FEC Cyberattack Gives Wealthy Donors Privacy Upgrade
American democracy received an emergency privacy upgrade this week when a cyberattack disabled the Federal Election Commission’s electronic filing system, briefly shielding wealthy political donors from the prying eyes of voters. The FEC restored the system Wednesday night after nearly 41 hours, ending a productive interval in which super PACs could not submit mandatory reports detailing last-minute election spending. Outside groups had been spending more than $50 million a day before the outage, including over $250 million reported on October 20, when democracy was apparently available in bulk.
Campaign-finance experts warned that the disruption could allow hundreds of millions of dollars to shape the November 3 election before voters learned who supplied it. Defenders of the outage dismissed those concerns, noting that surprise ownership is one of the republic’s oldest traditions. President Donald Trump, whose political groups reported spending nearly $277 million since September to help Republican candidates, praised the temporary discretion. “We have the most transparent elections anywhere, but transparency can become very nosy, and billionaires deserve privacy when they are quietly selecting the public’s representatives,” Trump said. “Nobody wants an ordinary voter looking over their shoulder while they purchase Congress.”
Campaign-finance watchdogs complained that the outage obscured a crucial burst of political spending just as citizens were deciding how to vote. Americans, however, remained free to watch thousands of unidentified attack ads and determine for themselves whether their opinions had been sponsored by a cryptocurrency exchange, casino magnate, artificial-intelligence company, sportsbook or industrial baron. The incident also demonstrated the efficiency of modern government: Rather than spending years rewriting campaign-finance law to conceal donors more effectively, one unidentified attacker achieved the same result in under two days. The FEC has resumed accepting disclosures, restoring the nation’s traditional commitment to transparency immediately after the information was most useful. The cyberattack therefore strengthened American democracy by preventing voters from learning who owned it until after checkout.
* None of the quotes in this article were spoken by an actual person. More info.