George W. Bush has concerned privacy advocates by releasing the names of donors and amount of their contributions to his presidential campaign on his Web site.
Bush, the current Republican presidential frontrunner, said his decision to disclose the information was an attempt to foster more trust in the campaign finance system.
"By daily posting an updated list of contributors on my Web site, Americans will be able to look for themselves to find out who is helping to fund my campaign," Bush said in a press release.
"What they will find is that their friends and neighbors, grassroots people in every state in this nation, are responding to my message of prosperity with a purpose by sending in $20 or $50 or $100 or a maximum of $1,000 to help elect me president," Bush said.
Campaign reform advocates said that Bush's move was a step in the right direction. But they also saw it as an attempt to deflect criticism about his massive campaign chest which, as of 26 August, had reached US$49.2 million.
"I think it's great, but it's only three-quarters of a step," said Larry Makinson, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign finance-reform watchdog organization.
"He wants to show that there are a lot of small donors giving to the campaign," Makinson said. "There are, but this misleads you to think that big donors are not a major force in it, and the reality is that more than 90 percent of their campaign money comes from large contributions."
Advocates complained that Bush deliberately disclosed the information in such a way that prevented reform groups from making detailed analyses of the information. "Because it’s a PDF file you can only look at it, you can't sort through it, or search for names. You can't even add up the totals that have been given," Makinson said.
"This is a very sophisticated operation. They know very well the difference between a PDF file and a text file you can import into a database, and they’ve chosen to take this route."
Privacy advocates, meanwhile, are concerned that the donor information leaves individuals wide open to an invasion of privacy. The information includes the name, city and state, employer, and occupation of contributor, as well as the date and amount of each contribution, and the donor’s total current contributions.
