[HN Gopher] Amazon lobbyists who kill U.S. consumer privacy prot...
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Amazon lobbyists who kill U.S. consumer privacy protections
Author : conductor
Score : 221 points
Date : 2021-11-19 18:26 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| fhood wrote:
| So, not to play devil's advocate, and I'm sure they would push
| against a federal law just as hard, but I can understand a
| reluctance to allow state specific privacy laws. That sucks, and
| compliance would be very expensive and complicated.
| schleck8 wrote:
| Each time I visit Amazon I am now reminded of Bezos' yacht and
| space trip, which is great because I now tend to look around
| elsewhere. Geizhals and Idealo are helpful for finding
| alternative dealerships.
|
| Usually Amazon isn't the cheapest anyways.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| 5300 words and I'm still left wondering, "Who are they?" People
| have names.
| jedimastert wrote:
| Lobbyists are just messengers, from interested groups
| (corporations, non-profits, individuals) to law-makers. Doesn't
| matter who they are, another will just pop up.
| specialist wrote:
| If politics was a game of rock, paper, scissors:
|
| What is the counter to Amazon's lobbying?
|
| I've done some DIY lobbying myself. Fought city hall, won some
| (very) minor battles, lost the war. Burned out after a few years.
|
| Still foraging for role models, case studies, examples of
| effective policy organizations. Some kind of playbook.
|
| Keep hoping some one, some where has some ideas -- actionable,
| reproducible, sustainable -- for bottom up organizing to
| effectively counter the boa constrictor squishing the life force
| out of civil society.
| fungiblecog wrote:
| Make lobbying illegal
| krapp wrote:
| Lobbying is protected by the 1st Amendment (the right "to
| petition the Government for a redress of grievances.")
| fsflover wrote:
| Consider supporting Electronic Frontier Foundation instead.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Boycott.
| gaze wrote:
| Boycotts don't work unless they're organized on a massive
| scale. Otherwise it's just a blip, or a relatively constant
| background. People are boycotting Amazon right now and this
| is incorporated into their decisions.
| jdp23 wrote:
| It's only one data point, but here in Washington state
| grassroots organizers have stopped Amazon (and Microsoft) from
| passing the Bad Washington Privacy Act three years in a row
| now. The key has been the Tech Equity Coalition, a loose
| coalition group of organizations and individuals (including
| civil rights, labor, immigrant rights groups). Local
| progressive activists have also gotten deeply involved, and of
| course we've gotten help from national groups like EPIC,
| Consumer Federation of America, and EFF. We also got the King
| County Council to pass a ban on government use of facial
| recognition -- and that's Amazon and Microsoft's home turf!
|
| Of course, we still haven't passed _strong_ privacy legislation
| yet. In the 2021 session Amazon and Microsoft 's lobbying was
| enough to prevent the bill we brought from even getting a
| hearing. So, we'll see what happens in 2022. But it feels like
| momentum is on our side.
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| This - is not it. He who plays in the defense has to be
| eternally vigilant and can not loose once.
|
| Best approach in my eye is to form a "one" cause party, whos
| only "cause" is to power-bust and promptly dissolve
| afterwards, and not touch on partisan issue. "Block
| Buster"Party might sound strange, but if the only purpose is
| to disrupt power imbalances and then self-dissolve to trigger
| the next election - that could get a majority.
| rp1 wrote:
| How would this one party overcome the partisan divide?
| Seems like wishful thinking. Is there any evidence of this
| strategy working somewhere?
| oriettaxx wrote:
| I always say to my out of Europe friends: just state you are from
| EU in all your app settings, so you get all the benefits of our
| privacy legislation (GDPR) at no cost!
| kodah wrote:
| > As executives edited the draft, Herdener summed up a central
| goal in a margin note: "We want policymakers and press to fear
| us," he wrote. He described this desire as a "mantra" that had
| united department leaders in a Washington strategy session.
|
| The chairman of Amazon owns a newspaper and nearly every person
| mentioned in this story works or has worked for a prominent
| political party.
|
| Obviously there's some standouts and they deserve some accolades:
|
| > Cunningham has tried unsuccessfully since 2019 to require
| companies to get consumer consent before storing or sharing
| smart-speaker recordings. When Cunningham re-introduced the
| measure this year, Amazon took a novel lobbying approach: It
| argued the privacy protections would hurt disabled people.
|
| > Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican and the ranking member
| of the judiciary committee, was among Amazon's top-tier VIPs, the
| 2014 watering-the-flowers document shows. Last month, Grassley
| co-authored a bill with Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar that
| would prohibit companies including Amazon from favoring their own
| products on their e-commerce platforms.
|
| then...
