If a wingnut uses the Internet to give the Obama campaign a donation in a fake name, with the intent of fooling the website into accepting an invalid contribution, isn't that using interstate communications facilities to defraud under 18 USC 1343?
Here's part of the definition of "fraud" from Black's Law Dictionary:
a false representation of a matter of fact, whether by words or by conduct, by false or misleading allegations, or by concealment of that which should have been disclosed, which deceives and is intended to deceive another so that he shall act upon it to his legal injurySeems like a pretty good fit to me.
It also seems like the only way to expose much wrongdoing or error. The Obama campaign screwed up massively; it should not be possible to charge something to a credit card without matching the name to the name on the credit card. Most responsible web processors also require that you provide a fair amount of other information, to ensure that people aren't using stolen cards. And beyond that, last time I looked it was mandatory to get correct names to ensure that people aren't violating the campaign finance laws. I don't support those laws, to be sure. But as long as they are the law, all the campaigns have to abide by them.
Wondering if we can't prosecute the person who exposed the campaign's error smacks of police state tactics. Yes, I still support Obama, and I have no reason to think that the error was deliberate. But that doesn't mean that I think the Obama team has a right to have its errors protected from public exposure.
Nor is this quite the same thing as, say, bullying a right-wing militiaman into selling you guns, or talking a teenager into using drugs. The guy went and saw if it was possible to commit a crime via Obama's website. It was. If it had been a corporation rather than a campaign whose shoddy protections were thus exposed, would Kleiman really be urging us to pursue a fraud claim?
The "legal injury" to the Obama campaign seems pretty small, and quite possibly negative, to me. They get some money which they then have to return, enjoying the float until they get around to it.
And as an aside, while I don't support many campaign finance laws, getting correct names for donors seems like a pretty minimal price for improved transparency and the restriction on foreign donations.
When I saw your headline, I thought you were referencing Greenspan's recognition that The Market is corrupt.
I think Kleiman is just trying to be a rabble rouser in order to distract from the real problem (The One has been accepting improperly vetted funds), not proposing an actual legal action against the person who decided to test the loophole. Surely he is smart enough to know that if the law were enforced as rigidly as that, the indictments would come home to roost right in the midst of Obama's fundraising organization.
Gee, Kleiman is a fascist thug. I am so surprised - not.
What I don't understand is why the Obama campaign purposely overrode all of the credit card fraud protection checks. From what I have read, on various sites, the only way to have these fake donations go through is to have purposely eliminated these protections that are the default setting. What would be the purpose? Given that the campaign has to pay a higher fee to the credit card issuer for the return of the fraudulent donation, since the checks are turned off, wouldn't that take a pretty big chunk out of the purported float from holding the money until a later date?
Whatever the reasoning for eliminating the automatic protections afforded by credit card issuers, it makes the Obama campaign look bad. It makes it appear that they are purposely willing to take illegal donations, and then refund them only when caught. Not good.
wouldn't that take a pretty big chunk out of the purported float from holding the money until a later date?
Not if the "float" consists of getting elected.
Has the website always been set up this way or did they lower the standard at some point?
"Yes, I still support Obama, and I have no reason to think that the error was deliberate."
This may be be a reason the think the error is deliberate. Mark Steyn on his own online credit purchasing:
"...you have to uncheck every single box on the AVS system, each one of which makes it very explicit just what you're doing - ie, accepting transactions with no "billing address", no "street address" match, no "zip code" match, with a bank "of non-US origin" "
Proving that Mark Kleiman is a partisan hack? Isn't that a little like proving that David Duke is a racist? I mean, you've convinced me, but would you think that you needed to?
Hold it, MM.....BO hasn't said he was going to have the "most ethical administration".....he said he was going to bring about CHANGE.
Massive credit card fraud clearly hasn't been part of presidential politics up to this point......how refreshing!!!
The Obama campaign screwed up massively; it should not be possible to charge something to a credit card without matching the name to the name on the credit card.
Actual, not, rhetorical question: how do we know that this is an error on the part of the Obama campaign rather than an error (or questionable practice) on the part of the credit card processing company?
Most responsible web processors also require that you provide a fair amount of other information, to ensure that people aren't using stolen cards.
What do you have in mind here? You are asked for your name, address, etc. at the Obama site.
Except that htey don't check it against the name on the card . . .
What exactly is the nature of the wrongdoing alleged here?
Are the Obama people supposed to be training people to steal credit cards and use them to donate to the campaign, quick-like-a-bunny before the card gets canceled? That would appear to be way beyond stupid, because thousands of people would have to participate for the money to amount to anything, and some of them would certainly end up spilling the beans for one reason or another. The risk could not possibly be worth the benefit.
Massive credit card fraud clearly hasn't been part of presidential politics up to this point......how refreshing!!!
Any evidence that widespread credit card fraud has happened here? Or just suspected because he isn't checking the name versus card number. Secondly, how successful of a check is card number versus name anyways? How often does a lack of a true name prevent CC fraud?
I don't think it was intentional on the part of Obama himself (I'm sure that was below his pay grade), but I'm certain it must have been intentional on the part of those responsible for setting up the credit-card payment system. Minimal security is NOT the default setting -- somebody had to intentionally turn those settings off. And, what's more, I'm sure this was done precisely to permit donations with no ability to validate them (at the time or later).
BTW, if we're not going to hold the candidate and campaign responsible for enabling this kind of fraud, who exactly are we going to hold responsible? And was the Obama campaign emboldened to do this kind of thing because they know there's very basically no chance of the press making a big story of it (at least before the election)? Perhaps when you know most of the press has your back, there's little risk in cutting a few corners?
if we're not going to hold the candidate and campaign responsible for enabling this kind of fraud
I hate to repeat myself so soon, but what kind of fraud? And where is the evidence it is taking place? Are people all over the country reporting that their stolen credit cards were used to donate to Obama? Or is there a conspiracy to silence them?
The purpose of not checking names and addresses against the credit card info is not to commit credit card fraud, it is to make violations of limits on donations easy.
Say you are Mark Smith, a rich guy who wants to donate $50,000 to Obama. You can't legally do it, so you donate $1000 50 times, giving a new name and address each time--all fake. There is no credit card fraud since Mark intends to pay his bill when it comes.
This is like that Angel Miranda story about a Republican Judiciary Committee staffer who found a document that was unsecured that showed that Ted Kennedy, Carl Levin, and the NAACP were engaging in disbarrable conduct in regards to attempting to influence cases before the Sixth Circuit by holding up judicial appointments (in fact the NAACP staffer lost his law license from this incident)? Everyone came down on the staffer for looking at a document in a publicly-accessible folder, but nary a word was said about the conduct of the Senators.
Removing the security checks also makes it possible for foreign donors to give to the Obama campaign, which is also against the law.
I can't believe this was accidental. Verifying name & address info has been part of every purchase I've ever made online, and I'd be surprised if anyone else here has had a different experience. The idea that the Obama camp innocently forgot to implement such basic security procedures doesn't pass the smell test, especially when you consider how this benefits Obama, how much his campaign has raised, and his decision to forego public financing.
You can't legally do it, so you donate $1000 50 times, giving a new name and address each time--all fake.
First, you can only donate $200 or less anonymously. Second, since thousands of Americans share a first and last name checking names doesn't help at all for this. Third, is the McCain campaign checking addresses?
Well, this helps explain Obama's record $150 million haul last month. Maybe the Senator from MBNA came up with this idea?
First, you can only donate $200 or less anonymously. Second, since thousands of Americans share a first and last name checking names doesn't help at all for this. Third, is the McCain campaign checking addresses?
The point is that they're not verifying that the name matches the card, so you can enter Anon E. Mouse and the charge goes through. It's not a matter of making sure that someone called "Mark Smith" doesn't donate multiple times, it's a matter of making sure that "Mark Smith" is the actual name on the card used for the donantion.
It has been reported that the McCain campaign's donations are basically the same as other online retailers, verifying names and addresses. I haven't donated to either candidate, so I can't vouch for it personally.
This also puts Obama's decision to opt out of public financing in a new light, and it casts doubts on his campaign's claim about how many small donations it received. All those $200 donations could have come from the same wealthy donor, for all we know.
"You can't legally do it, so you donate $1000 50 times, giving a new name and address each time--all fake.
