A new site has popped up that discloses information on who donated to the Yes on Prop 8 campaign. The information for this site is attained by California state law. The California's Political Reform Act of 1974 made it state law for all contributions of $100 or more to be made public. The goal of this law was to expose large businesses who might be trying to seek influence in big projects or political figures. The information was collected and now this site has put the information on google maps. Anyone can now look up people in their area who donated to the Yes on Prop 8 campaign. Not only do you see their first and last name but you also see their occupation and how much they donated to the campaign.The people who donated to the campaign are now receiving hate mail, being harassed and their businesses are being boycotted. Some people have received death threats and some received a white substance in the mail. One college professor from USF supported civil unions for gay couples but didn't want to change the traditional definition of marriage. His donation went on the website and he received e-mails that were also sent to his colleagues and supervisors.
The question this raises is, is this helping the democratic process or hurting it? People may want to stop participating in the political process because they don't want the possibility of being harassed. The information being provided has been magnified by the Internet and is widely available, many groups can easily find this information and target voters one by one. But the information also gives the public more knowledge of who is donating. The law was intended to make the political process transparent, not blocked off to the public.
Two solutions that have been proposed, one is to raise the amount of money that requires donors information to be public. This would protect the anonymity of smaller donors. Another idea is for people who want to access this information must provide identification, then the information will go both ways.
What do you think?
Here is the link to the website that provides the prop 8 donation information.
10 comments:
Personally, I am against this Prop 8 website. I understand that the government just wants to inform the public about money donations, and this is completely democratic and reasonable, but putting the person's occupation on the Internet, along with his full name, is just too much personal info. That is how identities are stolen! Also, the Reform Act was made in 1974. $100 back then was worth a heck of a lot less than $100 now. The Act needs to be modified and the contributors' identities should be protected. Can't people sue the government if their identities get stolen due to this website?
The government needs to step in and stop this harrassment.
I agree with Anastasia. I feel like this does add a negative twist to the democratic process. The voting for Prop 8 was very close, and if there is enough support to appeal or repeal our current proposition, then that can be done. But this site goes beyond what is necessary. A donation shouldn't be made THIS public, and by subjecting these people (who have a right to their own opinions, beliefs, and vote) to verbal harrassment and this "white substance" in the mail, this site is prompting disagreement and conflict. I don't support Prop8, but I also don't think that it's right that people should have to defend themselves from having a certain belief.
I agree. But then what should be done about it? Should the information no longer be accessible to the people? Or should there be restrictions? The law still does serve an important purpose. We don't want major companies trying to influence policies.
I think for the most part, the basic concept of this website is neccessary. If you support a cause and you feel passionatly enough about it to donate money to the campaign, then you should be subject to public scrutiny because you are now part of the political process. However I do agree that $100 should be raised to a higher denomination. And if the amount of information about contributors on this website is so detailed that someone's identity could be stolen, then too much information is being displayed about contributors. But back to the main point, If you do prop 8, and you are willing to demonstrate for prop 8 and you are willing to sacrifice some of your money and you are in no way ashamed of your opinion then why shouldn't you want people to know what your veiws are. Hopefully those of us who are unhappy that prop 8 was passed can accept that not everyone has the same opinion and stop sending the hate mail, because that is a little immature and hateful, and the no on 8 campaign was built on the principal of stopping the hate.
I agree with most of what Anastasia said. The ability to see who donated money to which political campaigns is important and I think the idea behind it is valid. With this particular issue, however, I can see many potential problems. The biggest one is the animosity and tension between the two sides of this debate. I am worried that people who are so passionate about one view will be able to access the information of "the enemy" (so to speak) and harass them or physically hurt them.
As for the governmental responsiblity to protect people's identities, there must be some kind of compromise. For example, instead of listing one's entire name and address, perhaps the sites should be limited to the first name and last initial, along with the city? Something like "Doria C., San Mateo." That way there is significant anonymity, but at the same time allows people to find places that are strongholds for either side of the issue.
I agree with everyone pretty much. I didn't like Prop 8 and I don't support it and I understand that things have to be noted for tax reasons and to abide by certain laws, but giving them all of this information is going to lead to something bad, because some people didn't take the passing of Prop 8 well and by giving them the FULL names of people along with their occupation and other personal information just makes it easier for those people to find the donors, which could end badly because not all people are completely reasonable, especially not when something as big as this has happened.
