IP: an article from Wired re the same subject ... Show me

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

X-Sender: telstar () pophost wired com
Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 09:46:11 -0800
To: farber () cis upenn edu
From: "--Todd Lappin-->" <telstar () wired com>
Subject: Re: IP: Show me your cold, hard cash  from MSNBC




I'm passing along an activist's riff on the "Get in the Game" theme picked
up by Brock Meeks in his MSNBC piece... this time by Shabbir Safdar of VTW.


Best,


--Todd Lappin-->




> From Wired Magazine, March, 1997




Cough It Up!
What it takes to get things done on Capitol Hill.


By Shabbir J. Safdar


A few weeks back, I tried to arrange a meeting with Representative Edolphus
Towns (D-New York) - my Congress member - and a delegation of online
activists who also live  in his district. All of us voted for Towns, and,
in late 1995, we publicly supported his decision to back proposals that
would have gutted the Communications Decency Act. Yet despite our
endorsements, I wasn't able to schedule time to brief Towns about the
important Internet issues that Congress will confront this year.


Put simply, I'd fallen prey to the Net's 1996 election impotence. Though
netizens voted in droves last year, few campaigns paid much attention to
Net users' concerns. Why? Because Internet advocates are notoriously
reluctant to participate in election campaigns by giving money to political
action committees. Common Cause, a watchdog organization that monitors
political donations, calls PACs "a dominant force in the financing of
congressional campaigns." Against that backdrop, it's no surprise that the
Internet community doesn't register on the radar screens of many members of
Congress.


How aloof is the online industry from the political process? I went to
www.commoncause.org to research campaign donations during the 1996 election
cycle. I checked out the "Computers & Electronics" category, expecting to
find piles of cash donated by firms such as Microsoft, Netscape, IBM, and
Apple. Instead, I discovered that none of these companies had contributed
the minimum US$10,000 that would have earned them a place on the list of
soft-money donors. The closest thing I found to an Internet industry
donation came from Steve Jobs, who gave $100,000 to the Democrats.


This is astonishing. Only one year after the Communications Decency Act was
signed into law, the Internet community still hasn't come to grips with the
fact that Congress has the power of life and death over our industry.
Netizens got their butts kicked by the CDA, and yet, even now, we can't be
bothered to give money to a few candidates to ensure that such a debacle
won't be repeated.


Meanwhile, other businesses are giving generously. The list of industrial
contributors from 1996 reads like a table of contents from Forbes:
pharmaceutical firms gave $4.3 million; insurance kicked in $6 million;
banking, $2.8 million; tobacco, $4.7 million. The National Rifle
Association is also on the map, having given $80,000 to candidates and
parties it supports. When targeted at a few pivotal committee chairs, even
such (relatively) modest donations can be useful chunks of change.


The fact is, money creates momentum on Capitol Hill. Just look at the
Telecommunications Reform Bill of 1995. Because of the bill's inexorable
mojo, Internet activists were unable to put the brakes on the
Communications Decency Act that was attached to it. But what fueled this
freight train?


Donations, baby. According to Common Cause, telcos and cable giants donated
record sums of cash during the debate over the bill. The seven Baby Bells
alone gave a little more than $900,000, and now they're free to expand into
businesses they could only drool over just two years ago. What's more,
these new businesses may be so lucrative that dropping a million or so to
eliminate some pesky regulations seems like a modest long-term investment.


What did the telcos buy with all this money? Not votes, but access and
credibility. Even if you have a persuasive argument to make - and the Net's
defenders are famously talented rhetoricians - you still need an
opportunity to state your case. Howling at the moon in cyberspace about
congressional blunders doesn't help. What counts most is getting face time
with members or their staff.
Regardless of your opinion of PACs and money politics, it's undeniable that
campaign donations help their donors. To be taken seriously in Washington,
the Internet must develop a constituency of individuals that will donate
along political lines. Do the right thing, and we give you the carrot. Do
the wrong thing, and we give you the stick. One inside-the-Beltway Net
activist recently told me, "If we gave even $10,000 to a few Net-friendly
candidates, it would open all sorts of other doors for us."


This year, the Net's defenders will continue to press Congress on issues
such as encryption liberalization, privacy, free speech, local loop access,
and copyright protection. To win those fights, we must reward folks in
Congress who are working hard to defend the Internet. Next time you see a
chance to contribute to an Internet PAC or an Internet-oriented candidate
fund-raiser, take a minute to close your laptop and break open your
checkbook. Your money will go a long way toward protecting freedom in
cyberspace. n


Shabbir J. Safdar (shabbir@vtw .org) is cofounder of Voters
Telecommunications Watch.


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