[14087] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Digital cash and campaign finance reform
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steve Schear)
Mon Sep 8 13:59:08 2003
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Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2003 10:11:56 -0700
To: cypherpunks@lne.com, cryptography@metzdowd.com
From: Steve Schear <s.schear@comcast.net>
Everyone knows that money is the life blood of politics. The topic of
campaign finance reform in the U.S. has been on and off the front burner of
the major media, for decades. Although the ability of citizens and
corporations to support the candidates and parties of their choice can be a
positive political force, the ability of political contributors to buy
access and influence legislation is probably the major source of
governmental corruption. Despite some, apparently, honest efforts at
limiting these legal payoffs there has been little real progress. The
challenge is to encourage "neutral" campaign contributions. Perhaps
technology could lend a hand.
One of the features of Chaimian digital cash is unlinkability. Normally,
this has been viewed from the perspective of the payer and payee not
wishing to be linked to a transaction. But it also follows that that the
payee can be prevented from learning the identity of the payee even if they
wished. Since the final payee in politics is either the candidate or the
party, this lack of knowledge could make it much more difficult for the
money to be involved in influence peddling and quid pro quo back room deals.
By combining a mandated digital cash system for contributions, a cap on the
size of each individual contribution (perhaps as small as $100), randomized
delays (perhaps up to a few weeks) in the "posting" of each transaction to
the account of the counter party, it could create mix conditions which
would thwart the ability of contributors to easily convince candidates and
parties that they were the source of particular funds and therefore
entitled to special treatment.
Comments?
steve
A foolish Constitutional inconsistency is the hobgoblin of freedom, adored
by judges and demagogue statesmen.
- Steve Schear
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