Lessig

Another idea -- only somewhat tongue in cheek -- given the popularity of NASCAR, how about all politicians having to wear the banners of those companies/industries that give them donations. Any received by individuals that is below a certain limit does not need to be acknowledged, but the value of corporate and lobbyist gifts and services (including flights, etc.) is tallied and then designated by patches and banners that have to be worn while the politician serves in any official capacity -- the largest donor goes on the hat, the next, on a disc on the chest, etc.

So when a politician opposes regulating the drug industry, they have to do it while wearing a Pfizer hat and wearing a jacket emblazoned with "Lilly" on it.

If campaign donations and cash are free speech, then the donors should be happy that their "voice" is going out as clearly as possible.

Full public financing of campaigns is absolutely vital.

Any other reforms will likely engender more loopholes & more labyrinthine systems of kickbacks.

It's eminently worthwhile to pay taxes to fund democracy.

The only problem with your idea, Christiano is that corporations are recognized by the government as people. After the Civil War blacks could sue to be recognized as people instead of property. Corporations went to court to have their entities known as people under that same law and have all the rights of a citizen forthwith. From that point on a corporation was legally recognized as a person.

A disturbing account of what a corporation is can be found in the selfsame movie "The Corporation". The book the movie is based on is fascinating too.

Generally I'm opposed to capital punishment, due to my lack of trust in the fairness and accuracy of our justice system.
However, I'm willing to make an exception for POLITICIANS.
Let's try public executions of those politicians convicted of accepting banned or illegal money, those meeting with lobbyists and who block disclosure of their activities together(hello Mr. Chaney, are you listening?).
That would get their attention as nothing else seems to have.

just a thought

Perhaps one of the easiest reductions to corruption of the political process, is based upon a closer examination of the role of the politicians. The role of a politician is to represent their constituency, to their elected body. Therefore, contributions have to come from their constituants.

Congressmen already don't respond to emails from people not in their district, so why should money be any different?

Some good ideas above. I particularly like the JN suggestion for full public financing of campaigns, and the Christiano Seppala proposal to limit campaign contributions to individual citizens only, and exclude corporations, unions, PACs and the like.

Both might implemented. I don't think there would be any constitutional problem in excluding contributions from corporations. Just because corporations have been recognized as people for some purposes, doesn't mean that they can't be distinguished from people in other respects. This is done in the case of a number of laws. For example, corporations are treated differently from people with respect to tax laws.

Public financing of election campaigns does not mean that government officials are given the power to decide who gets funded. This can be built into the law, by awarding campaign funds to every candidate who meets certain basic requirements such as receiving some number of small contributions from members of the public. This is what is done in Arizona and Maine. I have written about this issue at:
http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~unger/articles/campFin.html

The root of corruption lies with those who have the power, and in modern capitalist societies, that's corporations. To corral corporations, you must first revoke their legal status as persons. Then legislate that the senior officers of a company, as well as the board of directors are personally liable for the actions of the company. Finally, re-write the laws concerning the obligations of the publicly-held corporation. Current corporate capitalize inverts the obligations that a corporation has to society. A corporation's loyalties should be as follows:

1. Its customers, since serving them is the only valid reason for being in business.
2. Its employees, since a company without workers can't function.
3. The communities in which the corporation operates, since they give rise to its employees.
4. The physical environment of those communities, because communities suffer when they are toxified and degraded.
5. Its debtholders, since they provide the company with working capital to run the operations of the business.
6. Its shareholders, who are nothing more than gamblers in the casino of the stock market.

A lot of political problems will disappear once we do this.

We have this wonderful thing called the internet. It could easily allow direct democracy for MANY elections. Once proper securities are put in place to allow only 1 vote per person (poor can go to free internet access at public libraries) we can directly vote for individual bills, no riders allowed. Weekly votes can be held. Getting the power away from 'government' and discouraging 3rd party spending will increase the effeciency of our government, and allow better informed purchases to be made.

