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You seem to think we're trying to stop people from anonymously posting their opinions. We are not. We are trying to stop people from spending millions of dolla

You seem to think we're trying to stop people from anonymously posting their opinions. We are not. We are trying to stop people from spending millions of dollars on paid ads advocating the defeat of a candidate they don't like (over 90% of independent expenditures go to negative ads). That's a little different than the federalist papers, I think. If someone has a powerful message, they can make a YouTube video and it will spread. If someone has a message that requires millions of dollars to be powerful, then it's not unreasonable to know who is spending those millions. > it is very easy to cut down an upstart candidate by an entrenched incumbent by just attacking their supporters and intimidating them before the challenger even becomes a threat Can you cite any examples of this happening? Typically the attack is on the upstart candidate, not their supporters.

001sky 12y ago
Typically the attack is on the upstart candidate, not their supporters. This is silly at best and naive most likely. The NY Times goes after "supporters" all the time, of views they don't agree with. The examples are too obvious to cite.
ianstallings 12y ago
Someone's anonymous speech is being unmasked. I agree with the OP. Being rich doesn't exclude them from the freedom to speak without fear. An advertisement is part of that speech IMHO.
smsm42 12y ago
>>> You seem to think we're trying to stop people from anonymously posting their opinions. We are not. Of course not. You're trying to stop people from anonymously supporting people that publicly post their opinion. That's not much better, in my eye, since in our day and age, you can not effect change alone. >>> We are trying to stop people from spending millions of dollars on paid ads advocating the defeat of a candidate they don't like This is an essence of politics - convincing people to adopt your point of view by explaining it to them. Including when your point of view is the candidate is bad. Imagine the worst guy you can think of - truly Hitler incarnate - is running for your city council. Would you want to be able to donate to his opponent's campaign? What if this bad guy is truly vindictive and sworn than anybody who donates to his opponent would regret that very soon? Would you want to be able to do it anonymously? >>> Can you cite any examples of this happening? I can cite a lot of instances where people were attacked and suffered for their speech expressed in donations, Brandon Eich being easily the most recent and prominent. However I'm pretty sure once privacy is gone, attacking the supporters would be as prominent, simply because it would be an effective tactics and there's absolutely nothing preventing its use.
- jim-greer 12y ago
  > However I'm pretty sure once privacy is gone, attacking the supporters would be as prominent Our country doesn't have a tradition of unlimited anonymous election spending. That only started happening with Citizens United in 2010. So we're not about to unleash some new torrent of attacks on previously anonymous donors. You value privacy over transparency. I do in some areas, but not in political spending. Seems like we'll have to agree to disagree.
  - nickff 12y ago
    >"Our country doesn't have a tradition of unlimited anonymous election spending. That only started happening with Citizens United in 2010. So we're not about to unleash some new torrent of attacks on previously anonymous donors." To be clear, Citizens United was engaged in either campaign spending, candidate advocacy, or issue advocacy, depending on how you look at their actions; it is difficult to describe what they did as 'election spending' because the money was not going towards an election. This is a meaningful distinction, and not merely semantic for a number of reasons, of which I am sure we are all aware. There is a history of anonymous political speech in the USA, beginning with the federalist and anti-federalist papers. If one agrees that media corporations should be allowed to spend on anonymous campaign speech, then it follows that everyone else should have the same right. It is illogical to limit anonymous speech to broadcasters, publishers, as well as their friends and allies.
  - smsm42 12y ago
    >>> Our country doesn't have a tradition of unlimited anonymous election spending. I'm pretty sure it does - people always donated to causes, and before the current "money in politics" panic campaign, they were anonymous for the most part. All the statutes requiring donor disclosure that I could find were pretty new. Could you bring an example of donor disclosure requirements that would qualify as "tradition"? >>> That only started happening with Citizens United in 2010 Citizens United decision changed very little on establishing privacy or disclosure. The decision was that the government can not ban a group of people, organized as a company, labor union or any other association. It actually upheld the disclosure requirements of BRCA. Of course, since the group has no obligation to disclose its membership or revenue sources, it can be used as a vehicle for anonymous speech. But that venue always existed, it was just that BRCA unconstitutionally banned companies from political speech. <i>You value privacy over transparency. I do in some areas, but not in political spending.</i> It's not the question of my values. I won't be the one who would abuse disclosure requirements. It's not the question of my preferences, it's a question of consequences which would happen regardless of what you and I prefer. Ignoring this consequences because they don't align with your values won't make them go away, they still will happen. Powerful people would still abuse disclosure requirements to suppress their opponents and ruin their supporter base, regardless of what you think about it. It's like Myspace saying "we value user experience, so we won't implement restrictive XSS filters". Then a guy named Samy comes and writes some JS code and pretty soon he owns their user experience lock, stock and barrel. Did their values help them prevent it? Not really. Now, in this case the effect is a bunch of wrong bits on the internet and a couple of mildly bruised egos. But with political campaign abuse the result would be bad laws passed, bad people elected and lives of people ruined when they opposed some bad candidate.
slapshot 12y ago
>> it is very easy to cut down an upstart candidate by an entrenched incumbent by just attacking their supporters and intimidating them before the challenger even becomes a threat > Can you cite any examples of this happening? Typically the attack is on the upstart candidate, not their supporters. Brendan Eich. He supported an unpopular opinion at the ballot box and lost his job for it. We can debate whether it was because he _is_ a bigot or not, but there is a direct causal link between his paid support for a cause and his lost job.
specialist 12y ago
There's also friendly fire. "Dark money" (using your term) isn't allowed to coordinate with the candidate's campaign. But voters don't make the distinction between candidates and their supporters. I've spoken with campaigns who were hurt by independent expenditures by their own supporters, with messaging that reflected poorly on the candidate. The lack of accountability creates the opportunity to sabotage a campaign. If we can imagine it, I'm sure it's been done.
- smsm42 12y ago
  This is not connected with disclosure - you can always have somebody pretend to support you but speak in a way that actually harms you. It's one of the oldest tricks in a political book to have some despised group to publicly support your opponent and thus harm him. Lack of privacy would not help with this - you can always find a frontman or a barter scheme or a PR agency that would agree to channel the money, unless you get rid of the privacy completely, so that no private transactions at all are possible.
  - specialist 12y ago
    You defend legalized bribery under the guise of free speech and privacy. Nice. This is governance, not commerce. Big difference. You realize the elected persons are representatives? Of the people? Right? Democracy is impractical without accountability and transparency. So might makes right?
    - smsm42 12y ago
      In my dictionary, bribery is: The offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of something of value for the purpose of influencing the action of an official in the discharge of his or her public or legal duties. How somebody using his own money to speak in support or opposition of a political candidate is "bribery" is a mystery to me. Do you have some other definition of bribery? >>> You realize the elected persons are representatives? Of the people? Right? Democracy is impractical without accountability and transparency. That's correct, but we're not talking about spending public money, in which spending accountability and transparency is crucial. We're talking about spending private money - in which case the accountability should be only to the people who own the money. You do not owe me any account of how you spend your own money, and I do not owe any to you. >>> So might makes right? Without privacy, yes, that would be the case - whoever possesses control of the government enforcement machine, would be able to suppress and intimidate anybody who dares to support their opponents.

