WaPo on Obama Campaign's Encouragement of Fraudulent and Untraceable Donations
Politics | Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 10:30:12 am PDT
The Washington Post finally starts to cover the real issue in the Barack Obama campaign’s acceptance of fraudulent credit card donations—the fact that the campaign has deliberately disabled the online payment industry’s standard safeguards against fraud: Obama Accepting Untraceable Donations.
Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is allowing donors to use largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a contributor’s identity, campaign officials confirmed.
Faced with a huge influx of donations over the Internet, the campaign has also chosen not to use basic security measures to prevent potentially illegal or anonymous contributions from flowing into its accounts, aides acknowledged. Instead, the campaign is scrutinizing its books for improper donations after the money has been deposited.
The Obama organization said its extensive review has ensured that the campaign has refunded any improper contributions, and noted that Federal Election Commission rules do not require front-end screening of donations.