First, you can only donate $200 or less anonymously. Second, since thousands of Americans share a first and last name checking names doesn't help at all for this. Third, is the McCain campaign checking addresses?
Posted by JordanT | October 24, 2008 2:47 PM '
Plenty of people share first and last names, but addresses too?
The McCain site requires that the name and address given match the name and address from the credit card. If you can't see the significance of this then you must be trying NOT to.
First, you can only donate $200 or less anonymously. Second, since thousands of Americans share a first and last name checking names doesn't help at all for this.
Sigh -- what you're checking is that the name on the card and the name on the donation MATCH!!!! Jaysus -- are people intentionally trying to misunderstand the problem here? Yes, of course they are.
Collecting small donations is a big thing for Obama and complying with campaign finance laws is something that all campaigns have to take very seriously. There's just no 'effing way some low level staffer just made a 'mistake' and nobody in responsibility noticed until now.
Say you are Mark Smith, a rich guy who wants to donate $50,000 to Obama. You can't legally do it, so you donate $1000 50 times, giving a new name and address each time--all fake.
So rich guys all over the country are spending hours online feeding a website false information? There have to be lots of easier ways to evade the limit. Plus this assumes that there is a way to sort the data to show multiple donations under M. Smith's name, but the multiple use of the same credit card is safe from discovery. The opposite would seem to be the case, since there are lots of Mark Smiths but the number is unique.
Removing the security checks also makes it possible for foreign donors to give to the Obama campaign, which is also against the law.
OK, maybe the standard security checks make it impossible for a non-citizen to make campaign contributions by credit card. Explain to me how. (Without knowing anything about it, I can't believe it's illegal for US citizens living abroad to make contributions.)
The idea that the Obama camp innocently forgot to implement such basic security procedures doesn't pass the smell test, especially when you consider how this benefits Obama
You are assuming that the Obama campaign is raising a lot of money this way. Which is exactly what I want to see some evidence for before I am going to believe it. (And "a lot" means "a hell of a lot" when you consider the extremely large fundraising total you are comparing it to.)
Does going after the person pointing this out smack more of "police state tactics" than asking the Justice Department to investigate groups that put out truthful, though negative, ads about you?
Or is it more "police state" than getting together a posse of law-enforcement people to act as a "truth squad" and intimidate local stations that dare run ads you disapprove of?
Can't wait 'til this guy is elected. I join lots of other members of the right in believing that all of his evidenced behavior and rhetoric to date are just some kind of elaborate ruse and that he'll actually govern just as my ideal candidate would...
It's nice to hear how you're objecting to the despicable and pernicious right wing meme to further the absurd conspiracy-mongering that the Obama campaign is stealing the election (through manipulation of the press, ACORN voter fraud, and now donations).
Oh, what's that? You completely ignored that part of the story? The part of the story that actually hooks into a broader narrative that could have severe repercussions lasting far beyond election day?
You could knock me over with a feather.
The McCain site requires that the name and address given match the name and address from the credit card.
Are you sure they are verifying the address part?
"There have to be lots of easier ways to evade the limit."
Such as?
"It's nice to hear how you're objecting to the despicable and pernicious right wing meme to further the absurd conspiracy-mongering that the Obama campaign is stealing the election (through manipulation of the press, ACORN voter fraud, and now donations)."
I don't know any Republican who has claimed that Obama manipulates the press -- the press is in the tank for him of their own accord. The recent Pew study provides solid evidence of this. The Acorn fraud is real, as is the unkosher way Obama is collecting online donations. That doesn't mean he's "stealing" the election though. He'd be leading the polls anyway, with the economic situation the way it is (although a stronger candidate -- i.e., any other Dem -- would have a double-digit lead now). Which raises a question: why not keep things above board if you're Obama? Why countenance voter fraud and credit card fraud if you don't have to? I guess he's really just a Chicago pol, not the transcendent agent of change that has even smart folks like Megan supporting him.
We all seem to be assuming that the charges are going through. Just because the web site gives you a cheery screen telling you your donation was accepted doesn't mean the campaign actually gets any cash out of it.
They could be processing the charges as batches late at night to get lower processing fees, or even at the request of the card processors so that the load on the networks is shifted to late at night.
The campaign doesn't want to submit charges the credit card companies will eventually reject, there are additional charges for things like that and if there are too many of them the company will take away your ability to use their systems.
Has anyone had a charge go through as Donald Duck and had it post to their credit card? ( Except maybe for the unfortunate who's name actually is Donald Duck )
Wondering if we can't prosecute the person who exposed the campaign's error smacks of police state tactics.
This isn't the first time the Obama campaign has acted this way. Love your blog, but if you're not aware of this, you weren't paying attention.
We all seem to be assuming that the charges are going through.
One of the Corner's emailers claims that the charge went through and appeared on the online statement. That's thin, but I cannot offer you more confirmation than that.
Has anyone had a charge go through as Donald Duck and had it post to their credit card? ( Except maybe for the unfortunate who's name actually is Donald Duck )
Actually, yes. One of the ones mentioned (at Patterico, I believe) was "Della Ware", and the deducted funds showed up immediately in his/her account.
Just because the web site gives you a cheery screen telling you your donation was accepted doesn't mean the campaign actually gets any cash out of it.
Oh, please. The Obama campaign went out of its way to disable normal online credit card verification despite the fact that it has much stronger legal obligations to collect that information (to verify campaign contribution limits and to avoid taking donations from foreign sources) than vendors selling merchandise over the Internet.
Of course they will promise to give back any donations proven to be illegal. But they've purposefully failed to collect the information that would be needed to identify donations as legal or not.
Would it be appropriate for an actual law enforcement agency to try this sort of sting? Of course, if there were evidence of wrongdoing. But that doesn't license everyone in the world to create fraudulent transactions.
Using the wires to defraud is a crime. I don't think it's appropriate for people to brag about committing that crime. And now that makes me a fascist, a thug, and a hack? Well, you learn something new every day.
As to the claim that all this fraudulent activity proves something about the sources of Obama's funding: nonsense.
As I know from my own experience, the Obama folks have a hyperactive compliance operation. But it operates after the contribution is made, not before. I had a $10 monthly draw against my credit card, and then made a big contribution. As a result, the next monthly draw put me over the limit. The charge went through on my credit card. Two weeks later, I got a polite note and a $10 check from the campaign.
Mark,
Why not just leave the defaults set to reject donations attempted when the name of the contributor does not match the name on the credit card?
I have a rule for political spin that I think more people should take to heart. Whenever you have an opinion about a story, imagine that all of the political parties involved were reversed... would you feel the same way? How would you feel about someone who took that position?
So, these Obama supporters saying that the bigger issue here is fraud committed by right wingers... imagine that this was McCain's campaign that had removed standard safety features that left them wide open to millions of dollars in illegal donations. Imagine if some left wing bloggers had discovered this by using an overseas credit card and successfully donating as "Osama Bin Laden". Would your first response be, "That's credit card fraud! Arrest those left wing bloggers!" Of course not. So don't give that stupid argument.
Now, has the Obama campaign really taken millions in illegal donations? Maybe, maybe not. We can't know without a more complete investigation, and a release by the Obama campaign of ALL donors (not just those who gave over $200 at a time). I strongly doubt that they are intentionally trying to get illegal donations, but I also find it hard to believe that it's just a coincidence that the Obama campaign constantly has the laxest donation standards of any campaign that anybody can remember... especially a candidate with so much support among foreigners are slimy super-rich individuals.
The fact is that the people donating $5 under fake names are not the story here. The fact is that the media should take a few minutes out of analyzing how much money Sarah Palin spends on shoes and whether she once ran a red light in high school... and spend some time actually doing some investigation into the Obama campaign.
Actually, yes. One of the ones mentioned (at Patterico, I believe) was "Della Ware", and the deducted funds showed up immediately in his/her account.
Whenever I've had a charge show up on my account it sits in the pending category for a few days. I've had many charges show up in the "pending" category and not end up going through or going through at a different amount. I now know not to call my CC company when I see a double charge from my vendor that's only in the pending stage.
Damage to the Obama campaign? This allows for anyone from anywhere to commit any amount, effectively allowing the left to buy the election. This is the definition of a feature and not a bug for the Obama campaign.
Should we view such staid support in the face of this kind of evidence when coupled with the other fraud bubbling to the surface as a cry for help, Megan? There seem to be an awful lot of people crying out these days.
