For the map lovers (like me!) out there...
A friend of mine recently created a nifty little web application that allows you to enter zipcodes and it will then display a map of this area with pushpins showing the locations and $$ amounts of political donations originating from that region. I haven't seen anything like it before.
I think such information, displayed in such fashion, could be very useful to people here in a variety of ways. But it also raises some privacy concerns. Want to know what Markos contributed to the DNC last year and how that compared to his neighbors? ;-] No problem... join me after the break.
To use it, just go to
this site enter a zip code (or zip codes) in, and wallah... instant campain finance reform! For example, here's a brave soul near Crawford, TX:
At first I was a little disconcerted by the fact that any of my neighbors can find out how much I gave and to whom. It struck me as a privacy issue. I can imagine people who are outliers in their neighborhoods might not like this. But, as my friend who created this emailed me ("unofficially"):
How's this for handling the privacy issue:
If somebody donated Republican then I feel great if they feel violated/uncomfortable. They voted for Bush and therefore not worthy of any respect. For each RNC donor that I hear of who is uncomfortable the better I will feel. No need to feel like your privacy has been violated
unless you realize you truly fucked up. You you did screw up, then the public awareness of your donation should motivate you to make sure others didn't make the same mistake in 2006 or 2008.
If somebody donated Democrat, they should be extremely proud to have not fallen for the Bush bullshit and being publicly on display as donating Democrat should be considered an honor, rather than a violation of privacy.
;-)
Seriously, though....all of this is publically available information -- it could be put in a newspaper! The point is that prior to this service, this info was mainly used by party officials and candidates to figure out who/where to target. Now we can use it too, for example, to keep track of politicians who may be tempted to trade favors and push policies that help certain rich communities in exchange for donations.
Another friend of mine wrote this to me about it:
Regarding the privacy issue, I just don't see one. The information about what we gave and who we gave it to and our address is in the public domain. I have no right to keep my political contributions secret. That is what we have all been fighting to make even more open in the campaign contributions laws so that we all know who is supporting or "buying" who. The fact that it is on a cute map with blue and red balloons increases the curiosity factor, but it in no way increases or creates any violation of privacy. At least to me it does not. Politicians can't legally keep secret who is financially supporting them and I have a legal right to know who is financially supporting which candidates and issues that my elected officials are voting on.
I can go on and on about how local, state and even national politicians have used precinct maps with contributions and voting patterns to determine who gets top priorities for projects. This is just a graphic way for the average citizen to see the same information that the politicians have had for years and years, even centuries with less sophisticated tools. I think that it allows us as the average person to begin to see some connections between amount of support and voting patterns of an elected official. I applaud it and hope that he can keep it open and that there be even more tools made available for us to all see what is happening.
I couldn't have said it better (which is why I'm quoting him!).
Anyway, enjoy the maps...
I'll be interested to watch to what kind of good uses they get put.
Oh yeah, and Geesh! Just $25 to the DNC??! What's up with that, Markos?
Update [2005-12-16 2:22:11 by shock]: We're not sure what kind of bandwidth the site can handle. (We know it's limited.) So if it's slow, bear with it. I think it's worth it.