|
| > Amazon recently has widened its lobbying strategy to focus less
| on killing or neutering legislation it opposed and more on
| drafting favorable bills and getting them passed in friendly
| legislatures, a former public-policy employee said. That tack
| paid off in a big way this year in Virginia, where Amazon
| convinced Sen. David Marsden, a business-friendly Democrat, to
| introduce privacy legislation that the company had drafted.
|
| Sounds conspicuously like the mission of ALEC.
|
| Anyone defending Amazon's recording collection practices should
| pay particular attention to this feature:
|
| > Some recordings involved conversations between family members
| using Alexa devices to communicate across different parts of the
| house. Several recordings captured children apologizing to their
| parents after being disciplined. Others picked up the children,
| ages 7, 9 and 12, asking Alexa questions about terms like
| "pansexual."
|
| You can use Alexa as an intercom. It's recording that too, which
| does not fit into explanation of why they record regular Alexa
| prompts.
|
| > Florian Schaub, a privacy researcher at the University of
| Michigan, said businesses are not always transparent about what
| they're doing with users' data. "We have to rely on Amazon doing
| the right thing," he said, "rather than being confident the data
| can't be misused."
|
| There are no easy answers to privacy. Regulations can only be a
| first step, because _this_ is the paradigm and I 'm not going to
| argue that it _shouldn 't_ be. There has to be something better
| than these outcomes though.
|
| Maybe I'm biased and just see all the darkness woven into this
| story.
| landonxjames wrote:
| There was a long article in Wired yesterday about Amazon's retail
| side privacy failures https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-failed-
| to-protect-your-da...
| olliej wrote:
| Amazon, google, Facebook, telcos
|
| The only realistic way to do anything in America is to make
| something cost money. How about a law saying that the statutory
| minimum fine for any data leak is $1 per person, for each
| individual piece of data that is does not have legally mandated
| collection?
| tmaly wrote:
| I wonder what would happen if the alexa recordings captured some
| HIPPA protected medical information that a customer spoke
| verbally in the privacy of their own home.
| jedimastert wrote:
| HIPAA (two a's, not two p's) is a regulation of communications
| from and by _medical providers_.
|
| This is the same false information people spit about vaccine
| cards.
| andjd wrote:
| HIPAA generally only limits what information healthcare
| providers (e.g. doctors and hospitals) can disclose ... so
| nothing.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| Amazon is a rational company and acts in its own interest. The
| politicians we elect act in Amazons interest. So we are to fault
| for this. No hiding the truth. If we to change (a big if) we have
| to not vote for the corporate politicians. Till then it is just
| whining and dining.
|
| From the article:
|
| The architect of this under-the-radar campaign to smother privacy
| protections has been Jay Carney, who previously served as
| communications director for Joe Biden, when Biden was vice
| president, and as press secretary for President Barack Obama.
| Hired by Amazon in 2015, Carney reported to founder Jeff Bezos
| and built a lobbying and public-policy juggernaut that has grown
| from two dozen employees to about 250, according to Amazon
| documents and two former employees with knowledge of recent
| staffing.
| cowpig wrote:
| I'm pretty tired of this trope about blind self-interest being
| "rational", as if acting in the public interest is somehow
| "irrational"
|
| There are perfectly "rational" ways of defending placing value
| in either.
|
| Further, public interest and self-interest are not concepts in
| direct opposition. In fact, I'd go so far as to argue that the
| best socio-political systems are the ones which best align the
| two.
|
| edit: Further thought: consumer protection laws exist to bring
| those two into better alignment. In a market where there are
| many small competitors, it wouldn't make economic sense for any
| individual to lobby to destroy these protections, as everyone
| is subject to the same rules. Amazon is large enough that
| tipping the scales in favor of the self-interest of its
| business affects it in an outsized way. I think a big part of
| the problem here is the size of the market actor.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| I am using the academic definition of rational actor.
|
| But the true irrational ones are the voters. They elect the
| same folks with a track record of serving the corporate
| elites and then get upset when the same politicians act
| against them.
|
| Blame the voters. Voters have agency. The voters are the
| enablers of the politicians.
| klabb3 wrote:
| > Blame the voters. Voters have agency.
|
| Meta: I appreciate your candidness in getting to the point,
| I wish more political debate was like this instead of
| wrapped in layers of fluff.
|
| I disagree though, and I'd go further and say selectively
| assigning agency - especially on a binary basis - distorts
| the solution space and waters down any good faith attempts
| to further the discussion, albeit unintentionally.
|
| Our implementation of democracy is not a magically balanced
| game where incentives line up in perfection. As a result,
| you cannot point to an outcome and blame the players any
| more than you can do in a video game with a shitty meta. In
| reality, players interpret and influence the rules of the
| game itself.
|
| In particular, our modern version of democracy is based on
| the fundamentals of marketing - where actors influence (aka
| nudge) aggregate behavior and sentiments, to get what they
| want. This system is vulnerable to feedback cycles leading
| to large concentrations of power - both political and
| corporate. The last decade is a prime example of both - not
| just in the US, but globally.
