Google's New Lobbying Power in Washington 167
*SECADM writes "Learning from Microsoft's error, Google is building a lobbying power house in Washington." From the Washington Post article: Two years ago, Google was on the verge of making that Microsoft-like error. Davidson, then a 37-year-old former deputy director of the Center for Democracy & Technology, was the search-engine company's sole staff lobbyist in Washington. As recently as last year, Google co-founder Sergey Brin had trouble getting meetings with members of Congress. To change that, Google went on a hiring spree and now has 12 lobbyists and lobbying-related professionals on staff here — more than double the size of the standard corporate lobbying office — and is continuing to add people.
So? (Score:5, Insightful)
democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lobbyist. (Score:3, Insightful)
What better source than straight from the horse's mouth?
Re:So? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or are his opinions about net neutrality and Chinese Internet censorship no more important than yours when congress discusses them?
Re:Do no Evil? (Score:1, Insightful)
Google is just a regular company (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets give it a rest already, this doesnt make Google evil. It just means that they are like any other company which is something nonfanboys have known all along. Do we need to see a headline every time a tech company hires a handful of lobbyists? What makes Google special?
Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful)
He is just one citizen, with absolutely no more or less entitlement to access to politicians then any other citizen. If point of fact he has already well and truly profited by the system and the only reason for further access is to further inflate their personal profit. All people are created equally and should be treated as such in the eyes of the law and by politicians. It truly disgusts me that anybody thinks already wealthy people should have greater access than the rest of the community to politicians so as to further bloat their wealth.
In fact the system should be designed specifically that no individual has far greater influence than any other citizen. Further to that laws should be implemented to ensure any discussions between public companies and politicians or those who have influence beyond the voter should be made public, so the citizens at large can form their own opinions about the corporations the drive their own self serving agenda's and the politicians that listen and well as what those politicians agree too.
Re:So? (Score:2, Insightful)
Wait, is this Jesus we're talking about or some businessman? I make latex products and latex related products (not really), and congress makes laws that affect my company all the time. There has never been a time when either the senate or the house have considered a law that would affect only Google. Never. You are talking out of your ass.
Congress should never discuss Chinese Internet censorship, it's completely outside the scope of their duties. And his opinions on net neutrality are no more important or less important than anyone else's. He's not a king, lord, duke, pope, bishop, prince, or queen. He's just one of the founders of a company that has been convicted of copyright infringement. Woop dee do.
Re:Google is just a regular company (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to change the system, start with yourself and get others to follow your lead. You don't change the system by taking advantage of its flaws, you become apart of it.
Re:Lobbyist. (Score:3, Insightful)
No I did not mean information sharing like with 3rd party cookie. Sorry, I should have worded that better.
Re:Do no Evil? (Score:3, Insightful)
To determine if they are evil look at what they are lobbing for.
Perhaps if more people learned that, they6would get together and hire there own lobbyists.
You want to add a speed bump to your street? you go talk to the city. AKA lobbying.
You want congress to take steps towards something you want, you write a letter. AKA lobby. Hell you might even be able to pay someone a few bucks to talk to a congress person instead of a letter.
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Lobbying is about influencing more than just the representative from your district and the senators from your state. Could I get a meeting with my Representative Pete Hoekstra? Possibly. Could I get a meeting with my Senator Debbie Stabenow? Maybe, if she didn't prefer to ignore her constituents. Could I get a meeting with my Senator Carl Levin? Probably not, he hasn't responded to my letters since the Democrats became the majority.
But even if I were to convince all three that we needed to make law the presence of my product in every household, Levin and Stabenow are only two Senators in one hundred, and Hoekstra is only one Representative in several hundred.
Limiting your influence to those for whom you are a voting constituent won't get you very far. That's why corporations have lobbyists.
Re:So? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the GP *was* complaining about the system "the man" is playing in.
And if he's not, I am.
I understand that Congressmen and Senators are busy people, but if Sergey Brin wants to talk to one of them, he can shut the fuck up and make an appointment like everybody else. The fact that he founded a company and has a lot of money shouldn't be relevant in this situation, and it's disappointing that our representatives think it is.
Seems to me having lobbyists is not the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Lobbyists are like advertising... nobody would pay for [ads or] lobbyists if they didn't work.
The problem is that "representing the people" has become a game.
Maybe we ought to just "draft" a congress. It probably wouldn't be worse than electing one of folks who want to be politicians.
As for the Senate, maybe we could just draft them too - from the pool of former drafted congress members who pass a post-service vote of confidence.
Re:Here's a slashdot interview with a lobbyist... (Score:3, Insightful)
Puhleeze... (Score:5, Insightful)
As for crowing about how few people "call in," do Congressmembers really believe the only calls that should count are those drummed up by lobbying organizations? I'll bet most people here on Slashdot believe calling or writing a Congressmember, on any issue, would be futile / a waste of time.