001sky 12y ago

Typically the attack is on the upstart candidate, not their supporters. This is silly at best and naive most likely. The NY Times goes after "supporters" all the time, of views they don't agree with. The examples are too obvious to cite.

ianstallings 12y ago

Someone's anonymous speech is being unmasked. I agree with the OP. Being rich doesn't exclude them from the freedom to speak without fear. An advertisement is part of that speech IMHO.

smsm42 12y ago

>>> You seem to think we're trying to stop people from anonymously posting their opinions. We are not. Of course not. You're trying to stop people from anonymously supporting people that publicly post their opinion. That's not much better, in my eye, since in our day and age, you can not effect change alone. >>> We are trying to stop people from spending millions of dollars on paid ads advocating the defeat of a candidate they don't like This is an essence of politics - convincing people to adopt your point of view by explaining it to them. Including when your point of view is the candidate is bad. Imagine the worst guy you can think of - truly Hitler incarnate - is running for your city council. Would you want to be able to donate to his opponent's campaign? What if this bad guy is truly vindictive and sworn than anybody who donates to his opponent would regret that very soon? Would you want to be able to do it anonymously? >>> Can you cite any examples of this happening? I can cite a lot of instances where people were attacked and suffered for their speech expressed in donations, Brandon Eich being easily the most recent and prominent. However I'm pretty sure once privacy is gone, attacking the supporters would be as prominent, simply because it would be an effective tactics and there's absolutely nothing preventing its use.