Using the wires to defraud is a crime.
True. Who has been "defrauded" by fake donations?
But that doesn't license everyone in the world to create fraudulent transactions.
I'm sorry, Mark, but who is being defrauded? The people making the transactions are using THEIR OWN CREDIT CARDS. Now, follow along here, because this is where it gets tricky.
In order to point out the lax standards, the people making these transactions, are actually forfeiting their money into Obama's coffers to prove the point about the lax standards that Obama's campaign has implemented (and implemented is the key word, as the default is to not allow these types of transactions).
If there is fraud here, it's on the part of Team Obama purposefully disabling the security features necessary to catch these type of transactions.
This is just like the AP, after Palin's email account had been hacked into, writing the story and two paragraphs in, ignoring the federal felony that had been committed, saying that this "raises questions about Palin's practice of using personal email."
Unreal.
In all fairness we should point out that excessive donations by a single person could still be caught by collating the credit card numbers, not the names. People in the US who wanted to donate $50,000 would need multiple credit cards, and those ad hoc credit card numbers that the folks at Discover and others offer would be too fiddly to use on a massive scale.
Having said that, foreign contributions is still a real issue.
-dk
"The Obama campaign screwed up massively; it should not be possible to charge something to a credit card without matching the name to the name on the credit card."
Megan,
I have often paid online for a bill in my girlfriend's name using my debit card or credit card, which is in my name only. All that the electric company or phone company or cable company ever required is that the credit card information (name on credit card account, billing address, account number, expiration date) be correct. It didn't matter that my girlfriend's name was not the name on the debit or credit card, nor did it matter that my name wasn't on the bill.
I wonder if a similiar situation is occurring here. So long as the information about the credit card account is correct when the donation is made, the Obama website is programmed to consider it valid. It doesn't matter (from the point of view of the website) in whose name the donation is being made.
The question I have then is, does it matter from the point of view of the law in whose name a donation is made, or does it matter more who actually pays for it? If I use my credit card to make a donation in my name up to the legal limit, and then make a donation in my girlfriend's name using THE SAME CREDIT CARD, would the Obama campaign be allowed to view these contributions as donations from 2 individuals, and do they have to view them as donations from one individual who donated over the legal limit?
If the former is the case, then the lack of controls is matching the name of the donor to the name on the card is a problem. However, if the name on the credit card is all that matters, then the lack of controls in name matching is not really a problem, so long as the Obama campaign reports this donation on the basis of the actual payer (and returns my donation over the legal limit.)
"excessive donations by a single person could still be caught by collating the credit card numbers,"
Yes, they could do exactly this. What do you want to bet that they won't do this except under court order?
And then if it is ever done, they will come up with a cockamamy explanation like: Lots of donors lack credit cards and so have a friend use a credit card and then reimburse the friend--that is why single credit cards have donations from lots of different "people" ? Of course the media will lap it up and see no further need for investigation...
So long as the information about the credit card account is correct when the donation is made, the Obama website is programmed to consider it valid. It doesn't matter (from the point of view of the website) in whose name the donation is being made.
The whole point of this story is that the credit card info entered into fields intended for credit card info is not being matched to the cards. Not that there is somehow a separate field for "who are you?" and "What is your credit card info?"
Both McCain and Hilary Clinton instituted controls that were in excess of what the law required, in order to avoid this sort of thing. For Hilary, people donating from non-US IP addresses had to provide a copy of the first page of their passport, so as to avoid illegal foreign donations.
Obama's campaign (he may not have known - but then when asked about his executive experience, he did cite running his presidential campaign, so...) DELIBERATELY disabled all safeguards. That in itself was not against the law, though normally it would be considered very reckless. The only reason to do it is if the decrease in security is offset by some other gain, like client satisfaction (i.e. staying hidden) - which is why the only ecommerce that regularly disables these safeties are p*rn sites.
By turning off these safeties, they were not trying to enable credit card fraud (though likely some happened, but those charges will be reversed) - they were trying to facilitate electoral fraud. The law does not require that donations under $200 be tracked with full particulars - yet Clinton and McCain do, since they also care about the appearance of [im]propriety, unlike Obama. The law does bar donations by non-US citizens and it does set a maximum donation amount per person - and Obama has made it very easy to circumvent those laws and very hard to track those who do.
Let's also remember that the Obama website allows the use of pre-paid gift cards like those found in any RiteAid - so if George Soros or Osama bin Laden were having a slow day, they could buy 1,000 $100 cards and then donate an even $100,000 to Obama - maybe even hire some minions to the keyboard chores. If they made up plausible names and addresses, then they would almost certainly get away with it, unless Obama submits his entire campaign to a forensic audit, which of course will only happen long after the election. At that point Obama will be required to return the money to a non-existent person, and the real donor will never be caught since they essentially used cash.
I don't know if this is illegal (likely not) but it is sure as hell wrong, and is not the Hope and Change we were looking for. It is, however, the sort of dirty Chicago politics was expecting. And I can't believe that I am holding up a Clinton as a paragon of fundraising virtue.
In addition,
Suppose I make 10 donations of $2,500 each, using a different card each time that is in my name only. Moreover, I write different donor names for each $2,500 contribution.
Would the Obama campaign be allowed to report each of these donations as being from 10 different individuals, since a different credit card was used, or would they have to report these donation as $25,000 of contributions from one individual? Again, if the latter is the case, then the lack of name matching should not be a problem. All that matters is that I actually made all those donations, regardless of whose name I supplied when filling out the donor information.
"excessive donations by a single person could still be caught by collating the credit card numbers,"
I personally have at least 5 cards I could use (different loyalty programs - I only use one regularly) - plus, as I point out above, I can just buy boatloads of gift cards with cash - totally untraceable. The cash cards don't even HAVE associated addresses - normally that doesn't matter to an e-tailer, since as long as those cards are not actually stolen, it's just like cash - spend it as you will, but that is not the case here.
Would the Obama campaign be allowed to report each of these donations as being from 10 different individuals, since a different credit card was used, or would they have to report these donation as $25,000 of contributions from one individual?
How would the campaign know they were all from you if you're giving fake names and they aren't verifying? The credit card company isn't going to tell them the correct names and addresses associated with the cards.
"How would the campaign know they were all from you if you're giving fake names and they aren't verifying? The credit card company isn't going to tell them the correct names and addresses associated with the cards."
Rob,
Wouldn't they need the correct name on the account in order to get the credit card companies to process the charges in the lst place, or are you saying that VISA, Mastercard, etc are so lax in their security that they will process a charge so long as the account number submitted is a valid one?
I find it implausible that a charge submitted on Don Draper's credit card would go through when the Obama campaign reports to the credit card company that the card holder's name is Donald Duck.
"The whole point of this story is that the credit card info entered into fields intended for credit card info is not being matched to the cards. Not that there is somehow a separate field for "who are you?" and "What is your credit card info?"
How would this work, though, Rob? If you donate under the name Dude Lebowski using a credit card that is in the name of Jeff Bridges, and the charge is presented to the credit card company in the name of Dude Lebowski using Jeff Bridges's credit card number, the credit card company will reject it because the name of the card holder submitted by the Obama campaign does not match the name of the card holder associated with that account number.
I find it implausible that a charge submitted on Don Draper's credit card would go through when the Obama campaign reports to the credit card company that the card holder's name is Donald Duck.
It certainly should work that way. I don't know if it does. But on the other hand, one doesn't normally give a name and address when making a brick-and-mortar purchase, so it's not impossible to imagine that the Obama campaign doesn't need to report the card holder's name at all.
This is much ado about nothing.
The lax security in Obama's site hurts no one other than himself. Why?
Well, what are the three issues that this increased security would affect:
- Primarily, its credit card fraud: not matching name of donation to the name on the credit card makes it easier for people with other people's credit cards to donate. However, in this case of fraud, the true owner of the credit card will simply reverse the transaction with their credit card company, a move that would cost Obama at least time from one of its staff dealing with the CC company.
- But, as people have mentioned there are two other types of fraud that in theory this would make easier:
- Donations by foreigners. This is an issue that is completely overblown, because any foreigner motivated enough to actually donate money to a campaign can easily sidestep any precautions put up by both websites. It is equally easy to donate to both candidates as a foreigner with a US ip address, and for those abroad it is also easy to donate, and even though a foreign IP will take you to a different page on McCain's website, it is also easy to donate as a foreigner, and even easier to access it through a proxy to donate.
