No Justice Roberts, the Internet can't do government's job

[Commentary] Writing for the majority in the Supreme Court’s latest effort to dismantle the nation’s campaign finance system, Chief Justice John Roberts argued that government doesn’t need to restrain big money in politics because the Internet will.

"With modern technology, disclosure now offers a particularly effective means of arming the voting public with information," Justice Roberts wrote in the 5-4 decision. "Reports and databases are available on the Federal Elections Commission’s Web site almost immediately after they are filed, supplemented by private entities such as OpenSecrets.org and FollowTheMoney.org. Because massive quantities of information can be accessed at the click of a mouse, disclosure is effective to a degree not possible at the time Buckley or even McConnell was decided."

As one of the “private entities” that endeavor to make campaign finance data available in real time on the Web, we beg to differ. There are several problems with Roberts’ argument that the Internet will take care of big money in politics:

• The Senate hasn't made it to the 21st century
• Disclosure is far from timely
• Disclosure? What disclosure?? The FEC fails to require adequate reporting by candidates and political committees, inviting entrepreneurial political operatives to set up the kind of elaborate laundromats that Justice Stephen Breyer outlined in his trenchant dissent from the decision.
• Can you say Citizens United? Is campaign finance disclosure really so bad that we need private entities to clean up their data? The answer is, unfortunately, yes.

Hidden elections spending is playing an increasingly important role in the 2014 elections and serves as yet another example of the limitations of the Internet's ability to produce transparency.