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posted by Dopefish on Wednesday February 26 2014, @02:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the money-no-longer-talks dept.

c0lo writes "No, unfortunately surveillance evangelism has not been made illegal overnight.

The EFF reports that, in an ironic twist of karma, FBI agents arrested a Mexican tycoon named Jose Susumo Azano Matsura at his Coronado, Calif. home on Wednesday as part of a political bribery investigation based on captured emails, seized banking records, and covertly recorded conversations. Azano, and three Americans who acted as his agents, are now facing felony charges in an alleged conspiracy to illegally pump roughly $500,000 into local election campaigns in the border city of San Diego.

Does SoylentNews have contributors from Mexico to share with us some insight (or just local gossip) about this shoddy character?"

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Pav on Wednesday February 26 2014, @02:52AM

    by Pav (114) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @02:52AM (#7080)

    I'd say it just comes down to "first mover advantage"... there are slimey characters and companies already filling that niche. A little parallel construction [wikipedia.org] and he's eliminated, and as a bonus there's some good press for surveilance : see? Surveilance stops corruption by dirty Mexicans dontcha know. As far as "finesse" I think that comes down to making sure you have US citizenship before bribing politicians - bribery is free speech [wikipedia.org] after all.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by bucc5062 on Wednesday February 26 2014, @12:30PM

    by bucc5062 (699) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @12:30PM (#7248)

    The leading opinion viewed spending money as a form of political "speech" which could not be restricted

    Simply amazing. The court never ceases to amaze me. In reading Burgers dissent I felt there was at least one mind on the court that understood some basics

    1 - Congress understands Congress
    2 - Money can have a bad influence on elections
    3 - The court is pretty stupid to say that a person can only contribute $1000 to a candidate, but a contributor can spend unlimited amounts for the candidate. WTF?

    So money is speech, but it is treated as a class right. Individual people have less speech then the Corporate Person...God Help America.

    This was a pivotal ruling that sadly changed the nature of politics to what we have today. Congress, in a fit of what, lunacy, presented and passed sweeping campaign reform in an attend to rein in (if not stop) corruption in the election process. That seems to upset some "established" representatives (who could be assumed to be already enjoying Corporate lucre) so they sue to say that getting a bribeH^H^H^H^Hcampaign contribution is really just to guys having a chat...with greenbacks.

    Imagine if one judge has seen the same reason as Burger, today not only would there (maybe) be less corruption in government, but most importantly Citizens United would either never have surfaced or had been stuck down.

    Amazing how the hubris and narcissism of a few politicians can tear down a republic.

    --
    The more things change, the more they look the same