- Excessive donations: neither candidate does anything notable to prevent this in their website.
The McCain campaign has decided to make an issue out of this, and to estipulate stricter controls, only after it was clear that it would be outmatched by democratic donors.
It is equally easy to donate to both candidates as a foreigner with a US ip address,
But it's harder if there is address verification on the cards and the system is programmed to reject foreign addresses.
That's imperfect because some US citizens live abroad and some foreigners live in the US, but it's better than no verification at all.
dlp - I have no doubt that all campaigns have dodgy donors, and that some of them get away with it. I also have no doubt that Obama is the only major candidate who went to extraordinary lengths to facilitate routine flouting of election laws. It doesn't hurt him at all - he'll get to keep much of his ill-gotten gains and he'll have to give some back, after the election when it doesn't matter. His campaign may have to pay a few nominal fines, but they won't be assessed until long after Nov 4.
Plus he cites his awesome competence at running his campaign as his primary executive experience.
Finally, and this is the KEY reason why this is all obfuscation, much ado about nothing, and simply misleading is this: we are only talking about the campaigns website.
This is the thing that makes it clear that is all for show on the McCain campaign's side:
- Joint fund-raising committees (I wont even mention PACs)
In fact, because he is taking public funding, at this point all the McCain campaign is restricted to is joint fundraising committees.
Is it easy to bypass Obama's personal limit? Well, because McCain's fundraising apparatus is a joint fundraising committee the limit there is already 10 times the limit to individual candidates.
Furthermore, the several joint fundraising committees the GOP has on the states do not have the same safeguards the main joint committee has.
In the end, McCain's extra precautions just on his one committe are akin to the following picture:
http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/please-close-gate.jpg
The original NY times article itself points to several questionable donations during mccains primary. Are there more potential problems in Obama's camp? Sure, but you have to remember that that is basic probability, given the fact that he has raised so much mre.
"That's imperfect because some US citizens live abroad and some foreigners live in the US, but it's better than no verification at all."
Which is why other campaigns have required additional proof oc citizenship. Too tough for Obie's Gazan voters, I guess.
I wonder how much of that $150mil is illegal - probably only a couple of tens of millions, and I can see why legit voters/donors get upset at this line on inquiry, but then it wouldn't be happening but for the criminality-enabling actions of the Obama campaign. I wonder if they will bring this awesome level of probity to the White House?
"But on the other hand, one doesn't normally give a name and address when making a brick-and-mortar purchase, so it's not impossible to imagine that the Obama campaign doesn't need to report the card holder's name at all."
Rob,
As soon as you swipe your card to purchase your items, the billing information associated with that card is recorded by the brick and mortar company. The brick and mortar company then submits that information along with the amount of the charge to the credit card company.
What brick and mortar companies don't always do is verify the identity of the purchaser (by asking for your driver's license or other picture ID) and match it to the name and signature on the card, although more and more brick and mortars, such as gas stations, are doing so recently.
Amazing that so many purportedly intelligent, honorable people are prepared to overlook ANY and ALL transgressions in the name of getting Barack Obama elected.
And as for Megan it simply boggles my mind that someone who is supposedly intelligent and learned can provide unquestioning support of someone as shallow and empty as Obama.
God preserve the Republic.
dlp - now you're just being deliberately obtuse, since anything the GOP can do the DNC is also doing. Keep trying to muddy the waters - it isn't working.
YOUR candidate is the candidate of big, dirty money - you might as well own it. If a Republican was spending $$ like Obama it would be wall to wall media about how awful it is that the campaign is being bought. And don't even bother to start about lobbyists - Obama is Far/Fed's 2nd favorite Senattor and stooge of ADM to boot.
Gee, fascist thug Mark Kleiman protests that he isn't a fascist thug for advocating prosecution (persecution) of people who point out that the Obama campaign deliberately set up their credit card donation system to accept fraudulent donations. Right, Mr. Kleiman.
BTW, The Atlantc has an interesting article by Jeffrey Goldberg pointing out how bad TSA is. He discusses how he took a number of banned items - including box cutters - through security to see if TSA would catch it. I presume Mark Kleiman also advocates arresting and prosecuting Jeffrey Goldberg, right? After all, it's illegal to bring those banned items on a plane!
WAKE UP!!! If a foreign entity wants to significantly impact our election, all they have to do is create a credit account with a large limit (unlimited accounts are available) and have a team of people enter many $199 donations to their candidate of choice (BO in this case) and simply have them alter the name and address for each entry. Then they can make virtually unlimited illegal foreign donations. If BO thinks this is wrong, why has his system not been fixed? Why doesn't he print the list of card numbers and the dollar amounts and let a third party audit them? Because he either doesn't care about or he is complicit in the FRAUD!!!! AGAIN... WAKE UP! In either case this alone should tell you all you need to know about how he would run our country.
As soon as you swipe your card to purchase your items, the billing information associated with that card is recorded by the brick and mortar company.
That can't be correct, because of course you don't get a new card or have your stripe reprogrammed when you move. So either the credit card company is sending your address out--an major security breach, and one that renders the sending of the info back pointless from a security perspective--or there is some other security-related info on the stripe (such as an additional code) which makes "swipe" transactions different from online transactions, or else everyone just assumes swipes are "safer" than online and doesn't require as much verificaiton.
Im not overlooking any transgressions. Any transgressions should be looked into, and perpetrators punished. If Obama is systematically receiving money from illegal sources, she should be punished.
What I am not doing is checking my brain at the door in order to score a cheap political point.
First of all, it doesnt matter that the credit card is initially accepted with the name of donald duck. It is whether the final transaction goes through. When I moved, I forgot to update my credit card info. Then I tried to buy a few things with amazon, and the transacton kept going through, and it even showed up as a temporary authorization on my online bill, but the item was never shipped. A few days later I called amazon and they alerted me to that. Try it yourself if you want to in most online retailers: try to buy something but give a fake billing address. Most sites are set up that the charge will initially go through, and the checking will only be made when its time to go from temporary authorization to the actual transaction.
But, and this is the most important thing again: color me skeptical when the so called superior precautions of the McCain campaign are only present on his joing fundraising committee, but not on the several other joint fundraising committees and pacs.
Holdfast
How can you call me obtuse when you say
"dlp - now you're just being deliberately obtuse, since anything the GOP can do the DNC is also doing. Keep trying to muddy the waters - it isn't working."
As you see, that is PRECISELY my point.
It is not that the DNC or Obama is a paragon of morality. They are not.
Just that for all the alleged differences in how they screen donors to weed out potential illegal applications, all the accompanying websites have the exact same precautions.
To claim some sort of moral high ground because of an extra step on one's website while all other websites and proxies are just as lax as the democrats is a political ploy that fools those not paying enough attention.
Isn't it possible to get a passel of Amex/Visa/MC Gift Cards (bought w/ cash, of course), and use them to make donations on line, with the resultant fraudulent names?
This brings ludicrous images to mind of sweat shop centers, with imigrants and college students entering in fraudulent donations, trying to meet quotas for fraudulent donations. This is obviously the worst case scenario (and if it does happen, I claim the movie rights, I see it like Boiler Room but with less greed and more idealism).
Is it possible to use an Amex Gift Card online to make purchases/donations? And if so, wouldn't this provide a difficult-to-trace entry of fraud?
Looks like Holdfast and I had the same idea.
Goodbye movie rights.
Yes, Rob, card-not-present transactions are viewed as riskier by the credit card processors than swiping the card -- a merchant generally pays higher fees if he wants to accept them, for example. It's easier to steal someone's credit card number than it is to steal their actual card, and easier to notice that your card has been stolen. Swipe transactions don't send any AVS info, but the retailer is free to match the name on the card against your ID, as is becoming increasingly common.
DLP, purchases of shippable items are different from monetary contributions or service charges. Technically, a retailer isn't allowed to charge you for the item until it's been shipped, so you do an authorization at the time of purchase, and then submit a sale transaction for the auth when it's shipped. Since there's no shipping for monetary contributions, there's no reason why a campaign would do an auth and then a capture -- they'd incur two transaction fees for doing so.
Posted by David | October 24, 2008 2:35 PM
You hit the nail on the head. It could be rich individuals or foreign countries.
