Re: Stopping the buying of candidates

[Declan McCullagh <declan@eff.org>]

There would seem to be serious First Amendment problems with this scheme.

If you wanted to give or withhold support, you should able to say that 
you did or didn't donate money. Besides, interest groups would always be 
able to telegraph the news of the donation -- while the public remains 
in the dark. It may be better for the public to have full disclosure.

-Declan


On Mon, 21 Oct 1996, jim bell wrote:

> At 09:24 AM 10/17/96 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote:
> >
> >There are several swirling threads about the development of crypto systems
> >(e.g., "binding cryptography," "key recovery," "one-way traceable e-cash")
> >that are designed to allow law enforcement some ability to track illegal
> >transactions, catch some criminals, etc.
> 
> One of the other items on my wish-list (short of a more, uh, "permanent" 
> solution to politics) is a system to actually enforce the anonymity of 
> political donations.  What I mean is this:  As bad as a large political 
> contribution is, what's worse is that the candidate who receives it knows 
> who it is from, and how large it is, etc.  Given the recent flap over the 
> Indonesian donations to the DNC, it seems to me that it would actually clean 
> up politics if there were a mechanism to collect donations, blind them and 
> send them to the proper candidate, but hide the actual source of that money. 
>  Hide it from the candidates, not necessarily the anyone else. 

// declan@eff.org // I do not represent the EFF // declan@well.com //