

Protect Bitcoin from Politics - jacoblyles
http://jacobexmachina.blogspot.com/2013/03/how-to-protect-bitcoin.html

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Torgo
"Candidate accepts donations using payment system associated with online drug
and child porn peddlers"

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julespitt
My guess as to what the sticking point would be that prevents politicians from
accepting Bitcoin donations - they're not known to not take anything worth
money - is somehow doing so without allowing foreign donations to their
campaigns, which I believe is illegal.

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jacoblyles
Currently there is little identity authentication on campaign websites. They
ask for your name and address before you pay with something like paypal, but
there is no means of verification.

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ChuckMcM
Actually, they have to report these donations to the Federal Elections
Commission (fec.gov) on a quarterly basis, even if there have been no
donations for that quarter. Further there is a pretty sizable body of law
around the funding received for the obvious reason that it's a tempting target
for corruption.

When I was considering my run for Congress, one piece of advice I got for
"free" from a guy who I had talked to about running campaigns, was to be sure
I had a good idea about who everyone was that was giving me money. That had to
be reported and if it turned out a law was violated it was on the candidate,
not the donor in terms of consequences.

According to this guy, there were candidates who got "derailed" by opponents
who arranged a big donation to be made, hoping that it would be accepted and
not tracked down. Then leaking the existence of that donation to the FEC who
would put the hapless candidate under investigation (and out of the race)
until the investigation was resolved. This adviser suggested that politicians
were despised for the same reason that used car salespeople get despised, and
that was because too many of them had no morals preventing them from making
progress at your expense.

Anyway, I think it is useful for the Bitcoin community to educate various
politicians about what Bitcoin is, but I expect the best they can hope to do
is keep them from acting directly against its interests. Getting actual
support would be quite hard for a currency whose primary driver seems to be
crime syndicates.

~~~
jacoblyles
Yes, they report the information you give them on the form on their website.
The form of payment shouldn't matter. You can authentic identity on a bitcoin
transaction as on any other transaction if you choose to. Generate a unique
address for each transaction and the bookkeeping is easy.