-------
Posted by Half Canadian | October 24, 2008 7:11 PM
Those images aren't as ludicrous as you might think. Have you ever heard of the Hsi Lai Temple?
http://articles.latimes.com/1997/oct/12/news/mn-42110
The safeguards in the credit card processing software had to be intentionally disabled to allow this to happen.
If Obama wanted it fixed, it would be an easy fix.
This is intentional.
Obama's campaign is enabling illegal activity.
It really doesn't matter what "other groups" are doing.
I'm not really sure what people are talking about here. I've donated several times to the Obama campaign, and the first time I couldn't get the donation to go through--the website said the process was complete, it appeared as a "pending" charge on my credit card account, but then disappeared and never went through.
Turned out I put in the wrong phone number for the one that was registered with the card, as I discovered when the fraud division at my credit card company called me. I assume the check was done at some later stage in the card processing process, so people really shouldn't assume that just because a charge "appears" to go through on a credit card charge applet online, that it actually will.
I donated to Obama with a fake name yesterday. We'll see if the they later refund the money.
"The safeguards in the credit card processing software had to be intentionally disabled to allow this to happen."
The safeguards are there to protect merchants and retailers from chargebacks due to credit card theft.
The safeguards against foreign donations come at a later stage and are wholly separate from this.
You have to be nuts to think that this is the only safeguard against those things.
I have no illusions that the millions Obama has raised are immaculate. But neither are McCain's.
And I was not talking about other "groups." Same group (RNC and its state verions), different joint fundraising committees.
No need for me to comment further since dlp evidently has actual knowledge in this area.
Just wanted to say "thanks for all the comedy." I don't know whether the winner is the blithe assumption on the basis of no evidence whatever that "tens of millions" must have been illegally donated, or the picture of bin Laden walking into the Peshawar Rite Aid and buying a million dollars' worth of gift cards.
if we're not going to hold the candidate and campaign responsible for enabling this kind of fraud
-----------
Well, if the astonishing success of the Obama campaign is serving as evidence (for some voters) of his competence as an executive, then we certainly ought to hold the candidate accountable for the campaign's deliberate decision to be extremely inefficient in checking online donations for legitamcy.
Re: The Obama campaign screwed up massively; it should not be possible to charge something to a credit card without matching the name to the name on the credit card.
If there's a screw-up here it isn't the Ibama campaign's screwup-- it's the credit card issuers. They are the ones who should be validating the transactions, sincet hey're the ones who stand to lose when fraud is committed. (And spare me the conspiracy theories-- it absolutely does not pass the laugh test to claim that the banks are colluding to elect a liberal Democrat at a time when there are all sorts of progressive proposals floating around to reign in the excesses of the credit industry.)
Unmentioned in this thread is the role of the CCV number. That's the three digit code on the back of the card nowadays. It's the major fraud prevention feature for online transactions, intended to prevent thieves from simply using a valid credit card number and expiration date that does not belong to them. Not all companies use it, but when the number is used (and entered correctly) then the transaction needs no further validation and it's processed. I think that's the loophole being exploited here.
dlp still hasn't answered why the Obama campaign would take these ACTIVE steps to disable routine security measures. He says it'll all get sorted out later but he will not and cannot answer the central charge. I suspect we are in for at least four years of this crap - of course, any criticism will just be termed rascist and ignored.
I really hope that quasi-libertarian Megan enjoys livng in this socialist workers paradise.
Re: dlp still hasn't answered why the Obama campaign would take these ACTIVE steps to disable routine security measures.
What routine security measures? If they are validating the card by user input of the CCV number there won't be any other validations needed; the transaction will go through.
I run two companies that take online transactions. I personally process the transactions for one of the companies.
What Obama is doing is unusual and no one selling a physical product would dare do what he is-it's a sure path to bankruptcy.
The most important thing to remember is that the merchant assumes all risk-even from a spotless transaction. It's easy for anybody to get just about any online credit card transaction on their cards reversed.
The first rule is that I, as the merchant, decide what standards to accept.
If the credit card number and expiration date are good, then the credit card processor presents me with a transaction to review.
Included are relevant info: Does the name match? Does the billing address match? Does the zip match? Does the security code match? Regardless of whether or not those items match, it is my decision whether to accept those transactions and it is my company's risk-even for a "perfect" transaction.
We do not ship if any of the information is mismatched. We do not ship if the billing address and ship to address are different in most cases. We do not ship international on credit card. Mutiple items-"one of every thing" shipped red from a newcustomer is a huge red flag. We've called banks and customers prior to accepting orders that raise red flags.
So, as amechant, I can tell you that the Obama campaign is exposing itself to risk by disabling these scurity protocols. No responsible on line merchant woudl do this. It's either incredible ignorance on a disqualifying level or an attempt to accept illegal contributions. There's no middle ground.
They are making it trivially easy for anyone anywhere in the world to make a donation, and posiibly for anyone in the US to exceed campaign donation limits. (For example, I never see a credit card number with my system, so I cannot collate CC #'s).
JonF said:
"If there's a screw-up here it isn't the Ibama campaign's screwup-- it's the credit card issuers. They are the ones who should be validating the transactions, sincet hey're the ones who stand to lose when fraud is committed."
Jon, that is simply incorrect. Credit card companies do not take the fraud risk on online transactions (or telephone transactions). Instead, the standard proceedure is to charge fraudulent transactions back to the merchant (or in this case the campaign). This is in contrast to bricks-and-mortar merchants where the fraud risk is on the credit card issuer.
That is why most online and mail order merchants are such sticklers for making sure you have entered everything in correctly. The merchant bears all of the fraud risk.
What I don't understand is why the Obama campaign purposely overrode all of the credit card fraud protection checks. From what I have read, on various sites, the only way to have these fake donations go through is to have purposely eliminated these protections that are the default setting. What would be the purpose?
The purpose is the most massive example of fraud in the history of politics. This is the new standard for illegal contributions and seems to be foolproof, as long as he wins. That so many of you are making excuses is amusing. Nixon got caught. I doubt Obama will be since there is no media surveillance of his campaign, other than obsequious praise. No wonder he is breaking records with small donations !
Don't forget too that some banks offer electronic one-time-use credit card numbers available at the touch of an on-screen button. This would let one cut and paste (manually, or it could be automated) a new number for each transaction.
Presumably, at least some of these will be caught later. But (a) depending on the scope and thoroughness of the investigation, anywhere from a few to nearly all will not be caught, and (b) you have an extra $n million to work with--some for keeps, some to given returned later if fraud is proven--buying ads, paying staff, gaining and displaying critical momentum before election day, potentially buying an election, if (and only if) the amount of fraud is large enough and the proof of it deferred enough.
JonF - It's not about preventing CC Fraud - it is about going out of his way to FACILITATE donors breaking election funding laws. This is not about preventing fraudulent use of cards - it is about people donating more than the limit or non-citizens donating. If you don't think these charges go through, follow the link below.
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/276560.php
Here's another one - What Obama did doesn't seem to be illegal but it sure as hell makes illegality easier.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/print_friendly.php?ID=no_20081024_9865
You say they "massively screwed up," but this wasn't a screw up at all, since the basic safety measures have to be manually over-ridden. So it wasn't a mistake at all, but a purposeful act that would open the door to individuals donating large amounts of money in a series of small donations.
Holdfast says that what they did wasn't illegal, but wouldn't a night watchman be charged if caught unlocking doors so criminals can slip in? Given that the safety controls had to be manually turned off, you tell me what the difference is. What other reason is there to turn safety controls off except to allow criminal/fraudulent activity?
Re: It's not about preventing CC Fraud - it is about going out of his way to FACILITATE donors breaking election funding laws.
Yes, I agree. The current security system is set up to prevent either the credit cards banks or the merchants from sufering losses due to fraud since that's where most of the trouble is. It is not set up to prevent people from using valid cards with alternate name and address info. Generally, any online transaction that includes the correct CCV number will go through. We could require the banks to collect and verify name and address info, but I don't think you can blame them for not doing so now when they aren't compelled to do this.
The PURPOSE in disabling the name check security is to enable the acceptance of foreign credit cards. You can't check names on foreign credit cards and ANY merchant who takes foreign credit cards HAS to disable this security.
It's all about the FOREIGN money, but everyone is missing this angle.