| uoaei wrote:
| > I am using the academic definition of rational actor.
|
| No you're not. You're assuming specific time and influence
| horizons for what can be considered an "outcome" of
| allegedly rational actions, and using that to retroactively
| define rationality.
|
| If we consider "avoiding fucking up the entire planet so
| that the economy can boom by including more participants
| and economic activity, so that Amazon can grow even bigger
| and more profitable" to be the outcome that we are
| considering, then what Amazon does is highly irrational.
| missedthecue wrote:
| "Rational self-interest" is a specific academic economics
| term.
|
| https://thebusinessprofessor.com/en_US/economic-analysis-
| mon...
| omnicognate wrote:
| That doesn't change anything the post you're replying to
| said. Rational self-interest in that sense is a simplifying
| assumption made as part of the process of mathematically
| modelling economic behaviour. It's not a prescription for
| how a real world company like Amazon _should_ behave.
|
| Somebody will probably now bring up "fiduciary duty" and
| "shareholder value" which are almost as irrelevant.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Why should we expect Amazon (or anyone for that matter)
| to engage in behaviour that favors you at their own
| expense? That makes no sense to me. Of course they should
| act in their own rational self interest, just like you
| and I do.
| omnicognate wrote:
| The point I made wasn't about what Amazon should or
| shouldn't do. It was about the irrelevance of the
| economic modelling concept of "rational self-interest"
| (which describes behaviour, rather than prescribing it)
| to that question.
|
| If you think humans or companies _should_ work solely on
| the basis of self-interest then you 're in good company
| (especially if you're from the US, though it's far from a
| uniquely American view). I'm not going to dissuade you by
| arguing with you on HN, but I do disagree. I hope at some
| point you and the many, many people with similar views
| learn to look at the world a bit differently.
| missedthecue wrote:
| How is it irrelevant to model that way when we're in
| agreement that everyone tends to act in their own
| rational self interest?
| cowpig wrote:
| A specific academic term that has philosophical
| implications that I'm saying are harmful
|
| edit: maybe not in all contexts, but certainly in the
| context of the comment I was replying to
| nitwit005 wrote:
| We get the choice between two candidates, both of whom will act
| in corporate interests, most of the time. Even magical, all
| knowing, voters that perfectly optimize the selection won't fix
| the issue.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Maybe if you only pay attention to national general
| elections. We didn't get here overnight and yeah, one
| election can't fix this either. That's not an excuse to have
| a defeatist attitude though! Just being informed can help you
| see there's more to it. Based on your comment, one thing I
| would suggest you get more involved in primary elections.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| This is a fantastical claim when you think about it. You are
| effectively claiming that both (1) US citizens systematically
| choose politicians that are corporate friendly (because this is
| the more general truth--they are friendly to all entities with
| money) and that (2) this "choice" is so free that you can just
| "vote for someone else" (who?).
|
| Another (less fantastical claim) is that _most_ politicians are
| corporate friendly and in turn you don't really have such a
| _free_ choise.
| nescioquid wrote:
| > Amazon is a rational company and acts in its own interest.
| The politicians we elect act in Amazons interest. So we are to
| fault for this.
|
| When I was young, I was told that even in totalitarian
| societies, you got to vote. There might be one name on the
| ballot, but you got to vote. People refuse to vote 3rd party
| for fear of throwing a vote away, yet only corporatist
| candidates will fly under D or R. Voting for different Ds or Rs
| won't change anything.
|
| The passage you quote is merely one small illustration of
| regulatory capture, a normalized form of corruption.
| xbar wrote:
| We have to not vote for the corporate politicians.
|
| Which ones are those?
| avmich wrote:
| We have to look at them and find out. We have to _constantly_
| look at them, politics isn't a single transaction - you can't
| have democracy running by itself, you have to always
| practically support it with attention and resources.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Corporate isn't a useful term of division nor a guide to
| policy. If say Maine lost their mind and decided to try to
| autarkize their state government they would wind up just
| running things far less efficiently from effectively a
| neurotic a fear of companies as HP Lovecraft had of the
| ocean.
|
| The entire framing of "the people vs. corporations" is a
| massively overreductive us-vs-them cliche used in service of
| demagoguery. It is divorced from the reality of not only how
| the system works but even how any theoretical system could
| and would work. Instead it is about emotional flattery.
|
| The whole dichotomy is worse than useless. Like trying to
| divide politicians between who is a grey and who is a
| snakeperson, a nonsensical distraction. There are always
| conflicting interests in complex arrangements. Just look at
| the dynamics and all of the interests for and against the
| proposed "US made union manufactured electric vehicle
| subsidy".
