Everywhere, Big Brother Is Smiling: Congress Sells Your Privacy For A Cool $84 Million
Occupy Wall Street ?@OccupyWallSt 1m
Wondering why CISPA passed? Democrats got bought, for $84 million: http://ow.ly/kkOJm
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130419/17153622773/everywhere-big-brother-is-smiling-congress-sells-your-privacy-cool-84-million.shtml
In case you were wondering why so many Democrats switched sides during the most recent CISPA vote, the answer is exactly what you think it is: $$$. And lots of it. Last year's CISPA vote only managed to secure 40 Democrat supporters. This time around, the number leapt to 92.
[A] new coalition of special interests, which include America's two largest cellular service providers AT&T, Inc. and Verizon Wireless -- jointly owned by Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group Plc. -- as well as two of the nation's largest software firms Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp., came together to create a similar data grab bill (Microsoft has since renounced its support). Security firms like Symantec Corp. also backed the bill.
Pushing the bill through was $84M USD in funding from special interest backers.
$84 million is change-of-heart money, although one imagines those contributing checked and double-checked their "sponsored" representatives to make sure they were all on the same page. As DailyTech points out, nearly $86 million went into the SOPA push and most of that turned out to be wasted money.
(More at the link.)