Re: new campaign reform idea

["Andrew Hagen" <xah@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 25 May 2001 16:44:49 -0700, Jim Devine wrote:

>[Anonymous donantions of unlimited amounts.] A trusted financial
>institution say Vanguard sets up accounts in the names of all recognized
>candidates. If you want to contribute to Bush, you write a check to
>Vanguard with instructions to deposit it in the Bush account.

It's an impractical idea. It rests on a trusted central authority.
Instead of the current decentralized approach to detecting untoward
activity, there would be one and only one entity that could identify
corrupt political behavior. That one entity would have the ability to
cheat. The temptation to do so would be overwhelming. You could have a
Big 5 accounting firm looking over their shoulder, but that only
increases the number of eyeballs that see the secret information. Bruce
Schneier has a good book, "Secrets and Lies," on why perfect security
is impossible on the Internet and everywhere else. Ayres should check
it out.

This is a typical elite proposal. Keep the important information
secret, they say, for the common folk can't be trusted with the actual
facts. As an alternative to the Ayres plan, we could ban soft money
donations at the federal and state levels. That's not a perfect plan,
but it has the advantage of both improvement and continued
transparency.

Andrew Hagen
xah@xxxxxxxxxxxxx