| whoknowswhat11 wrote:
| I am already swamped every year in California with annual privacy
| notices which seem to have to be mailed in paper format.
|
| We also seem to have these cookie alert pop-ups in California -
| also very annoying.
|
| Is anyone tired of this stuff rather than enjoying it? We keep on
| being told this is all to help us.
|
| I find these cookie pop-ups stupid and annoying, just require a
| policy on the site, if I care I can go look.
|
| I'd be far FAR more impressed if we actually BANNED these damn
| things and switched to a basic enforcement model where even 1% of
| the crap on the net got cleaned up.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Compromise is when no one gets what they want. Corporations
| ostensibly don't get unfettered access to your data, and you
| have to navigate those pop ups.
|
| Of course, thanks to dark patterns and more importantly
| regulations with no teeth, the corporations usually get their
| way in the end.
|
| We're dealing with pop ups either way, so I'm not too annoyed
| with the current status quo, but yeah, it would be great if
| regulations could exist that just said no with real
| consequences for non compliance.
| whoknowswhat11 wrote:
| This pop-up love is the stupids thing ever.
|
| The reality - they are too lazy to just put in a bait email,
| watch it get sold improperly and prosecute. That's all it
| would take, no pop-ups needed.
| emodendroket wrote:
| California, I've noticed since I've moved here, is in love with
| giving you a million notices nobody ever reads and that have no
| effect on anybody's behavior (the way every second thing you
| buy "contains chemicals known to the state of California to
| cause cancer" is just the most obvious example). If they want
| to regulate something they should actually do it instead of
| wasting everybody's time with that stuff, imo.
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| California causes a large annoyance to supply chains and
| manufacturing. Their strict environmental standards mean as a
| trucker, you either service California or not. It's not
| something you just decide to do starting next week. From
| memory, the truck engine has to be under 10 years old and
| meet really strict emissions standards, costing a significant
| premium.
|
| For manufacturers, ensuring those stickers are in anything
| sold in California is a pain, and when you make millions of
| units, it often doesn't make sense to just apply the sticker,
| labeling, and documentation to everything you make.
| emodendroket wrote:
| The environmental standards have a more tangible benefit
| and can have a pseudo-national effect given the size of
| California's market, so I'm not critical of that aspect.
| Slapping warning labels on everything without changing it
| feels like a waste of time, at least if you're not
| selective enough to make them useful to consumers.
| [deleted]
| tuyguntn wrote:
| This is crazy. Bribing is illegal, but lobbying is legal. How
| many laws are created for the convenience of corporations and
| select people at the cost of ordinary because of lobbying?
|
| Why no one in the US brings up this to the political agenda?
| avmich wrote:
| I think Lawrence Lessig was trying to focus on this before 2016
| presidential elections.
| tuyguntn wrote:
| yeah I think this must be solved before any other secondary
| problems.
|
| If taxpayers need President, then let their campaign funded
| only by taxpayer money. Same applies to Senate and everyone
| who is elected. Limited and equal amount to all sides and let
| them be as creative as possible. But never take corporation
| money
| pstuart wrote:
| Indeed. The problem is not lobbying, but campaign finance
| reform. Conceptually simple, politically impossible.
| chefandy wrote:
| Sad that he didn't get more traction because he had some
| fantastic practical and well-thought-out policy solutions: I
| mean, how rare is that among folks with political
| aspirations? Even if he had, he'd not likely have made it too
| far, anyway. Too many people with too much influence have too
| much at stake. Someone would have whipped up a gazillion
| dollar FUD machine against him the very second broad support
| for his ideas seemed plausible.
| ZetaZero wrote:
| It's nearly impossible to get your name on a state-wide ballot
| without taking corporate lobbying.
| jedimastert wrote:
| > Bribing is illegal, but lobbying is legal
|
| What do you think "lobbying" actually means?
| jimbob45 wrote:
| What's wrong with lobbying? If you have a viewpoint that you
| feel isn't being heard, you're free to form a non-profit and
| have the government subsidize your quest to have them listen to
| you.
|
| Remember that laws are hard to create and usually incredibly
| complex. Even something as simple as Net Neutrality isn't black
| and white in terms of winners and losers. What you perceive as
| "laws created for the convenience of corporations and select
| people at the cost of ordinary people" may not be as numerous
| as you may think.
| Lich wrote:
| Really? Most individual people don't lobby because they don't
| have the money to do it. That's why it's almost always a
| corporate lobbyist. Why do you think it's a good system to
| have concerns heard only for those who have financial wealth?
| That skews government policy towards elites and the wealthy,
| and favors corporate benefit and health. Do you really
| believe the government is in service to corporations or to
| the American people? Even when it is an individual, it's
| almost always a billionaire like Bezos or Bloomberg who is
| trying to STEAL American taxpayer money so that they can go
| on their stupid space trips.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > Really? Most individual people don't lobby because they
| don't have the money to do it.