First, read The Cheating Culture by David Callahan. Maybe he has some ideas on the subject of corruption in politics.

Bills coming from congress must be about ONE thing and should be named in plain English, not in Orwellian doublespeak. I know this will be thought of as naiive -- legislation is like sausage, yada yada--but how are we supposed to know what someone really voted for or against if we don't have a clear up and down vote on clear issues.

We should have an easy-to-read MATRIX (online and off) with candiates, employment/accomplishment histories, votes by issues, lsit of references, etc.) that can be fact checked and added to by the candidate (to respond). Most importantly, it will be organized in a way that most people can understand and if bills are clean, we will have a better idea of what the candidate really has done and will most likely do in the future.

The FCC must make our networks be responsible. Most of campaign money goes into advertising; do nothing about this and you've done nothing to reform campaign finance. The airwaves are supposedly owned by the people. The FCC should mandate so many hours of informative advertising/debates. The British (BBC) have a 6-week campaign season with free ads on the BBC during that time.

I like the idea, mentioned previously, of only individuals being able to donate. Companies and organizations with purposely confusing names can obscure matters. If we have public funding, each individual can have x amount of dollars to contribute.

If this won't fly, perhaps a blind trust, with anyone being able to contribute anything to a blind trust for a candidate.

Banking secrecy, fiscal paradises, etc. must be dealt with if we are to truly deal with corruption.

Hope this helps.

For me the types of corruption that are more prevalent and potentially more undemocratic are those that truly hit the average person in the street. Try "price fixing" in most "mature" markets.

Fighting corruption sounds noble but the realities are much less concrete than most seem to make it sound. Example: Who won the last presidential election? Why? We had an unpopular president, a vp most considered corrupt even then and yet somehow that administration managed to get re-elected. Is that just because they had so much money?

If you cut off the money from one head the hydra will just grow another. Ahnuld ran a strong anti-corruption campaign about how up front everything was going to be and yet a non-profit corporation pays for most of his high falutin' travel. And guess who donates to that non-profit?

I used to like the idea of mandating network access by the candidates during election cycles, but the reality of that would just be the same as the campaign matching funds is now - if you don't get at least this much of the vote (and the parties in power get to decide how much) then you don't qualify - no access. It doesn't solve anything, really, since the networks and affiliates already are free to donate as much time as they wish.

How many people actually vote in elections? And how many of those have actually done any research?

The greatest corruption, as I see it, is the apathy and ignorance that permeates our culture. We need children who are taught history and our constitution from a patriotic view rather than a corporate one. Most young folks I know seem to believe the government has the right to censor speech, search homes and do pretty much everything else this administration says it can do. Do they even teach the bill of rights to kids past the 5th grade in this country?

While many suggestions are excellent it's worth remembering that this is a global problem and as such I'd focus less on specific solutions to USA democrazy.
That being said bhere are my suggestions, some of which I beleive may also only apply to USA:
- Figure out how to make people comitted to politics again.
- Make voting mandatory
- Make descition making process completely transparrent, except maybe defence, security and foreign policy (can't have other side knowing what we're up to before we kill, catch or meet them).
- Ban polical TV commercials.
- Fund campaigns exclusively based on votes in last election or signatures, but using a logaritmic scale.
- Require full finacial disclosure from anyone seeking to meet with elected official or candidate. Can't have cooperations pretending to be groups of concerned citizens.
- Ban voting for idiots by idiots (didn't say i have to be consistent did you?)
- Give public service media sufficient funding to make proper journalism possible while preventing undue influence from goverment (funding also awarded to stations on logaritic scale but according to viewers and readers instead of voters).
- Once power has been handed back to the people, try to figure out how to prevent "Rule by uninformed majority at the expense of minorities".

