

A letter from my congressman - lettergram
http://austingwalters.com/letter-from-my-congressman/

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nonchalance
Are there any reasonably-powerful tech-related national PACs?

~~~
Wingman4l7
The EFF is probably the best you're going to get.

~~~
zecho
EFF is a 501(c) group, as is ACLU, but they both cover these issues
aggressively.

~~~
hga
We need to distinguish between the different sorts of non-profits, what they
can do, and how effective they can be; I'll use the NRA as a concrete example
because I know it well and many in this fight had noticed how very well it
fights its own battles ... plus now it's filed an _amicus curiae_ brief
supporting an ACLU lawsuit. (One of the very encouraging aspects of this
battle is that it's very much not breaking down by the usual lines.)

So the first thing to remember is that "non-profit" or 501(c) does not equal
charity, although a normal charity will be a non-profit, and if they jump
through the proper hoops and the IRS doesn't politicize the process they'll be
a 501(c)(3). Note that the IRS has very much _not_ stopped its stonewalling,
and we can expect anti-spying non-profits to get the same treatment that "TEA
Party" et. al. groups have gotten ... something to think about if you don't
take to heard the advice written in blood about "First they came for the...."

So:

501(c)(3) organizations like the NRA proper or the EFF can do a variety of
things including lawsuits, but when it comes to politics I think they can only
"educate their members". Of course, if you use a web site as part of the
latter....

501(c)(4) organizations like the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action (ILA)
can do explicitly political things. Exactly how that breaks down is
complicated, but they can do stuff like directly lobby legislators as long as
that's not most of what they do. One very powerful thing they do is rate and
endorse politicians and send out voter's guides before elections, little "just
the facts, Mam" postcards that show how the relevant politicians voted on
issues their members care about.

But there's a critical caveat here: this only works for the NRA/gun owners
(NRA members inform their non-member friends of what they learn) because there
are so very many of us, we have a _very_ strong grass roots that's by no means
tied to the NRA proper (as some politicians have learned to their dismay),
_and we vote_.

Look at the Total Recall of 2 Colorado state legislators including the Senate
President due to their prominent roles in passing invidious gun control
legislation. This was done from the ground up, one of the 2 efforts was
started by 2-3 plumbers who'd never done this sort of thing before. The NRA
only spent ~ $350K in the two efforts, the good guys were, last time I
checked, outspent 8:1 by Bloomberg and the usual suspects, the MSM was on the
anti-gun side, and the election laws had been ... curiously changed to make
voting fraud very easy and it was brazen. Yet given all that, two career
politicians will very soon be spending more time with their families.

Which gets to our particular problem, which is that we don't have that sort of
grassroots, not will we if the NRA/gunowners are any guide before the national
security state commits enough notorious atrocities, see here for more on this
theme:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6185918](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6185918)

Now to the more political organizations: the NRA of course has a PAC, the
Political Victory Fund, but ever blessed post-Watergate campaign finance
"reform" ensures the money they can give is purely symbolic. I.e. it sends a
signal to gun voters, but little else.

Then there are the newer 527 Super Pac organizations. I haven't studied them
closely, but as I understand it they can do just about everything but
"coordinate" their efforts with a political campaign. But getting back to my
above point about voting, unless you have a strong base of potential voters
they can spend zillions of dollars without having anything to show for it. For
the latest notorious example of this, see how in 2012 the Republican Party
national level establishment nominated a Northeast liberal politician for
president, establishment organizations like Karl Rove's American Crossroads
spend 100s of millions, hismore than $100 million, and had nothing to show for
it.

A political party that despises its base is just not going to do well.

We should take that lesson to heart and not "despise" _any_ who agree with our
cause unless they're _utterly_ toxic to it (I mean NAMBLA, Stormfront, and ALA
levels of toxic).

~~~
Wingman4l7
> The NRA only spent ~ $350K in the two efforts

 _Only_? That sounds like a fairly large sum of money to an organization like
the EFF who presumably has political _enemies_ like Hollywood with deep
pockets and no big allies -- the NRA at least has gun manufacturers, for
example. Dismaying to say the least that that's the starting cost to enact
political change.

ALA? The American Library Association? =P

~~~
hga
ALA? Oops, it's the ALF, Animal Liberation Front, the "direct action" AKA
terrorist organization, as opposed to People Eating Tasty Animals, errr, the
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, who aren't hardly so toxic except
for their _sub rosa_ support of the ALF and Earth Liberation Front.

As for "only ~ $350K", that's a significant hunk of change for the NRA (this
was a very important contest), but it's nearly pocket change for Bloomberg,
who has a net worth of $27 billion and regularly drops low 100s of millions in
donations per year while his net worth keeps going up (per my memory):
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Bloomberg#Philanthropy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Bloomberg#Philanthropy)

" _the NRA at least has gun manufacturers, for example_ "

A common and telling misconception (regime supporting propaganda is a very
important factor in both of these fights), those represent a very small
fraction of the NRA's income and influence; the National Shooting Sports
Foundation (NSSF) is _their_ trade organization and lobby, the NRA is of gun
owners.

This is very important because there are a whole lot more of the latter, and
it's the 5 million members of the NRA that give it the money to spend on
things like the commercials they ran in the Colorado recalls, and the votes
and influence on non-member voters. Very important because per Wikipedia the
ACLU has 1/10 the number of members and a budget of $100 million vs. $230 for
the NRA.

Now, a lot of the NRA's budget goes to its traditional roles (training and
marksmanship), but on the other hand the ACLU's remit is much broader, roughly
all of the Bill of Rights except the 2nd Amendment. There are some local
chapters that are sympathetic and supportive of gun owners but that's it, and
I'd bet their budgets aren't including the the $100 million total, ditto all
the local gun organizations, like the ones that sprung up out of nothing that
took down these two arrogant Colorado legislators. It makes a very big
difference when your enemies convict themselves with their own words and
actions, and this anti-spying effort isn't _quite_ as blessed with those.

So the ACLU has a lot of influence, is a big player in the courts, along with
other orgs, then again the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) is the biggest
Right to Keep and Bear Arms (RKBA) player in the courts, and with most of the
cases being lost by the gun grabbers its partly self-funding through awards of
expenses and attorney fees (there are some cute pictures you can find on the
net of e.g. the head of the SAF holding a 6 figure check robo-signed by the
mayor of Chicago). But for this effort ... heck, we have infinite trouble even
getting standing to sue!

Anyway, getting down to what'll make a difference here, where we want NRA
level political muscle, if the ACLU is the biggest player here, they can't
threaten or influence legislators a fraction as much as the NRA and gunowners
can. There are simply of magnitude more of members and voters for whom the
RKBA is _very_ important, and per my linked comment I don't see that changing
prior to a bunch of spying _atrocities_. Which the national security state
seems to be pretty good at avoiding, e.g. the DEA's excesses in working
directly with phone companies target drug dealers, whom are overwhelmingly
viewed as scum of the earth (and as long as it's illegal, requiring self-help
to settle disputes, that's not far from the truth).

------
chaostheory
There needs to be a kickstarter for bills. Issue by issue.

~~~
md224
I just came across PopVox:

[https://www.popvox.com](https://www.popvox.com)

Pardon my ignorance, but is this startup well-known? It seems like a pretty
good concept.

~~~
chaostheory
I've never heard of it... it's a start but unless there's actual money
involved then I doubt that it can change much.