Is there no incident of thimblerigging, honeyfuggling, flimflamming and bamboozeling by Obama and his campaign that you WON'T find some excuse for?
"I still support Obama"
Why on earth would you? Liberrarian wingnut, my eye.
Wondering if we can't prosecute the person who exposed the campaign's error smacks of police state tactics. Yes, I still support Obama
if swing state voters think like you...WE'RE SO SCREWED
"yes, my candidate regularly engages in police state tactics and encourages his supporters to harass and intimidate into silence his political opponents...but i think that's good change for the country!"
megan, "head in the sand" is not the same as "hope"
but overt police state tactics is definitely change
I have worked as a Fair Housing Tester in the past (at no pay, because it's something I believe in). The situation described above is exactly like being a FHT. I would recommend, however, that those who have tested the Obama donation machine prepare an affidavit explaining exactly what they were doing and why. Second - and this will take um, gumption - they should notify the FEC of the Obama campaigns willingness to sacrifice any degree of oversight in order to increase campaign contributions. They should submit their affidavit as a complaint and request the FEC to (1) take immediate action against the Obama campaign, (2) to enforce a refund of the test donation, and (3) to impose penalties against the Obama campaign for soliciting illegal donations.
Obama obviously has no intention of following the law and his supporters make no secret of using police state tactics but Megan still suports Obama. WTF? Is there anything he could do that would cause you not to support him Megan? Ultimately, Obama in some circles is a cult of personality. I am quite sure that in the circles Megan runs in it is very unpopular not to be an Obama supporter. It takes a big personality and a lot of intestinal fortitude to fight a cult of personality when all of your friends are part of it. Sadly, Megan apparently has niether.
Makes me wonder how much I have inadvertently given the Obama campaign. Maybe that's why I keep getting all these dinnertime calls for more money.
Nice little blog you got here.
We've written down your name as one of the ones to round up when the time comes.
Thanks for outing yourself.
"...I have no reason to think that the error was deliberate."
Then you are woefully, and probably willfully, ignorant of the compelling technical arguments that have been made that show it is almost impossible for it NOT to be deliberate!
When a Democrat says "I have no reason to believe..." what he or she really means is "You have not yet forced me to grow up and confront reality..."
You are watching the Democratic Party morph into a criminal enterprise and you are pretending it is just a slipup. Pathetic.
I've worked as an IT professional, including the design and implementation of e-commerce websites, and also run a small business. I have a great deal of experience with ALL of the steps involved with online electronic transaction processing.
There is no 'maybe' about it - the security settings for the transaction processing software at Obama's website had to be deliberately, manually configured to eliminate the security features, which are primarily designed to detect and eliminate fraudulent purchases with stolen of fictitious credit card information.
As far as the credit card companies are concerned, all that is required for THEM to process the transaction is a vaild vendor account, and a valid credit card account number, because ALL risk is assumed by the business or individual submitting the transaction for payment. If it turns out to be a bad transaction, it is the business that accepted the card that's on the hook for fees and penalties.
Once a transaction is submitted for settlement with the credit card processor, an electronic 'negotiation' takes place between the business and the processing center. It is the business' responsibility to make use of the data available from the processing center associated with the submitted card number to perform confidence validation - which is what is included in the data sent along from the business when these security features are enabled - they are sent in query form, and the results (either they match what's on file for the account, or they don't) sent back to the business in question - a simple 1 or 0, yes or no. If the result is a mis-match, the transaction is aborted/rejected/declined immediately. Which is why, when you shop Amazon, if you fat finger your zip code, it tells you to try again.
The setup on the Obama (and, I think has been noted, a few other Democratic websites) isn't simply an invitation for blatant fraud, it actually is the setup one would prefer to use to actually facilitate fraud. By processing ANY valid account number that comes across the transom, without the immediate validation checks in place, such a setup absolutely guarantees there is virtually NO auditing capability after the fact - especially when you're talking about pre-paid cards. They typically do not have full user identification information (a name, an address, a phone number) associated with those accounts. Not only is there no way to validate the transactions are legal for campaign law purposes, there is NO way to even claim that the money is returnable or refundable - and absolutely NO way to detect a single individual purchasing thousands of dollars, even hundreds of thousands of dollars of low denomination cards (say, $199 bucks a pop) and 'laundering' money through such a setup.
For the terminally skeptical out there who LIVE to utter such things as "well what if. . ." - there ain't no 'what if' about this situation. Of course, there will be no appeasing such people's desire to attribute this to anything other than deliberate chicanery, as the whole point is to obliterate (or more accurately, making sure an audit trail isn't generated in the first place) any information that would serve as such an obvious smoking gun that you'd have an easier time ignoring a baseball bat to the forehead.
However, the way this is setup IS the smoking gun, it IS the baseball bat to the forehead - to anyone with a modicum of technical savvy, and a lack of entrancement with "The One".
Bottom line - this is crooked as HELL. Deliberately so. Deceitful BY DESIGN, with the only logical explanation being a desire to circumvent several aspects of Campaign Financing laws.
Too bad the only way some people can deal with something this starkly craven is by entering such a deep state of denial about the entire thing.
Actually, Obama has already been trying to abuse power to silence people, and he's not even elected yet. Obama's lawyer sent cease and desist letters to television stations in Missouri, threatening them with legal action if they were to run National Rifle Association ads that Obama didn't like. The campaign basically threatened to prosecute the tv stations if Obama won.
The best part is that Obama then signed up "truth squads" consisting of local DEMOCRAT prosecutors, who also sent letters to the local tv stations threatening prosecution for criminal libel if the tv stations dared to run the National Rifle Association's political ads.
No, Obama would NEVER abuse power to silence his political opponents...
(BTW, if this rubs you the wrong way, make sure to drop by NRA.org and give them a few bucks to fight back.)
Eltoro: "I have often paid online for a bill in my girlfriend's name using my debit card or credit card, which is in my name only. All that the electric company or phone company or cable company ever required is that the credit card information (name on credit card account, billing address, account number, expiration date) be correct."
They also require that your billing address matches the address the bill was sent to.
I got into trouble this way once; I moved, and tried to pay the electric bill (name was one of my roommates) before I updated my credit card info. The charge was flagged as potentially fraudulent.
"Still support Obama." Tell me how that works out for you in a year or two, Megan.
This is silliness, because the LAST thing the Obama campaign would do would be to prosecute that individual -- all that would do is expose the scale on which Obama campaign straw donors have been doing this.
It seems pretty obvious why the Obama campaign overrode all the credit card fraud-protection features for its donation site -- to make it easy to cheat.
MartyH understands the problems.
The default option on the software to accept credit card transactions is to have all security protocols in place. They have to be intentionally overridden. In a fraudulent credit card transaction the risk of loss rests with the merchant (the Obama campaign in this instance). Having all of the safeguards in place helps to greatly reduce the risk of potential loss from a fraudulent transaction. They appear to not be concerned about this, because again, all security measures have been intentionally overridden.
They are allowing for credit card transactions to made where they are not concerned if the name supplied by the donor matches the name on the credit card. They can certainly do this, but are assuming unnecessary risk of the transaction being fraudulent. Again, because the campaign made the intentional decision to override these safeguards, they must assume that the risk of a fraudulent transaction, one where someone makes a donation to the campaign using a stolen credit card, is very small.
But why would they do this? Lets see. Election laws do not require that data be disclosed on any donation under $200, and Obama has refused to release this data. Yes, the campaign has refused to release this information, and according to the law, it does not have to. If anyone complains, all the Obama camp has to say is they are in full compliance with the law on required disclosure, which they are. But why does he refuse to make this information available when these donations (those under $200) total more than $200,000,000. Yes, $200 million! Certainly, a great many of these donations are legitimate, but others are now wondering if, maybe, many are not.
There could be instances of donations from foreign sources (illegal) and instances where someone has used the under $200 limit to make donations in excess of the $2,300 limit (again illegal). We do not know, and will never know, because campaign finance laws do not require disclosure of this information. (McCain does disclose this information, and so did Hillary Clinton).
Just because those that post comments on this site could not envision a scenario where they would sit and make multiple donations with a credit card using made up names in order to circumvent the $200 legal disclosure limit, I submit to you that you are not the "Marginal Case", as Megan so often likes to allude to.
At what point did wishful thinking become willfull ignorance?
