

White House Petitioned to Investigate MPAA Bribery - llambda
http://torrentfreak.com/while-house-petitioned-to-investigate-mpaa-bribery-120122/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

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jsaxton86
I'm just as disgusted as this as most people are, but how is this illegal? In
the United States, so long as the MPAA isn't directly giving money to
politicians, this kind of bribery is legal. Per Citizens United vs the FEC,
the MPAA can spend as much as they want on re-election campaigns.

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bad_user
You can only "donate" money as long as there are no strings attached. This is
clearly extortion.

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biot
There are always strings attached. Let's say you give money to support a
politician who opposes SOPA. When you give the money you are perfectly free to
say "I'm contributing to your campaign because you are against SOPA".

Would it be extortion for you to tell a politician "If you reverse your stance
and later support SOPA, I can no longer in good conscience continue to
contribute to your political campaign"?

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klines
Petition:
[https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/investigate...](https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/investigate-
chris-dodd-and-mpaa-bribery-after-he-publicly-admited-bribing-politicans-
pass/DffX0YQv)

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nestlequ1k
MPAA should be allowed to spend as much money as they want to convince the
American people. But they like giving money to politicians precisely because
they get leverage to pull the money back when the politician does something
they don't like.

This system is extremely broken.

I signed the petition because giving money to politicians with strings
attached, and then threatening to pull the funding if they don't vote your way
is clearly bribery.

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juiceandjuice
Hollywood should make a movie about this.

~~~
loceng
Thanks for the morning laugh. :)

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alan_cx
If there any traction in non-internet USA? Are "normal" people (the
politicians think any one on the internet or who merely understand the
internet are nerds and not worth listening to) seeing what is happening here?
Not just the likes of the terrible SOPA bill, but the seedy corrupt way US
politics seems to be for sale? If this really what any one in the US wants?

What I hope for is that what the MPAA actually does is blow the lid off the
stinking corrupt system where money buys law. If America is lucky, the MPAA
won't just fail in its aims, it will fail and expose the depth of the blatant
corruption.

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sequoia
Did anyone else have trouble "signing" here? I repeatedly signed in in Firefox
10b, it never let me click the "sign petition" button. Disabled ghostery &
adblock, still no dice. Console showed the error "NREUMQ is not defined" but
chrome shows the same and it worked there.

<http://screencast.com/t/xKdWfW5r3qvE>

C'mon whitehouse.gov! Maintaining a user's session: Yes we can!!

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talos
Is it just me, or is the petition broken in Chrome? It wouldn't enable the
"Sign this Petition" button even when the footer said I was logged in. Safari
worked, but they bound the "enter" key so that it reloads the page without
actually logging you in. Thus one must click on the button. blergh.

~~~
jbuzbee
I saw that as well under Chrome. I don't remember what I did besides, logging
out, closing the tab, coming back etc. Eventually it worked.

