[EL] Paz Harassment
Sean Parnell
sean at impactpolicymanagement.com
Fri Aug 30 09:16:51 PDT 2013
I'm not sure I have much to add to this that hasn't been said a million time
before by myself, Brad, Jim, Bill, or any of the others who favor retaining
some degree of privacy over a person's personal political and ideological
preferences, but I thought a laugh break might be in order with an example
of how, even before the internet, the public availability of address
information posed serious risk to one Johnson, Navin R
<http://movieclips.com/9ACU-the-jerk-movie-navins-in-print/> .
Sean Parnell
President
Impact Policy Management, LLC
6411 Caleb Court
Alexandria, VA 22315
571-289-1374 (c)
sean at impactpolicymanagement.com
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Mark
Schmitt
Sent: Friday, August 30, 2013 11:59 AM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Paz Harassment
Sorry, my fault. I didn't realize that you could get the street address
directly from the database. I thought it required finding the actual pdf of
the candidate filing. I know the other databases, like OpenSecrets, don't
include address info, and the awful Huffington Post "Fundrace" site, which
in the early 2000s mapped all contributors, is long gone. That served no
useful public purpose, although it was always interesting to map my
neighborhood to see how many people gave to candidates of both parties. I
live near a lot of lobbyists, apparently.
Making address info less easily available to the public, along with
increasing the disclosure threshold as part of a broad disclosure reform,
seems like a change worth considering, even with all the many other ways to
google for an address.
Mark Schmitt
Senior Fellow, <http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/> The Roosevelt Institute
202/246-2350
gchat or Skype: schmitt.mark
twitter: mschmitt9
On Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 9:28 AM, Smith, Brad <BSmith at law.capital.edu> wrote:
No, the FEC database reveals her street address. Again, I found it in 25
seconds. Literally. I'll send it to you privately if you don't believe me.
Second, it has not been remotely "well established here that there's no
reason to think that Ms. Paz's harassers got her address from data from her
campaign contribution." Rather, it has been argued by some that it might be
possible to get her address elsewhere. That's quite a different thing from
"well established." Moreover, while the public availability of information
may influence the cost/benefit analysis of compulsory disclosure, it hardly
resolves the question of whether the government should compel the disclosure
of information making it easier to find the info needed to harass, or
impossible for those who otherwise would take stronger steps to maintain
their privacy.
And you're exactly right on your final point - indeed that was my point. If
all you've got to offer on top of the most expansive compulsory disclosure
regime in history is a token increase in disclosure thresholds (you state it
must be below $5000, in a manner suggesting you think it must be well below
$5000) in exchange for substantial expansion of the disclosure regime
elsewhere, you're just not bringing much to the table.
There is compromise to be had on campaign finance, on the disclosure issue
and elsewhere, but the "reform" community will need to drop its rigid
ideology and actually offer up something serious.
Bradley A. Smith
Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault
Professor of Law
Capital University Law School
303 E. Broad St.
Columbus, OH 43215
614.236.6317
http://law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.aspx
_____
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
[law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] on behalf of Mark Schmitt
[schmitt.mark at gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, August 30, 2013 12:29 AM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Paz Harassment
First, it's been well established here that there's no reason to think that
Ms. Paz's harassers got her address from data from her campaign
contribution, which reveals only that five years ago she lived somewhere in
a municipality of 60,000 people. As far as I know, no searchable database of
political contributions currently reveals street address information. Many
other databases do.
On my point 3, if accepting your $10,000 threshold for disclosure is a
prerequisite for "bringing something to the table," it won't be much of a
table, will it?
Mark Schmitt
Senior Fellow, <http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/> The Roosevelt Institute
202/246-2350 <tel:202%2F246-2350>
gchat or Skype: schmitt.mark
twitter: mschmitt9
On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 8:03 PM, Smith, Brad <BSmith at law.capital.edu> wrote:
On point one, I'm sure that it's a consolation to a harassed person to know
that they're not being harassed because they made a political contribution,
but because the government forced them to reveal their name and home address
because they made a political contribution. No doubt that is a comfort to
Ms. Paz, just as it was to Gigi.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/29/AR2007062902
264.html
I'm glad to see Mark's comments on point two, but given his comments on
point three, it doesn't look like he brings much to the table, so I guess
the old stale debates will go on.
Bradley A. Smith
Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault
Professor of Law
Capital University Law School
303 E. Broad St.
Columbus, OH 43215
614.236.6317
http://law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.aspx
_____
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
[law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] on behalf of Mark Schmitt
[schmitt.mark at gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2013 6:39 PM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Paz Harassment
I should resist, but three small points:
1. Ms. Paz is not being harassed for a political contribution she made five
years ago. She's being harassed for her work as a mid-level public employee,
which some people find fault with. Even if you still believe there is such a
thing as "the IRS scandal," I think we can all agree that there are official
means to review a public employee's performance, including the dozen
congressional investigations. Harassment in this circumstance is absolutely
wrong, for the same reason that it was wrong when someone tried to get Mr.
VanderSloot's divorce record, if I remember that incident accurately. It's
the harassment, not the disclosure.
2. As others have noted, there are plenty of public databases, easily
accessible, that contain address information. There is no reason to focus on
a database that does not provide address information.
That said, I think we should acknowledge that the very nature of disclosure
changes somewhat when so much information is routinely available within
seconds on the internet. For example, I know what everyone of my neighbors
paid for their house and when they bought it. (Well, I've forgotten it, but
I did know.) It's reasonable that home sales should be public information,
but fifteen years ago, I would have had to spend an afternoon in some dusty
registrar of records' office digging it out. Or, for example, congressional
staff salaries have been disclosed for a long time. When I worked in the
Senate, I remember a young employee who went down to the Secretary of the
Senate's office, got the book, and figured out all the salaries in our
office. No one else would bother -- he did it because he was a jerk, and the
only person I've ever fired. (Not for that reason.) Now, it's all there on
Legistorm -- you can look up a staffer's salary in 30 seconds before you
meet with her -- but why?. I think it's worth having a conversation (not
this stale conversation) across a whole range of issues about what really
needs to be disclosed in an era when all disclosure is instant and
universal. Raising the small-donation disclosure limit might reasonably be
part of that.
3. I'm sure there's a deal to be made to raise the disclosure threshold in
exchange for covering all contributions intended to influence an election.
Right now we have a regime where medium donations are disclosed but large
ones are not. I don't know what the number should be in that deal, but both
issues should be on the table before anyone starts with numbers. I do know,
however, that the number can't be $5,000 or $10,000. That's because that it
would miss things like, the top fifteen executives of Vandalay Industries
each giving $10,000 (or $9,999) to an incumbent senator the week before a
key vote. There are a lot of transactions of that nature, and if the
threshold were $10,000, we wouldn't see any of them. (We probably can't see
many of them now.)
Mark Schmitt
Senior Fellow, <http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/> The Roosevelt Institute
202/246-2350 <tel:202%2F246-2350>
gchat or Skype: schmitt.mark
twitter: mschmitt9
On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 5:38 PM, Scarberry, Mark
<Mark.Scarberry at pepperdine.edu> wrote:
Wasn't there a congresswoman recently who left a voicemail for someone whose
business was likely to be affected by her committee asking why he hadn't
donated? Maybe we should know who has been asked for donations by
incumbents.
Mark Scarberry
Pepperdine University School of Law
Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE Smartphone
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