Ed note – I’ve sat on this a few days, first because I wanted to see Adrian Murray’s Facebook posting and then because I’ve been on vacation and traveling. Of course during that time it’s pretty much gone viral, except I feel sure it hasn’t invaded the 24 square miles surrounded by reality.
Imagine that. In today’s blog post titled Dubious Donations, Scott examines the efforts (basically none) that the Obama campaign took to comply with Federal Election laws in the 2008 campaign and apparently in the 2012 campaign as well.
From the 2008 campaign:
All of which prompted an enterprising reader to test the controls put in place to enforce compliance with federal campaign law by the Obama and McCain campaigns. He decided to conduct an experiment. He went to the Obama campaign Web site and made a donation under the name “John Galt” (the hero of Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged). He provided the equally fictitious address “1957 Ayn Rand Lane, Galts Gulch, CO 99999.” He checked the box next to $15 and entered his actual credit-card number and expiration date. He was then taken to the next page and notified that his donation had been processed. Others repeated “John Galt’s” experiment, giving to Obama under such fictitious names as Della Ware, Joe Plumber, Idiot Savant, Ima BadDonation (with a Canadian bank card) and Fake Donor.
The Obama campaign was able to take these donations because it had turned off the standard Address Verification System that screens credit-card charges for matching names and addresses. (It can also screen cards issued by foreign banks.) The McCain campaign used AVS and provided a searchable database of all donors, including those who fell below the $200 threshold. The Obama campaign chose not to use the AVS system to screen donations. (The McCain campaign rejected such donations through the use of the AVS system.) You can find a good description of the AVS and CVV fraud prevention devices here.
Well not much has changed between 2008 and 2012 as Scott reports. While I can’t find the exact quote Scott uses, I found the same basic message on Adrian Day’s facebook page. From a March 31st posting…
The fraud continues. Just went to barackobama.com and donated $3 using the name Adolph Hitler, 123 Nuremburg Way, Berlin, Germany and for good measure put in Dictator of Nazi Party as employer. Got an email back saying Dear Adolph, Thank you for your generous donation….
The point? To prevent credit card fraud, merchants require that the address match what the credit card issuer has on file. Called the Address Verification System (AVS), an additional layer of protection requires the three digit security code. The Obama team has disabled the AVS so anyone anywhere in the world can anonymously donate to his campaign, thereby exceeding campaign donation limits and violating federal finance laws. They pulled the same stunt in 2008, but the media wouldn’t report it.
and Adrian comments on his posting…
Just tried it on Romney’s site using Barack Obama, 1400 Pennsylvania Ave, President (should have said Dictator), United States. Got a message back saying the address didn’t match.
And of course, since that time we have a video of the different standards for accepting donations. Obama Donations, Anytime, Anywhere
Why WOULD the Obama administration disable all credit card security features to allow donations? This effectively opens up donations world wide and allows evasion of campaign contribution limits.
Where is the main stream/legacy media when it comes questioning “the one”? It seems to me your ideology is so important that I wonder what type of egregious action President Obama would have to take to get your panties in a bunch? As long as it’s “for the cause” it’s pretty damn hard to imagine what he would have to do for the msm/legacy media to ask questions that might put “the one” in a bad light.
