[45519] in Cypherpunks
Political Cleanup program
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (jim bell)
Sun Dec 17 14:43:31 1995
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 1995 11:04:44 -0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Politics is traditionally corrupt, it appears, because donors to politicians
and political campaigns expect a quid pro quo for their donations. Various
unsatisfactory solutions include campaign spending limits, etc.
It occurs to me that it would be a major advance if a system could be set up
that would "blind" campaign donations as to their source: The donor could
be satisfied that his donation gets to the candidate or cause, but the
candidate couldn't know who actually paid the money (and the donor would be
unable to prove that he made a donation, for example). Admittedly there are
a lot of details that need to be worked out, but if this could be
accomplished it would change politics as we know it.
