
Lawmakers Who Upheld NSA Phone Spying Received Double the Defense Industry Cash - Moral_
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/07/money-nsa-vote/
======
mtgx
Why stuff like this isn't considered bribing in US boggles my mind. They're
receiving money for voting a certain way.

~~~
robotcookies
It is absolutely bribery. And as an American, I'm glad there are people in
other places who see it for exactly what it is.

~~~
a3n
And sometimes it gets pretty damned blatant:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boehner#Connections_to_lo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boehner#Connections_to_lobbyists)

"In June 1995, Boehner distributed campaign contributions from tobacco
industry lobbyists on the House floor as House members were weighing how to
vote on tobacco subsidies"

------
jivatmanx
There is a conflict of interest issue when companies funded almost entirely by
government contracts uses money in this manner. The government could easily
specify as a term in their contracts that are not allowed to do this.
Considering the amount of funds involved, I think this is more than
reasonable.

~~~
codex
Not under current court precedent, which treats corporate money as free
speech. As long as corporations are treated as people, restrictions on
political spending by corporations would abridge free speech.

In my personal view, if corporations were people, they'd be classified as
sociopaths, which is yet another reason not to let them give money to
politicians.

~~~
jivatmanx
I'm not a lawyer, but this is just a condition on a voluntary contract, which
nobody is forcing the companies to sign.

Individuals routinely sign things like NDA's which are abridge free speech.

------
rayiner
Conservative, pro-security candidates get more donations from the defense
industry: news at 11.

In other news: befuddled HN poster can't believe that Wired ran an entire
articled based on confusing correlation with causation.

~~~
ams6110
This vote did not break on conservative/liberal lines. There were a number of
conservatives who opposed it (as distinct from "establishment" Republicans)
and a number of Dems who supported it.

We get the government we vote for. The defense industry can contribute money,
but they can't vote (other than as individuals comprising the same). If you're
opposed to what your representatives vote for, get involved. Support
candidates who share your views. With Twitter, Facebook, and other social
media the old, expensive part of a campaign (traditional media advertising) is
less and less important, particularly among the under-30 age group.

~~~
a3n
Sort of. You don't get to vote for anyone (other than a feel-good write-in)
unless money has put them in front of you.

------
tswartz
from the article, Daniel Newman sums it up nicely: “How can we trust
legislators to vote in the public interest when they are dependent on industry
campaign funding to get elected? Our broken money and politics system forces
lawmakers into a conflict of interest between lawmakers’ voters and their
donors”

~~~
rayiner
The only problem with that narrative is that it doesn't agree with the
evidence. The article begs the question that defunding the NSA is what voters
want. But the polls, while they're pretty much all over the map, don't support
that conclusion. E.g. the latest Pew poll of whether people "approve" of the
NSA program basically matches the margin by which the Amash bill lost:
[http://www.people-press.org/2013/07/26/few-see-adequate-
limi...](http://www.people-press.org/2013/07/26/few-see-adequate-limits-on-
nsa-surveillance-program).

How can you conjure up this narrative of politicians choosing between their
donors and their voters, when the evidence suggests that the politicians are
voting the way their voters want? Especially considering that because of
gerrymandering, conservative rural voters have a substantially greater
representation in the House than they do in public polling.

~~~
andy_ppp
This is brilliantly put and has actually made me feel better, for a second.
Then I realised that private defence firms and the NSA are, clearly, one and
the same organisation at this point. This idea chilled me to my core.

------
codex
Correlation does not imply causation. An alternative hypothesis is that
legislators have fixed ideologies that are not influenced by who their donors
are, but receive money from donors who have similar ideologies. After all,
donors don't want to waste their money--they'll contribute to those
legislators who already think like they do. Birds of a feather flock together,
etc. Unfortunately it's impossible to conduct a controlled experiment, and
donor influence probably varies by legislator and by donor.

~~~
alexqgb
Not so. A larger percentage of donations have little to do with the individual
views and predilections of representatives, and a tremendous amount to do with
the committees on which they sit. Not only is there a a precisely defined
hierarchy of assignments (ranked according to much money they're expected to
bring in), but the allocation of these seats is handled to ensure the overall
viability of the party. So for instance, a junior representative from a swing
district will be assigned to a high-dollar committee, on the assumption that
this will give him access to a higher volume of donor funds, and make his seat
more defensible. What he thinks, personally, is irrelevant. What he oversees
is what matters. And if he squanders the opportunity given to him by his
party's bosses, he'll be kicked out of that seat, and see it handed to a
representative who has the motivation and mercenary disposition required to
exploit it fully.

Some committees have negative value. That is to say, sitting one one signals a
lack of influence, making assignment to these Congressional Siberias a real
damper in the dialing-for-dollars game that these folks play, if not all day,
then at least every day. Interestingly the Science & Technology Committee is
one of these. Any actually valuable science and tech (e.g. telecommunications)
is handled elsewhere. The grim consolation in seeing total anti-science idiots
getting assigned to these committees is that it indicates that even Congress
doesn't take them seriously. The optics are terrible, of course, but that's
another matter.