|
| Meta-comment but this is how all HN threads on topics like
| this turn out:
|
| - Topic: Perpetual rights to all clean drinking water in
| Nigeria put up for auction
|
| - Half the thread: It's nuts that rich people are able to
| just buy something that should be a basic human right
|
| - The other half: Excuse me, but who said that only rich
| people can buy these rights? There's no _law_ that is
| stopping them from buying this right. Regular people can
| crowdfund those $20B if they really want. Another option is
| for the citizens of Nigeria to vote with their feet and
| move to another country if access to clean drinking water
| is so important to them. And should clean drinking water be
| a human right anyway? What if we lived in the vacuum of
| space and there was no drinking water, huh? Didn't think of
| that, did you. And human rights are basically tantamount to
| slavery since ...
| jimbob45 wrote:
| That sounds like you agree with the current state of things
| though. You agree that citizens should form groups to lobby
| to counter corporation lobbying. You agree that the
| government should (and does) give these groups money to
| lobby via tax statuses and tax incentives. The only
| disagreement is that you believe these groups should be
| given more money.
| glitcher wrote:
| I believe there are plenty of examples available of lobbying
| that ends up benefiting companies at the expense of the
| public. To counter your arguments, I would challenge anyone
| to try to out-lobby Intuit when it comes to regulation around
| tax filing. How well do you suppose that opposition has fared
| so far in the face of huge corporate dollars?
| cute_boi wrote:
| The wrong thing is good people etc can't afford to lobby
| which means its usually corporation that does it. And if
| corporation follow principles, adhere to ethics most of them
| are not going to be billion dollar corporation.
|
| "you're free to form a non-profit and have the government
| subsidize your quest to have them listen to you" This is a
| common fallacy. You have to be elites etc for such thing to
| happen.
|
| Yes laws, reforms etc are hard to create but this doesn't
| mean any one can bribe and create law in their favor? We
| should always complain about wrong law that is created for
| skulduggery.
|
| Net Neutrality is good for consumers bad for few corporation
| so we are clear its mostly good.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Because the people making laws benefit from it. It's the people
| that are hurt.
|
| It's also not clear what would happen if you somehow were able
| to make all campaign spending derived from public funds and
| make lobbying illegal. It would likely just increase direct
| corruption, but perhaps it would be less than you see now.
|
| On the other hand, while only available to the wealthy,
| lobbying allows for a kind of direct democracy.
| moritonal wrote:
| I'm fairly sure what you described is the UK system?
| jessaustin wrote:
| _Why no one in the US brings up this to the political agenda?_
|
| Rational people talk about it enough that eventually all their
| friends beg them to stop talking about it. Perhaps you meant to
| ask why this is never mentioned on popular commercial news
| media? Or perhaps you meant to ask why no politician affiliated
| with Democrat or Republican ever mention it? Those would have
| been perceptive questions.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Nobody talks about it because Citizens United v FEC would need
| to be reversed to change anything in a meaningful way.
|
| Reversing that Supreme Court decision is about as likely as
| admitting Puerto Rico as the 51st state, it won't happen.
| openasocket wrote:
| I'm in the DC area, have friends in the lobbying space.
| Lobbying generally doesn't involve money changing hands, or
| campaign contributions, or anything like that. Lobbying
| congresspeople generally consists of contacting them and
| convincing them the value of certain positions. Realistically,
| lobbying is essential for Congress to function. You can't
| possibly expect every single member of Congress to be an expert
| on everything they could ever possibly legislate about. They
| require someone to provide them with background information so
| that they can make an informed decision. To some extent they
| can use their staff, or the Congressional Research Service, or
| do some research on their own, but generally speaking that's
| not enough. Legislators often maintain active relationships
| with lobbying groups that they agree with, and can use them as
| a source on input on legislation. This is no different than a
| citizen choosing to support a particular bill because a group
| they trust and respect supports it. A significant amount of
| lobbying is done simply because a legislator values that
| group's opinions.
|
| When we're talking about more coercive lobbying, it's often
| done on influence rather than money. A good example is the NRA.
| There are a significant number of voters for whom gun rights
| are very important, and will vote for or against a particular
| candidate based entirely on what the NRA says to do. The NRA
| thus has a lot of power, and I'd argue more so than could be
| achieved simply with money.
|
| Businesses can lobby based on influence too. If a particular
| company or industry employs a significant number of your
| constituents, as a congressperson it is in your best interests
| to cater to that company or industry. If legislation is passed
| that helps that industry, they may expand and you can come back
| to your voters at election time showing you created jobs. If
| you pass legislation that hurts that industry and people are
| laid off, on the other hand, people may blame you for it. Even
| the thought that you might pass a law that might help or hurt
| an industry can change votes.
