the Senate and House pages from our website for now until we have concrete data. Once we start building out our analysis, it will be transparent and open. I've added a link to our GitHub organization in the footer of the website under "Open By Design".
    - r3trohack3r 6y ago
      I added it to the faq page, thank you for the feedback! https://everytwoyears.org/faq.html https://everytwoyears.org/faq.html
  - schoen 6y ago
    I don't know much about this area, but I understand that some single-issue PACs have had to actively think about how to convince campaigns that they are genuinely single-issue and non-partisan (for example because the PAC's staff or donors might primarily support or be perceived as supporting one party—and because many PACs do exclusively support one party even they don't advertise themselves that way!). It might be helpful to talk to other single-issue PACs, consultants, or lobbyists to about how they manage this issue. This is important because single-issue PACs don't want campaigns or legislative offices to dismiss them as someone who would never want to support them or work with them, or prospective donors who otherwise identify with a party to fear that their donations will only harm that party. > We will prioritize based on election cycles (who is coming up for re-election), how much they've undermined these three measurements, and how close they are to the committees that are supposed to oversee these domains. In this polarized and super-partisan world, people will instinctively find it hard to believe that you really did that whenever you end up on "the other side" from them in a race they care about. So again, I think you'll end up having to consider what you'll tell those people about why your strategy is the best strategy for your issue and how they can be confident that you really followed it.
    - r3trohack3r 6y ago
      This is super insightful. I wish I could give you more of a response, but your feedback really cuts to the core of something I need to reflect on and I don't have much to add beyond that. Thank you for calling it out <3
  - joe-collins 6y ago
    I am jaded when it comes to promises of change. If you want to reach others like myself, that explanation of what you're doing needs to be up front. What are you doing that's new? Will you show your work, share those analyses? Rattling off "501(c)(3)" and "527" is technical detail. Keep it somewhere, but not the first thing on the "friendly" pages. I need to know that you'll spend my money on campaigning, not the laws that allow it.
    - r3trohack3r 6y ago
      I agree, it's technical jargon.. Do you have a better way of wording it? The core is that a 501(c)(3) legally _can not_ spend money on campaigning without losing their non-profit status. They are stuck in courts, lobbying, and talking about their causes. A 527 is allowed to actively campaign. If you donate to a 501(c)(3) you're money can't be used to campaign. If we want to vote them out, we need to do it on the same ground they do, a 527 puts us on equal footing.
      - joe-collins 6y ago
        Just state that there is a difference, and leave the details to be dug up later. "The laws governing non-profits mean that many popular organizations cannot campaign. However, we can, and we intend to call out yada yada yada."
    - r3trohack3r 6y ago
      I took another pass at the copy on the website. Does it help? (you may need a force refresh)
  - rbecker 6y ago
    > We will prioritize based on election cycles (who is coming up for re-election), how much they've undermined these three measurements, and how close they are to the committees that are supposed to oversee these domains. If I may offer a suggestion, optimize also on how close an election is expected to be. It may take a lot of ads to swing some elections, but only few to swing others, and you want the most bang for your buck.
qchris 6y ago
Are you considering any options to allow donations to choose certain pools? For example, I think I'd be really interested in donating towards maintaining a thorough breakdown of politicians' records on mass surveillance or their stance on options like ranked-choice voting, but not as stoked about directly having my donation used for boots-on-the-ground campaigning in a district across the country. An option to ask for a donation to support different initiatives might be attractive, even if there were only three or four options.
- r3trohack3r 6y ago
  We hadn't considered this, but certainly will. At this stage (we just launched today) I don't think we have the resources to effectively manage donations that way. As we grow, I'll fit this into the roadmap. Also, if you feel passionately about a specific area and want to provide help/feedback, donations of time are always welcome and we are always here to listen.
specialist 6y ago
Okay. Question: What laws, policies have you passed? Who's on your board of directors? Who's advising? What's your fund raising experience? Suggestions: #1: Focus on one issue. Or create one org per issue. You can't assume allies will support your entire platform, so remove deal breakers. #2: Pace yourself for a marathon. For example, a friend of mine worked EIGHTEEN years to get the first statewide family leave act law passed. Had to build the coalition one vote at a time. #3: What are you for? Where's your model legislation? Be specific. Offense beats defense, have an affirmative agenda, etc. #4: Start locally. It's easier to move the needle, one jurisdiction at a time. #5: Why not partner with existing orgs, create a local chapter? Is there something wrong with the current public financing advocates? The people fighting for RCV? Bonus #6: Pick a strategy for privacy. Like extend property rights to personal data. Like new accounting rules to make data aggregation a financial liability. Something, anything that people can wrap their heads around.
- r3trohack3r 6y ago
  This is super valid, and something I spend a lot of time thinking about. The task ahead is monumental, but these are sub-goals. This spawned from an observation that our representative democracy isn't representative. We worked backwards from what caused that. The mission is cultivated from identifying and attempting to disrupt the viscous cycle of power imbalance. The strongest branch of the U.S. government is supposed to be the voters, not the few but the many, we aim to make that happen. I don't think any of these three points can succeed without the other two. Mass surveillance, if you click through, isn't about mass surveillance. It's about a government not being held accountable to it's own laws, which are meant to be governed by civilian oversight. Our government must follow it's own laws, it must pass laws that are foremost in line with our founding documents and then inline with their constituent's desires. The mechanism for civilian oversight is broken. While reading the ACLU FOIA requests and court documents, it was clear to me that the government wasn't playing by the rules. When you read the reasons the government kept these programs secret on write-ups from leaked documents, it was for fear of being subject to civilian oversight. This isn't how our government was designed to operate.
  - 6y ago
jyz 6y ago
Why pick 527 vs 501(c)(4)? Specifically asking about your thoughts on the disclosure requirements w/ 527
- r3trohack3r 6y ago
  This is an area I know enough to be dangerous in, so would love to learn more if anyone has resources. From my understanding a 501(c)(4) is a social welfare organization that can engage in political activity as long as it isn't its primary purpose. I didn't want to risk us breaking that restriction. The IRS pages, FEC pages, and wikipedia is where I spent most of my time studying these orgs: https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/other-non-profits/social-welfare-organizations https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/other-non-profits/...

