WASHINGTON -- "Remove my address from your Website immediately or I will call my attorney"--so reads a recent e-mail received by Fundrace, a new Web site that tracks national political contributions and shares its data about those who vote with their wallets.
Most of the site's visitors use its "neighbor search" function to learn the political leanings and cash contributions of the people next door, say the site's creators, who are part of a New York-based tech collective known as Eyebeam.
Fundrace also allows searches by first and last name. Enter "Jerry Seinfeld," for example, and up pops the comedian's campaign contributions, his occupation, and even his address. The site tracks contributions to candidates in the 2004 presidential campaign, including donations to national party committees as well as individual candidates.
Data Mining Made Easy
To yield these results, the site mines publicly available data from the Web sites of the Federal Election Commission and the Census Bureau. By law, campaigns must report to those agencies contributions of at least $200.
Making sense of the FEC data was straightforward, says Eyebeam's Michael Frumin, who, along with Jonah Peretti, masterminded the site.
"The trick, or innovation of it, was to take that information--you know, this person at that address--and using another database from the Census Bureau...to geo-code each one and find the exact latitude and longitude of each contributor," Frumin says.
Whoa. Would it be ethical or even lawful to reveal Jerry Seinfeld's home address in a report on this wildly popular Web site? Is Fundrace stepping over a line?
Of course political contribution information is public record, and while the FEC says address information is also available at its Web site, finding it takes a considerable amount of digging. It certainly is not as readily available as at Fundrace.org.
Bush/Cheney '04 spokesperson Terry Holt was fine with the concept behind Fundrace until he learned it reveals contributors' addresses.
"That is problematic," Holt says. "The FEC requires the name of the giver, but this adds a voyeuristic element to it--it is not being done in the spirit of openness and transparency."
Still, if the angry e-mail sender who wants his name yanked from Fundrace were to call his lawyer, he would quickly learn he has no case.
Rights to Sunshine
The availability of the contribution data, even the address data, is completely legal and, ultimately, in the public interest, says Larry Noble of the Center for Responsive Politics.
The CRP's Web site posts political contribution data similar to that at the FEC site and at Fundrace.org, but Noble says the addresses are stripped out.
"This privacy debate has been around for as long as campaign finance has been an issue," Noble adds. "It's all about balancing the right to privacy with the public's right to know."
The issue arrived at the Supreme Court in 1976 with Buckley v. Vallejo in a legal test of the Federal Campaign Act. The court ruled that unless it could be demonstrated that a person may be subject to harassment based on the disclosure of his political giving, the public's right to know overrides the right to privacy.
"Sunshine is the best disinfectant; electric light the best policeman," reads Justice Louis Brandeis's famous quote from the majority opinion.
Some groups have indeed met that legal test of proving that "harassment" has occurred as a result of disclosing contribution data. The Socialist Workers Party and the Communist Party are not required to report the names of their contributors based on court cases confirming political "outing" and harassment has taken place.
The public has responded to Fundrace.org with "every kind of comment you can imagine," Frumin says. He cites threatening e-mail messages as well as some that gush with thanks.
"We are making public information actually public," Frumin says. "Campaign finance is relevant everywhere, at every level, not just for Bush's rangers, aristocrats, and wealthy New Englanders."
Track Record
Although e-mail and Web sites were available during previous presidential elections, much has been made of the growing role of the Internet in political campaigns.
This year, every candidate has an active Web site and most campaigns consider strategy for online marketing. Some campaigns are exploring online advertising and marketing along with more conventional media.
So, considering their contribution to the virtual campaign, are these Eyebeam guys patriots or pranksters?
From the Eyebeam mission statement: "We use e-mail forwards, ironic Web sites, rumors, and urban legends to study how ideas spread in the information age." While Eyebeam's subject matter happens now to be political fare, its overall motivations are decidedly, well, something else.
Frumin and Peretti are also responsible for Blackpeopleloveus.com--a parody site that pokes fun at racial stereotypes.
Still, as in the case of Blackpeopleloveus.com, Fundrace.org is resonating with a lot of people. The site is getting "upwards of a million hits a day," Frumin says.
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