I suspect that most followers of Mr. Lessig (and thus most contributors to this discussion) tend to be somewhat liberal in their view of the world. (As am I). But it would seem that even the most staunch conservatives would like to see an end to corruption, at least theoretically. So I'm wondering if there is a good forum out there that is populated by intelligent conservatives (yes, it's hard not to make a snide comment here - please resist :-) where this same discussion thread might be instituted as well. It would be interesting to compare and contrast the suggestions and see where the overlap exists.

On to specifics, I do love EMD's note about having campaign contributions be anonymized. Not only does it seem to address a significant problem with how much influence special-interests can wield, it also seems like it might be considered sensible enough by the majority to actually be something that has a chance of being implemented.

Vast improvement in the quality of legislation could be had by requiring that each bill presented to the legislators (both houses) for consideration be written in ink on plain white paper by the legislator presenting the bill. No computers, no staff writers, just the guy we elected and his very own hand, pen, and ink. That ought to put paid to the huge bills that no one can possibly have the time or inclination to read and understand in entirety.

Dear Prof. Lessig:I'm currently working defense on a case where the police seized a password-protected laptop from a 19 yr old college student's bedroom. The ct granted the Motion to suppress the computer as evidence. Gov't has appealed that.
The initial search was based on the third-party consent exception to the 4th Amendment's privacy protections. Unlike the recently decided Andrus case, wherein a 91 yr old father's consent to search his 50 yr old son's room and computer, our case is very distinguishable. The computer is not the instrumentality of the crime (ie, not child porn or fraud or anything else). The computer is only in her room, in her parent's home because she's home from college for the summer. Prior to the search, the girl was hospitalized where she remained DURING the search. Ostensibly, her parent gave consent to search.

What effect? It seems to me that the Motion should be upheld as a violation of the adult child's right to privacy. Police admitted at the suppression hearing that the open laptop was "in sleep mode" when they seized it and that they weren't even aware the computer contained a password. I assume that username and password requirements had prevented them from accessing any information therein; or perhaps somewhere off=site otherwise used newer technology to circumvent any password barriers. It seems to me that a new laptop would have username/password protections at log-on; and all email programs require same. Blogs likewise. How is it possible that this girl has no manifested privacy, or that society would not recognize a right to privacy, here?

What do you think? Is it just as I suspect bad policing? or is it a trend? Most, if not all case law I find on the issue of passwords and 4th Amendment, recognize a privacy right but refuse to suppress anyway. (True, most--in most, if not all cases, the computer is an instrumentality of the crime---child porn, ebay fraud, hacking, identity theft.

i believe this case will be crucial in outlining the 4th Amendment as it applies to home computers. what do you think about everything? Am I simply making too many assumptions about password protections and society's recognition of this as a reasonable expression of privacy rights? Not to mention potential spoilation of evidence issues. Authentication issues. this could go on forever. I would welcome your advice re: any of the foregoing issues.

Been thinking about what is corruption. I'm not shy about saying I am really looking forward to this topic seeing the Lessig treatment! I learned so much about law, tech and people from your CODE efforts. Here's to a great ride.

So far, I've broken it down to process corruption (where our existing process encourages unfavorable legislation), authority corruption (where not everyone is willing to accept the rule of law), finally corruption in reasoning. (compartmentalization)

Example of process corruption:

This was mentioned above --sort of: not having Single Subject Legislation. (SSL)

Not enforcing SSL is an enabler. (for corruption)

Right now, it's difficult to both set and manage expectations. Debates do not have boundaries and are not valid because they are influenced by matters outside the scope of the subject at hand. I believe this is part of what will become defined as corruption here in these circles.

For a given subject matter, point at hand, etc...

There are arguments and they have elements that all add up to some measure of validity. As those involved engage the process, points are made, taken, set off the table, etc... until some consensus is reached. In this, we then have a decision.

If all points are treated equally and rationally, the idea of checks and balances then more or less forces the decision to be defensible, as all parties must see their valid points considered. This is true, unless we have a significant percentage of people not willing to be rational, for whatever reason. I don't know what that percentage is, only that it is a factor.