|
| Don't get me wrong, we need to reform campaign financing. But
| lobbying in general is a perfectly reasonable and necessary
| function.
| s5300 wrote:
| ? Citizens United was a long time ago
|
| Nobody has started killing any of the ultra rich involved in it
| yet so nothing is going to happen.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Why no one in the US brings up this to the political
| agenda?_
|
| Because the term "lobbying" is overinclusive to the point of
| being useless. 90% of lobbying is not only benign, it's
| necessary to the functioning of a republic. It involves people
| likely to be affected by the law telling lawmakers their
| thoughts. These people can be companies. They are also, very
| frequently, interest groups, nonprofits and individual voters.
|
| This is why "let's ban lobbying" is a siren call. If you have
| representative democracy, you will have influence peddling,
| _i.e._ lobbying. "Let's ban corporate lobbying" becomes more
| tangible, but keep in mind this means you're basically banning
| every business that can't fly its employees to D.C. from being
| able to fully communicate with lawmakers. (It also leaves
| untouched the community organizing side of lobbying, arguably
| its most potent part, and would probably fall afoul of the
| First Amendment.)
|
| The unfortunate effect of this overinclusiveness is it papers
| over the bad stuff. The lack of enforcement around campaigns
| coordinating with PACs. Board seats and cushy jobs offered to
| former lawmakers. Campaign donations from non-natural persons.
| This is the stuff I think people are actually offended by. But
| it's currently too technical for the base that wants to "ban
| lobbying."
|
| TL; DR If you want to push the needle on this issue, drop the
| idea that lobbying is bad. If you've donated to the EFF, you've
| hired a lobbyist. If you've called your Congressperson, you've
| lobbied.
| r00fus wrote:
| This is a "everyone does it" excuse. The reality is that the
| game rules are twisted by those who spend the most.
|
| Look at the dollars involved in Amazon or other corporations
| vs. the EFF and you'll see enough of a disparity that EFF and
| you calling your congresscritter are a rounding error in
| comparison.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Rights are symmetrical in a functional system. Everyone
| does it isn't an excuse it is an acknowledgement that
| trying to make it "nobody does it" won't work. At best the
| courts will strike it down and at worst you will have just
| established a small priveledged class of exceptions.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Look at the dollars involved in Amazon or other
| corporations vs. the EFF and you 'll see enough of a
| disparity that EFF and you calling your congresscritter are
| a rounding error in comparison_
|
| I agree with you. But people observing that disparity in
| influence and access and concluding that the solution is to
| call for banning lobbying is part of the problem. (There is
| a host of problems, ranging from campaign finance laws to
| disclosure rules. They each need a solution that,
| unfortunately, hasn't yet found a compelling banner.)
| gaganyaan wrote:
| Let's make it a felony to have any private contact between
| companies and legislators then. All communication must be
| publicly available.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Let 's make it a felony to have any private contact
| between companies and legislators then_
|
| Don't know if it's a felony to violate. But this sounds
| consistent with the Ethics in Government Act of 1978's
| reporting requirements [1].
|
| > _All communication must be publicly available_
|
| This is a bad idea. It privileges those with physical
| access to lawmakers. It will also crowd out a good amount
| of honest communication in favor of theatre for public
| consumption.
|
| That said, there might be a way to thread the needle such
| that substantial communications around actual legislation
| get captured. Mark-ups on drafts, suggested language,
| official policy memos, _et cetera_.
|
| [1] https://www.opensecrets.org/personal-
| finances/disclosure
| pacifist wrote:
| The same people who benefit from this relationship need to
| pass the laws that kill the goose. Maybe you think there
| are enough honest politicians to pull it off. I've been
| been around long enough to have been disabused of that
| notion.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I 've been been around long enough to have been
| disabused of that notion_
|
| Unless you're younger than 20, you've seen a Congress
| pass such reforms [1]. If you were around in the late
| 70s, you may also recall the Ethics in Government Act of
| '78.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipartisan_Campaign_Ref
| orm_Act
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > 90% of lobbying is not only benign, it's necessary to the
| functioning of a republic.
|
| This message was brought to you by the Organization For the
| Promotion of Ethical Lobbying.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _Why no one in the US brings up this to the political agenda?_
|
| Some politicians do (especially progressives, like Sanders, the
| Squad, etc.), but they are in the political minority compared
| to politicians who are swayed by corporate money. The fact is,
| your average voter singularly cares more about other things
| (2A, abortion, taxes) than their own privacy. The average media
| outlet is also very pro-corporation, which, in turn leads to
| your average voter being pro-corporation as well.