Re:So? (Score:3, Insightful)
One citizen, two "persons".
- RG>
Re:Lobbyist. (Score:2, Insightful)
Thank god ! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful)
An expert's opinion ought to be worth more than a layman's. If someone goes to congress, in an expert capacity, to discuss an issue, they are not doing so on the grounds of being your average punter - they are doing so under the auspices of fundamental expertise on the issue being raised.
That is not the same as your mom calling your Senator on the same issue. There's democracy and there's tyrrany of the majority; expertise needs to matter. The whole point of policymakers is that they're *not* the people who are experts on an issue; simply people whose job it is to find the experts on those issues and navigate a policy.
Re:Do no evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Have a look at the blog, you can read about what those lobbyists are up to. That's a major difference. The RIAA is evil - when they were busy turning singing into an act for hire, so they could own an artist indefinitely, do you think they were blogging about their intentions and notifying the American people? No. In fact, they did everything they could to hide it so it could torpedo its way into law before it was too late.
Evil companies and organizations like the RIAA are out there buying their way into legislation that gives them an unfair lock on all sorts of things. It's a broken system that works on money. Google is paying to keep it fair - the way it should be. It sucks it takes lobbyists to do it, but Google is working to keep the very worst ideas out of Congress. Or did you think Net Neutrality would just solve itself?
Mods on crack again? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Puhleeze... (Score:3, Insightful)
There's really no way to extract money from politics, or even to extract certain interests from having a significant impact on the system.
Why? Because the more affected you are by a decision, the more likely you are to care. The more you care, the more active you are likley to be. And while you might be able to elminate PACs and contributions and any other from of "cash" you can't eliminate people's willingness to spend time on something that will affect them. And since time really does = money for most of us, this becomes the most significant form of political contributions.
Google's spending on lobbyists buys them time, and that spending will DWARF whatever political contributions they hand out. The Goggle folk will be narrowly focused on specific issues and will understand the process. This makes them a valuable resource regardless of the fact that they can no longer buy anyone a drink, or a meal, or a plane ride. The commodity they will provide is "time". Time that a staffer can now spend doing something else, like answer the endless stream of constituent mail *shudder, it really never, never, never ends - I still have nightmares*
SO you are right when you say Google will be spending money to affect policy in a way that is skewed in their favor. And where your interests are aligned, you'll be happy, and where they aren't you'll (hopefully) write in, or better yet, contribute money/time to an organization opposing their efforts.
But here's the funny part - history shows us that you'll likley only do this if it truly affects your life. As I noted in the RIAA instance, people generated personal outrage, but it didn't really affect their ability to go about their daily lives. It's really only at the 'annoyance' level.
Another good example that's not as politically tinged as the RIAA issue is the comparison between turnout and age.
Young people just don't vote - noted political analist Charlie Cook refers to the 18-25 group as "non-voters". Yet these people often have more free time than the older demos, so why don't they vote?
Because the government simply doesn't impact their lives that much. In America, there's no draft, most of the 18-25 year olds don't own property, don't have kids of school age, aren't cognizant of their own mortality and therefore ignore Social Security. They are mostly healthy so Healthcare isn't as big an issue, they don't earn enough in wages for income tax to feel impactful... simply put, they don't vote because they aren't feeling the squeeze.
In the 60's kids voted in larger numbers, but we had a draft, and that meant there was a pretty dramatic 'squeeze' from the government.
When Americans start to pay mortgages, have kids in schools that are funded by property taxes, start having health issues, etc. they start to vote.
You know who votes the most? Old people on fixed incomes! They vote because they have time, and the government now affects nearly every aspect of their lives - and even how they distribute assets after their death.
So while you might think the system is weird, it's truly a very logical process based on level of impact and interest.
As to whether I personally like it, I'm mixed. I think that turning campaign money into a volume business reduces the ability of Members to keep abreast of legislation. It means that fundraisers become not only a source of money, but also of information. You contribute not to "buy him off" but to have access to his 'ear'. Part of me is ok with this b/c when you reach into your pocket and write a personal check, this sends a message that you care VERY deeply about a subject - and maybe you need to be heard.
But I have no good answer on how you free up Members to spend more time not just listening to all voices, including the corporations who employ people and make our current economic model function, but also
So bribery is OK as long as everyone's doing it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Else what the hell's the point of having a representative democracy in the first place? The whole idea of electing a representative to speak and vote on your behalf is rather lost is the representative then goes and votes on the basis who whoever promises them more money on each piece of legislation! Unless you perhaps think we should cut out the middle man, junk the whole democracy idea, and declare a plutocracy, with all legislation decided on the basis of some kind of pecunial referendum?