deleted 6y ago

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yummypaint 6y ago

How specifically to you plan to reach voters? Would these be ad buys? You might consider sponsoring youtube videos from prominent creators with audiences likely to be interested. When i went to the site i was expecting to see cleanly presented and organized analyses (538 style). Condensing data into concise, impactful, and shareable content will probably be essential to your success. Personally i expect to see demonstrations of that capability before i would consider donating. Nicely articulating a cause in essay format isn't enough unless you're just trying to sell your skills as an essayist.

yummypaint 6y ago
An example might be making baseball card style images for each candidate which also contain some sort of supporting data. Anyone can trivially fire up an image editor and put checkmarks or crosses next to someone's name. The value is in the persuasive capability of the analysis. I just wanted to echo other commenters suggestions to present as much of the data as possible. The content you make should provide people with information that they can use to persuade others. If someone juat tells me that x organization supports y candidate, i generally couldn't care less. That has to be immediately followed by "because"
- r3trohack3r 6y ago
  Very much agree with this. We have started some early data collection. I tentatively feel there is a very strong "because" for some of our representatives. An example: We strongly oppose candidate X because they permitted the unconstitutional Presidential Surveillance Program while sitting on the Senate Intelligence Committee. You can run ads in their district "Your government is actively breaking the law. Candidate X is allowing it. Vote them out." The November 2013 Senate Intelligence Committee meeting (recording available online) has some pretty good quotes that would line up nicely with the supreme courts ruling on the program.
  - pvg 6y ago
    Candidate X is allowing it. Vote them out Can you actually do that with unregulated money you've raised for issue advocacy?

nardwe 6y ago

Not sure how to do this or if this is really what wikis are for but maybe add some info to a wiki and link it to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/527_organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/527_organization

dantheman 6y ago

Why do you muddle the issue with campaign finance reform? I strongly disagree with your views on that, and even though I agree on stopping mass surveillance I can't support your org. As for money in politics - if bloomberg and hillary clinton don't proved that money doesn't just buy votes, I don't know what will. Lastly, anonymous speech is important - you would think people arguing against mass surveillance would understand that.

