[od-discuss] MapLight Launches New US Money and Politics Data Set

Tue Oct 2 22:24:13 UTC 2012

Tom

Thanks 

Are the FEC conditions referred to these from http://www.fec.gov/disclosure.shtml please?-

Notice: Reports and statements filed by political committees may be inspected and copied by anyone. The names and addresses of individual contributors, however, may not be sold or used for any commercial purpose or to solicit any type of contribution or donation, such as political or charitable contributions. 2 U.S.C. §438(a)(4); 11 CFR 104.15. This restriction applies to Federal reports and statements. Any person who violates this restriction is subject to the penalties of 2 U.S.C. §437g

In a domestic context a licence condition can be unnecessary if the law prohibits the use anyway, although that leaves the problem of off-shore use.

The use of individuals' names and addresses on public registers for direct mail etc has come up in other contexts, eg Directors' details on company registers.   Data Protection Law may help in these circumstances (no consent for the processing), although there is also the problem of off-shore use here to.

Regards

Andrew

On 2 Oct 2012, at 22:29, Tom Lee <tlee at sunlightfoundation.com> wrote:

> In the US, the Center for Responsive Politics is the most important source for improved campaign finance data (among other things, they add coding data that allows aggregation by donor entity instead of just by candidate). Sunlight provides support for CRP to redistribute their data under a CC-BY-NC license -- otherwise, organizations have to negotiate with CRP for access, or simply quote aggregate numbers from opensecrets.org.  
> 
> Sunlight is committed to making US campaign finance data as open as possible, but we respect the important role CRP plays and their feeling that they can't offer their data in an unfettered manner while maintaining financial sustainability. I suspect that the Maplight folks took a look at CRP's terms and added their own spin and values -- just a guess, knowing the folks involved.
> 
> I'm curious whether people on this list think FEC-derived data could *ever* satisfy the open definition, as per the restrictions Andrew identifies.  These are primarily designed to protect donors from solicitations, and I think they're extremely unlikely to be changed anytime soon.  Unfortunately I think this means that US campaign finance data won't meet the open data definition for the foreseeable future.
> 
> Tom
> 
> On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 5:17 PM, Mike Linksvayer <ml at gondwanaland.com> wrote:
> 
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