Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Campaign Contribution Disclosure and Technological Change:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_11_09-2008_11_15.shtml#1226623674
Paul Sherman of the Institute for Justice raises an interesting set of
questions:
When discussing the Buckley and Brown holdings on disclosure, I
think it's important to keep in mind that both decisions were
written years before the Internet made campaign-finance data easily
available to anyone with an idle curiosity in your political
activity. In 1976 the average donor probably didn't have much to
fear from having their contributions disclosed, because the cost of
accessing that data was relatively high. But when that data can be
accessed with just a few keystrokes, methods of retaliation that
are already virtually impossible to detect or prove suddenly become
very low cost. How can I demonstrate to a court, for example, that
I was denied a job because I made a contribution to a disfavored
candidate or ballot initiative? With employers routinely performing
Google searches of job applicants, is it unreasonable to think this
happens with some frequency?
I don't know the answers to these questions, or to the broader
question of what should happen to campaign finance law in light of
these questions. But I do think these are much worth considering.
For more from the Institute for Justice on this, see [1]Disclosure
Costs: Unintended Consequences of Campaign Finance Reform, and
[2]Campaign Finance Red Tape: Strangling Free Speech and Political
Debate.
References
1.
http://www.ij.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1530&Itemid=194
2.
http://www.ij.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1527&Itemid=194
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