r3trohack3r 6y ago
This spawned from an observation that our representative democracy isn't representative. We worked backwards from what caused that. We've split the mission out into sub-goals but the primary goal is to make our representatives, well, representative. We identified what, in our opinion, was undermining that and set to work. I don't think it's fair to attach everything to Bloomberg and consider the matter a closed case. Large donors do indeed influence the outcomes of elections, if they didn't we wouldn't have large donors. Conflating money with speech isn't healthy, they can be exchanged for one another. Tracking that exchange as part of campaign financing laws wouldn't constitute a warrantless search while storing the "metadata" of peoples communication very well might. Warrantless searches, and the government organizations wielding them, have been used to systematically disenfranchise and suppress voters. The civil rights movements have been actively undermined by the government wielding this power. I may be operating under an availability heuristic here, but a sweeping majority of the folks I've crossed paths with in my life do not support the government's mass surveillance programs. Yet the persist, being sanctioned and overseen by our "representatives". The mission is cultivated from identifying and disrupting the viscous cycle of power imbalance. The strongest branch of the U.S. government is supposed to be the voters, not the few but the many, we aim to make that happen.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  The problem with campaign finance isn't that there's nothing there, it's that everything is there. "Money is speech" isn't a law of the United States, it's a law of physics. Money buys staff and billboards and newspapers and TV stations. Fox News works for the Republicans and CNN works for the Democrats even if neither of them donate a dollar to anybody's campaign. Google can put a banner on google.com that will be seen by the whole world. Counting influence only when it's in cash and not in kind only makes the asymmetry worse. It transfers influence from millionaires who can "only" afford advertising to billionaires who own the media outlets themselves and gain airtime for themselves by not selling it to someone else. But counting third party speech as a political donation because it benefits a political campaign is intractable. The easier problem to solve is to fix the voting system, because there is an uncontroversial and straight forward solution. Switch to range voting or approval voting, which dismantles the two party system. Then, when there are twelve parties in Congress, it's much harder to buy elections with money or airtime because the election winner's original chance of winning was 8% instead of 50%, which makes it much easier to waste your money on a loser and thereby reduces the payoff from spending it that way.

chiefalchemist 6y ago

Make Democracy Great Again? :) If you had such a t-shirt, I'd buy it. While I side with your missions, that's also the problem. Three missions is two too many. Pick one. Start with a focused product and find a market. Etc. We wish you luck. We need it.

pmiller2 6y ago
When was the American form of representative democracy ever great? You do remember from your history classes that initially, only white, male, landowners could vote, right?
- r3trohack3r 6y ago
  I understand you are taking offense at "again". I've had a hard time grappling with the past. It's dark. The history that brought us to this point violates every aspect of the values I hold as "critical path" for the future of humans. America's past is dark. But we have a legal system and founding documents that allow for peaceful revolutions through civilian oversight. The past is dark. The future doesn't have to be.
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    I'm with you on this. I wasn't taking offense at the word "again," simply stating that trying to claim American democracy was ever "great" was historical revisionism. It didn't become "great" when black people got the vote, either. People in power tried their damnedest to keep them disenfranchised. It didn't become "great" when women got the vote. We've still gone on to commit mass atrocities, some of which took place on our own soil (internment of the Japanese, for instance). It wasn't suddenly "great" after landmark civil rights legislation and Johnson's Great Society programs passed. We still shot peaceful protesters at Kent State, and began a hopeless War on Drugs. And, it's not great now. Public support has essentially zero impact on whether any law or regulation is enacted: https://act.represent.us/sign/the-problem https://act.represent.us/sign/the-problem That's what I was getting at.

tehjoker 6y ago

It might make sense to try to tie this into the ideas of the current defund the police demand that's getting some traction. Who uses mass surveillance? The cops of one sort or another. Take away their money, take away their toys.

