“Making a political donation doesn’t need to be this dangerous”

Dara Lindenbaum, a Democratic FEC commissioner, has a Washington Post op-ed:

“Congress should amend the relevant provisions of [FECA} to eliminate the requirement that the FEC publish individual contributors’ street names and numbers on public disclosure reports. Congress should continue to require that political committees report full addresses to the FEC — but limit the FEC’s public disclosure to a contributor’s name, city, state, Zip code, occupation and employer. …

“FEC disclosure rules date to the 1970s — long before the existence of the internet as we know it. Back then, accessing donor information required physically visiting the FEC’s office and paging through paper files. While that might have raised a safety issue of its own, the logistical barriers to obtaining that information were so high that the concerns were minor. With today’s technology, someone’s name, employer and home address are just a few keystrokes away.”

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