~~~
codex
Your post is fascinating. Is it the case that the committee member must vote
the party line on committee matters, or appease the donors? What happens when
those are in conflict? Does the member get a pass to vote the donor line and
rely on the full chamber to vote the party line?

~~~
alexqgb
Party line votes tend to happen in relation to ideologically symbolic issues
which tend not to be the issues that donors care much about.

What's more likely to happen is the representatives will be permitted to vote
against their party if the party is assured of a win. So for instance, there's
no need to antagonize the conservative-leaning supporters of a Democrat from a
swing state by forcing the the rep to vote against his constituents interests.
Likewise, if a vote is in the bag, a fair amount of purely symbolic dissent is
allowed, which reps can use to placate their most valuable donors and most
vocal supporters (even when Congress as a whole is going against them).

The real danger for a rep comes from situations where he sits in a "safe"
seat, and refuses to take money or show support for a special-interest with
business in front of his committee. As long as the seat has been securely
gerrymandered (the definition of a safe seat) then there's no danger that a
primary challenge will end up replacing the uncooperative rep with a zealot
who will go on to lose the seat to the opposing party in the general election,
since the general election has, in effect, already been rigged to ensure that
the party that drew the electoral maps always wins.

For what it's worth few donors are aligned with one party or the other. There
are exceptions of course (Unions, for instance, tend to fund Democrats
exclusively, and the NRA focuses heavily on Republicans). But generally
speaking, donors don't give a fig about the rep's personal points of view. The
whole idea that they donate to people with whom they already agree is exactly
the kind of malarky that reps would like you to believe. In reality, most
donors give judiciously on both sides of the aisle, so that no matter who sits
on the committees that govern their business, they're assured of access.

------
rhizome
What's the story with Rep Moran, the only top-10 defense $ recipient who voted
for the amendment?

~~~
toyg
One often-overlooked side of these votes is that there is an element of horse-
trading with party leadership.

Let's say the party asks you to eat your hat 5 times and vote for crappy
stuff; in exchange, you'll ask the party to be left free to vote _against the
grain_ a couple of times or so, when you really need to show off with the
electorate or your conscience won't let you sleep.

It's perfectly plausible that Moran voted for the amendment because he had
built up credits on other votes, had info that the amendment was unlikely to
pass anyway, and so he obtained permission to showboat for his own electorate.
He might have done that _exactly_ because he knew he'd be attacked for being
in the pockets of BigDefCo -- he's a Dem, after all. This is a very likely
scenario.

Or maybe he could be a good guy and I'm too cynic to expect good from people.
Good guys in politics are _very rare_ , to say the least.

------
malandrew
I've always wondered on the psychology of these voting decisions.
Investigative journalists outside looking in can can easily see the forest for
the trees, but I am curious as to whether or not the politicians themselves
are acutely aware of these conflicts of interest or if it is subconscious.

~~~
VladRussian2
what in American politics is surprising for me is that such a meager sum (vs.
the scale of decisions these lawmakers take and even the scale of their
personal wealth, etc..) as 20K is supposedly able to affect/sway their
decision. To compare, 20K is something that sometimes may sway a junior
engineer in the Valley take this job instead of this - compare that with
decisions affecting distribution of some billions of dollars and lives of
millions of people. I'm really puzzled by that.

~~~
rdtsc
> 20K is supposedly able to affect/sway their decision.

It happens to be the market rate unfortunately. And that goes to tell you much
invested or interested these people are in upholding any ideals.

They could vote either way, personally they've been around the block and in
bed with so many lobbyists they just care about furthering the political
career. For them in this case it is getting $0 or getting 20K for a vote they
probably don't/can't fully understand and are not personally invested in. They
see 20K and in their head that might = nice weekend in Vegas or new car for my
son.