It seems to me that a lot of people voting for Obama are closing their eyes to what is going on. This credit card thing didn't just happen, it was a decision someone made and if you think Obama wasn't aware of it you are willing to close your eyes to almost anything he or his campaign does wrong. Just please don't complain if it turns out that he is just as bad as some of us thought all along.
I think another distinction between the Obama and McCain approaches that needs to be mentioned here is that McCain has his entire donor list available, regardless of the amount. Last time I read anything, the Obama campaign had not made public the list of donors below the required amount ($200?). If that has changed, this point is moot.
If that's still the case, it seems that a motivated contributor could cheerfully charge well over the allowed amount to one card, but by changing the information and staying below the limit at which it must be made public, she could avoid detection by anyone not obsessively interested in detecting such fraud.
This is clearly intended to facilitate fraudulent contributions in the same way that ACORN's efforts are clearly intended to facilitate fraudulent voting.
If you flood the system with bad stuff and your gatekeepers intetionally are doing the Sergeant Schultz number and looking the other way, you'll never catch it all, and if only 30% (or in this case probably 80%) of it gets through, you've still gotten away with an enormous jump on the competition.
Obama's learned well from the Daley machine, Obama's as crooked as anyone who's ever come out of Chicago.
I may not support the idea of a military coup, but it's times like this when I can understand why they happen.
The lax security in Obama's site hurts no one other than himself.
Quite the contrary.
Fraud obviously works for them if it's not detected, of course, but even if found it's a free, short-term loan. The standard drawbacks don't really apply; no payment processor is going to risk pissing off the (likely) future administration (or worse, being tarred for a 'politically motivated' cancellation), and regardless there's a long line of competitors eager to curry favor by overlooking a little fraud. This happens often enough in the advertising arena as is.
Not that any penalties or chargebacks really matter anyway, seeing as the campaign will close shop on Election Day and post-election debts aren't exactly high priority. Illegal donations are even better - they're rarely detected until after the election, and even then the campaign's not going to be the one held accountable.
Really, this is just another instance where Obama is deliberately looking the other way while other people do his dirty work for him. He can claim that he's not going to stoop to personal attacks, even as David Axelrod's front groups churn out 'independent' attack ads. Hysteric attacks from MoveOn and their ilk spread poison while Obama inveighs against hypothetical Republican 527s. A million fraudulent voter registrations from ACORN are still reported as a million new Democrat voters, depressing turnout among opposition voters and encouraging donors to pony up. Why bother getting yourself dirty when the true believers you've been cultivating are eager to do it for you?
The error was not an error, Megan. It was deliberate This allowed Obama campaign to avoid the limits and the restricyion of over sea donations. He needed the monet to but the 30 min infomercials and the final sprint of the campaign. He did not want to waste time fundraising.
What would Obama do that would make you reject him?
Friends with an old terrorist, 20 year association with a hate merchant of Jeremiah Wright? His socialist tendencies?
I guess that nothing he does would make you reject him. Well I do, Hilary had bundling issues with Chinese but she did not get rid of the AVS checks on credit card donations.
I fear for the 1st amendment with the Fairness doctrine, but it will be updated to choke the free press of the internet this time. But I am sure that you do not believe that will happen.
I agree with all the posters asking for specifics on actual fraud. We'll likely never see any evidence since the press will not press the point, Repubs will just do the same next election, and the Obama Admin will be in charge of enforcing.
a) it's John McCain's fault for playing by the rules. the guy should have gotten a clue
b) probably a vast chunk of money came from Europe and the Middle East. they have been wanting to influence our elections for ages and now was the time when there was a loophole enabling them to do it
There is no "legal injury" here. What happened was a political embarrassement. If the Obama Campaign kept the fraudulent donations then both they and the "wingnut" will have committed a crime. Even then, however, the phony donation would not amount to a "legal injury" within the meaning of the statute.
Obama's defenders choose to ignore is that we know his campaign has received illegal donations:
* Two brothers living in Gaza (a/k/a Palestine) gave over $17,000 to Obama's campaign. Not only did the amount given exceed the amount US citizens are allowed to give, there's the small fact the brothers are NOT US citizens. The campaign has promised to return the money, but (unless it's done so in the last few days) it has not. The campaign has had the cash for months. The "error" was noticed because the brothers gave several contributions, with some of them in excess of the $200 reportable amount. Bloggers followed up with the brothers and learned that they were big Obama supporters, just not US citizens.
* Obama's campaign has reported the names and addresses of people making contributions in excess of $200. It's clear that several of these names were made up and not real. It's also clear that many of the addresses were made up, too. Most of these contributions were made using credit cards. It's impossible to tell from the information reported by the campaign how many of these contributions were made by the same person and, when aggregated, exceed the contribution limits. It's also impossible to know how many of these contributions were made by non-citizens.
* Obama's campaign has raised hundreds of millions of dollars from overseas. IIRC, less than 10% of these contributions came from addresses connected with US government installations, such as military bases and embassies. Much of these contributions MUST be from non-citizens and are therefore in violation of the law. Why must they be from non-citizens? Because, the huge sum involved exceeds the amount US citizens living abroad could have given -- even if every citizen living abroad gave the maximum permissible amount. (To conclude there is not a problem here, you have to make the unrealistic assumption that much of these contributions were made by US citizens while they were traveling abroad. How many people make political donations while on vacation to Europe?) The amount taken in by the campaign is a large multiple of the amount that could have been expected to have been given from legitimate sources. Obama's percentage of campaign contributions from foreign sources is well outside the range we've ever seen before. Also unusual is the volume of contributions coming from the Mid-East, where few US citizens live.
Do we know which donations are illegal? No. Do we know the total amount of illegal donations? No. We have reason to believe -- just looking at the donations from foreign sources -- that the total illegal donations exceed $100 million. The data reported by Obama do not allow us to quantify the amount of illegality. The campaign most likely has not retained credit card numbers (it's reported just the last 4 digits of the credit card use to make a contribution). Without a legal order to each credit card company, no one will be able to tell for sure just how massive the illegality has been.
We do know the campaign could not have received this volume of illegal donations without having turned off the credit card verifications for it's online donations. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that Obama's valid to invalid ratio of campaign contributions approximates ACORN's record for voter registrations.
The $200 limit for reporting donations is a straw man argument. As someone commented above, I make fifty $1,000 donations, each with a different name and address, the donations "seem" legal even though they are reported. It is still illegal since the same *person* made all fifty $1,000 donations. Having set up a number of merchant accounts, it is no accident that these protections were turned off. Turning them off requires someone take action since these checks are turned on by default.
And no, in most cases the credit card company has nothing to do with it, the payment processor handles the charge and then submits it to the credit card company.
If one campaign releases the records on ALL donations, even if they are not required to. And another campaign releases records grudgingly, slowly and only what they HAVE to. And as the records are examined, it is determined that there is clear evidence of some hanky-panky. What conclusions could YOU draw about transparency and openness in funding, hm?
This is not just a simple goof, it has to be intentional or incompetence on a level that should scare anyone. Someone turned off those checks. Since there is often a higher transaction fee (%) associated with what the credit card companies (rightfully so) consider a "higher-risk" of non-payment, there must be an offsetting benefit to the campaign, no? Would you pay higher fees for processing credit card transactions for no good reason?
The comment about Osama bin Laden buying Amex gift cards in the Peshawar bazaar is laughable. I'm a lot more worried about the likes of George Soros.
The way Obama has set up his web site, it is easily possible that a huge chunk of his $600 million could be right out of the coffers of some lefty moneybags like Soros. If one starry-eyed college kid or Chinese gold-farm refugee can donate $199 of anonymous cash per minute with Soros-provided gift cards, it would take him only a day to donate $100,000. A hundred such workers could donate 600 million in two months.
This is not at all logistically impossible, and especially not when you think what the payoff for such a trifling investment might be if Obama wins. Means, motive, opportunity, anyone?
God help us if this is indeed the new standard of political probity in this country. Down this path lies blood and suffering.
Megan, I notice that Glenn Reynolds has picked up your misreading of my post. Note that the demand for "prosecution" is entirely in your mind, not in what I wrote. All I did was point out that people shouldn't be quite so proud of breaking the law.
I am sure it was deliberate, however, what I think was deliberate was the unchecking of the safety protocols, not necessarily the acceptance of fraudulent funding.
