Why organizations turn statist.

["James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com>]

At 09:44 AM 9/11/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote:
> A wonderful idea, Stephan! You might try contacting 
> EFF to see if a German branch exists 


The EFF is ultimately a business lobby group, because it gets
most of its funding from businesses.  It is therefore potentially
subject to the same corruption as other business lobbies.

Business lobby groups are intermediaries, and therefore serve
two masters, both the politicians and the businessmen, not one
master.  Frequently they serve the interests of the politicians
at the expense of their donors, at the expense of the goals
that the lobby group is supposed to pursue.

Suppose for example you have a lobby group that
represents the widget industry.

On the one hand, the CEO of General Widgets might ring them up 
and say: "We are being trashed by these great japanese widgets, 
and unless something is done about it we might have to reduce 
prices or improve quality", and the lobby organization has a 
little chat with some tame politicians about the terrible 
suffering the Japanese are inflicting on American workers.   
That is the way lobby groups are supposed to work, but seldom do.

On the other hand sometimes the politician (or a
gofer on his staff), rings the lobby and says:  "I need a
million dollars fast:  What potential political action gets the
chairman of General Widgets waking up in a cold sweat in the
middle of the night?  What could destroy the widget industry, 
and yet be politically feasible?"  Shortly thereafter the 
lobbyist has a little chat with chairman of General Widgets 
about forthcoming legislation.  The lobby group
gets a big bag of money, some of which it passes on to
the politician, and the threatened legislation evaporates 
until the next election.

To be a successful lobby group, the EFF needs to get its
fingerprints on legislation, so that it can make threats and
promises to businessmen in the computer industry.

Thus the EFF's best interests as an organization are contrary
to our desires and contrary to the announced aims of the 
organization.  Legislation, any legislation, is in their 
interests and legislation, any legislation is against our 
interests.

Our interests, and the EFF's interest are opposed with no
apparent mutual good possible.

Now it is possible that the EFF is virtuously pursuing its
supposed goals, rather than its practical interests.  We should
consider the available evidence in order to infer what it is
in fact up to.

According to Dave Barry the word "politics" derives
from the Greek "poly" meaning many, and "ticks"
meaning small disgusting bloodsucking parasites.

In order to be well funded, the EFF needs government
regulation of the net.  The kind of regulation that would be
most effective in ensuring large donations would be regulation
that compels internet businessmen to lobby the government.
for example regulations that make impossible, inconsistent, and
contradictory requirements on those who provide software,
hardware, and services, for example a demand that big
companies police the net in ways that even governments would
find extremely difficult, such as the British child porn
crackdown, or legislation which if properly crafted would 
have the effect of giving some businessmen a monopoly of 
some aspect of the net, and putting other businessmen out 
of business,  for example legislation that requires case 
by case approval of software, or legislation that compels
the businessman to invade his customers privacy, and also
prohibits him from invading that privacy unless he has a
waiver issued by the state.
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