| user3939382 wrote:
| > progressives, like Sanders, the Squad
|
| As far as I can tell: Bernie doesn't want to be run out of
| town like Ralph Nader -- he will do nothing to actually buck
| the establishment DNC. The squad feigns protest to the
| establishment DNC (Pelosi et al) only when it's already
| certain that their voice/vote won't actually effect the
| outcome of the issue in the direction the establishment
| wants. It's a scam to keep people voting for Democrats even
| when they can see the party is corrupt.
| gruez wrote:
| >Bribing is illegal, but lobbying is legal.
|
| Because bribing is paying someone to breach their public duty,
| whereas lobbying only theoretically involves you trying to
| persuade your representative. Sure, it can involve "bad" stuff
| (eg. relaxing environmental regulations), but can also involve
| "good" stuff (eg. relaxing zoning regulations). Citizens, or
| groups of citizens (eg. corporations) engaging with their
| representatives is part of the democratic process.
| _jal wrote:
| > Citizens, or groups of citizens (eg. corporations) engaging
| with their representatives is part of the democratic process.
|
| That's the pretty way to present it.
|
| In practice, "Citizens, or groups of citizens" is true but
| unfortunately vague, sort of similar to "Mammals, or groups
| of mammals, are known to sometimes build buildings out of
| prefabricated concrete."
|
| Lobbying is a heavily professionalized activity, mostly
| undertaken by specialist lawyers employed full-time for the
| job.
| nielsbot wrote:
| Or "retired" government officials via the revolving door.
|
| This is also backdoor bribery: "help us out, you got a
| cushy job waiting for you in the future."
| gruez wrote:
| >Lobbying is a heavily professionalized activity, mostly
| undertaken by specialist lawyers employed full-time for the
| job.
|
| So you only object to the fact that lobbying is done by
| specialists rather than laypersons?
| _jal wrote:
| I was objecting to intentionally obfuscatory language
| that is frequently employed in attempts to obscure the
| fact that lobbying as commonly understood is an activity
| almost exclusively enjoyed by the well-resourced and/or
| powerful.
| gruez wrote:
| 1. it shouldn't be surprising that well-resourced and/or
| powerful have more resources to do _any_ activities, be
| it lobbying, or going on european vacations
|
| 2. is your argument that lobbying should be banned
| because almost exclusively enjoyed by the well-resourced
| and/or powerful? I'm not sure that's a very persuasive
| argument. We ban speeding because it's harmful, not
| because the rich are well-resourced and/or powerful to
| afford fast cars.
| _jal wrote:
| I have offered no opinion on lobbying itself in this
| thread.
|
| The entire content of what I want to convey here is
| contained in the comment you're replying to.
| CabSauce wrote:
| You could bribe someone to do something in the public
| interest too... I'm betting it would still be 'illegal'. It's
| a distiction without much of a difference.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Yeah. So benign, right? "Anyone can do it". Only in practice
| it's the people (and "people" (corporations)) with the most
| money that do it the most.
| omgwtfbyobbq wrote:
| Someone could be bribed to do "good" stuff too.
|
| I think the difference is quid pro quo plus the transfer of
| things of value that does not conform to existing rules.
| gruez wrote:
| >I think the difference is quid pro quo plus the transfer
| of things of value that does not conform to existing rules.
|
| I didn't intend to say "well it could also be used for good
| so we should keep it legal", but yeah this is probably the
| better take. A better analogy might be: it's totally legal
| to persuade a judge of your case (ie. what the
| prosecution/plaintiff/defense does), and totally part of
| the legal process, but persuading a judge via bribes is
| illegal.
| mmazing wrote:
| This.
|
| All of these other topics you see on either side of the
| political spectrum are convenient distractions for things like
| the Panama Papers, lobbying, and corporate welfare.
|
| How do we keep topics that matter across the political spectrum
| at the forefront of public view?
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| > One 2018 document reviewing executives' goals for the prior
| year listed privacy regulation as a primary target for Carney.
| One objective: "Change or block US and EU regulation/legislation
| that would impede growth for Alexa-powered devices"
|
| It's one thing to assume that corporations will act in their own
| self-interests, but this is like they said the quiet part loud.
| How do you write or even read that document and believe you're
| acting in a moral or ethical manner?
| tqi wrote:
| If you reject the notion that Alexa-powered devices are bad,
| would this be immoral or unethical? ie medical marijuana
| lobbyists would probably say that they are looking to "change
| or block US and EU regulation/legislation that would impede
| growth for medical marijuana."
| uoaei wrote:
| > If you reject the notion that Alexa-powered devices are bad
|
| Why would we do that, considering the evidence available to
| us?
| crusty wrote:
| If YOU were an Amazon executive in a role that had
| influence over the program and wanted to keep our advance
| your position.
|
| The comment author here is voicing the inner monologue of
| one of these people, not one of the other 99.999+% of
| people.
| dantheman wrote:
| Why are the bad? what evidence is there?