For instance, look at the Democrat's stance on voting: allowing all votes even questionable ones is preferable to having a legal voter not be allowed to vote. Republican's stance is exactly the opposite: following the law is more important, even if some legal voters who make mistakes get denied the ability to vote.
So perhaps this is just a reflection on their priorities: allowing people to donate money without the credit card corps denying you the "right to donate" is more important than making sure it's the right people. After all that's more important than the laws that might block legitimate donors if they recently moved or had a name change. Maybe they just believe people will be good and not take advantage of it. Though for us Republicans that stretches credulity and borders on being willfully naive, but it goes right in line with their stance on blocking voter ID and many other voter laws.
All I did was point out that people shouldn't be quite so proud of breaking the law.
Really do you also do this for every investigative journalist that has to do the same thing in order to investigate corruption? Frequently on news reports you will see journalists do things that border on fraud in order to expose corruption. It's nothing new. People only seem to have a problem with it when the person is not an employee of a newspaper or tv news organization.
All I did was point out that people shouldn't be quite so proud of breaking the law.
114 comments later, and you haven't yet pointed out how they're actually breaking the law, in as much as they aren't committing fraud because there is no legal injury to the campaign. As mentioned in comment #1.
They're probably violating campaign finance laws, though.
What, exactly, would it take for you to stop supporting Obama? Is there anything that he can do or say that will matter? If not why do you even bother posting on the topic?
The lesson of this little escapade is that the MSM should confine itself to important issues, like ferreting out Trig Palin's birth certificate or whether "socialism" is really a code word for racism, or salivating over Tina Fey's latest TV appearance. Malfeasance, corruption and breaking campaign finance laws are not the concerns of the unwashed masses anymore.
Besides: Megan should realize that writing a story that is less than hagiographical of the Chosen One can get you in serious hot water in the coming Peoples Democratic Republic of Hopenchange (just ask The New Yorker about their "terrorist Obama" cover). Best to lay low from now on.
"Yes, I still support Obama, and I have no reason to think that the error was deliberate."
Besides common sense?
Seriously, Obama's credit card processing flies so hard against established practices it has to be deliberate.
It would be lurvely to see a distribution curve of IP addresses attached to those Obama's "small" credit card contributions, as well as whether those transactions cluster within defined time ranges. Because given the parameters of how Obama's system works, any decent programmer could code an application that could dump a few million to Obama in just about no time.
And of course, since it's a world wide web, it would make sense to run the app from someplace like Russia. Subpoena? Subpoena this, yankee scum!
I wonder if a certain Hungarian finacier with a strong interest in seeing a more Progressive America might be interested in such a tool?
Back in 2004, McArdle supported Bush. The idiocy continues as she now supports BHO.
Perhaps when the suede denim secret police come to take her away she'll get a clue.
For those who don't want to be like McArdle, here's what BHO thinks of the FirstAmendment (24ahead.com/blog/archives/008047.html), and here's a creepy, North Korea style plan from BHO's site to turn pre-teens into glassy-eyed agents of "change":
http://24ahead.com/blog/archives/008230.html
Please send the last link to every parent you can find.
Megan said: ..and I have no reason to think that the error was deliberate
Megan, as someone who worked in e-commerce since the 90's, I can tell you with full confidence that this was not an "ERROR". In other words, to allow this kind of fraud, you have to take deliberate action. Why the MSM, including you, the NY Times and WaPo have such an utter lack of curiosity is beyond me...does it take rocket science to talk to a few e-commerce experts such as myself to explain standards and best practices ???
All you Obama sycophants, just stop it. Stop it now. You are defending a dishonest and deliberate attempt at facilitating credit card fraud and fraudulent donations.
There is absolutely no legitimate excuse the Obama campaign can give to excuse not carrying out any of the industry standard credit card verifications that any and all serious online retailers require.
Anyone even attempting to pretend that this was a "mistake", an "error", a "bug", or any other synonym is facilitating the massively unethical operation the Obama campaign has been running.
You don't set up an Internet donation form with payment processing carelessly without a plan and somehow turning off all the regular safeguards that are used by all major online payment processing companies.
This was deliberate. This was not an error. Wake the fug up people.
Obama's campaign wasn't even requiring any proof of US citizenship until recently, for people donating from outside the United States. I should know - I'm an American living abroad and was able to donate without providing any proof of citizenship.
The Obama campaign called me several months later to verify my donation. Several months.
Stop making excuses for The One and start demanding accountability.
The thing that's really puzzling here is that the level of chargebacks that so many bogus donations are going to entail would normally lead the processor to yank your merchant account. For companies that sell stuff over the Internet, this is a major preoccupation. More than 0.5 - 1% chargebacks is sufficient to put your merchant account at risk.
Also, most processors simply won't let a transaction proceed without at least a minimal level of AVS (at least this is true in the credit card processing systems that I've integrated into websites, notably Payflow Pro and Moneris).
Yes, I still support Obama, and I have no reason to think that the error was deliberate.
Well, now we know why you're still supporting Obama. It's because you have your fingers shoved in your eyes, your eyes tightly closed, and you're screaming "I can't hear you" at the top of your lungs. Must be hard to blog while doing all that..
1: He didn't "fail to turn protections on", his campaign "deliberately turned protections off."
2: I agree with you that the limits on campaign donations are a bad idea. I'd even go so far as saying they probably should be considered unconstitutional. But we lost that battle. Furthermore, the Obama campaign, last I checked, had nothing but good things to say about contribution limits, and the whole campaign finance scheme. So they're the last people who should be allowed to go around it.
3: Regardless of what you think about limiting donations, requiring honest reporting of who is donating to you, and how much they're donating, is definitely a good idea. We have a right to know who's buying our politicians. This fraud tramples over that right.
4: The Obama campaign has already admitted that they throw out the credit card numbers once the donations clear. Which makes it impossible to search for individual credit cards that go over the limit, or to otherwise quickly try to figure out who really is giving Obama the money.
Could you get that information, given subpoena power? Probably. My guess is that the credit card companies keep track of that information, and that, given campaign records, we can figure out which CC companies send money to the Obama campaign. But it would be a massive undertaking.
Hey, I know, let's assign Patrick Fitzgerald and his office to the task!
Bottom line: This isn't a mistake, this is fraud. Either Obama is so incompetent that he's totally unaware that his campaign is a rogue criminal organization (just wait to see whay his CIA does!), or else he's a crook.
Do you think this country is now just Louisiana writ large? Do you think that John McCain is yet another David Duke? In that case, by all means "vote for the crook, it's important."
Lacking that, plug your nose and vote for McCain. Yes, he sucks. But putting a full blown criminal organization in charge of America is worse. And most to all of the Obama campaign will end up in the executive branch if Obama wins.
If it costs the Obama campaign money to reverse a fraudulent donation,
that's a "legal injury."
A while back, I set up a web payment process for a client and they did not want address validation. Why? Because there was a charge for address verification and they deemed it unlikely that someone would want to pay a bill with a stolen credit card.
Two can play at the identical comment games:
If it costs the Obama campaign money to reverse a fraudulent donation, that's a "legal injury."
Assuming they don't make more than that cost in the float, and assuming you can prove that the intent of the fake donor was to cost the campaign money.
Furthermore, if the fake donor is legitimately allowed to make contributions, then the campaign will not be required to return the money. That means that US citizens making test donations to check Obama's security aren't causing a legal injury, and therefore are not committing fraud, as Kleiman has repeatedly claimed.
I wasn't trying to play any games. I just happened to see the second thread after I made the comment.
I didn't mean to sound accusatory, sorry.
Just picture all those Red Army non-coms sitting at desks punching in CC numbers, one after another after another.
This little trick means BHO has put the government up for sale, well as long as he gets elected, right?
"No reason to think that the error was deliberate"? Sorry, but you're just a fool.
(The spam filter doesn't like my links. Go to my web page (click on my name) for links).
A while back, I set up a web payment process for a client and they did not want address validation. Why? Because there was a charge for address verification and they deemed it unlikely that someone would want to pay a bill with a stolen credit card.
How long ago was that? The information I can find says
Then there's this
The non-qualified rate will be substantially higher than the Qualified and Mid-Qualified Rate.
A merchant is charged a non-qualified rate for credit cards that are processed without Address Verification. A merchant may also experience a non-qualified rate for transactions from foreign countries.
In short, Obama paid more to get AVS turned off.