~Kimiya
It's almost as if they're giving people a hit list, and whereas I do agree that if you feel passionately about a cause, enough do to donate money to the cause I don't think you should have any reason to be ashamed and definitely the right to know that you won't be harassed for your political rights. I think that both the denomination of money should be increased before the names are listed and that a certain amount of anonymity should be granted to everyone especially with the all of the tension and the stress people are under in this day and age, with the economy going under, changes in the country are rampant and people hardly ever respond well to change and they might be looking to lash out at those who they may seek to blame for problems in their lives or for the lack of help towards their cause.
I'm going to assume Emily's source for this piece was a New York Times article published on 2/7*. The article raises interesting questions about disclosure laws but FYI the more extreme (and isolated) forms of harassment happened in November, after the election but before eightmaps itself had been posted. Also missing from this article was the fact that one of the organizations behind Prop 8 started talking up boycotts of donors to No on 8 before the election based on information gleaned from disclosure laws. Similarly, business owners in predominantly black neighborhoods who donated to McCain were "outed" and lost customers.
I'm uncomfortable with all of the above. I'm especially uncomfortable with certain gay individuals who defended harassment of Pro-8 people on the basis of what goes around, comes around. How infantile. At the same time, when Pro-8 folks objected to the post-election protests, as if supporting proposition 8 wasn't personally disrespectful but protesting the people who supported it was, well, that just made my head spin.
When I chanced upon eightmaps, I searched around a bit and found that none of my neighbors had donated. Had I found one, I was thinking that I'd bring them a plate of cookies and a handshake and a question or two. If eightmaps had language suggesting something like that, or reminding people that civility is a virtue, it wouldn't be creepy. Without such disclaimers, it almost seems that the creators of eightmaps were hoping to facilitate harassment. Not OK! But legal, and creepy.
The reforms proposed make sense to me. When it comes to civil rights, however, outing and confronting people's prejudices could be constructive. The "I have gay friends..." or "I don't hate gay people (but I'm pretty sure they will burn in hell and be a bad influence on society)..." lines of defense deserve to be ridiculed for the fallacies they almost always are.
*The article and Emily's post are a good example of something that most people wouldn't consider plagiarism but is still too close for comfort. #1: CITE -- not doing this in a formal paper would be death (and while a blog post isn't a formal paper, the source still deserves credit) and #2: the text is still too close to the original, despite obvious efforts to paraphrase and rearrange. As a side note, #3: the NYT story was almost certainly inspired by blog posts by David Kuo and others. The mainstream media keeps getting worse and worse. You can do better.
I think it is very important to have this information be public, just as the information as to who donated to the No side should be public, if people on the NO side arent receiveing as much hate mail... well that speaks for itself and says several things.
But one of the most important reasons that is should be private to me I think , is that churches aren't supposed to support things like this if they want to keep their tax exemptions, I think it's absolutely unfair for churches to be getting their tax exemptions when they are supporting propositions and that is why it should be public.
I apologize for not quoting and citing my information. I would never want to plagiarize someone else's work. I admit I was going for quick and easy rather than slow and meticulous and that caused some sloppy mistakes on my part. The article that I used was in the New York Times, and I found a copy online. This is the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/business/08stream.html. I also apologize if my resource was plagiarized from other information, like the blogger, David Kuo. Here is one of his blogs on the issue of eightmaps: http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2009/01/eightmaps-and-the-strange-knoc.html. And here is one of his opponent's blogs Andrew Sullivan, http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/02/has-the-mob-arr.html. Hopefully this gives more information and is more reliable. I will also try and edit my original post and provide this information.
As for the discussion, I think that for whatever reason that this information is posted it is wrong to put up the names of people who have donated to campaigns. It is important to me that the democratic process is safe, and that means that who I vote for, who I support, and who I donate to, shouldn't be on the internet. If I knew that information of my political views would be posted on the internet for my neighbors to see, I would think twice before voicing my opinions.
So I ask another question. Is this website helping or hurting the democratic process?
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