| darksaints wrote:
| What if it said: "change or block US and EU
| regulation/legislation that would impede growth for BigCo
| Marijuana Vape Pens"?
|
| See the difference? One is protection for an industry, the
| other is a protection for a specific company.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| That's a horrible difference. You're talking about phrasing
| determining morals and ethics? I mean, do you condemn
| politicians who talk about helping a specific person with a
| policy to try to make it real? Obviously Amazon's lobbyists
| are trying to protect Amazon's interests.
|
| If you think Alexa should be regulated, you can think it's
| immoral. But I have no problem with Amazon identifying why
| they care. Unless you think that the lobbyists read that as
| "make sure there is an Alexa named exemption".
| Jensson wrote:
| > You're talking about phrasing determining morals and
| ethics?
|
| The courts certainly do care about phrasing. You are
| taught to not say "we will destroy the opposition" at big
| companies so that they can avoid lawsuits, instead you
| say things along the lines of "we will provide the best
| user experience". Ultimately it is basically the same
| thing, but the second is safe in courts, the first will
| create a problem.
|
| Edit: Case example: Google said AMP was to "provide the
| best user experience". But it also helps Google "destroy
| the opposition". So why isn't there a court case over
| Google abusing their position? Because they didn't say
| the second part here, just repeated the first. Words do
| matter a lot.
| roystonvassey wrote:
| Not sure about morality but yes it's unethical and borderline
| illegal. If an elected body is planning legislations,
| actively blocking it means you're suppressing the voice of
| the public and the voters.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _If an elected body is planning legislations, actively
| blocking it means you're suppressing the voice of the
| public and the voters_
|
| This is reductive. When the Congress was writing
| cryptocurrency reporting rules, the crypto industry asking
| for clarifying amendments (to avoid classifying miners as
| exchanges) wasn't suppressing anyone's voice. It was
| supplementing it with specialist knowledge.
| elliekelly wrote:
| When we write laws about speeding should we ask sports
| car owners to supplement the legislative record with
| their specialist knowledge?
| MrLeap wrote:
| If the legislation, as worded, applies to cars on race
| tracks -- probably? I think these metaphors are getting
| far afield.
|
| Privacy is a fundamental thing that's more important (and
| harder!) to protect than most things.
|
| It's probably also a good idea to get a breadth of
| stakeholder's opinions on an issue. Lobbyists definitely
| have a massively outsized portion of this breadth.
| judge2020 wrote:
| They're not "actively blocking it" any more than someone
| holding a protest outside of the Capitol building is. The
| difference is that they have lobbying money, which is
| allowed and generally encouraged by the congresspeople
| themselves. Any consumer regulation that directly targets
| an industry is more often than not a call-to-action for the
| lobbyist to dedicate more of their budget to the
| lawmaker(s) in question.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_lobbying_in_the_Un
| i...
| hogFeast wrote:
| Because the purpose of a govt is to make laws for everyone.
| The tyranny of the majority is just tyranny in the end
| (this is what authoritarian govts, ironically, fail to
| understand about democracy...debate and disagreement seems
| weak and decadent to them, it is not, I think that US
| politics has relatively weak controls on lobbying but the
| perfect outcome is not a ban on lobbying...most successful
| authoritarian govts operate by claiming to represent the
| voice of "the people"). And btw, this is how US politics is
| designed, the people who created the US constitution were
| very aware of how democracy ended the first time.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > the people who created the US constitution were very
| aware of how democracy ended the first time.
|
| Being conquered by a foreign power?
|
| How does that relate?
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| That's a good counterpoint, I guess the obvious question is
| why your viewpoint is opposed.
|
| Medical marijuana lobbyists have an easy, obvious answer:
| impediments are the result of a failed and ill-considered war
| on drugs that's actively causing lots and lots of harm. It's
| easy to see yourself as virtuous in that scenario.
|
| Anti-privacy lobbyists have to go through more difficult
| mental contortions: large movements of people are concerned
| about the privacy invasions our devices represent, and that
| puts our future profits at risk. People are very capable of
| being irrational when their paycheck depends on it, but that
| feels too far to me.
| judge2020 wrote:
| That's going into arguments on merit, though. The point is
| that trying to influence regulation shouldn't be seen as an
| issue. Berate the company for doing something you're
| against, but everyone has a voice, even corporations with
| more money to influence congress than the average person.
| mitigating wrote:
| What if corporations are acting against the public good
| the majority of the time and there aren't alternative
| methods of stopping this (boycotts don't work etc).
|
| It's better to ban it since it's mostly evil.
| colpabar wrote:
| Do you really think C-level people at amazon care _at all_
| about acting morally or ethically? They have lots of money, and
| US politicians accept bribes to make things go a certain way.
| This is just business as usual for everyone involved.
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