easytiger 6y ago

Hmm. > A majority of candidates agree on undermining civilian oversight of our government. Citation? > We aim to fix that by taking away their power every two years. Uh oh. Have you even considered the unintended consequences of such a thing or ever read anything of the philosophy underlying democratic governance? I'd wager you have not. > We decide whether to keep our current elected officials in office with three simple measurements. > We decide > We Oh no > With your donations, we are going to fund analysis of candidates coming up for re-election. As per my previous prediction [1] this is a donation sourced political hit squad. > End Mass Surveillance The above has literally nothing to do with what you "intend" to do. It's a smokescreen to make it seem more reasonable. What is the relationship between this and biennial elections? > Stop Big Money Politics Well, it worked for Trump as mantra. Honestly this is very poor. Furthermore trying to state you are a political entity wanting to influence election outcomes and remaining anonymous is beyond cowardly [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23562226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23562226

r3trohack3r 6y ago
Appreciate your feedback. I'll take time reflecting on your takeaway reading our website. Some quick points: > We Your quote is coming from a philosophical block, and the context is lost when you quote it like this. "We" is the collective "us" including you. Our org intends to open source our analysis, be transparent, and take feedback in the process. The homepage is describing a different approach to engaging in the voting process. I've spoken with many disenfranchised voters who chose not to vote because neither candidate on the ballot represents them, and voters who vote but really aren't happy about it for the same reason. Instead of taking the "who do we pick given these options" approach, we ask "do we let the incumbent continue given their track record". This breaks through the points candidates agree on, since voting an incumbent out due to their track record gives a strong incentive to their replacement not to repeat those mistakes less they meet the same fate. It's an election outside of the election, and a (likely not) unique way of wielding our power as voters beyond the partisan options presented. I think there is some super valuable feedback here. Our homepage conflates the philosophical "different approach to voting" block with our organizations metrics. Our set of criteria for evaluating a candidate may not represent yours. Those might be worth separating out. The two ideas are meant to stand on their own, the first leading into the second. > this is a donation sourced political hit squad This is valuable feedback, I hope there aren't many folks walking away from engaging with us feeling this way. I feel this is a negative take on mobilizing potential voters who already exist, already have these views (or at least likely would given access to information), and feel disenfranchised. Our bet is that there are many voters like this. Our goal is to help coordinate that existing sentiment, not drum up a fake movement. It's about reminding representatives that they are supposed to be representative. They _should_ worry when their views significantly break from their constituents; our goal is to organize those constituents. As an aside, I also feel the term "hit squad" describes, at least partially, all 527 Super PACs. If you read the leading Super PACs websites listed on opensecrets, many includes phrases like "take the fight to candidate X". 527s are founded to directly support and oppose candidates, by definition. Our goal is to be a 527 that supports/opposes candidates based on constituent sentiment and federal law, not our own self interest. > What is the relationship between [mass surveillance] and biennial elections? The elected officials who oversaw (sanctioned, approved, understood, etc.) the Presidential Surveillance Program are part of a biennial election cycle. Many of them, still in office, defended its existence and legality in public hearings and continue to oversee its current form today. While 501(c)(3) non-profits and citizens are in courts trying to hold the government accountable to it's own laws, these representatives are actively undermining them [1][2]. We feel part of this is caused by our representatives not feeling they need to be representative, which leads into the other two points in our mission; they don't respect civilian oversight because we haven't given them a reason to. > Furthermore trying to state you are a political entity wanting to influence election outcomes and remaining anonymous is beyond cowardly I am not anonymous. I can't be. This is a 527. If you donate directly you aren't anonymous either; your donation is reported by us to the FEC [3]. I'm personally associated with this org in multiple places many of which are public (FEC). I'm also here, using my public handle, talking to you about it. > Have you ever read I have read quite a lot but if you have some resources you'd recommend I always love reading more. There is always more to learn <3 [1] https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fisa-legislation https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fi... [2] https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fisa-legislation-0 https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fi... [3] If you want to donate anonymously, there are instructions for laundering your donation through a non-profit on the website. Many candidates use this washing of donations to raise money from politically sensitive sources. We think that is wrong but we want to be on equal ground; it's hard to win a game without adopting a lusory attitude.