Allowing riders changes the game. Once the decision involves matters outside it's sane scope, we then no longer treat points or people equally and it's highly likely to also involve being non-rational as well.

This is obviously simplistic, but adequate for my purpose here.

eg:

Bob brings point to the floor that more or less nullifies the point Joe made earlier. Some rational discussion leads to Bob taking the point in his favor, thus building toward the consensus in a rational way. Joe then realizes he left with acceptance, or some work to better support his point of view.

A non-rational Joe would explore other options, such as smearing Bob to impact his point for those foolish enough to entertain those kinds of things. Let's assume that Joe is rational for the moment.

The end result of these kinds of deliberations is highly likely to be defensible overall, thus the people will see it as "fair" and or "just".

Now, let's say Joe knows this is coming, but does not want to accept his position. He can lobby for a rider that will impact Bob significantly. Perhaps this is something very valuable to Bob, or damaging, it really does not matter. What does matter is that Bob now has a strong incentive to NOT bring his winning point to the table, leaving the deliberations imbalanced and the potential to arrive at a non-defensible consensus then becomes reality.

Clearly a non-rational Joe would explore these things, along with other attacks on Bob, or those that support Bob, in an attempt to sway the discussion his way, regardless of merit.

However, a completely rational Joe would still be likely to entertain riders because the process allows for it. IMHO, this is a process corruption. A rational Joe would not attack Bob, but would work to influence Bob. If said influence lies outside the scope of discussion, and is permitted, that is process corruption.

The end result of this is that EVERYTHING ends up being political. Who you know, what you have and who supports you trumps all.

Said rider could also lie within the scope of the subject being deliberated. While it's impact on the rational balance of the deliberations is the same, it being within the scope, really just manifests itself as a means to make arguments. I don't see this as a problem, to be clear.

How can this behavior be justified?

That leads to authority corruption:

The US is setup essentially so that the rule of law is the highest authority where power of the government over the people is concerned. We are all free to abide by our own personal highest authority, however we must respect the rule of law, particularly where our decisions and actions can impact others ability to make their decisions and actions freely.

Authority corruption is where the rule of law is treated as an arbitrary thing. The laws are fine, so long as they reinforce whatever personal authority happens to govern. Thinking like this means the law is a tool to be leveraged toward specific goals --a simple control scheme.

eg: (I don't mean to offend)

Let's say Joe's personal highest authority says that acting a specific way, or doing a specific thing is not approved. (evil, bad, a sin, etc...) There is no rational support for this idea, only some construct Joe considers authoritative.

Joe then, can ignore the law, rules of engagement, however he sees fit as these are mere constructs of man and therefore only serve his authority. Attaching a damaging rider, attacking the other person, manupulating means, methods and processes are all on the table as far as Joe is concerned. These actions are defensible because his authority says they are defensible, and he knows a lot of other people consider his personal authority to be the highest one, just as he does.

This leads to corruption in reasoning:

Essentially this is confusing conviction with truth. If one accepts one or more beliefs as truth, and one of the core ideas that compose said belief require denial of our general ignorance in these matters as a race, one then ends up in a position where truth is an arbitrary thing.

On the other hand, if one accepts one or more beliefs as truth, and is convinced of this, but also remains aware of this being a personal choice where others may differ, the matter of conviction is clearly differentiated from that which is known to be true.

Engaging in the former requires one to compartmentalize ones reasoning, thus making that which we know to be rational an arbitrary thing. Put very simply, it is essentially like saying, "This is true because I think it's true.", which is circular.

This then is a fallacy and false on matters of form alone. Accepting a fallacy as part of ones body of core truths then makes one unable to reason rationally, and therefore unable to contribute to the process in a just and true fashion.

Again, very simplistic, but thought provoking, which was my point.

Looking forward to seeing how this all goes!