It would be interesting to do some data mining on the open secrets data set for things like this. Has anybody seen any work on identifying statistically significant funding sources for clusters of representatives based on the way they vote?
A lot of these donors probably donated to the other side, too. "I won't do business with anyone who funds politicians I don't like, even if they also fund politicians I do like" is not necessarily a bad policy, but just be aware that that's what you're adopting if you choose to move your business away from these donors without also checking out the other side of the coin.
Thanks for putting together this spreadsheet! It would be cool to combine this with a campaign on Buycott (buycott.com) in order to target all these companies.
And what would that show, exactly? That donors are more likely to donate to politicians who agree with them?
In order to be interesting, you'd have to demonstrate that a donation caused the politician's stance and was not just because of the politician's stance - and I'm not sure that's extractable from the data set you've got to work with.
Pelosi also happened to serve as the ranking member the House Intelligence Committee. The Intelligence Oversight Act of 1980 explicitly requires that the president keep congressional intelligence committees fully and currently informed of all intelligence activities, which means that Pelosi likely has seen more classified/NSA information than any other House member. She is also from perhaps the most liberal district in America.
Well I certainly won't be voting for her in 2014. I feel like she really let me down. Same thing happened with Obama when he voted to re-new the Patriot Act.
I honestly didn't expect my representative Chris van Hollen (his Congressional District is the MD suburbs of Washington, DC, not too far from the NSA), to vote to de-fund it. It would result in hundreds of lost jobs in his district. But nevertheless, I regret not making the phone call yesterday.
I hope this bill is offered up again, so I get a chance to tell my representative my opinion on it.
The claims are that no one looks at it unless they are specifically chasing down a lead - c.f. their redefinition of "collecT" from "acquire" to "look it up in the database of acquired data." Presumably they would have just as many analysts working cases without this database.
> It would result in hundreds of lost jobs in his district.
I'm just imagining a bill like this being debated in hypothetical 1980s East Germany, and legislators being concerned about the loss of all the good-paying Stasi jobs.
As the guy said at the end of the film Contact, "that is interesting, isn't it?"
Keith Ellison: "For the government to just collect people's data without any sense of that individual warrants or merits and investigation of some kind is a problem. I am pretty disappointed we didn't pass it, but I am pretty impressed with how well we did. This issue is not over. There will be more voters and there will be more bills. I feel confident we can perhaps prevail."
It's fun picturing yesterday's emergency top-secret hearing[1].
"We'd just like all of you in the House to know that we've recorded every single one of your phone calls and have all your emails on file. If this amendment passes and our funding gets cut..."
I'm curious of the motivation behind Issa's nay. I remember him being at the forefront of the SOPA rejection along with Chaffetz, Lofgren and Polis, all of whom voted for the limits.
The most interesting takeaway from the data in this spreadsheet: every single member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence voted to reject these limits, regardless of party affiliation. This committee is responsible for intelligence oversight and is briefed on all intelligence activities by the executive branch--mostly classified information. In other words, these are the House members which are most familiar with how the NSA operates, its oversight (or lack thereof), the intelligence it obtains, and the action taken on that intelligence. By virtue of sitting on this committee, they are also likely to receive political contributions from the defense industry.
Are you suggesting that they use this data for personal gain? Who better to judge the tradeoffs than those who have seen the data? Someone who hasn't seen it, perhaps?
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[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 84.3 ms ] threadMy goal with starting the google doc was to make it easier for people to target the companies that fund the politicians.
If everyone who sees this doc, fills in 2 rows, this will be done in a few minutes.
In order to be interesting, you'd have to demonstrate that a donation caused the politician's stance and was not just because of the politician's stance - and I'm not sure that's extractable from the data set you've got to work with.
Nancy Pelosi, representative of San Francisco, voted in favor of unlimited NSA wiretaps for all of your phone and email traffic.
I hope this bill is offered up again, so I get a chance to tell my representative my opinion on it.
Edit: probably hundreds of jobs, not thousands.
Sorry.
Whether it's nudging the SEO of donor companies in a negative direction or calling up companies and asking them why they support the NSA.
You might find this useful: https://optin.stopwatching.us/
Edit: Also might find this useful: http://defundthensa.com/
I'm just imagining a bill like this being debated in hypothetical 1980s East Germany, and legislators being concerned about the loss of all the good-paying Stasi jobs.
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll412.xml
Keith Ellison: "For the government to just collect people's data without any sense of that individual warrants or merits and investigation of some kind is a problem. I am pretty disappointed we didn't pass it, but I am pretty impressed with how well we did. This issue is not over. There will be more voters and there will be more bills. I feel confident we can perhaps prevail."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/25/narrow-defeat-ns...
"We'd just like all of you in the House to know that we've recorded every single one of your phone calls and have all your emails on file. If this amendment passes and our funding gets cut..."
http://rt.com/usa/nsa-surveillance-amendment-amash-485/
Source: top answer at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-n...
For the Democrats on the committee, it was 2 yes, 8 no. It was 0 yes, 13 no for Republicans. Overall, 2 yes, 21 no.