From: hallam@w3.org
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 1995 05:03:22 +0800
To: jim bell <cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Political Cleanup program
In-Reply-To: <m0tRWN2-0008yUC@pacifier.com>
Message-ID: <9512181620.AA10316@zorch.w3.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



The main problem with anonymous political donations is that it is easy enough to 
create linkage if the recipient and the donor conspire together. 

There are many other things that campaign laws are intended to achieve beyond 
avoiding bribery. For example foreign nationals cannot make donations to US 
parties. It would be a good thing if there were similar laws in the UK since at 
the last election a foreign national with links to organised crime alledghedly 
made a multi million donation to the Conservative party. Of course in the 
absence of full disclosure of details of party records nobody can be sure. We 
are as voters entitled to consider the worst however.

Similarly it would be bad if a politician could obtain huge sums of money simply 
by espousing causes backed by lartge sums of cash. A candidate that proposed 
making large federal donnations to the arms industry (codeword "Strong defence") 
might expect substantially more donations than one who proposed a reversal of 
this policy. Similarly candidates supporting private prisons might expect funds 
from the likely beneficiaries and so on.

The starting point for campaign reform has to be to cap the amount that can be 
spent on a campaign. Most countries have such laws to prevent the political 
process from being owned by the rich. Unfortunately this has happened in the US 
with the effect that both parties are much further to the right than in any 
other Western democracy. 


	Phill