jim-greer 12y ago
> However I'm pretty sure once privacy is gone, attacking the supporters would be as prominent Our country doesn't have a tradition of unlimited anonymous election spending. That only started happening with Citizens United in 2010. So we're not about to unleash some new torrent of attacks on previously anonymous donors. You value privacy over transparency. I do in some areas, but not in political spending. Seems like we'll have to agree to disagree.
- nickff 12y ago
  >"Our country doesn't have a tradition of unlimited anonymous election spending. That only started happening with Citizens United in 2010. So we're not about to unleash some new torrent of attacks on previously anonymous donors." To be clear, Citizens United was engaged in either campaign spending, candidate advocacy, or issue advocacy, depending on how you look at their actions; it is difficult to describe what they did as 'election spending' because the money was not going towards an election. This is a meaningful distinction, and not merely semantic for a number of reasons, of which I am sure we are all aware. There is a history of anonymous political speech in the USA, beginning with the federalist and anti-federalist papers. If one agrees that media corporations should be allowed to spend on anonymous campaign speech, then it follows that everyone else should have the same right. It is illogical to limit anonymous speech to broadcasters, publishers, as well as their friends and allies.
- smsm42 12y ago
  >>> Our country doesn't have a tradition of unlimited anonymous election spending. I'm pretty sure it does - people always donated to causes, and before the current "money in politics" panic campaign, they were anonymous for the most part. All the statutes requiring donor disclosure that I could find were pretty new. Could you bring an example of donor disclosure requirements that would qualify as "tradition"? >>> That only started happening with Citizens United in 2010 Citizens United decision changed very little on establishing privacy or disclosure. The decision was that the government can not ban a group of people, organized as a company, labor union or any other association. It actually upheld the disclosure requirements of BRCA. Of course, since the group has no obligation to disclose its membership or revenue sources, it can be used as a vehicle for anonymous speech. But that venue always existed, it was just that BRCA unconstitutionally banned companies from political speech. <i>You value privacy over transparency. I do in some areas, but not in political spending.</i> It's not the question of my values. I won't be the one who would abuse disclosure requirements. It's not the question of my preferences, it's a question of consequences which would happen regardless of what you and I prefer. Ignoring this consequences because they don't align with your values won't make them go away, they still will happen. Powerful people would still abuse disclosure requirements to suppress their opponents and ruin their supporter base, regardless of what you think about it. It's like Myspace saying "we value user experience, so we won't implement restrictive XSS filters". Then a guy named Samy comes and writes some JS code and pretty soon he owns their user experience lock, stock and barrel. Did their values help them prevent it? Not really. Now, in this case the effect is a bunch of wrong bits on the internet and a couple of mildly bruised egos. But with political campaign abuse the result would be bad laws passed, bad people elected and lives of people ruined when they opposed some bad candidate.

slapshot 12y ago

>> it is very easy to cut down an upstart candidate by an entrenched incumbent by just attacking their supporters and intimidating them before the challenger even becomes a threat > Can you cite any examples of this happening? Typically the attack is on the upstart candidate, not their supporters. Brendan Eich. He supported an unpopular opinion at the ballot box and lost his job for it. We can debate whether it was because he _is_ a bigot or not, but there is a direct causal link between his paid support for a cause and his lost job.

specialist 12y ago

There's also friendly fire. "Dark money" (using your term) isn't allowed to coordinate with the candidate's campaign. But voters don't make the distinction between candidates and their supporters. I've spoken with campaigns who were hurt by independent expenditures by their own supporters, with messaging that reflected poorly on the candidate. The lack of accountability creates the opportunity to sabotage a campaign. If we can imagine it, I'm sure it's been done.

smsm42 12y ago
This is not connected with disclosure - you can always have somebody pretend to support you but speak in a way that actually harms you. It's one of the oldest tricks in a political book to have some despised group to publicly support your opponent and thus harm him. Lack of privacy would not help with this - you can always find a frontman or a barter scheme or a PR agency that would agree to channel the money, unless you get rid of the privacy completely, so that no private transactions at all are possible.
- specialist 12y ago
  You defend legalized bribery under the guise of free speech and privacy. Nice. This is governance, not commerce. Big difference. You realize the elected persons are representatives? Of the people? Right? Democracy is impractical without accountability and transparency. So might makes right?
  - smsm42 12y ago
    In my dictionary, bribery is: The offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of something of value for the purpose of influencing the action of an official in the discharge of his or her public or legal duties. How somebody using his own money to speak in support or opposition of a political candidate is "bribery" is a mystery to me. Do you have some other definition of bribery? >>> You realize the elected persons are representatives? Of the people? Right? Democracy is impractical without accountability and transparency. That's correct, but we're not talking about spending public money, in which spending accountability and transparency is crucial. We're talking about spending private money - in which case the accountability should be only to the people who own the money. You do not owe me any account of how you spend your own money, and I do not owe any to you. >>> So might makes right? Without privacy, yes, that would be the case - whoever possesses control of the government enforcement machine, would be able to suppress and intimidate anybody who dares to support their opponents.